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Good evening. We're here tonight to talk about some of the tragic side effects of the re-election of President Reagan.
One of the most tragic side effects is what's going to be happening in Central America.
So what we're doing tonight is taking a look at how the media in the United States has covered events in Central America,
particularly the elections in El Salvador, I mean in Nicaragua, excuse me.
It's not very easy to confuse them. If you've been reading the paper, they seem like very different things.
Looking at this issue of media coverage of the Nicaraguan elections, the first thing you do is you look at
when the Nicaraguans first announced the elections last spring.
And it's very interesting because what happened then was that right from the very beginning,
the U.S. media was saying that the elections in Nicaragua were going to be a sham, a farce, right from the very beginning.
One of my favorite journalists covering Nicaragua these days is Juan Tamayo from the Miami Herald.
And I'll be quoting several of his pieces in the next few minutes.
Way back in May, he first told the United States public that the opposition parties were going to be boycotting the elections.
In fact, he had a fairly amazing quote from the leader of the Social Christian Party.
That man named Adam Flayte said, if the elections are free, the opposition, meaning his party, must win.
If the Frente, meaning the Sandinistas win, that means there's fraud.
So even in May, we were being set up for calls of fraud from the opposition.
It went into late July and registration is happening for both the parties and the voters.
And the big issue in Nicaragua, as far as we could tell from reading the papers here in the United States,
was whether a man named Arturo Cruz was going to be running in the Nicaraguan elections.
Well, Arturo Cruz is a man who has lived in the United States through the greatest part of his life.
And many people, both here internationally and in Nicaragua, see him as the man who speaks for the Washington State Department,
the U.S. State Department in Nicaragua.
And from the very beginning, the important element was whether or not he was going to be running in the elections.
If Arturo Cruz did not run, the elections would not be fair.
So it was very interesting to look at the coverage.
July 26, Arturo Cruz returns from self-imposed exile in Miami.
And we have two stories about his return on the same day.
And they say exactly the opposite thing about what's going on in Nicaragua.
Juan Tamayo, who I mentioned before from the Miami Herald, says,
Nicaraguan opposition announced definitive boycott of the election. That means they are not going to be running.
Same day, same story in the Christian Science Monitor.
Nicaraguan opposition tentatively dips its toes in presidential race.
So what's going on here? Is the opposition running or is it not running?
Well, this was the debate that was then to go on for months and months, up until the very end.
Well, even before the end of July, some of the major U.S. media were calling the elections in Nicaragua.
The Washington Post, for example, on July 31st says, will the elections be fair?
So far, it looks as if they won't.
The Marxists in Managua insist the purpose of elections is not to choose leaders, but to, what does it say, to confirm revolutionary power.
Okay, so we have one vote in. The Washington Post says the elections are not going to be fair.
So, continuing along, we come upon the fact that indeed, although Arturo Cruz may not be running, his party may not be registering,
the Santanistas are willing to give him a chance.
They said, okay, you haven't registered by the right date, but we'll extend the date.
So, this went on for several months, until the second week in August, in which, according to the New York Times, Arturo Cruz's party loses its legal standing in Nicaragua.
New York Times says, main opposition parties lose legal standing in Nicaragua.
Well, it's very interesting, because the Financial Times of London says, opposition fails to register for Nicaraguan elections.
So, what's happened here? Have they failed to register, or have the Santanistas strip them of their legal status?
Well, several weeks later, this mystery is cleared up, because the New York Times tells us again, the Santanistas have been stripped of their,
that the party, the Arturo Cruz party, has been stripped of its official status in the country.
No mention is made of the fact that this man had been given ample opportunity to register his party.
And in fact, right from the very beginning, we remember that he never even intended to run.
Now, I wanted to jump ahead just a little bit, and get to the elections itself, and what the New York Times had to say.
After that, we'll be looking at some TV news coverage.
People were able to read about the problems of the opposition.
In fact, if you only read the New York Times, you'd think that the opposition was the only party running in Nicaragua.
Very little mention was ever made of the fact that there were in fact seven parties running in Nicaragua.
And the fact that one of them was not running was used to delegitimize the entire elections.
Now, here we go. The day of the Nicaraguan elections in New York Times announces going through the motions in Nicaragua.
They're having elections, but it's meaningless.
And then finally, they have elections. We find out that they have parties in there. They have seven parties.
And then what happens? The United States says they better have new elections because these elections they had were a sham,
and it's only going to get worse from now on.
