Americas Watch Report

Outside activist groups, though sometimes anti-Reagan, provided an alternative to his myth. Americas Watch Report published a write up on the state of human rights in Nicaragua in 1985 that painted a different picture then the one Reagan painted. While this group was aligned against Reagan, this perspective is still important as it allow us to understand that the truth was likely somewhere in between this and what Reagan was saying. The main message of this document was that the Sandinista government was improving considerably. The group reported that ““The government of Nicaragua has in fact prosecuted security agents and soldiers for human rights abuses… something which has not occurred in El Salvador, Guatemala, or any other military-run …show more content…
In 1983 the U.S. Nicaraguan embassy sent a telegram reporting that the Contras had attacked a car carrying journalists, some of whom were Americans . Then in September of 1984 the Coordinadora, a U.S. friendly conservative coalition political group in Nicaragua, “…formally condemned the recent Contra assault on a military truck carrying relatives to visit soldier…” . The Contras were even charged with attacking Miskito Indians by the America’s Watch report . The compilation of these events and documents show that disillusion with the Contras was prevalent on both sides of the political dialogue in Nicaragua, and that the Reagan administration seemingly ignored these instances so as not to hurt the groups image. The Contras were pushed forward as a force for democracy and peace by Reagan, but that was often not clear from their …show more content…
Most of the documents used above were from the U.S. government, and therefore it cannot be said that they were not familiar with most of the issues which they were ignoring in the region, such as the Contra’s questionable use of violence. Stephen Rabe diagnoses the seeming disconnect as being a sign that “Ideological correctness meant more than competence”, and goes on to talk about the lack of experience and knowledge of Reagan’s Latin America team . This charge is seemingly backed up then by a story published in the New York Times in September of 1984 revolving around the resignation of John R. Horton, a senior Latin America analyst, over his refusal to “…revise a report on Mexico so it would support Reagan administration policy…” . A lack of information cannot be used as a defense for the myth that Reagan was pushing regarding Nicaragua, but it may be that this information was just willfully ignored or brushed over to fit policy objectives and