When the Reagan administration lost its final showdown vote on military aid to the contras, it blamed the U.S. churches.
I remember watching the entire debate in the House of Representatives on C-SPAN throughout what proved to be a very long day in February 1988. During the tedious but critical debate, my mind flashed back to the beginnings of the CIA-sponsored secret war that burst into the headlines with a Newsweek cover story in November 1982.
A week after that dramatic revelation, I was in Nicaragua on a previously scheduled fact-finding delegation of U.S. church leaders. We found in Nicaragua's revolution an embryonic and fragile experiment, full of both promise and contradictions.
I remember at the time fearing that the contra war could so easily overwhelm the early stages of rebuilding the nation, narrow the options, sap the resources, and harden the alternatives. I also remember fearing that this was precisely what Washington had in mind.
As the empty rhetoric on the House floor wore on, I recalled the role the U.S. churches had played through the years with some real gratitude and even a little pride. One year after my first trip, I was back in Nicaragua to help launch Witness for Peace with the first of many teams of North Americans in a nonviolent effort to stop the war. Witness for Peace volunteers became eyewitnesses to the contra war and to the human consequences of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, Witness for Peace reported firsthand testimony and documentation on the war; and, back in the United States, several thousand returned volunteers were vital in convincing other church people and citizens that the war was wrong.
Watching the parade of members of Congress come to the podium to debate their case reminded me of how startled many of them were when, in 1984, thousands of their constituents (again, many of them church people) pledged to sit in at their legislative field offices if the United States invaded Nicaragua. The Pledge of Resistance eventually gained 80,000 signatures and proved to be a significant deterrent to U.S. invasion scenarios during a period when such possibilities were being seriously discussed by the Reagan administration.
The number of community forums, speaking tours, demonstrations, and vigils organized by church people in opposition to the contra war is beyond counting. Literally tens of thousands of people were arrested. A massive lobbying effort was mounted with an action-and-response network that surprised and irked the contras' sponsors and backers. The church opposition to the war eventually extended from the grassroots to the institutional leadership of the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches.
The major church initiatives undertaken in this country were in response to the invitation and pleas of Christians in Nicaragua. We responded when they asked for fact-finding delegations to come; when they began to suffer attacks from the contras; when, in the wake of the Grenada invasion, they feared a U.S. invasion of their own nation. It was the stubborn resistance of the Nicaraguan people themselves to continued domination by their Goliath-like neighbor to the north that ultimately defeated Ronald Reagan's contra war. And out of our partnership in faith, much was learned and much strength was gained.
NICARAGUA NOW FACES ANOTHER critical juncture. The stage was set when the five Central American presidents caught the Reagan administration off guard with their regional peace plan in 1987. As soon as the "I am a contra too" president left office, and before the Bush administration had a chance to get settled, the five presidents met again in February of this year. The contra war, which was always an atrocity, had also become an embarrassment, even for the U.S. allies in the region.
The Central American presidents made a deal in February to disarm and dismantle the contras in exchange for Nicaraguan pledges of internal democratic reforms and early, internationally supervised elections in 1990. The intrusiveness into internal politics did not extend to the other Central American partners in the deal; but, apparently, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was prepared to accept the double standard for the sake of ending the contra war and finally giving his country a chance to live in peace. In mid-March the Nicaraguan government announced it would allow the reopening of the Catholic radio news program, permit the return of 10 expelled foreign priests, and grant amnesty for 1,894 former National Guardsmen.
The clear momentum in the region now is to dismantle the contras, and a plan to do so is to be proposed within 90 days of the February agreement. An unarmed international U.N. force is being invited in to monitor the situation. The Bush administration, however, is still talking about aid to keep the contras intact. At this writing, it is still uncertain what the administration will propose or Congress will accept.
What is certain is that Nicaragua has a massive rebuilding job to do. The economic recovery from the devastation of the Somoza years had barely begun when the contra war started. And last fall's Hurricane Joan left a trail of destruction in its wake.
The U. S. economic embargo has had its intended effect. Many now believe that the real purpose of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua was not so much to achieve a contra victory, as Ronald Reagan longed for; but rather, more realistically, to punish Nicaragua through military terror and economic violence, thus making the country an example to any others who would dare challenge U.S. hegemony.
The strong relationships with Nicaraguans established by U.S. church people during the war will help lay a good foundation for the future. We will take part in the long process of rebuilding Nicaragua simply because it is our responsibility. Because of the war, justice requires American reparations to Nicaragua. And only through doing justice will reconciliation become possible.
Witness for Peace will stay in Nicaragua to assist in the rebuilding process, as will other U.S. church groups. Critically needed help from Western Europe and international financial institutions is a priority now, as is pressure to end the U.S. embargo and, eventually, to normalize relations between the United States and Nicaragua.
It is also a good time for reflection and reassessment, both here and in Nicaragua, of lessons learned from the contra war. One of the clearest windows is the experience of the Nicaraguan churches. In addition to the economic casualties, the contra war leaves in its wake a deeply divided church.
Penny Lernoux's comprehensive analysis in this issue of Sojourners of the Nicaraguan church's struggle provides insights for the future of Nicaragua as well as for North American churches. It raises a number of crucial questions: How should faith and politics relate? Where do theology and ideology collide? When is spirituality an escape from the world, and when is it an essential ingredient in the struggle for justice? What kind of political independence on the part of the church does a truly prophetic role require?
Lernoux's account sheds light on the struggle we all face in trying faithfully to understand--and to carry out--the church's role in the world.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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