So that's the New York Times and Juan Tamayo's view of what was going on in Nicaragua during their electoral period.
Now we're going to look at some TV news coverage of the elections.
The elections today in Nicaragua for the first time since the Marxist Sandinista government came to power in 1979, and the voter turnout appears to have been a heavy one, despite the opposition's call for a boycott.
President Reagan has denounced today's elections as a sham and a phony, but Ann Carroll's reports from Anagua that the Sandinistas are going all out to persuade the world otherwise.
The Sandinista presidential candidate, Daniel Ortega, has already called today's elections a triumph for his party and the revolution.
His running mate Sergio Ramirez calls them the first honest elections in Nicaraguan history.
Well, international means that we're going to have now a legitimate seat that the government of the United States has been trying to deny us.
But the main opposition candidate, Arturo Cruz, isn't even running. Instead, he went to the church, which has been the strongest voice against the Sandinistas inside Nicaragua.
This election means absolutely nothing in terms of peace.
As long as the military and all other mass organizations are under the exclusive control of one party, the Sandinistas, Cruz claims there can be no peace, no democracy here.
Compared to the slick Sandinista campaign, the opposition made a modest showing. The liberals' crying foul pulled out at the last minute.
The Sandinistas struck deals with some candidates to keep them in the race, promising money in the release of prisoners.
But these parties are so weak, they couldn't even field a full compliment of poll watchers.
Some Nicaraguans say the Sandinistas have them in a vice.
This woman says people will vote because they fear what will happen to them if they don't.
The white, they may throw their mobs to you or get reprisals.
But others who support the Sandinistas say they no longer fear for their lives the way they did before the revolution.
They blame U.S. aggression for Nicaragua's problems.
Voting today was generally calm. The U.S.-backed contras declared a one-day ceasefire and there were no reports of fighting.
Though the Sandinistas seem assured of a large voter turnout and a majority of the valid votes,
they still worry that people will try to discredit these elections by voting, but voting for no one.
Ann Carroll's ABC News, Managua, Nicaragua.
The final results from yesterday's election in Nicaragua won't be in until later in the week,
but it is already clear the Sandinistas have won by a sizable majority.
Not surprising, perhaps, since there was only token opposition on the ballot.
The State Department has called the procedure a farce, saying it was not an election but theater.
Hundreds of foreign observers, including a delegation from the United States, however,
issued a statement saying the election was fair.
Our Latin American bureau chief, Ann Carroll's, is in Managua.
The polls had barely closed when the party began.
The Sandinistas declared the elections a victory for the revolution, a defeat for President Reagan.
Although the major opposition party called for a boycott, 80% of those eligible voted,
and preliminary results show the Sandinistas winning about 70% of the vote.
Nevertheless, the U.S.-backed opposition, which didn't run, continues to call these elections illegitimate.
They are not really elections, but just a referendum with a landslide for the Efezzalem,
because it doesn't have any competition whatsoever.
Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega, will be Nicaragua's president for the next six years.
He calls these elections a triumph for democracy, though he admits peace is not a likely outcome of the vote.
Nicaraguan troops are on constant alert.
The Sandinistas have an almost paranoid obsession with a U.S. invasion from the north.
And according to Ortega, a U.S. invasion is even more likely if President Reagan is re-elected.
If, as Ortega claims, President Reagan continues to derail the regional peace talks.
The Sandinistas say these elections show they have the overwhelming support of the Nicaraguan people.
But as long as the Sandinistas and Ronald Reagan completely disagree on the value of these elections,
Ortega says tensions can only get worse.
And Garels, ABC News, Managua, Nicaragua.
Well, that was interesting, wasn't it?
You may wonder what you weren't seeing on ABC News on Sunday and Monday night.
And we'll be going to look at some Sandinista TV in a little bit.
But right now, there's a Nicaraguan here with us in the studio
who would like to tell us a little bit about what did not come on ABC in the last two days about the Nicaraguan elections.
Would you like to tell us?
Of course, I want to tell about a little history in our free election that we have since we are Nicaraguans and we can vote.
For example, between 1838 and 1893, citizenship was reserved for Nicaraguans who owned land
or possessed a certain amount of capital.
Now everybody can vote last Sunday, November 4th.
Also, in the election of 1875, an estimated total of 373,383 Nicaraguans that can vote only voted 570.
See, the quantity, the big quantity.
Between 1909 and 1933, United States Marine Occupy Nicaragua and the law and electoral tribunal of that period were shaped and directed by representatives of the United States government.
