Lives At Stake

I think of Agenor often. We met in a refugee resettlement camp near Jalapa, on Nicaragua's northern frontier. He was barely 13 years old at the time. I later wrote about Agenor in "Marginal Notes"--the skinny kid with the tattered clothes and baseball cap who caught my eye because of the heavy rifle he carried over his shoulder.

Agenor was a member of the Nicaraguan citizen militia that defends against contra attacks and the expected U.S. invasion. He served on the night patrol because he went to school during the day. When the priest celebrating the Mass asked the children of the community to come forward first, Agenor showed typical 13-year-old hesitancy, unsure whether he was a grown-up yet or still one of the kids. He finally went forward, and I watched Agenor standing at the back of a crowd of Nicaraguan children, taking the Eucharist in his little hands with that big weight of a rifle on his back.

Now Agenor is 16 years old. When U.S. soldiers finally arrive in Nicaragua, he will be as old as they are. When I first met Agenor, Eddie was also 13. Eddie is from a poor black family in my neighborhood in inner-city Washington. Now Eddie is 16 too. If U.S. troops are sent to Nicaragua, they will probably send Eddie, who will be just about the right age.

Agenor and Eddie may well meet each other in Nicaragua. They will point their rifles at each other, and one or both will be killed. The parents of both will cry.

That's what the great East-West confrontation will come down to--the intense ideological hatred between two superpowers, the ultimate battle for freedom, our great crusade against communism--Agenor and Eddie killing each other.

To that inevitable confrontation between children, we say no. We say to our government: Stop it, just stop it!

This spring more than 200 U.S. religious leaders finally told the truth about Nicaragua. Somebody had to. It was an appropriate role and responsibility for the religious community. A strongly worded statement plainly stated that the Reagan administration is simply lying about Nicaragua. In the face of such continued hypocrisy, deception, and human suffering, religious leaders stood up and together said, "In the Name of God, Stop the Lies, Stop the Killing!"

Since then the administration's honesty and credibility about Nicaragua have been increasingly challenged from many quarters. The word "lies" is more and more frequently heard in response to official U.S. pronouncements about Nicaragua.

FOR THE CONTRA votes in Congress, the Reagan administration and its allies have pulled out all the stops. The White House has cajoled, arm-twisted, threatened, bargained with, and insulted members of Congress. Pro-contra, anti-Sandinista television ads have filled prime time. Ronald Reagan has put his power and prestige behind the contras and made Nicaragua his primary foreign policy issue. He has made this war his war.

President Reagan says he wants democracy in Central America. But if democracy were to work in our own country, his proposal for contra aid would be soundly defeated. It is clear now that the contra war has become Ronald Reagan's personal obsession. And this obsession is preventing democracy from occurring here in the United States.

The people of the United States do not support the Nicaraguan contras. Despite the enormous power of a popular incumbent president, the media blitzkrieg, and the ferocity of the political Right, the public remains unconvinced. In fact, public opinion polls show that 62 percent of the people of this country do not support the contra war, while only 25 percent do. That is a ratio of two-and-a-half to one.

There are several reasons why so many U.S. citizens are opposed to contra aid: 1) the contras' clear record of committing terrorism against the civilian population of Nicaragua; 2) the Reagan administration's blatant use of misinformation, distortion, and outright falsehood in its efforts to gain contra aid; 3) the Contadora nations' clear and unanimous call for an end to U.S. funding of the contras; and 4) because so many U.S. citizens from every state in this country have traveled to Nicaragua, have seen the suffering of the Nicaraguan people, and have seen a Nicaragua very different from the one President Reagan vilifies in his speeches.

After the defeat of the president's contra aid proposal on March 20, Cokie Roberts reported on the "McNeil-Lehrer News Hour," "You have to keep in mind how strongly organized the church groups have been against aid to the Nicaraguan rebels. They are the strongest single force in this country opposing that assistance--the Catholic church, the mainline Protestant churches."

With all the money, power, and propaganda on its side, the administration is losing. With hard work at the grassroots level and a deep moral conviction, the church-led forces are helping to turn the tide--David 1, Goliath 0.

IT WAS ON THE eve of the Senate vote on contra aid that U.S. forces provoked a battle with Libyan forces in the Gulf of Sidra. And it was on the eve of the April House vote over contra aid that the United States launched its attack against Libyan cities. In both cases, the Libyan actions knocked the Nicaragua issue off the front pages and out of the headlines.

Is this pure coincidence? Cutting short the debate on Nicaragua policy and rallying U.S. public opinion around a military action in another part of the world clearly serve the interests of the Reagan administration. Tonight I saw a TV ad which linked Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and PLO leader Yasser Arafat to Nicaragua. With pictures of those two emotional symbols on a map of Nicaragua, the ad urged us to support Ronald Reagan's contra aid policy.

The churches have helped turn an official propaganda barrage into a genuine national debate. That debate will be with us for some time. At stake are many lives, both Nicaraguan and American.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.