Perspectives on Nicaragua - I: The revolution & democracy:
Meier, Deborah & PiRoman, Rafael
PERSPECTIVES ON NICARAGUA-I The revolution & democracy Deborah Meier and Rafael PiRoman visited Nicaragua early this year. They went as two of the three co-chairs of a delegation from the...
...had even been extremely supportive...
...There is an increasing tendency to call any disagreement counterrevolutionary and to accuse people of being CIA agents if they disagree...
...What isn't compelling, and what is actually frightening, is the argument that they are building a better form of democracy in which elections, as we know them, aren't important...
...But you didn't sense a climate of terror -that is, with stories of people being arrested in the middle of the night, or people disappearing...
...They have literature that speaks out...
...The delegation and the DSA national board did, however, issue strong condemnations of covert American aid to anti-Sandinista military forces...
...imperialism that has been Nicaragua's historical experience...
...Meier: Our guide, who was a Sandinista, came into the meetings -the only meetings he joined us for were the meeting with La Prensa and the meeting with the opposition parties...
...Sometimes things are cut entirely and sometimes the editors are asked to make specific changes -add a word here, leave out a phrase there...
...We met with the entire editorial board, including Violeta Chamorro...
...It's a terrorist and intimidating strategy...
...On one actual test I was given, the student had failed although it was marked passing...
...They would prefer the old system -to be shut down occasionally.What happens now is much more ideological...
...Then the discussion would switch to all kinds of internal problems that would have the same effect -the attempt of the bourgeoisie to reestablish its power, for example.We attempted to raise the question, aren't there dangers, given the history of authoritarian left-wing regimes, in the path you are taking...
...They felt the political "space" to operate in -and they used that word frequently -was continually being narrowed...
...Well, language is a political tool, and the use of this or that word is a way of distorting the truth and fooling the people...
...What claims did the various groups make about popular opinion, for and against the government...
...Meier: The top leadership of the mass-based organizations is apparently not elected...
...Meier: We spent a good bit of time going into bookstores, all of which had more or less the same collection of books-Marxist-Leninism and liberation theology...
...What about specifying particular words to be used or not used...
...PiRoman: At the long meeting with the Secretary General of the CTN, he made the situation sound so bleak that I said, "What you're saying is that Nicaragua is becoming another Cuba...
...It was an intensive three-month period in which all the educated people went out to the countryside...
...They became literate if by literacy you mean an awareness of what's happening in your society as a whole...
...It reflects opposition to Western imperialism generally and specifically to the U.S...
...Meier: While we were visiting the CTN office, a group of bus drivers from the CTN union in Managua came in...
...The question arose around the issues of abortion, birth control, and sex information...
...From Cuba they have learned that they don't want to be totally dependent on one country...
...There were no responses...
...They talk a lot about the lessons of history...
...You didn't see Francois Mitterrand's latest book on sale...
...and, curiously, stories from Costa Rica, specifically stories dealing with the Foreign Minister of Costa Rica...
...it's not easy for them to get their viewpoint across...
...It is led by the three -formerly five-Junta members...
...No, we were told, it was a matter of truth versus non-truth...
...Meier: There is something to that...
...We spoke to people from La Prensa, some of whom are close to the church hierarchy...
...Did you ask any Sandinistas...
...La Prensa is the only independent source of news...
...There was an enormous amount of waffling about what was unfortunate versus what was really a higher form of press freedom...
...Is it possible that although an election could legitimate the regime, they don't want to legitimate elections...
...I found that in various conversations...
...I think an election would be divisive...
...The claim that they are counterrevolutionary, or CIA agents, is far more credible in this environment and undercuts their capacity to function...
...They've had problems with that, which they were the first to tell us...
...I think that reflects the ideology that they brought to this revolution and that they are carrying out...
...Meier: Well, that's the case with any election...
...The general atmosphere blocks them from putting forth their viewpoint more widely and trying to persuade other people...
...All of this was a relatively inexpensive way to build morale and give some sense of national identity...
...Meier: The Sandinistas haven't collectivized the land either...
...Meetings are broken up...
...PiRoman: It wasn't the first thing they talked about...
...The existence of a very clear danger from the United States makes it enormously more difficult for the opposition groups to be legitimated...
...Sometimes opposition will be labeled counter-revolutionary, at other times it will be tolerated, depending on what the powers that be want...
...Their views are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of other members of the delegation...
...But in reality, they charged, they were fired because they were CTN members...
...My impression is that the Sandinistas' hostility to the United States and their generalized sympathy toward the Soviet bloc are matters of ideology and not based solely on the U.S.'s recent opposition...
...Meier: They said an election would be divisive and expensive: they don't have a census, it would be difficult to register people, candidates would be making a lot of outrageous claims...
...Sandinistas we spoke to would go into a long speech about how elections are a phony form of democracy, how Western countries always harp on elections, but the revolution itself was the people speaking, the people speak through the mass-based organizations -as though elections were a kind of Western fetish and not the Sandinistas' idea of democracy...
...I have some of the tests that the students had presumably passed, and the tests are, at best, advanced first-grade level...
...But the government has been extremely responsible in paying off debts accumulated during the Somoza regime...
...If you were trying to make a chart on how that country is organized, you would have a hard time figuring out even how they claim it is organized, leaving aside how it really works...
...It was unfair to divert energies into an election...
...In certain block organizations, the fact that important items flow through the organization has been used to intimidate people who are in opposition-or just in opposition to the local committee leader...
...It's both scary and inspiring...
...Nicaragua has the best record on debt payment in the region...
...The branches of the party are these various mass-based organizations: the women's organization, the official trade-union organization, the agricultural coops, the cultural organizations, the Sandinista Defense Committees, even the militia...
...They also insist they want to maintain a mixed economy...
