Understanding “Destarilization”: The United States Imperative

The U.S. policy of trying to destabilize the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua violates accepted principles of international law. Based on the long‐standing principles of “humanitarian intervention” of the Nuremberg Judgment and Article 7 o f the U.N. General Assembly's 1974 Definition of Aggression and American traditional acceptance of the principles of natural law, the Nicaraguan intervention in El Salvador may be interpreted as law enforcement. The United States, on the other hand, is not acting on behalf of the international law of human rights in its llcovertll counter‐revolutionary operation in Nicaragua but i s acting to restore repression in Nicaragua. The trouble with U.S. policy in Central America is the Reagan administrationls simplified reliance on the East/West, “free versus nonfree” nations as the only meaningful axis of its foreign policy. This leads to acceptance of the might makes right doctrine and U.S. support for repressive regimes in such places as Guatemala and Haiti. These policies not only are unlawful and contrary toour best political traditions, but are verylikely to fail.