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Central Intelligence Agency (view source)
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, 03:10, November 27, 2010no edit summary
===Cambodia 1979-95===
===Cambodia 1979-95===
The Reagan Administration sought to apply the [[Reagan Doctrine]] of aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements abroad to Cambodia, which was under Vietnamese occupation following the [[Cambodian genocide]] carried out by the Communist [[Khmer Rouge]]. The Vietnamese had installed a Communist dictatorship led by a Khmer Rouge dissident. According to R.J. Rummel; the Vietnamese invasion, occupation, puppet regime, ongoing guerilla warfare, and ensuing famine killed over one million Cambodians in addition to the roughly 2.2 million who had been killed by the Khmer Rouge.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP4.HTM</ref> Ironically; the largest resistance movement fighting Cambodia's communist government was largely made up of members of the former Khmer Rouge regime, whose human rights record was among the worst of the 20th century. Therefore; Reagan authorized the provision of aid to a smaller Cambodian resistance movement, a coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, known as the KPNLF and then run by Son Sann; in an effort to force an end to the Vietnamese occupation. Eventually, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell.<ref>[http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1988/february/Sa13957.htm "Cambodia at a Crossroads," by Michael Johns, ''The World and I'' magazine, February 1988.]</ref> Later, US troops, in concert with UN forces, invaded Cambodia and held free elections.<ref name="UN_SRES7451992">{{UN document |docid=S-RES-745(1992) |type=Resolution |body=Security Council |year=1992 |resolution_number=745 |accessdate=2008-04-09|date=28 February 1992}}</ref>
The Reagan Administration sought to apply the [[Reagan Doctrine]] of aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements abroad to Cambodia, which was under Vietnamese occupation following the [[Cambodian genocide]] carried out by the Communist [[Khmer Rouge]]. The Vietnamese had installed a Communist dictatorship led by a Khmer Rouge dissident. According to R.J. Rummel; the Vietnamese invasion, occupation, puppet regime, ongoing guerilla warfare, and ensuing famine killed over one million Cambodians in addition to the roughly 2.2 million who had been killed by the Khmer Rouge.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP4.HTM</ref> Ironically; the largest resistance movement fighting Cambodia's communist government was largely made up of members of the former Khmer Rouge regime, whose human rights record was among the worst of the 20th century. Therefore; Reagan authorized the provision of aid to a smaller Cambodian resistance movement, a coalition called the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, known as the KPNLF and then run by Son Sann; in an effort to force an end to the Vietnamese occupation. Eventually, the Vietnamese withdrew, and Cambodia's Communist regime fell.<ref>[http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1988/february/Sa13957.htm "Cambodia at a Crossroads," by Michael Johns, ''The World and I'' magazine, February 1988.]</ref> Later, US troops, in concert with UN forces, invaded Cambodia and held free elections.<ref name="UN_SRES7451992">{{UN document |docid=S-RES-745(1992) |type=Resolution |body=Security Council |year=1992 |resolution_number=745 |accessdate=2008-04-09|date=28 February 1992}}</ref>
===Nicaragua 1981-90===
After seizing power in Nicaragua, the Sandinista regime instituted dictatorial rule as early as December 1979, and formally announced a State of Emergency in 1982.
Under the new "Law for the Maintenance of Order and Public Security" the "Tribunales Populares Anti-Somozistas" allowed for the indefinite holding of suspected counter-revolutionaries without trial. The State of Emergency, however, most notably affected rights and guarantees contained in the "Statute on Rights and Guarantees of Nicaraguans. Many civil liberties were curtailed or canceled such as the freedom to organize demonstrations, the inviolability of the home, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and, the freedom to strike. <ref>West, W. Gordon. "The Sandista Record on Human Rights in Nicaragua (1979-1990)" http://www.reds.msh-paris.fr/publications/revue/pdf/ds22/ds022-03.pdf (PDF). Réseau Européen Droit et Société. Retrieved 2009-03-30.</ref>
All independent news program broadcasts were suspended. In total, twenty-four programs were cancelled. In addition, Sandinista censor Nelba Cecilia Blandón issued a decree ordering all radio stations to hook up every six hours to government radio station, La Voz de La Defensa de La Patria.<ref>Chomorro Cardenal, Jaime (1988). La Prensa, The Republic of Paper. University Freedom House. p. 20.</ref>
The rights affected also included certain procedural guarantees in the case of detention including habeas corpus.<ref>West, W. Gordon, ibid.</ref> The State of Emergency was not lifted during the 1984 elections. There were many instances where rallies of opposition parties were physically broken up by Sandinsta youth or pro-Sandinista mobs. Opponents to the State of Emergency argued its intent was to crush resistance to the FSLN. James Wheelock justified the actions of the Directorate by saying "... We are annulling the license of the false prophets and the oligarchs to attack the revolution.” <ref>"Behind the State of Emergency". Envío. November 1985. http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/3413. Retrieved 2008-02-16.</ref>
