Demo Blasts U.S. Nicaragua Policy

In a sparsely attended "emergency demonstration" yesterday, members of Spartacus Youth League (SYL) carried placards and made speeches denouncing United States foreign policy in Nicaragua.

Held on the steps of Memorial Church, the rally drew a crowd of 35 and several hecklers from freshmen dorms.

"We want to make it clear that Nicaragua is only the front of Reagan's war drive that is aimed at destroying the gains of the Russian revolution," said Thomas N. Crean '86, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Friends of the SYL.

"I admire the Sparts for what they are doing. It's important to make the point now while people are being paralyzed by the propaganda Reagan is putting out," said Ralph G. Vetter 8' refering to the rumored MiGs aboard Nicaragua-bound Soviet freighters.

Several freshmen heckled the rally from their Weld and Thayer dorm rooms in defense of US policy.

"They (the SYL) are obscuring the issue. The way they are demonstrating makes it seem like a joke," said Jonathon S. Steuer '88.

At a meeting held by the Committee on Central America (COCA) this week about 30 activists voted to organize a November 29 rally opposing US contra intervention in Nicaragua.

However, attending SYL members voted against the post-Thanksgiving demonstration and organized yesterday's rally because, they said, the "imminent invasion" of Nicaragua by the US called for quick action.

"We needed time to build a large demonstration and to get speakers," said Tom A. Bunch, a biology graduate student and member of COCA, who had hoped to wait until after the Yale football game and the Thanksgiving holiday to stage the first full-fledged rally.

SYL members said they would attend the November 20 rally where Bllss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack Jr. is scheduled to speak. The demonstration's organizers also plan to invite Melvin H. King, 1983 Boston mayoral candidate Garlos Fuentes, nobel laureate and visiting professor of comparative languages and literatures; and Howard Zinn, history professor at Boston University, to speak at the rally.