On Feb. 25, 1990, Nicaragua will celebrate free, fair and democratic elections. The president, vice president and legislature elected then will take office, with full constitutional powers, on April 25, 1990.
These are my solemn pledges to the Nicaraguan people. I have also made these pledges in the multilateral agreements of the Central American presidents signed this year in Tesoro Beach and Tela.Regrettably, increased military activity by the Contras, aimed at subverting the electoral process, threatens my ability to protect the right of Nicaraguan citizens to campaign openly and vote for the political party of their choice.
That is why I have canceled the 19-month-old cease-fire with the Contras.
During October, Contra units newly supplied and infiltrated from Honduras closed more than 50 voter registration centers, preventing thousands of citizens from registering to vote. They targeted for assassination known Sandinista supporters - prominent community leaders, party activists and candidates for municipal offices - and slit their throats.
On Oct. 21, the Contras ambushed reservists who were on their way to register to vote, killing 19 and wounding six. Last Tuesday, they murdered four farmers at a cooperative near San Miguelito. At my invitation, observers from the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the U.S. Embassy visited the scene of the attack to view the corpses and interview survivors.
Why the upswing in Contra violence? The success of our electoral process has made them desperate. They fear that free elections, duly recognized by the international community, will end their flickering hopes of continuing the war.
Their only chance, as they see it, is to step up attacks on civilians, forcing the government to impose necessary security measures. The government's reaction is then to be presented to the world as evidence of its hostility to democratic elections.
The Contras' main supporters inside Nicaragua - the National Opposition Union, which, like the Contras, was manufactured, bought and paid for by the United States - are already accusing me of plotting to cancel the elections. In fact, this is precisely what they want me to do. They are as convinced as I am that when the elections are held - and they will be - the Nicaraguan people will give the Sandinistas a landslide victory.
My principal goal at the hemispheric summit in Costa Rica last weekend was to obtain the assistance of the assembled heads of state in ending Contra violence. I wanted them to use their collective influence to secure full implementation of the Tela Accords, which call for the demobilization and disarmament of the Contras by Dec. 5. That is the most effective way to stop Contra attacks on our citizens and electoral process.
It is now clear that there is little point in concentrating our peace efforts around the single issue of a cease-fire. We do not consider it an acceptable cease-fire when we cease and the Contras fire. For peace to be achieved, the war itself must be stopped. There is no other way to end the war than to start immediately the demobilization of the Contras.
President Bush reacted with a torrent of personal invective. He accused me of spoiling the "garden party" in Costa Rica. Well, life in my country is no "garden party." Eight years of war financed and directed by the Reagan and Bush administrations have seen to that.
Even now, despite the universal praise our electoral process has earned, President Bush has taken steps to increase the suffering of the Nicaraguan people. Last week he renewed for another six months the economic embargo that has strangled all commerce between Nicaragua and the United States since May 1985.
The Contras have used Bush's non-lethal aid to increase combat activities and to inflict more death and destruction on our country.
All well meaning people want two things in Nicaragua between now and February: an end to the fighting and the holding of democratic elections.