diately following the revolution, also cooled after the Jamaican government changed hands in 1980.

Mexico, however, remained a steadfast and important ally. President José López Portillo warned Reagan, even before his inauguration, that Mexico would view any intervention by the United States in Central American affairs as an unfriendly act. The warning was sounded on behalf of opponents of the military-dominated governments of El Salvador and Guatemala as well as on behalf of Nicaragua's new government.

Nicaragua became embroiled in a territorial dispute with Colombia in February 1980. The Nicaraguan government at that time declared the Barcenas Meneses-Esquerra Treaty of 1928 to be invalid in that it was signed while Nicaragua was under United States military occupation. Under the terms of that treaty Nicaragua had turned over to Colombia the San Andrés and Providencia islands and their surrounding keys, located off Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Colombia refused a Nicaraguan request to submit the dispute to the World Court. There were heated exchanges between the two countries, but diplomatic relations were maintained.

The only Latin American countries which severed diplomatic relations with Nicaragua following the change in government were Bolivia and Paraguay. Bolivia broke off relations after Nicaragua proposed that the OAS sanction Bolivia for the military coup d'etat carried out by General Luis García Meza in mid-1980. The Paraguayan government severed relations when Nicaragua presented to it a petition for the extradition of Somoza who resided in Asunción until his assassination in September 1980.

Nicaragua's most serious problems in Latin America have been with the three governments to the north, in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Nicaragua denounced the repression carried out by the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala against their own people and expressed its solidarity with the insurrectionary forces in those countries. The Salvadoran government, in turn, accused Nicaragua of aiding the Salvadoran rebels. United States government officials indicated that a sizable amount of arms were transported through Nicaragua to the Salvadoran guerrillas between October 1980 and February 1981.

Continuous friction with Honduras was even more threatening. Several thousand members of Somoza's Guard who had escaped into exile remained encamped in southern Honduras and allegedly launched intermittent armed incursions across the border into Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan government charged that these former Guardsmen were also attempting to foment insurrection among the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast (see Threats to National Security, ch. 5).

Armed clashes along the Honduran-Nicaraguan border escalated sharply in the spring of 1981, resulting in the closing of the

border in late April. Demonstrations against war preparations in the Honduran capital on May Day and the reiteration by López Portillo on May 10 of Mexico's commitment to defend Nicaragua against any aggression were believed to have had a restraining effect on the Honduran military. On May 13 Honduran President Policarpo Paz García and Daniel Ortega, coordinator of the Nicaraguan junta, met at the border post of El Guasale to discuss means of averting war. Future meetings were planned at that time for the foreign and defense ministers of the two countries.

Extra-Hemispheric Relations

Prior to the revolution Nicaragua's relations with countries outside the Western Hemisphere had been limited and virtually inconsequential. The revolutionary government, however, had both ideological and practical reasons for attempting to maximize its global ties. Such outreach reflected its expressed solidarity with Third World countries and its interest in bridging the gap between East and West. Furthermore, from a practical standpoint the new government needed all the support, both diplomatic and material, that it could muster.

By the end of 1980 the new government's International Reconstruction Fund had negotiated low-interest, long-term loans amounting to more than US$200 million from several international lending agencies, including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. Foreign governments contributing concessionary loans or other forms of assistance included the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Libya, and Taiwan.

Although diplomatic relations were maintained with Taiwan, the new government moved to establish commercial ties with China. Elsewhere in Asia, particularly warm relations were established with Vietnam and India.

A number of African countries were viewed as having similar histories and common aspirations. Daniel Ortega attended Zimbabwe's 1980 independence ceremony, and formal relations were established with a number of African countries including Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Algeria, and Libya.

In the spring of 1981, while the remainder of the appropriated United States loan was in suspension, the government of Libya extended to Nicaragua a loan of US$100 million. United States displeasure at the announcement of the Libyan loan set in relief one of Nicaragua's most vexing dilemmas. Its economic needs were such that in the absence of United States assistance it had to seek aid from every feasible source. Acceptance of aid from coun

tries the United States considered unfriendly, however, made future United States aid all the more unlikely.

Nicaragua's relations with the Soviet Union were cordial and materially beneficial, though not, it appeared, without diplomatic cost. There was disappointment among nonaligned as well as Western nations when in 1980 Nicaragua twice abstained on United States-sponsored United Nations resolutions denouncing the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The Nicaraguan government explained, however, that although it disapproved of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, it feared that strong support for the resolution would encourage the United States to increase military involvement in its own region.

Material aid from the Soviet Union was initially meager. When the United States, in the spring of 1981, canceled a US$9.6 million credit to Nicaragua for the purchase of wheat, however, the Soviet Union came to the country's aid with a donation of more than 20,000 tons of wheat. This transaction was facilitated by the Reagan administration's decision to lift the grain embargo that had been imposed by the Carter administration on the Soviet Union. Bulgaria also donated some 10,000 tons of wheat to Nicaragua, and East Germany was added to the list of wheat donors in May 1981.

The most comprehensive treatment of the political forces shaping and shaped by the Nicaraguan revolution and the programs of the new government is found in Nicaragua in Revolution, edited by Thomas W. Walker. Walker's Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino and Thomas P. Anderson's Politics under the Volcanoes: Government and Violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua are also among the best general sources on the revolution and the new Nicaragua up to mid-1980. Richard Fagen's thoughtful study, The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Personal Report, brings the coverage up to early 1981.

Among the periodicals that are most helpful in following the dynamics of contemporary Nicaraguan politics are the Central America Report, published by Inforpress Centroamericana of Guatemala City; the Latin America Weekly Report, published by the Latin American Newsletters of London and Latin America Update, published by the Washington Office on Latin America. (For further information see Bibliography.)