A Plea From The Heart

Late last year we received an invitation to come to Nicaragua. It was from CEPAD (Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development), whose membership includes most of Nicaragua's evangelical churches, and was more an urgent appeal than an invitation. Gustavo Parajon, a doctor, pastor, and president of CEPAD, asked that a delegation of evangelical leaders from the United States come to Nicaragua as soon as possible. The reason: a covert effort by the United States government to destabilize the new government of Nicaragua and destroy the revolution that had toppled the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

As our delegation was being assembled, the previously untold story, "America's Secret War," appeared on the front cover of Newsweek. The Newsweek expose reported a $19 million covert operation being carried out by the CIA against Nicaragua. The U.S. government has allied itself with the somocistas, or Somoza supporters, including former members of the National Guard so feared by the Nicaraguan people.

These counterrevolutionaries have set up camps in Honduras and are invading Nicaragua from across the border. The raids are costing many lives, especially among the poor villagers of Nicaragua's northern frontier. The tactics are the same as were used during Somoza's reign of terror: murder, torture, mutilation, rape, and civilian massacres. Villages are attacked, bridges bombed, public facilities destroyed, crops burned. The northern frontier of Nicaragua has become a war zone.

The marauders are virtually mercenary soldiers for the CIA. According to Newsweek and other press reports, the U.S. government is supplying the money and the arms for the counterrevolutionaries, or contras, as well as logistical support and communication equipment. The United States is both training and advising the counterrevolutionary forces and, according to Newsweek, the whole operation is being directed from the U.S. embassy in Honduras. None of these revelations were then or have since been denied by the Reagan administration.

We went to Nicaragua to take a close look at the three-and-a-half-year-old revolution that is perceived as such a threat to the United States government. We were two members of a delegation that also included Vernon Grounds of Denver's Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Tom Minnery from Christianity Today, David Howard of the World Evangelical Fellowship, Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, and Linda Doll from Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship.

Our first day in Nicaragua we spoke to Steve and Sheila Heneise, American Baptist missionaries who have spent the last two years ministering in the little villages along Nicaragua's northern border. The great dangers in the North forced them to leave with their three children and come to Managua. They had just arrived when we met them, and they told us fresh stories of the people's anguish and suffering caused by the brutal violence of the somocistas.

Ten days of intense conversation with the people of Nicaragua were eye-opening indeed. We discovered that the U.S. war against Nicaragua is being carried out on many fronts: military, economic, and political, including a massive propaganda campaign against Nicaragua in the United States and throughout Central America.

We talked to people on every level of Nicaraguan society. We spoke to evangelical pastors and lay leaders from around the country. We asked them about religious freedom, the role of the church, and the way they do theology. We spoke to many Catholics about the problems of church and state in Nicaragua. We listened to the views of the Catholic hierarchy, the voices of those involved in the popular church, and the testimonies of the controversial priests in the Nicaraguan government.

We met a remarkable Moravian church leader and Miskito Indian who helped us understand the troubles between the Sandinistas and his people. We spoke to students and young people, Pentecostal Christians and military officers, an editorial board member of the opposition newspaper and women religious living in a barrio, the secretary of the Sandinista political directorate and former Somoza guardsmen now on a prison farm. We had unforgettable conversations with the foreign minister, the cultural minister, and a Baptist minister. We shared two hours with Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's chief of state.

What we saw was a revolution that is very human both in its aspirations and in its mistakes. We saw the evidence of enormous progress made in the last three and a half years in areas of public health, literacy, and nutrition--progress that not even the U.S. ambassador could deny. We saw a strong and healthy church freely spreading the gospel and ministering to the people like never before in Nicaragua. We also saw things of which we were critical and learned of other things the government had done that we believe to be wrong.

On the other hand, we have never encountered political leaders and public officials who have such a capacity for self-criticism and openness. In all our interviews, from the most ordinary pastor to the highest government official, we were allowed to freely tape conversations and take pictures--the sole official who would not allow us to do so was the U.S. ambassador.

The new Nicaraguan government has a clear bias. Its policies are designed to benefit the poor majority of the country more than the middle and upper classes. The wealthier Nicaraguans who remain in the country are often critical of that, but we found it refreshing.

