1.
ChrisLydon: Our guests are as far apart on
theContraquestion as american intellectuals can be. JohnSilber, thePresident
ofBostonUniversity, was a member of theKissinger ommission that diagnosed a
securitythreat in centralAmerica. NoamChomsky, theLanguagetheorist atMIT,
argues in his new book, entitledTurningTheTide, that USintervention in centralAmerica
is the acute case of our general misuse and misrule of theThirdWorld. I would
like you to begin, PresidentSilber. Address yourself to the waverers, if there
are any, in theUSSenate. Why would you vote for theContramoney?
2.
Silber: Well, theSenate of theUnitedStates has
traditionally been in favour of supporting democratic forces as opposed to
totalitarian forces. And if they continue that practice, they are going to vote
against the sandinistas and they are going to vote in favour of theContras. On october15, the sandinistas passed an edict that suspends
the protection against the search of homes without a warrant, that suspends the
privacy of mail and allows the censorship of mail. They suspended theRightOfFreeAssembly.
They have suspended allFreedomOfThePress. They have continued their harassment
of their people and suspended virtuallyall democratic rights. The october15decree
is muchmore-restrictive and -comprehensive than the decree that Hitler passed
on 28Feb1933, when he ended the democratic republic ofWeimar. Once you see this
totalitarian nature of the regime, which was apparent since1979 in september,
and has continued ever since then, it is time for the Senate of theUnitedStates
to support theDemocrats.
3.
Lydon: NoamChomsky, in a short speech to theUSSenate,
why would you be agin [sic] theContramoney?
4.
Chomsky: Well, as
even themostardent supporters of theContras now concede, this is what they call
a proxyArmy which is attackingNicaragua from foreign bases, is entirelydependent
on its masters for directions and support, has neverput forth a politicalprogram,
has created no base of politicalsupport within the country, and it is almost,
its entire top military command is somozist officers. Its military
achievements so far consist of a long and horrifying series of verywelldocumented
torture and mutilation and atrocities and essentially nothing else. Administrationofficials
are now openlyconceding in public that the main function of theContras is to
retard or reverse the rate of social reform inNicaragua and to try to terminate
the openness of that society. The state of siege, for
example, which was imposed last fall, and which is verymild, I should say, there
is much politicalopening inNicaragua, as everyone there up to the american
ambassador will tell you, that corresponds roughly to the state of siege which
has been in place in elSalvador since early1980, except in elSalvador, it has
been associated with a huge massacre of tens of thousands of people.
Destruction of the press, so on and so forth, whereas inNicaragua it is a
reaction to a war that we are carrying out against them with precisely the
purpose of trying to retard social reform and to restrict the possibilities of
an open and developing society. And that’s a cruel and savage policy,
which we should terminate.
5.
Silber: Are you going to continue that series
of plain falsehoods? That's a series of falsehoods the likes of which I've
never seen compacted in such a small period of time. The massacres that
have occurred inNicaragua have been the massacres by the sandinistas of the miskito-indians. The
repression there is massive. It is moreserious than anything we have seen in centralAmerica
or in any latinamerican country to date. It is a genuineDictatorship imposed
there. And to describe the leaders of theContras as
being supporters ofSomoza is simply fabrication. Robelo, Cruz, Calero, Chamorro
are notsomozistas and never have been. And when you take the leadership
of theArmy of theContras, some of them were members of theNationalGuard, but
then if you are going to object to that, which would be highlyunreasonable,
because that was anArmy that was not simply followers, or Somozistas, it is important
to remember that ModestaRojas,
the vicechairman of theAirForce of the sandinistas, was also a member of
theNationalGuard, and a verylarge number of members of theNationalGuard are the
ones who are coordinators of the blockcommittees that imposed theDictatorship
by the sandinistas. This is a series of distortions and fabrications and the
effort of the sandinistas to discredit theContras by the manufacture of
atrocities is now a point that has been verywelldocumented.
6.
Lydon: NoamChomsky'sturn to respond to, among
other things, to the original picture of the totalitarian.
7.
Chomsky: Let's just, first of all, start by
talking about the facts. I stated again that the military leadership of theContras
is almost entirely drawn from the top, from theSomozistNationalGuard.
