Speech #990024347

And if we are not going to provide the aid necessary for the Contras to keep military pressure on the Sandlnistas. then we must convert that aid to a form which will permit the organization of an effective. legitimate political opposition internationally recognized as a counterweight to the Sandinistas. It must be an opposition which represents the true ideals of the original Nicaraguan revolution. and not the subsequent theft and perversion of that revolution by the Sandinista police state. We cannot vote today for a measure that will turn tens of thousands of freedomloving Nicaraguans into stateless refugees. into an equivalent of the boat people of the 1970s. We cannot vote for a measure which will permanently extinguish the desire to be free on the part of the people of Nicaragua. If we do not fashion a solution which combines effective aid to a legitimate opposition. and effective moral. political. and economic sanctions to the Sandinistas if they fail to represent the legitimate aspirations of the Nicaraguan people. then we have not only failed our American neighbors. but we have failed our constitutents.