bout de papier, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1985) — Winter 1985 // Hiver 1985, pp. 28–30
David Kilgour on “Nicaragua: Revolu-
tion in the Family” by Shirley Christian
— 337 pp.
See replan on Pental Americ Her book on Nicaragua provides a largely 1981 for her reporting on Central America. Eye-witness account of events there since July 1979 and before; the result is to set the record straight on most of the major issues.
She describes a troubled political history, including a war fought with real bullets between adherents of Nicaragua’s Conservative and Liberal parties. Augusto Sandino, a Liberal general, rejected a cease-fire acceptable to virtually everyone else and went into the mountains with some troops in 1927. He then became essentially a bandit but as well a favourite of circles in New York, Mexico and Europe until he demobilized his remaining troops in 1933. After he was murdered by the National Guard a year later, which was by then under the control of Anastasio Somoza Garcia, he was again the stuff of legends.
Between 1936, I when Somoza I was elected president on the Nationalist Liberal Party ticket, and July 1979 Nicaragua belonged lock, stock and barrel to the Somoza family and a group of cronies. Their eventual nemesis, the Sandinista National Front, which was founded by three young leftists in 1961, in reality presented only a minor threat until shortly before its triumph. The real opposition was led by the newspaper La Prenza of the Chamorro family, the private industry council (COSIP) which broke with the Somozas in 1974, and the Roman Catholic bishops who in 1974 accused the National Guard of killing more than 200 farmers as part of a campaign to wipe out the Sandinistas. At the opportune moment, however, the Sandinistas were able to recruit essentially moderate Nicaraguans influenced by these major national players into supporting a violent toppling of the regime.
A series of events in the late 1970’s opened the door. One was the heart attack in 1977 of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who had succeeded his assassinated father as president in 1956. Another was the growing perception in Nicaragua after the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 that the new U.S. President wanted Samoza II out. The brutal murder of Pedro Chamorro in 1978 — most probably not on the orders of the weakened Samoza who knew the killing would do him more harm than good — evoked a huge outpouring of anti-Samoza rage and united opposition forces across Nicaragua. Tragically, argues Christian, an egregiously ill-timed letter from Jimmy Carter to Samoza in mid-1978 convinced the dictator that the American president wanted him to stay in office even as the momentum for change in Nicaragua was being seized by the violent wing of the opposition.
Carter was fully aware during late 1978 that the Samoza regime was collapsing and that, in Christian’s words, “if something were not done to get Samoza out of the way in order to bring in the moderate opposition, the crumbling would create a vacuum in which the radicals would take control. Carter understood (U.S. career diplomat William) Bowdler’s point, but he also understood that it mean the U.S. would be telling another country what kind of government it ought to have, and that he would be telling another sitting president that he had to leave”. When nothing was done to help the democrats, the Sandinistas eventual victory was inevitable once they managed to obtain sufficient arms from the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica.
Sandini as are anxists. Trys beth otters evidence for the view that rather than being pushed in that direction by the U.S., their leadership intended to establish a Marxist- Leninist system from the hour they marched into Managua. “Their goal”, she concludes, “was to assure themselves the means to control nearly every aspect of Nicaraguan life, from beans and rice to religion”. The leadership initially formed an “alliance of convenience” with non-Marxist opponents of Somoza, but this was designed to buy time and avoid U.S. intervention.
The Sandinista approach to elections, religion, the Moskito Indians and workers illustrate their goals.