8.
Silber: Somoza'ssoldiers.
9.
Chomsky: Fortysix out of
fortyeight of the top military commanders, according to Edgar Chamorro, this is
the top military commander.
10.
Silber: Soldiers are.
11.
Chomsky: Excuse me. Now look, I let you go
on. Did I let you?
12.
Silber: You engage in a series of
fabrications of truth, and it's time that somebody.
13.
Chomsky: May I?
14.
Silber: Had the opportunity of correcting
your historical misstatements while you're still around.
15.
Chomsky: Mr.Silber has a verygood reason for
not wanting me to talk.
16.
Silber: Mr.Marcos, Mr.Marcos.
17.
Chomsky: And that is he knows what the truth
is, and he doesn't want me to.
18.
Silber: No no no, it's because you have
distorted the truth long enough.
19.
Chomsky: May I have a chance to say.
20.
Silber: No, just let me finish. It is Marcos, Marcos is the veryArmy that helpedAquino into power, so when you
try to take on theNationalGuard, as if theNationalGuard was somozistas, you
misstate the case.
21.
Lydon: But let him make the case. It's.
22.
Silber: You alsooverlook the fact that there
are plenty ofNationalGuardmembers who are supporting the sandinistas.
23.
Lydon: Mr.Chomsky.
24.
Silber: Now you go ahead and distort the
truth again.
25.
Chomsky: Now let me, see, here you're having an
action. A good example ofTotalitarianism, and that is to ensure that the
opposition.
26.
Silber: I'm thefirstone that stopped your
monopoly on misinformation.
27.
Chomsky: The idea
that I have a monopoly of misinformation of the american press is a little
ridiculous.
28.
Silber: No, it's not.
29.
Chomsky: Really? I control the american
press? Let me repeat. Let's go back to the facts: fortysix
out of the fortyeight of top military commanders of theContras are somozist
officers. You can find that in the congressional report. You can find that
fromEdgarChamorro, who is the CIAappointed spokesman. That's exactly
what I said and it's exactlytrue. As to the idea that
the sandinistas have carried out massacres on a par with those that we have
been carrying out in centralAmerica, this is reallyastonishing. In elSalvador,
the number of people massacred since1978 or since1979 when we moved in in force
is on the order of sixtythousand. InGuatemala, where we incidentally have been
supporting it all the way through with military aid, which neverterminated and
are now supporting it enthusiastically, the number of people massacred is on
the order of onehundredthousand. Mr.Silber
referred to the miskito-indians, who were
badlytreated, I should say, the figures are that approximatelysixty-or-seventy
were killed. Whereas in contrast, about five or
six thousandspersons have been killed, and I don't mean killed, this is notgarden-varietykilling;
this is torture, murder and mutilation,
massivelydocumented in great detail, by our forces. Now there are crimes of the Sandinistas, there is no
doubt, but they are undetectable in comparison with the crimes that we have
supported.
30.
Lydon: I'd like to go back to two central
arguments this whole thing turns on. One is that sandinistaNicaragua poses a
securitythreat to theUnitedStates and to this hemisphere. Secondly, that we owe
it to the socalled democrats and the democratic notion to help people who are
carrying our standard in the region. JohnSilber, are these equal arguments and
do you support them both?
31.
Silber: Well, I don't support the presence of
about sixtyfivehundreds soviet and cuban troops inNicaragua. I don't support
the presence of twentyfour armed helicoptergunships
supplied by theSovietUnion toNicaragua, or onehundredandfiftybattletanks or
about twelvehundredstrucks and threehundreds.
32.
Lydon: But where is the notion that it is a
securitythreat to this country?
33.
