Somoza Stands Alone

The U.S. recommends intervention, but "Tacho"fights on

For Nicaragua's embattled President, General Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza Debayle, the week was one of gathering desperation. The communiques that flowed into his fortified command post in Managua were grim. From Leon, the country's second largest city (pop. 62,000), came word that a national guard garrison had fallen to the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). From Rivas, capital of the southwestern district, commanders reported that a force of 700 guerrillas had not been beaten back. Managua itself was under siege. The sounds of heavy artillery salvos echoed through the bunker as Somoza's elite "Pumas," wearing their distinctive black berets, attacked rebel barricades in the barrios on the outskirts of the capital.

So poorly were Somoza's troops faring that the weary dictator retracted his confident boast that he would crush the Sandinistas' "final offensive" in only two weeks' time. Said he: "When the will of the people weakens, it could go either way. Maybe we win, maybe they do."

That gloomy forecast reflected Somoza's growing diplomatic isolation as well as his deteriorating military position. The first setback came when the Andean Group (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela) abandoned its efforts to negotiate a truce in the latest flare-up of the 19-month-old civil war. Instead, the five countries declared that a "state of belligerency" existed in Nicaragua and that they considered the Sandinistas to be "a legitimate army." The declaration was designed to allow the group to supply arms to the rebels without violating international laws against intervention in the internal affairs of another country. It also brought them one step closer toward outright recognition of the five-member "temporary government" of Sandinistas and moderate anti-Somoza leaders named by the rebels last week.

But more ominous from Somoza's viewpoint was a U.S. request for intervention that would end both the civil war and his family's 46-year dictatorial rule over Nicaragua. The day after a national guardsman wantonly murdered ABC-TV Correspondent Bill Stewart (see PRESS), the Carter Administration spurned the dictator's emotional appeal for the U.S. to "pay back the help we gave in the cold war"--referring to the launching areas that Nicaragua provided for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Instead, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance urged the Organization of American States to bring about "the replacement of the present government with a transitional government of national reconciliation that would be a clear break with the past."

Yance further proposed that the OAS dispatch a peace-keeping force, which might include some J.S. troops, to restore order to the divided country. Vance's six-point plan also included a cessation of all arms shipments to both Somoza's forces and the rebels and a major international relief and reconstruction effort.

Washington's program was aimed in part at preventing the creation of a Cuban-style Communist government in Nicaragua. Declared Vance: "There is mounting evidence of involvement by Cuba and others in the internal problems of Nicaragua." That charge drew an angry reply from Cuba's foreign ministry, which released a statement accusing the U.S. of "pressuring several Latin American diplomatic representatives to come to an agreement in the OAS that would facilitate a military intervention in Nicaragua" in order to "preserve the essence and basis of the bloody and corrupt neo-colonial regime dominated by the U.S."

The U.S. plan was also attacked by other OAS members. Some feared that this might create a precedent for future intervention in their own affairs, along the lines of the 1965 Marine landing in the Dominican Republic.

While efforts to find a diplomatic solution continued, Nicaragua was a country in agony. Thousands have died in the fierce fighting between Somoza and the Sandinistas. Though they outnumber the guerrillas by about 4 to 1 and have a vast edge in weaponry, Somoza's 12,000 national guardsmen have been severely strained by the extent of the fighting, which has involved virtually every city and town in the country. To retain control of his capital, Somoza pulled in troops from the countryside, thereby allowing Leon and parts of Matagalpa, Esteli and Masaya to fall into rebel hands.

To cut down government casualties, Somoza's troops last week began to shell rebel positions with heavy artillery before moving in to retake streets of Managua's barrios "yard by yard." But the indiscriminate shelling, along with devastating bomb and rocket attacks by Somoza's air force, has killed far more civilians than Sandinistas.

Because of the civil war, Nicaragua's economy, already reeling from an almost total withdrawal of foreign investment and a cutoff of U.S. economic assistance, has been dealt a blow from which it will take years to recover.

Nicaragua's agriculture, which employs a majority of the population, has been all but ruined. June is normally the month in which farmers plant cotton, the country's leading farm export, and spray the coffee crop, which ranks No. 2. This year farmers are afraid to go to their fields.

The disruption is certain to worsen a severe food shortage.

The most urgent problem is the plight of at least 200,000 people who have fled from the righting. Some have escaped into the countryside. But most have flocked into refugee centers in the capital, straining the capacity of church and charitable organizations beyond the breaking point.

At the National Seminary in Managua, TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich found 11,000 refugees crowded onto the grounds of what had been a retirement home for elderly priests. Reported Diederich:

As quickly as workmen could throw up one-room wooden shelters designed to ward off the daily summer rains, whole families moved in. Others huddled in their cars parked in the muddy courtyard. Medical supplies were unavailable, and sanitary conditions were so bad that doctors feared epidemics would break out.

Among the refugees, there was fury at the Somoza regime. Many had been wounded by the national guard's indiscriminate shelling and air attacks. Said Miriam Morales, 20, who had just given birth in a chicken coop in the courtyard to her second child: "I have named her Diane, and I hope she never hears a rocket in her life."

There were few teen-age boys among the families who sat cooking their scanty meal over campfires in the courtyard. Virtually all have joined los muchachos, youths who fight with the Sandinistas at the barricades. Said a seven-year-old whose older brothers have enlisted in the anti-Somoza forces: "When I am big enough I am going to be a Sandinista too..."

Somoza has been able to stay in power because his guardsmen remain loyal.

Many of them feel they have no choice. As one officer put it: "If we give up, the Sandinistas will kill us." But there is a growing recognition that the civil war cannot be stopped as long as Somoza reigns. As an American-trained national guardsman put it last week, "In this war, nobody gives an inch. The current round could cease in two weeks. But when it does, both sides will just rearm, and we'll be fighting again in three months or so, just like before."

The implicit hope is that Somoza will step aside, sparing his country from ceaseless violence.

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