U.S. EMBASSY DECLARES IN ADVANCE SANDINISTAS RESPONSIBLE FOR VETERAN CASUALTIES DURING PEACE WALK
Harry Bergold
Ambassador to Nicaragua
United States Embassy
Managua, Nicaragua
Dear Ambassador Bergold,
We, the members of the first Veterans Peace Action Team, have completed the first phase of our mission in Nicaragua. We want to share with you what we have seen and heard in the war zones, where United States policy has produced a veritable reign of terror, and to inform you of our plan for an unarmed and undefended peace walk between Jinotega and Wiwili through the Pantasma Valley, beginning Monday, March 23.
February 1, 1987 – 9:50 am
In 1969, I went to Vietnam with the U.S. Air Force. Before going I had believed in the war but intellectually suspected "something was rotten," though nothing prepared me for the graphic insanity I encountered there. This experience transformed me from a war-maker into a wager of peace.
September 1, 1986 – 9:53 am
I and three other veterans of war have decided to embark upon the most important mission of our lives–a fast for life. Once having put our bodies on the line elsewhere in the waging of war, for issues we did not fully or even minimally understand, we now choose to put our bodies on the line here in this country in the waging of peace for issues we possess a clearer understanding of. We do so with a great affirmation for life–all life, whether for Nicaraguans, North Americans, Soviet citizens, etc.
January 1, 1986 – 6:52 am
On this date, I, with other students of the Esteli, Nicaragua NICA language school, met with Garrett Sweeney, Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy. Sweeney, a career State Dept. Foreign Service officer, boasted that there were 20,000 Contras, with 5,000 to 8,000 being in Nicaragua at any one time.
He described four critical factors that would determine the future of Nicaragua (reading from his large briefing book):
