THE 'GUATEMALA' peace accord signed month by political victory for Nicaragua and a sharp blow to the US war against the Sandinista revolution. The governments of Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador have accepted the legitimacy of Nicaragua's government and put their name to a document demanding the dissolution of the contras.
Press reports have spoken of 'peace fever', of 'wave etonora sweeping through the twenty million or so Central American people.
:The of the Guatemala is Terecon cullias. against military prostitution drug-trafficking in'evitably against the unthinkable.
intervention The de• 101 shown to involve The Acwith JIbC solidarity to play.
The Guatemala peace accord reflects a shift in of torces Central America. This is what the Sandinistas term the 'strategic defeat' of the contras.
The Ilalute this defeat was explained in the Nicaraguan magazine EnFebruary OI InIs year: "The (contra) project was based fundamentally last Central America's five presidents is a dominated by the pro-US For Tre bourgeoisie that had "survived the shipwreck", to uSe Vice President Sergio sectors, manipulating for 1C2104S that The plan was to these sectors into landowners.
"The orchestra leader, provoke 40lapse of Sandinista revolutionary DIUCCUS which it still sustaining systematic on all fronts.
"It uprising, the US Anastasio Somoza. its were never failed.' for overthrowing Sandinista government. Alejandro Bendana, general of the Nicaraguan foreign ministry, in his speech the.24 March 'X7 launch of COLLI 'We denounce the actual preparations direct military intervention in Nicaragua. not paranoid, this is not an exaggeration does not change its obiec. tive and if the contras have failed in achieving that ob. jective, then there is only one road left, and that is the road of direct intervention This is the for example, of the 'Solid Hallucuve. 11volving 50,000 US troops, the supply of sophisticated heavy weapons to the contras, the regional preparations TOT tervention, the efforts to win DublIC acquiescence to, or support for over aggression against Nicaragua.
But direct intervention was never an easy road fo he US: Its signing of th peace treaty has raised the political stakes of such an option still further.
The scope of the vicindicated. won was vice-president Sergio Ramirez peaking to the New Yorh Times on 14 August. 'If we assume' he said 'that the United States stops sur porting counterrevolution, that the counterrevolution accepts the ceasefire, that the counterrevolutior begins the process of giving up that the Govern ment of Honduras closes the contra bases • then, parallel with that, the state of emergency will end. Full CONSONA freedoms will be restored ...I hope nanomake mo sacredo concessions: they are not obliger to negotiate with military, political or economic rela with Cuba USSR; nor abrogate thei constitution.
Even the tactical concessions made are extremely limited.
Praguat had Accord, always categorically refused to make its internal affairs a subject of any international agreement.
In signing the Accord the State • Emergency would: lifted.
As Sandinista Tomas Borge so aptly put for Nicaragua to sigr the Accord IS not to negotiate our domestic policies, but to describ them This is not to say that imperialism or the internal pro-imperialist forces back Blay wil seek to si will just to their advantage the fac that Nicaragua's interna policies have been made the subject of an interna tional agreement. Already House has argued for further contra funding to ensure the Ar cord is implemented!
The labour movement in this country should take its cue from this to redou. ble its solidarity efforts. Next issue what the treaty means for El Salvador