817.00/6013
The Minister in Nicaragua (Eberhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 4.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that the operations conducted by the Marines against Sandino and other outlaws in northern Nicaragua have now reached a point where it appears extremely improbable that the outlaws can seriously interfere with either the registration of voters or with the election itself. For several months these outlaws have been confined to the wildest and most sparsely settled sections of Nicaragua and to the equally wild adjacent portions of Honduras, and the Marine patrols have made their movements in these districts more and more difficult. Although they have avoided contact even with small groups of our forces, airplanes and ground patrols have been able to inflict serious damage on them in the few encounters which have recently occurred.
Information received from various sources, including reports from persons who have actually visited the camps of the principal leaders, indicates that the combined strength of the various outlaw groups does not exceed two hundred men, and that these are poorly armed and equipped. For the most part, the bands are now composed of professional bandits and other border ruffians, of the type which has always infested the frontier districts. A recent and apparently reliable report indicates that Sandino’s main force now consists of approximately eighty men.
The situation has changed radically since a year ago, when Sandino was able to terrorize practically the entire area of the Departments of Nueva Segovia, Estelí, and Jinotega, and when a very large part of the population in those and many other districts, not only sympathized with but actively aided the outlaws. Popular sentiment in the Northern provinces is now friendly, rather than hostile, to the Marines, who are finding it far easier than formerly to obtain information and assistance from the inhabitants. More than sixteen hundred persons who were formerly associated with Sandino or one of the other bandit leaders have recently availed themselves of the President’s amnesty proclamation and registered with the authorities as a pledge of future good conduct. The growing conviction that the election would be really free and fair has led many others, who had formerly sympathized with the outlaw movement, to align themselves with the Liberal Nationalist party in order to take part in the presidential campaign. So far as Nicaraguan internal politics are concerned, in fact, the Sandinista movement has lost practically all of its significance.
[Page 589]It must not however be assumed that there is no further possibility that Sandino or other disaffected elements may cause grave embarrassment during the electoral period. Although life and property are probably more secure, and general conditions more peaceful, both in the northern departments and throughout the Republic, than ever before in the history of Nicaragua, it is entirely impossible with any forces which could possibly be made available to prevent the movement of small armed bands in the mountainous country of the North, and it is very probable that such bands will continue to commit depredations and acts of terrorism from time to time. There will even be danger that some of the more remote polling places may be attacked, although every effort has been made to assure their safety. No operations which Sandino could conceivably conduct with his present forces would have any appreciable effect upon the outcome of the election, but the mistreatment of a few voters or a raid on two or three villages might later enable the defeated party to assert that the election had not been held under conditions which enabled it to poll its full vote.
There is in fact some probability that one or the other of the two political parties, if it believes itself likely to lose, will deliberately attempt to create disturbances in the northern departments or in the interior, in an attempt to prevent the holding of the election or to provide an excuse for maintaining that it was invalid. At the present time, when both parties are apparently confident of victory, there is no immediate reason to fear such activities, but one or the other may become discouraged after the results of the registration of voters become known, as each party keeps a careful check on the number of its partisans registering. Even with continued confidence in both parties, furthermore, there will be danger that Conservative or Liberal leaders will foment disturbances in districts where they see a possibility of keeping their opponents from the polls by intimidation. It is hoped that the presence of a large force of Marines and the policing of every town and village in the country by them or by the Guardia Nacional will render such manoeuvers fruitless if they do not altogether prevent them.
I have [etc.]