Dora Maria Tellez - Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?

I sat in the car talking with my wife when the NPR station ran the story about former Sandinista leader Dora Maria Tellez, and her denied student visa.

The Divinity School at Harvard University offered her a position to teach a class on Nicaragua and the Sandinista aftermath, as well as a seminar on Caribbean identity. Ms. Tellez has visited the U.S. on numerous occasions to travel, teach, attend conferences, and conduct official business. After the successful overthrow of their dictatorship, Ms. Tellez was appointed as the minister of health in the first elected Sandinista administration. The rift between the U.S. and Nicaragua blew open when the Iran/Contra scandal broke - exposing the covert efforts by Reagan's Executive Branch to circumvent express Congressional orders to cease interference with Nicaraguan politics. Reagan and his staff continued to support the bloody dictatorship of the Somoza regime because they saw it as holding back a "red tide" of left-leaning Sandinistas. After Congress had explicitly barred the Executive Branch from selling weapons (or even giving them away) to governments or guerrillas in Latin America, the Executive Branch orchestrated an elaborate quid pro quo deal to secretly supply weapons to Iran, in exchange for money channeled to the contras in Nicaragua.

Ms. Tellez led a guerrilla movement in 1978 that eventually succeeded in overthrowing the Somoza regime. At one point, she was "Commander 2" when a group took over the National Palace, held 2,000 government officials hostage, and demanded free elections and a cessation of human rights abuses. This stand-off marked the turning point and beginning of the end for the Somoza regime.

Heralded as a liberation fighter, and a hero among the masses, Ms. Tellez served her people as the minister of health, and later became a prominent historian - an expert in Latin American Political History.

Although the State Department refuses to divulge the details of individual visa determinations, the letter sent to her quoted a section of the law that bans visas for anyone who "has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily injury, incited terrorist activity." This part of U.S. immigration law is just one of myriad provisions revised under the USA Patriot Act. This and other hastily-drawn-up provisions have caused problems for universities trying to hire or invite foreign scholars.

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As I sat there listening, I said aloud, "Under that standard, George Washington, Paul Revere, and the entire Boston Tea Party gang would be barred from entry into this country!" At that instant, the commentator noted that the standard would likely apply to many of our forefathers.

In fact, the "Revolutionary" war was in its essence, a war of rebellion, and in its tactics, a guerrilla war. Knowing their inferiority to the British Troops, the militia fighters resorted to covert violence to throw off the yoke of the British Crown.

While I understand the old adage that "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist;" this seems both ridiculous, and counterproductive. I obviously think that Ms. Tellez ought to come in and teach our young people what it is like to oppose a violent regime; about what it means to defend your right to vote and to be free from fear; and I think we all should listen to her tell what it was like to be on the receiving end of U.S. Cold War Politics in Latin America. We credit Ronald Reagan with surmounting the Soviet Union - but we ignore the cost (in lives) to those who suffered in the several "proxy" conflicts that were integral to the "containment" of Communism.

I observe a few things about this piece of unfortunate news.

First, we must be clear about whom it is that we intend to keep from our midst with the Patriot Act, and our counter-terrorism legislation. We send the wrong signal to the world when we bury our heads in the sand and refuse to think clearly about individual cases like Ms. Tellez. Furthermore, this incident is not isolated; the sweep of our counter-terror response has been too broad. Now, with some time to sort things out, we should reconsider the lines, and add an ability to be more precise in our exclusion of foreigners. Making friends is the key to peace - not isolationism. Our porous borders will always leak - and we must rely on our outreach, rather than our grip, on others for security.

Second, what are we teaching Americans with acts like this? Take Mr. Bobby Fischer (another unfortunate public relations debacle) - who broke U.S. sanctions against Yugoslavia to compete in a Chess Tournament in 1992. When he turned up in Japan, they arrested him and sought to extradite him to the U.S. for trial on criminal charges that could land him in jail for 20 years. This is the same man who fought the war against Communism on the chessboard in front of the world - defeating the best player the U.S.S.R. could produce - at the height of the Cold War. What thanks do we give, but an extradition order? Sure, he is adamantly un-American now; and publicly decries the U.S. and all it does; he is fiercely anti-Semitic, and appears to struggle emotionally; but if he has no desire to return to the U.S. ought why not to let him be?

These policies and decisions teach American children the very same lack of understanding and cultural imperialism that we decry in the terrorists we pursue around the world. After 9/11, we complained that extremist terrorists simply "didn't understand" what Americans were really about - that if they only understood that we don't seek their annihilation, and do not seek to dominate the Arab world - that they would no longer feel the need to attack us. President Bush has, on more than one occasion, accused extreme elements of Islam of lacking proper tolerance for a diversity of opinion. The "War on Terror" is supposedly about promoting the freedom to think and the democracy that protects that freedom. It is this freedom and this democracy that Ms. Dora Maria Tellez so bravely risked her own life to obtain - and she succeeded!

Maybe the folks at the State Department and the White House ought to get out of their plush offices and walk the 1.5 blocks to the Korean War Memorial at the foot of the Lincoln Monument. Inscribed on the wall is a quote: "Freedom is not Free." If that is true (and it is), then Dora Maria Tellez deserves a Hero's welcome, not a red stamp reading "denied."