Silber: Well, it's not a security threat yet. And
neither was Hitler a securitythreat when he
suspended all freedoms of the germans on february28, 1933. He wasn't even a securitythreat
that was serious in1936 when he rearmed theRhineland. But by the time that the
Allies got around to recognising that he was a threat, it cost us tensofmillions
of lives and it took sixyears in which to defeat him. Now at the present time, we can put an end to the sandinistaDictatorship
in centralAmerica without using a single american life. All we have to do is
help pay for the firemen. There is a fire going on down there. We don't have to
put the fire out. But we're asked to pay for the firemen. If we wait and we decide
to do nothing until theSoviets establish a landbase there and it develops, as
it will develop if we allow it to happen, we will then have to face the fact of
a possibility of war. It’s not a present threat, it is a vector. If
people don't have sense enough to understand that a small fire in a room is a
threat, notbecause it's a small fire but because small fires have a way of
becoming big fires, then we haven't learned anything fromHistory.
34.
Lydon: It's NoamChomsky'sturn on the question
of the security threat to the hemisphere and to this country.
35.
Chomsky: Well, to talk
of Nicaragua as a securitythreat is a bit like asking what threat Luxembourg
poses to theSovietUnion. Mr. Silber
mentionedHitler, and I am oldenough to rememberHitler'sspeeches in which he
talked about the threat toGermany posed byPoland from which Germany had to
defend itself. And we’re facing that kind of, and even that's unfair toHitler
to draw that example. It is quite true that Nicaragua is now Sovietarmed
and heavilyarmed. And the reason is that it is
being attacked by a superpower which has specificallyblocked every other source
of supply. For example, up until theMayembargo lastyear, twentypercent
of nicaraguan trade was with theSovietbloc. Prior to that, its arms were coming
from everywhere. We then blocked the arms from everywhere else. As we
intensified the war, they do exactly what theUSGovernment wants them to do, namely,
they divert resources from the social reforms which we reallyfear, and they
turn them towards militarisation. The idea that
Nicaragua could attack. I might add that the countries of latinAmerica regard this as
hysterical lunacy. Everycountry, all the Contadoracountries,
all the support countries, which include all of the relativelydemocratic
countries in latinAmerica, are pleading with us to call off the war against the
country. They understandperfectlywell exactlywhat it's doing. It's forcing them
to be a militarisedState, and it's creating a danger of a wider war in the
region. If we want to get theSoviettanks out ofNicaragua, and there are
veryfew, and the cuban advisors out, what we should do is verysimple and
everyone in theGovernment knows it. Call off the war
and they will return to what they were doing before we attacked them, namely,
creating themosteffective reforms in the hemisphere, which were widelypraised
by theWorldBank, theInterAmericanDevelopmentBank, organisations likeOXFAM,
which described them as unique in their experience in seventysix developing
countries.
36.
Lydon: We're running out.
37.
Chomsky: Which we have
retarded and stopped by this attack.
38.
Lydon: We are running so far overtime that we
might just as well keep going. I want you to deal with the question of-Democracy
and –(our responsibility to aid the cause). You criticised the sandinistas, but
do you really want to embrace theContras as a vehicle
ofDemocracy?
39.
Silber: Absolutely.
And let's dispense with the myth somehow that these were lovely democrats until
we drove them into the hands of theSovietUnion by our opposition. That is a
myth. That is a fabrication ofHistory that Mr. Chomsky knows is false. As a
matter of fact, when the revolution came to an end in july of1979, the sandinistas
came to Washington, after having pledged to theOrganizationOfAmericanStates
that they would hold freeelections. They then received 117millionsUSD in loans,
they received credit from theWorldBank through the intercession of theUnitedStates.
They were verywellreceived and verywelltreated. And on september of []1979,
they alreadybegan their process of repression. So the notion that we drove them
into the hands of the communists is utterlyfalse. It's a fabrication.
40.
Lydon: But the question is, Are theContras a
vehicle forDemocracy?
41.
Silber: TheContras do not have overt support
among the nicaraguan people at the present time insideNicaragua for one obvious
reason. Hitler'sopponents did not have any obvious support inGermany after
Hitler had taken over that country. In a totalitarianState, the opposition does
not have any effective voice. You don't find that effective voice in theSovietUnion
right now, either. You have isolated groups of refusniks. But inNicaragua, you have a leadership: Robelo, Cruz, Chamorro,
Colero, those are major figures, major democratic figures who opposedSomoza,
and many of them went to jail and they are followedliterally by thousands of
people who are opposing the sandinistaDictatorship. To try to write
these people off as totalitarian and to come up with that trumpedup nonsense
about the atrocities that those people have committed is just a good example of
doublethink. This is just a1984exercise by Mr.Chomsky for which he has already
established a worldwide reputation. It's rubbish.