Jamie Glazov describes human rights under this goverment as follows: "All Nicaraguans had to take part in the Marxist experiment. Thus, in perfect Khmer Rouge style, the Sandinistas inflicted a ruthless forcible relocation of tens of thousands of Indians from their land. Like Stalin, they used state-created famine as a weapon against these "enemies of the people." The Sandinista army committed myriad atrocities against the Indian population, killing and imprisoning approximately 15,000 innocent people. The crimes included not only mass murders of innocent natives themselves, but a calculated liquidation of their entire leadership – as the Soviet army had perpetrated against the Poles in Katyn in 1943. According to the Nicaraguan Commission of Jurists, the Sandinistas carried out over 8,000 political executions within three years of the revolution. The number of "anti-revolutionary" Nicaraguans who had "disappeared" in Sanadinista hands or had died "trying to escape" were numbered in the thousands. By 1983, the number of political prisoners in the Sandinistas' ruthless tyranny were estimated at 20,000. Torture was institutionalized. Numerous human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the United Nations Human Rights Commission, have documented the atrocious record of Sandinista human rights abuses, which stood as the worst in Latin America. Political prisoners in Sandinista prisons, such as in Las Tejas, were consistently beaten, deprived of sleep and tortured with electric shocks. They were routinely denied food and water and kept in dark cubicles that had a surface of less than one square meter, known as chiquitas (little ones). These cubicles were too small to sit up in, were completely dark and had no sanitation and almost no ventilation.”<ref>http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=25257</ref>
The Sandinistas sent Soviet helicopter gunships and elite army units to attack the Indians; carried out mass arrests, jailings and torture; burned down 65 Indian communities; inflicted ethnic cleansing on 70,000 Indians; and tried to starve the Indians by cutting off food supplies. The Sandinistas boasted that they were “ready to eliminate the last Miskito Indian to take Sandinism to the Atlantic Coast.” <ref>Roger Miranda and William Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua (Transaction Publishers, 1993), pp253-4.</ref>
For decades, Nicaragua had experienced some of the fastest economic growth in the hemisphere. Within a few years of Sandinista rule, wages had been fixed below poverty level and there was mass unemployment. There were shortages of nearly all basic goods, with inflation at 30,000%. Government studies found that three-quarters of schoolchildren suffered from malnutrition, while living standards were lower than Haiti. The World Bank found that Nicaragua was on the economic level of Somalia.
From 1981-90, the CIA aids the Contra revolution, plants harbor mines and sinks civilian ships to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. After the Boland Amendment was enacted, it became illegal under U.S. law to fund the Contras; National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Deputy National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter, National Security Council staffer Col. Oliver North and others continued an illegal operation to fund the Contras, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal. The U.S argued that:<ref>"Nicaragua's role in revolutionary internationalism". U.S. Department of State Bulletin. 1986.</ref>
<blockquote>
The United States initially provided substantial economic assistance to the Sandinista-dominated regime. We were largely instrumental in the OAS action delegitimizing the Somoza regime and laying the groundwork for installation for the new junta. Later, when the Sandinista role in the Salvadoran conflict became clear, we sought through a combination of private diplomatic contacts and suspension of assistance to convince Nicaragua to halt its subversion. Later still, economic measures and further diplomatic efforts were employed to try to effect changes in Sandinista behavior.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Nicaragua's neighbors have asked for assistance against Nicaraguan aggression, and the United States has responded. Those countries have repeatedly and publicly made clear that they consider themselves to be the victims of aggression from Nicaragua, and that they desire United States assistance in meeting both subversive attacks and the conventional threat posed by the relatively immense Nicaraguan Armed Forces.
</blockquote>
Due to US pressure, the Sandinistas held a blatantly rigged<ref>Martin Kriele, “Power and Human Rights in Nicaragua,” German Comments, April 1986, pp56-7, 63-7, a chapter excerpted from his Nicaragua: Das blutende Herz Amerikas (Piper, 1986). See also Robert S. Leiken, “The Nicaraguan Tangle,” New York Review of Books, December 5, 1985 and “The Nicaraguan Tangle: Another Exchange,” New York Review of Books, June 26, 1986; Alfred G. Cuzan, Letter, Commentary, December 1985 and “The Latin American Studies Association vs. the United States,” Academic Questions, Summer 1994.</ref> election in 1984. On October 5, 1985 the Sandinistas broadened the 1982 State of Emergency and suspended many more civil rights. A new regulation also forced any organization outside of the government to first submit any statement it wanted to make public to the censorship bureau for prior censorship.<ref>Chamorro Cardenal, Jaime (1988). La Prensa, A Republic of Paper, Freedom House, p. 23.</ref>
As the Contras continued to advance due to US aid, the Sandinistas struggled to maintain power. They were overthrown in 1990, when they ended the SOE and held an election that all the main opposition parties were allowed to compete in. According to P.J. O'Rourke, the Sandinistas were forced to agree to the elections by the US and the Contras, and lost them despite "the unfair advantages of using state resources for party ends, the Sandinista control of the transit system that prevented UNO supporters from attending rallies, the Sandinista domination of the army that forced soldiers to vote for Ortega and the Sandinista bureaucracy keeping $3.3 million of U.S. campaign aid from getting to UNO while Daniel Ortega spent millions donated by overseas people and millions and millions more from the Nicaraguan treasury.”<ref>“The Return of the Death of Communism: Nicaragua, February 1990," a chapter in Give War a Chance... by P. J. O'Rourke. Grove Press; reprint edition (November 2003, ISBN 0-8021-4031-9).</ref>
===CIA as Research and Evaluation for Congressional Committees===
===CIA as Research and Evaluation for Congressional Committees===