Peace Progress in Nicaragua

Introduction

This essay is primarily aimed at discussing the process of restoring peace in Central America and in particular Nicaragua. Of essence, are the stages that the stakeholders went as well as whatever was being discussed in such stages. The discussion will also unearth the result of this process.             

Having got its current name from the chief of the place who led the tribe of Indian during the time of  the Conquest of the Spanish, Nicaragua first settlers were Spanish in the year 1522(Dirk, p.46).Its  independence  was won  in the year 1838 and  for  almost the  entire  of  the  century that followed,  the  politics of  the Nicaragua were subjugated by fighting for the  power and this was involving two  groups; conservatives as well as Liberals centered or rather operated  in Granada and  Leon city respectively.

The US  on the other hand, in an effort of endorsing  the support of Nicaragua government, which was  in this  case conservative government, it decided to send a small aloofness  of marines for thirteen years from1912 to 1925 to Nicaragua. Bryan-Chomorro treaty is a kind of an agreement that was meant to allow the government of US to construct canal passing through naval bases to Nicaragua. However it ended in 1970. Later on, a conflict emerged in Nicaragua in 1924 and as a result, the US government sent some forces to Nicaragua to mitigate the violence. César Augusto Sandino who was a guerilla boss decided to fight back US marines who were primarily sent to quell the disorder for six years from 1927 to 1933 when they opted to surrender and then withdraw from the fight. The essay now will embark on the peace progress in Nicaragua

Discussion

Initially, there was an  attempt  of  starting the  peace  process in Nicaragua when an  establishment of  international  body  involved in developing policies of  installing peace in Nicaragua was set. However, in an attempt to come up with peace initiatives, the initial efforts were faced by three tribulations, first, the international body meant to oversee the peace in Nicaragua was considered lacking ability because it lacked organizational and political traits requisite to successfully do the work. The second tribulation was that the contra army could not hammer a peace deal due to the fact that it was highly cracked (Skidmore, p.159). There was an alliance between contra army and Chamorro government that could have been a key ingredient but was unfortunately found to be short-lived as well as misleading. However, there was a meeting that was  held between  RN and FSLN held in1988.This stage was very important as  far as peace talks were concerned since it brought together some of the military leaders. The agreement that resulted from this meeting saw the establishment of 60 days cease fire. Again, there was a launch of the meeting regarding demobilization process as well as political reform in Nicaragua.

In 1989, there was an establishment of international agencies. This effort was initiated by OAS and United Nations. The established agency was mandated to oversee the disarmament and also demobilization processes. There was also an establishment of ONUCA which was a UN body given the responsibility of eliminating the troops who were mobilized on the boarders.  In 1990, a big number of troops had been demobilized CIAV had already been given a duty to carryout disarmament in Nicaragua.  

During  the  period  that  started in  1992  to  1996, this  period  is referred to  us  Peace Redux, and it is during this period that the government of the  Chamorro tried to bring back  peace again in Nicaragua by use of three plans. The three employed strategies included the campaign for buying weapons, general periodic amnesties and finally specific groups were given new accords (Dirk, p.50).

In  as  far  as disarmament was concerned,  the  government decided  to buy  weapon from the people (Spalding, p.47). This  would  eventually see  reduction in the  number of  weapons  that were available  or rather in the  hands  of Nicaraguan  countryside. This program of buying arms was to some extent successful due to the attractive premiums which were being offered by the government at the time. A good number of grenades, arms as well as explosives were reported to have been collected by the government between 1992 and 1993 (Skidmore, p.156). This was either done as a formal agreement signed with rearmed forces or through disarmament program. This event was  successful  in as far as an attempt of restoring  peace  in Nicaraguan is  concerned since by the end  of  1993, the arms which  had  remained in the hands of  the  citizen was  now in the  governments hands.

Again, there were treaties regarding the amnesties that were signed and as a result, amnesty was offered three times. This was mainly between 1990 to 1993.This resulted in complaints from the human rights body arguing that the amnesty that was being given to people was a form of impunity (Dirk, p.48). The accords regarding amnesties were identified to be at least 41 new treaties.

Other  treaties with  specific  groups  were  signed  so as  to reinforce  the  second  demobilization. These treaties offered a  wide  range of possessions that would  be  exchanged  with the  second  demobilization  and  these  possessions  included ; title  deeds for  the  settling  of the  forces , vehicles as well as cash  for contra leaders which  facilitated  the government agreements with the contra bands.

Conclusion

The developments that were realized in the 1990s shows that there was a substantial progress in as far as Nicaraguan peace process is concerned. The fact  that  foreigners accorded  them assistance  such  as  lifting their debts  and  also  providing  troops  to  help   in the  process  of  stopping conflicts in Nicaraguan, was  a big step  toward  piece  achievement in this  nation. Also, the treaties or rather the agreements that were sighed between different groups, most of them were successful since they gained their objectives (Spalding, p.56). For instance, the  treaty  for  disarmament saw  the  government buying almost all the  arms which  were in  the  hands of the  people, in spite of the  first effort of demobilizing troops being futile.