42.
Lydon: Mr. Chomsky, when you hear this call
to come to the rescue of -Democracy and –(democratic forces), what do you
answer?
43.
Chomsky: I would be delighted if theUnitedStates
were to reverse its longstanding policies of opposing democratic forces
throughout centralAmerica and begin to support those forces. Now, to return toNicaragua
and to return to the real world, I neverdescribed
the sandinistas as perfect democrats or whatever your phrase was. What I did was quote theWorldBank, OXFAM, theJesuitOrder and
others, who recognise that what they were doing was to use the meager resources
of that country for the benefit of the poor majority. That's why Healthstandards
shot up. That's why literacy shot up. That's why agrarian reform proceeded,
theonlyplace in the region. That's why subsistenceAgriculture improved and
consumption-of-food increased and that's why we attacked them. It had nothing to do withDemocracy. Now, I also did
not say that Cruz and Robelo committed atrocities. In fact, Cruz and Robelo sit inWashington and don't do anything.
They are figureheads who we concocted. The people who commit
atrocities are theContraforces led by theNationalGuard. And of all the
figures you mention, one is involved: namely, Colero, who is an ultrarightwingbusinessman and
represents the extremist, narrow businessforces inNicaragua. Now, if we had the
slightest concern withDemocracy, which we do not in our foreign affairs and
never have, we would turn to countries where we have influence, like elSalvador.
Now, in elSalvador they don't call the archbishop bad
names; what they do is murder him. They do not censor the press; they wipe the
press out. They sent theArmy in to blow up the churchradiostation. The
editor of the independent newspaper was found in a ditch mutilated and cut to
pieces with a machete.
44.
Silber: Don't you ever.
45.
Chomsky: May I continue?
I did not interrupt you.
46.
Silber: Don't you ever want to put a time
value on anything you say.
47.
Chomsky: Excuse me, that was 19.
48.
Silber: Or do you just want to liesystematically
on television?
49.
Chomsky: I'm talking about. I'm talking
about. I'm talking about 198[?].
50.
Silber: You are a systematic liar.
51.
Chomsky: Did these things happen or didn't they?
52.
Silber: These things did
not happen in the context in which you suggest at all.
53.
Chomsky: Really?
54.
Silber: And when you suggest that Cruz is simply
a figurehead and does nothing, you overlook the fact that ArturoCruz was theAmbassador
of the sandinistas to theUnitedStates.
55.
Chomsky: Yes, and he has always.
56.
Silber: And he was the headbanker
of the sandinistas.
57.
Chomsky: Exactly. In theUnitedStates
58.
Silber: Until he finallybroke with them when he
found out that they were utterlytotalitarian. You are a phony, mister, and
it's time that the people read you correctly.
59.
Chomsky: Well, it's clear why you want to divert
me from the discussion.
60.
Silber: No, it's not. It's because we get
tired of rubbish.
61.
Chomsky: Excuse me. ArturoCruz, exactly as I
said, was in theUnitedStates, he was brought to.
62.
Silber: Why was he in theUnitedStates?
63.
Chomsky: He was in theUnitedStates,
and he defected in theUnitedStates. He was brought back toNicaragua as a
politicalfigure, because the businessbased opposition there had no credible
candidate. He did notparticipate in the elections, as he could have, in part
because.
64.
Silber: He couldn't because he was broke.
65.
Chomsky: May I
continue?
66.
Silber: No, because
you're lying again.
67.
Lydon: I've got to cut you both off.
68.
Chomsky: I didn't say anything yet.
69.
Silber: The Turbas [prosandinista street militia]
were the ones who preventedCruz from participating in the elections.
70.
Chomsky: That's another fabrication. But let's
continue with.
71.
Lydon: Except we can't. I'm afraid we're out of
time. You've givenPresidentReagan a tough act to follow on sundaynight. We
thank you both, JohnSilber and NoamChomsky.
72.
Chomsky: Yeah, OK.
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