Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission: September 1984-January 1985

We now have a presidential candidate who chants to an old Beach Boys tune Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran and who twenty years ago voted to bomb Nicaragua. Here we may read the devastating results of that anti-life policy. It is no joke. War is no joke. War is hell. Every US citizen needs this year to read this book, to remember our taxpayer supported terrorist army which blew up health care clinics, schools and the simple bamboo homes of very poor people. Reed Brody is the former Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York, and as a skilled prosecutor, knows the rules of evidence in presenting a compelling case beyond any reasonable doubt. In this book he leaves no room for doubt regarding the crimes against humanity committed by our government against the poor people of Nicaragua twenty years ago. He presents undeniable testimony of incidents of crimes against humanity committed by our mercenary terrorist guerrilla army, inclduing rapes, kidnappings and deadly attacks against civilian vehicles, farms and villages and agricultural workers. He lays open the case in a compelling introduction, he states in two and half dozen incidents, and concludes with an afterword and with three appendices entitled: Verfication, in which he describes the methodology and adherence to reliable rules of evidence; Who are the contra?, in which he describes at great length the make-up of the leadership as well as their illegal "private" US funding, and closes with a long chronology of contra attacks up to that time. In this present era of imperial warfare, in which approved journalists are "embedded" within the attacking US army and thus kept from performing their free and independednt function, in which news reports are heavily Redacted by the media monopolies to keep the US public from an informed decision and to cover up our present crimes against humanity, and in which independent reporters of other nations are fired upon by our troops to keep the truth of our barbarous war crimes from emerging, we must remember this time when it was possible for courageous US citizens to travel to the scenes of our terrorist attacks upon civilian populations and report them to us at home, truthfully and undeniably. Let us study carefully these cases of Atty. Reed Brody, examine his methodology, and even if unable to travel to Fallujah and Guantanamo and elsewhere to report back the abuses by our troops, at least we can work so that never again we suffer under another rogue president who commits our nation to A Stupid, Unjust, and Criminal War: Iraq, 2001-2007.

This book is the result of an 1984 fact-finding mission to Nicaragua undertaken by Reed Brody, who is now with Human Rights Watch. It is based on a rigourous methodology involving sworn affadavits of personal eyewitness accounts of atrocities. The witnesses were interviewed with no Nicaraguan government presence or interference. The book consists of detailed descriptions of numerous attacks on civilians by the Contras. A section is devoted to attacks on coffee pickers; there is one on attacks on farms and villages, and another on attacks on civilian vehicles. Also included are sections on kidnappings and rapes. When it appeared, this book was considered dangerous enough by the Reagan administration that Brody was publicly denounced by President Reagan who attempted to smear his reputation.Unfortunately, "Contra Terror in Nicaragua" is accurate. It provides a glimpse into the Reagan administration's policy of directing systematic violence at a civilian peasant population for the purpose of ousting the government of Nicaragua. It will be recalled that this government won internationally certified elections in 1984 and was the choice of the people. The campaign of violence was unremitting and lasted about nine years.Brody's book is an important historical document on an extremely sad and disturbing episode in American foreign policy. The people in Washington who were responsible for this are rightly regarded as war criminals. This includes John Negroponte, currently US ambassador to Iraq. From 1981-84 he was overseeing operation of the Contras from their bases in Honduras, where he was US ambassador.

This is an important historical record. Don't expect any lavish prose or entertaining reading. This is "just the facts", documenting case after case of attacks against civilians by lavishly US funded and orchestrated Contra forces in the 1980's.In the book, you get an introductory explanation of the methods and sources for the information, followed by background information of the political climate. Then you get a number of selected individual cases of attacks on civilians that are thoroughly detailed with names, dates and descriptions. Each of these stories is told over a couple pages each. Lastly are a cronology of Contra attacks on civilians between 1981 and 1984 which seems to list a couple hundred instances with a short description of each, and the source notes.Many cases are compiled from the reports of groups like America's Watch, Center for Constitutional Rights, Washington Office on Latin America...etc. Many are compiled from eye-witness and victim's affidavits, and from the extensive report of Reed Brody's fact finding team from between 1984-85 in Nicaragua. What you will see here are the tactics used by the people that the US government was hailing as "freedom fighters", and whom Reagan called "the moral equals of our founding fathers". The overriding point, and what this book shows, is that the attacks against civilians were not random errors, or the acts of a few renegade contras. They were conscious, pervasive and intentional policy of the leadership.I'm writing this review over 15 years after the publication of this book, but it's very important to know what our government was really doing. And, in the year 2002, When "terrorism" is on everyone's mind, and you hear our leaders repeatedly saying things like: "there's no justification for attacking civilians" or how we must go after any evil "states that sponsor terrorism", it's important to remember the not too distant history, and consider how well our own government would measure up to these principles.