Twisting Arms

Debate over a draft

White-gloved guards goose-stepped up to the monument commemorating their nation's most venerated martyr. Then Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra and Interior Minister Tomas Borge Martinez laid a single wreath on the tomb of Revolutionary Hero Carlos Fonseca Amador. Two dozen grammar school students, clad in denim shifts or designer jeans, shook their fists and cried, "The Yanquis will die!" before breaking into bashful giggles as adults smiled their approval. Finally, a high school marching band tramped loudly up to the monument, throwing a gaggle of preschoolers into disarray. As some toddlers cringed, while others sucked their thumbs, teachers urged their little charges to ball their fists and punch the air in time to the martial strains.

Nicaragua's youth has become the focus of an increasingly tense struggle between zealots in the ruling Sandinista movement and those less eager to support the Marxist-led revolution. The trouble has been building since the government announced that all men between the ages of 17 and 22 would be required to register for armed service. Those who refused ran the risk of being imprisoned for up to two years, while anyone who employed an unregistered man was liable to heavy fines. Nonetheless, only 100,000 people, half of those eligible, signed up.

In large part, it thus fell to the 25,000-strong "Sandinista Youth" to improve the statistics. Searching restaurants, pouncing on moviegoers and stopping public buses, they assaulted recalcitrant males, verbally and sometimes physically, to boost registration. Meanwhile, pro-Sandinista professors threatened unregistered students with expulsion from school. Said a nervous student: "If I disagreed with them [the Sandinista Youth], I would be lynched. If not lynched, I would be denounced as a counterrevolutionary."

Such strong-arm tactics have intensified the anxieties of the Roman Catholic Church, to which 90% of Nicaraguans belong. The church has refused to endorse enforced participation in an army that, it feels, is indistinguishable from the ruling party. It has spearheaded a campaign for conscientious objection, maintaining that no Nicaraguan should be punished for withholding his support from the Sandinistas. In response, Sandinista-run mobs have vandalized twelve churches, canceled processions and occasionally forced the postponement of Masses. Eight young Catholics, accused of organizing antidraft protests, were arrested by authorities at gunpoint; two priests were deported on the same charge.

After a meeting between the governing junta and the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Ortega declared with satisfaction that "the church would never side with any invaders." But it does not follow that the church, and the reluctant draftees it supports, will necessarily side with the government. At the Fonseca memorial, Sandinista National Directorate Member Victor Manuel Tirado-Lopez issued an ominous warning. "Anyone who acts like a counterrevolutionary," he thundered, "will be dealt with accordingly. Even if he wears a clergyman's habit."

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