Lost victory.

Preventing a Communist takeover of El Salvador and reversing the Communist victory in Nicaragua were among the largest American foreign-policy goals of the 1980s. Nor should the extraordinary level of controversy over the Nicaraguan Contras obscure the broad consensus that underlay U.S. policy: it was a Democratic Congress that voted billions in aid to the Salvadoran government and more than a hundred million dollars to the Contras.

Despite the constant refrain from the Democratic Party's left wing and from the press about how it was all just plain hopeless, the American policy worked. In El Salvador, the U.S.-backed army became more and more effective. Free elections were held year after year, and voters chose first the center-left Christian Democrats, and then the conservative ARENA party to govern. By the end of the 1980s, with Soviet support waning, the Communist guerrillas in El Salvador gave up their war: they agreed to turn in their arms and fight for power at the ballot box. In Nicaragua, the Contras fighting the Marxist regime proved increasingly effective not only because of (intermittent) American help, but mainly because they had extensive popular support. Unable to eliminate them, the Sandinistas finally agreed to negotiate and to hold a free election. They lost it badly to a broad anti-Communist coalition. It was a remarkable vindication of United States policy in Central America, and a great victory for the President who designed it: Ronald Reagan.

But that victory is being eroded by the Clinton Administration as, indeed, it was by the Bush Administration. In Nicaragua, President Violeta Chamorro reigns but it's the Sandinistas who rule. They control the military and the police, retain the property they stole while in power (from mansions to bank accounts to land), and continue even now to murder their most prominent opponents. The U.S. Government grumbles, but last fall President Bush released over fifty million dollars in aid to Nicaragua.

Sandinista human-rights abuses of the 1980s-- against Contra supporters, or Miskito Indians, or innocent campesinos--are forgotten. For the recent murders of their enemies, including former Contra commander Enrique Bermudez, no one is ever brought to justice. Sandinista officials wield power and wealth with impunity. Is it sensible to say that democracy triumphed in Nicaragua?

In El Salvador, where the Communist guerrillas lost and surrendered their arms, the U.S. and the "international community" are hard at work punishing the army and police while the Communist side, again, faces no punishment. The police force is being reorganized, retrained, and removed from army control. That seems a fine idea, but why not insist on it as a precondition for American aid in Nicaragua too? A so-called international "Truth Commission" has investigated human-rights abuses in El Salvador, but its focus has been on government abuses, and it has not examined as carefully the awful record of Communist atrocities. So again: if a "Truth Commission" is needed to investigate and expose humanrights abuses under the elected government of President Duarte, why do we not demand a "Truth Commission" to investigate human-rights abuses by the Sandinista regime? And since the Clinton Administration recently announced it would withhold military aid to El Salvador until a purge of military officers was complete, should we not insist on the same in Nicaragua?

The United States must stop subsidizing these efforts to reverse military and political victories of democracy in Central America. This work is done in the name of human rights, but that is a flimsy premise. When "human-rights" arguments are used to punish only the Right, it is politics and vengeance masquerading in the costume of human rights. The Washington Post reported on March 14 that "The resignation of General Rene Emilio Ponce [of El Salvador] . .. was due largely to increasing U.S. pressure." It is grotesque that U.S. aid has been withheld from El Salvador because its defense minister was not forced out fast enough, while not a nickel has been withheld from Nicaragua even though Humberto Ortega continues to run its army.

The current pattern-of impunity when that benefits the Left, purges when that benefits the Left, reforms when that benefits the Left--allowed the Bush Administration to end the war with congressional Democrats over Central America. President Clinton seems happy to continue the pattern, and no doubt he will thereby keep the Left, in Congress and in Central America, happy. But this policy erodes the hard-won gains of American policy in the 1980s, betrays democracy in Central America, and abandons America's friends to slander and murder at the hands of our joint enemies. Let American pressure be used to help democrats and democracy across the board.