‘Making It Tough for Peace’
Poor Kirkpatrick. She laments the fact that President Arias’ peace plan is “mired . . . deeply in U.S. partisan politics on the side of congressional liberals.†Heaven forbid one country should interfere in the internal affairs of another! We couldn’t have that, now, could we, Ms. Kirkpatrick?
Are supporters of Reagan’s war policy really beginning to resent Arias? Did Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) actually go as far as to speculate that we might cut aid to Costa Rica in retaliation for Arias’ peace proposal? How dare Costa Rica’s freely elected president try to bring peace to the region without Reagan’s permission! Surely Kemp, Reagan and Kirkpatrick know better than Arias that, for Central American, war is much better than peace.
But Kirkpatrick’s last suggestion was her real masterpiece: We need a “bipartisan agreement on what constitutes democratization.†The two U.S. political parties that backed Somoza’s bloody regime for more than 40 years are clearly in the best possible position to define “democracy†in Central American. If only we could convince the people who live there.
MIGUEL MUNOZ
Los Angeles
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