Notes

A reader of REASON: "I have just read Jack Wheeler's piece 'Fighting the Soviet Imperialists: The New Liberation Movements' (June/July), and I am surprised to find that he included the contras of Nicaragua, after all the documented cases of contra murder, rape, and torture."

Reporter Charles Lane, writing in the May 20 New Republic after a week in Nicaragua: "A woman whom I will call Marta…showed me her most prized possessions: pictures of her 17-year-old son—and photos of his body, in an open casket, his face still caked with dried blood. The young man, a construction worker, was killed when his truck ran over a contra land mine.…

"I sat and waited for her to denounce the contras and the Yanquis. Instead, she vented her anger on the Sandinista regime the contras are trying to overthrow. Why do they refuse to negotiate peace? Why do they send untrained boys to die far from home? Why can her family no longer get rice, milk, meat, or chicken? And why are they always being watched by the CDS, which denies ration coupons to those who complain?…With a tone of resignation, Marta said: 'We were happy when we heard about the revolution. But now we've changed our minds.'"