Nicaraguan Envoy Says U.S. Is Imperiling Sandinist Gains

The Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States said last night that his country would overcome the threats of foreign intervention and a declining world economy, and that it would maintain what he called a democratic mixed economy.

Speaking to a supportive crowd of 300 at the institute of Politics Forum. Ambassador Francisco Fiallos Navarros said that his country is "facing our most serious crisis, the threat of foreign intervention" from the United States. He added, however, that "any external attempt to impose models on Nicaragua is bound to fail because the nation has its own reality."

Over the past two years, President Reagan has charged Nicaragua with exporting Marxist revolution throughout Central America. Some have accused the U.S. of training Nicaraguan exiles and former National Guardsmen for an overthrow of the Sandinist Government.

Drawing sustained applause from the audience, Fiallos said the Sandinist Government had made significant progress since coming to power in 1979. He noted that literacy has increased from 50 percent to 87 percent, and that the land holdings of the former ruling Government have been parceled out to previously landless peasants.

Fiallos, who received a master's degree from the Law School in 1972, added that his government would try to pursue a mixed economy, attempting to allay U.S. fears that Nicaragua was moving towards a socialist system.

The Ambassador's address was followed by comments from a panel of Latin American experts. Lawrence Harrison, a visiting scholar at the IOP and former director of the Agency for International Developments program in Nicaragua, said that "at the root of the conflict between the U.S. and Nicaragua is the arms flow from Nicaragua to El Salvador."

Challenging Fiallos's claim that Nicaragua is not aligned with the U.S.S.R., Harrison said over hisses, "Nicaragua is infinitely closer to Cuban and Soviet policy than the U.S."