Government Lawyers Drink Illegal Brew
In May 1985, President Ronald Reagan declared Nicaragua to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and established a trade embargo.
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Reagan renewed the embargo on April 25, despite the Central American peace accords.
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Protesters say the embargo violates international law. A committee of the Organization of American States voted in 1985 to declare the embargo illegal, but it was late at night and there was no quorum, so the vote didn’t count. The issue has been thrown out of U.S. federal court because it’s been judged a political question. Karl Meyer and other protesters want U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas to declare the embargo illegal, on the grounds that the embargo law contains language prohibiting the dissemination of false information. Meyer says the Nicaraguan embargo is based on false information.
U.S. Attorney Valukas was out of town when the coffee delegation visited his office. His staff found them to be “very nice people,” he said, but he cannot declare the embargo illegal; his job, he pointed out, is to represent the government, not attack it. Valukas would not reveal whether he plans to indict the coffee smugglers, but he did say, “If I were them I wouldn’t wait at home to be arrested.”
