Truth and myth in Nicaragua.

• Author: Lane, Charles

The first thing that impresses you when you visit Nicaragua is the very normality of it all. There, in what you have heard is the latest addition to the Soviet Empire, you step off the plane and encounter a huge blue and white poster proclaiming Nicaragua "Another Diner's Club Country." Dozens of other totems of American culture and commerce appear: the neon lights of a Lincoln-Mercury dealership, a "Land of the Giants" return on TV, a movie theater showing "The Blind Fury of Bruce Lee." It hasn't been so long since we practically owned the place.

And at first it's possible to believe that all this down-home schlock betokens the existence of something even more characteristically American: political pluralism. La Prensa prints bruising anti-Sandinista attacks. Traditional Catholic Masses proceed unmolested. Billboards hailing the Conservative Party decorate the highways ("Free Unions--That's Conservatismo"). An enormous red sign in Managua's middle-class Ciudad Jardin identifies the offices of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI); inside, the party's nine National Assembly delegates rock contentedly in rocking chairs.

But there are other images as well--disturbing signs that six-year-old "Free Nicaragua" may not really be so free. In Leon, Soviet-style billboards exhort Nicaraguans to follow the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) "Vanguard"--an obvious evocation of Leninist ideology. Sandinista graffiti on a law office in Chinandega informs the occupant, "Contra, you are being watched. You are on the list." The Director of La Prensa displays Interior Ministry documents ordering the censoring of 50 percent of that day's news. The young operator of a market stall denounces government harrassment of small businesses and confides that he's considering resisting the military draft. An old woman, complaining about chronic milk shortages which make it difficult to nourish her infant grandchildren, stops when she sees the local respresentative of the Sandinista Defense Committee. "We're afraid to talk," the woman explains.

From liberation to tyranny

In the United States, the conflicting images coming out of Nicaragua have set off a bitter debate. To many liberals, Nicaragua could be just another Diner's Club country. For now, the Sandinistas crack down on political opposition because of the U.S.-sponsored contra war. But the regime's willingness to permit some dissent indicates that an end to American pressure would give Nicaragua the chance to become, if not another Sweden, then at least a left-wing version of Mexico.

to conservatives, however, Nicaragua is already anotehr Cuba, wedded to...