For example, the 1923 electoral law was written by Mr. Harold Dodd.
While the election of 1928 was supervised by an electoral council headed by Mr. Frank McCoy and protected by 5,600 officers and Marines who were who counted the votes at the polls.
To me, as a Nicaraguan, of course, they say there is a farce electoral because they are non-American who are directing the vote.
There is not so much a dynasty. It's free people, you know, doing their election.
And the only thing they are doing to me as a Nicaraguan is to say, yes, United States asked for election.
We are giving election because in 1979, July 19, the people vote for the banger, the FSLN.
That was the reason why in 1971, the FSLN was confirmed by Fonseca Mador to continue the struggle that Augusto Orcesa Sandino began.
To me, as a Nicaraguan, it's a big challenge to have our election.
The FSLN won with almost 80 percent the plea that, you know, they say they don't will participate, got 11.5, you know, in the election vote.
It's interesting what you say to me that back in the beginning of the 1900s, the United States not only supported elections, but it also wrote the electoral laws.
Of course, of course.
So, when we talk about an American-style democracy, is that what they want in Nicaragua today, and how is that different from what they have?
Well, you know, in 1979, July 1979, the people decide by themselves, Nicaraguan, for Nicaraguan.
But of course, that is the reason why the French administration say it's not legal, because United States, you know, don't have nothing to do with it.
That is the reason it's illegal.
So, what you're saying is that because the United States had nothing to do with the elections, that they're not valid for the United States?
Yes, it says to me as a Nicaraguan, it's for the first time that we have free election in Nicaragua.
It's for the first time that I said before, in the past, the U.S. government is, you know, support and to count the votes and to protect our president.
But today it's different.
It's the people who did the election, it's the people who vote, who support what they have, what they won from 1979 to today, free health care, free education.
What we have is what we say.
Okay, thank you very much.
Right now, we're going to look at some Sandinista television and see material that you would never see in the United States.
We're going to find out that, in fact, there were more than one or two parties running in the Nicaraguan election.
The first thing we're going to be seeing is a campaign by Virgilio Godoy of the Liberal Independent Party,
followed by Conservative Party candidate Clemente Guido, then popular action movement leader,
followed lastly by the Nicaraguan Socialist Party.
All of this appeared on Nightly Sandinista TV.
It was a free man, well, he was like the light of the river.
As part of the political campaign with a look at the elections,
the Liberal Independent Party made today a pro-Semitic meeting in the city of Malpaisillo in the department of León.
The campaign committee of the Liberal Independent Party, in front of which was its candidate to the presidency,
Dr. Virgilio Godoy, broke today in Malpaisillo, about 30 km to the northwest of the city of León.
After a walk through the streets, the Liberal Independent Party developed its meeting
with a group of people in the city square.
Eduardo Coronado Torres, one of his leaders, expressed.
With this concentration, we are defeating the other friend that the party is a party of sofas.
The people of Nicaragua are suffering the oppression of the Sandinista dictatorship.
The coordinator of the Electoral Commission of the Popular Action Movement, Marsista Leninista, Carlos Quadra,
talks about the plans of his party in the field of agrarian reform.
The Popular Action Movement, Marsista Leninista, has raised precisely on its fighting platform
the realization of a revolutionary agrarian reform.
We understand that it cannot be done, a agrarian reform that does not affect the latifundes in Nicaragua.
We are talking about the expropriation of the latifundes and the need to give land to the peasant.
For now, we invite you to vote on November 4th in the House No. 7,
which is the one that corresponds to the Socialist Party of Nicaragua,
and which is our emblem of the Machete and the Martillo that represent the aspirations of the peasant,
of the workers and of all the Nicaraguans in general.
We say goodbye for now, and we also ask you to listen to us every Thursday and Sunday
that we will compare in this TV program during the electoral campaign that we are living.
Good night, television friends, until the next day.
Well, that certainly was interesting, wasn't it?
After all, we don't often get to see some of this secret material that comes out of Nicaragua.
I think it's very important for all Americans, now that Reagan has been re-elected,
to really look behind the news, to see the bias in the news.
In fact, there is democracy in Nicaragua.
You can find out about that democracy by reading things like Nakla, The Guardian,
or there's even something called Exchange TV.
And through Exchange TV, you can get information about Nicaragua.
That's 6748883 is the phone number.
We'd like to find out more about what we're not seeing in Nicaragua and Central America.
Nicaragua