The young Sandinistas who now govern Nicaragua (and as a group they are amazingly young) have made some serious errors of judgment, have sometimes hung on to their control too tightly, and have at times been insensitive to racism and injustice. But they have demonstrated a commitment to the broad and deep support.

They have thus far evidenced a sincerity and integrity that is quite unique among political leaders and generates trust among the people. Most importantly, they have brought a measure of justice to Nicaragua that has never been known before. All this they have done under enormous pressure, a pressure now made extreme by the aggressive posture taken against them by the United States government.

That external pressure could succeed in undermining the Nicaraguan revolution and ending the vision of a better Nicaragua. The people of Nicaragua are feeling a great hope about their future. But everywhere, that hope is mixed with a real fear--fear of the U.S. government.

The continual vigilance needed to defend against the U.S.-inspired threat to Nicaragua diverts tremendous energy from the country's pressing domestic problems created by years of grinding poverty, economic exploitation, political repression, and foreign domination. If fear were to cause the political situation in Nicaragua to harden, the results would be tragic for all concerned.

We believe the U.S. government is well aware of that possibility. Constant incursions across the Honduran border that harass and terrorize keep the pressure high. Meanwhile, a massive U.S. propaganda effort seeks to discredit Nicaragua. Through this coordinated policy the U.S. government seeks to destabilize and ultimately overturn the present government in Nicaragua. Given the kind of regime the U.S. has historically backed in Nicaragua, the people would have nothing but a nightmare to look forward to if the Reagan policy succeeds.

We believe the revolution in Nicaragua deserves a chance to succeed. The Nicaraguan people deserve to be left alone.

No one in Nicaragua, even the most outspoken opposition, would deny that the government has the support of the majority of the people. Like any other country, they have the right to govern themselves, even to make their own mistakes.

During our time in Nicaragua, we listened most to what the Christians were saying. What Nicaraguan Christians told us shows what the U.S. government is saying about Nicaragua to be a lie. The United States has a shameful history in that country. It is a history of greed. We have exploited their land and their people. We have been the perpetrators and the supporters of unspeakable violence against Nicaraguan people.

The United States maintained economic and political control of Nicaragua through the Marines or military dictatorship for 68 years, until 1979. With the Nicaraguan revolution, the United States lost control. For the U.S. that is the bottom line. Now the U.S. is seeking to regain control. The Christians of Nicaragua who invited us to come pleaded with us not to let that happen.

The enormous propaganda effort being mounted in the United States against Nicaragua must be countered. We have added extra pages to this special issue of Sojourners in order to include many of the important conversations that we had while in Nicaragua. We feel that it is best for these Christians to tell their own story. It is a plea from the heart, and it needs to be heard.

Once heard, it needs to be acted upon. We won't soon forget the words spoken to us by many of the Christians we met and came to know: "We can't stand up to the power of your government alone. Only our friends can help us now."

Our visit to Nicaragua left us with one overriding impression: all over the country and in virtually every sector of the society, there is a hope for the future that did not exist under the U.S.-backed Somoza regime. That aspiration for a better future is unmistakable among the population and literally fills the air with expectation.

Whether the new government will succeed in fulfilling those hopes and can guide the country to that future will only be answered with time.

Constructive criticism will help them in the endeavor. Interference and violent subversion will only turn the situation into a grievous tragedy. Absolutely no political justification exists for the policy that the United States is pursuing against the Nicaraguan government and its people. But even more to the point, the U.S. government's behavior in this situation is morally indefensible. It is the bald and brutal aggression of a superpower against a weaker nation.

The purpose of the policy has nothing to do with defending freedom, religious liberty, or persecuted Indian minorities. It has only to do with the U.S. desire to regain its lost control over the destiny of the Nicaraguan people. That policy must be denounced unequivocally by the churches of the U.S. and resisted with all our might.

It is our fellow Christians who are under attack in Nicaragua, not from their own government but from ours. The solidarity of the body of Christ and the biblical demand for justice requires that we defend them and their fellow Nicaraguan citizens by standing in the way of our own government's policy there. That has now become our Christian responsibility.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners. Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.