In late 1980 their National Directorate announced that there would be no elections until 1985. Humberto Ortega, brother of Daniel Ortega, then went on: “Keep in mind that [ours] are elections to advance revolutionary power, not to raffle off power, because the people [already] have power through their vanguard, the Sandinista Front of National Liberation and its National Directorate”
In the intervening years, much was done to make life difficult if not impossible for opposition parties, including decrees prohibiting the naming of candidates for public office prior to 1984 and forbidding the media from unapproved reporting on such things as shortages or price rises in basic food items, shootings involving opponents of the regime, strikes, property takeovers, and “political proselytizing”; and the conviction and imprisonment of civilians for allegedly plotting against the government. Daniel Ortega was elected president on November
4, 1984, with 67 per cent of the votes cast and about three-quarters of the eligible voters voting. Nearly half the eligible voters denied their support to him through either voting for another party, abstaining or defacing ballots. The regime, however, controlled the election machinery, the media (although censorship was eased during the campaign) and, as the author notes, “the food that went on every table in Nicaragua for every meal.” Arturo Cruz, who led a strong opposition coalition, drew enthusiastic crowds; the Sandinistas sent mobs to attack all of their rallies. Eventually, Cruz withdrew after an attempt to negotiate fair election conditions proved unsuccessful.
The challenge to the traditional churches among a religious population was more subtle. The Roman Catholic leadership, initially a key player in overthrowing Samoza, quickly came to realize that the Sandinista religious messages were merely new ways to an old end: the destruction of Christianity or its subjugation to Marxism. Once in power, the Sandinistas created, says the author, “a form of the Popular Church in Nicaragua, or more precisely a pro-government branch of the Roman Catholic Church”. “. A secret Sandinista document said, for example, about Christmas: “To confront a tradition of more than 1,979 years in a direct manner, in these moments, less than five months after the triumph, would carry us into political conflicts and we would lose influence among our people” and concluded that since the Soviet government had not “totally eradicated” the Christmas tradition in 62 years it would be foolish to attempt such a thing so soon in Nicaragua. She also points out that the Valdivieso Centre in Nicaragua, most of whose publications consist of writing on liberation theology, the memoirs of Sandinista guerrillas, and the works of Marx, Lenin and Engels, received funding during several years, including $50,000 in 1983 alone, from the World Council of Churches. The treatment of Pope John Paul Il while in Managua in 1983 is discussed along with the degree of popular support for the traditional and Popular Churches.
The author documents the treatment of Moskito Indians, who lived in relative peace in the Atlantic Coast region during the pre- Sandinista era. The arrival of a 1,000 Cuban teachers during 1980 to replace Protestant and Catholic, erupted in a three-day demonstration against their partisanship and anti-religion zeal. The arrival of an estimated 7,000 Sandinista troops in early 1981, the killing of Moskitos in a church and elsewhere by these troops, and the forced relocation of about 8,500 Indians only aggravated the situation. The author estimates that by 1984 more than 25,000 natives were in exile with at least another 20,000 being forcibly resettled in camps within Nicaragua.
It is clear to Christian that it was the economic and political establishment, not farmers and workers, who made it possible for the Sandinistas to seize power in 1979. The new regime has since confiscated more than a third of all farmland on various pretences, including criticism of the government by owners. They also made it clear that they would have liked to have taken all of the land, but for their 1979 commitment to retain private ownership and from fear that output would suffer from even greater state control. Organized workers found that the Sandinistas forbade both strikes and wage increases for the most part. Members of non-Sandinista unions were harassed in various ways: taxi drivers were denied licences, local leaders were frequently jailed, and mobs of Sandinista militants were periodically turned loose on their headquarters and homes of their leaders. The Nicaragua Workers’ Federation complained in late 1982 that the regime was “gradually and systematically eliminating the rights and liberties of the workers and the people …”
What are some conclusions to be drawn from this book? We might be more cautious about the objectivity of media reports originating in Nicaragua. Second, future Canadian aid to Nicaragua should be directed primarily to people, groups and institutions now under seige in Nicaragua. Third, in the interest of avoiding another Nicaragua, it seems important that all democratic governments in positions to influence events in the Third World make every effort to encourage democratic development and pluralism where invited to do so. Fourth, outsiders should in future not presume to comment on events in Nicaragua unless they have first read Christian’s book.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1985) — Winter 1985 // Hiver 1985, pp. 28–30. Read the rest of this issue →
