Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Fifth Freedom
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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defending themselves against Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon;
rather they are all “terrorists,” whose actions we deplore. The President,
always quick to defend South Africa, even justified the murderous South
African attack on Botswana on grounds that it may have been
“retaliation” against the African National Congress (there is “no
question,” he said, about its “violence” and “murdering,” but about
South Africa we must withhold judgment). 75
As for the “humanitarian aid” offered by Congress to the contras, the
Times cites without comment the statement of rebel leader Adolfo Calero
that it will be used for the purchase of “at least two helicopters.” 76 No
doubt Elliott Abrams will personally ensure that the helicopters are used
solely for medical aid.
Another major charge against the Sandinistas has to do with their
treatment of the Miskitos, surely the best-known American Indian group
in the hemisphere and the only one whose travail merits agonized
expressions of concern. That they were treated very badly by the
Sandinistas is beyond question; they are also among the better treated
Indians in the hemisphere. If an Indian group to their north were to put
forth the demands for autonomy now being considered in Nicaragua,
they would simply be slaughtered, if ridicule did not suffice. Miskito
leader Armstrong Wiggins holds that the arrangement the Miskitos are
demanding “has never been granted by any other country in the world to
indigenous peoples, and goes beyond [their] status under the previous
government” (which largely ignored the Atlantic coast); hitherto, he
states, “the Sandinista policy towards indigenous people is just like the
Mexican policy, just like the United States policy, just like Chilean
policy.” 77
Sandinista abuses against the Miskitos were “more massive than any
other human rights violations that I’m aware of in Central America,” so
Jeane Kirkpatrick testified before the Senate Foreign Relations