...They definitely elect the union leaders...
...Are local leaders and higher officials in these organizations elected or appointed from the top...
...States if every day there were reports of Americans killed on the Mexican or Canadian border...
...Meier: In fact, imagine the impact on the political climate of the United States if every day there were reports of Americans killed on the Mexican or Canadian border...
...She is on the editorial board of Dissent magazine and has written widely on the teaching and testing of reading...
...Everyone seemed to agree that in the area of health, there's been an enormous improvement...
...statements by the opposition parties...
...And, of course, the literacy campaign...
...In addition, their Marxist-Leninist ideology has led them to be sympathetic to the Soviets...
...It's very draining on the Nicaraguan economy, very draining on the Nicaraguan people...
...And on the political side...
...But that means chosen from the top according to criteria about which there seems to be a consensus at the moment...
...Of course, he may be wrong...
...Did the opposition say anything about the U.S...
...They did not claim that they were afraid to turn around or that their phones were tapped...
...Everybody told me about the literacy campaign...
...The first argument the Sandinistas gave us for press censorship was security...
...PiRoman: But that's that he meant...
...I get the impression it's largely a relatively permissive communications network...
...If it wasn't for the American military pressure, would that make a difference...
...As do a lot of things about the structure of the country...
...That would be harder to justify, especially given the economic problems, if it wasn't for the unequivocal threat from the United States...
...position which would reinforce any totalitarian elements that may well exist in Nicaragua, it's really an outrage...
...PiRoman: Ultimately I think this woman said what was said in all the Sandinista groups...
...PiRoman: There is no "Five-Year Plan...
...But again, their immediate concerns were...
...They are willing to have individual landowning...
...PiRoman: Or Albania...
...There may well be a mechanism for handling such disagreements, but this women's organization representative was unsure about it herself...
...These are strategic and calculated incursions...
...Meier: These block groups are part of the Sandinista party structure, not the government structure...
...And even when the courts overruled those arrests, the leaders weren't released...
...To what degree are decisions made from the bottom up or the top down...
...The procedure for solving grievances or disputes is dragged out so long that the contract isn't meaningful...
...Those issues are not the agenda right now...
...But there are no requirements and no penalties...
...I do believe their arguments for postponing elections are compelling...
...The bureaucratization of the revolution, the revolution from the top down...
...They are eager to have more cooperatives and collectively-owned land, and they provide incentives toward communal landowning...
...The other issue raised by both the CTN and the Coordinadora was that they don't believe Nicaragua has remained non-aligned, and international non-alignment was one of the promises of the original revolutionary coalition...
...The campaign also paid a great deal of attention to local culture, collecting local art works and local lore and establishing local museums...
...Nothing would more clearly establish their legitimacy or undercut American opposition than to have an election in which observers saw that the Nicaraguan people had overwhelmingly elected a Constituent Assembly...
...She is founder and principal of Central Park East School, a special public elementary school in East Harlem...
...The aim is to trade 25 percent with Western Europe, 25 percent with Eastern Europe, 25 percent with Latin America, and 25 percent with the United States...
...Meier: The opposition claimed that the majority of the people supported them, not the government...
...PiRoman: The U.S...
...According to CTN officials the CST, the official Sandinista union, makes it very difficult for them to collect signatures...
...Similarly with press censorship.We asked whether they considered it something temporary and unfortunate...
...Commonweal interviewed Meier and PiRoman in mid-March...
...One is the government...
...Everybody involved in economic planning told us that they were concentrating on acquiring data they can use later...
...When Eden Pastora leaves the country and goes into exile it's much easier to identify him with the United States and the CIA and the ex-Somocistas than it would be in a situation where the U.S...
...It was intriguing...
...Someone said, well, suppose you did disagree-or maybe just one group of women disagreed-how would that be expressed and resolved...
...In fact, they claim they had greater freedom to print their viewpoint under Somoza...
...You can invite people to a small meeting...
...PiRoman: In large part that's because the organization is in flux...
...Economically, to begin with...
...When we met with a representative from the women's group-not a very sophisticated woman, I would say-we tried to press the question, what happens if there were disagreements...
...But clearly that did not justify most of what we saw censored...
...PiRoman: Aside from the political stupidity of the U.S...
...It also doesn't follow logically, because there is a bulletin board in the front of La Prensa's office where all the censored stories are posted...
...But if you have a large meeting, something happens...
...This was emphasized again in our meeting with La Prensa...
...A national co-chair of the DSA's Hispanic Commission, he has a master's degree in international affairs, specializing in Latin America...
...Now if the material contains military secrets, that is an odd thing to allow...
...That involves some form of rationing...
...There are also bands of what are called turbas, young enthusiasts who break up meetings...
...There is pressure from the bottom to be more radical economically, to expropriate more, to be less responsive to creditors...
...It came as a relief to me...
...In some cases, leaders have been arrested and detained...
...A difficult goal...
...ambassador, told us that if an election were held, the Sandinistas would win overwhelmingly...
...Meier: The one thing that nobody seems to quibble with is that real power rests with the nine Sandinista comandantes...
...Meier: The contracts they have are not abided by...
...There was a difficulty in even imagining a disagreement...
...Under Somoza these were prohibited by legislation, and the present government's position is to make no changes in any of these areas...
...It has a judicial branch...
...I have a pamphlet here with figures claiming that the number of elementary schools has been doubled...
...Deborah Meier: Health and education...
...What about your meetings with the opposition...
...We didn't hear any such stories...
...The government's position is, we regret it but we can't restrain them...
...That hasn't happened suddenly because of United States hostililty...
...To what degree has this occurred...
...stories about the pope, especially about the "Bulgarian connection" or John Paul II's planned visit...
...PiRoman: It seemed clear to me-well, how much can be clear in six days?-that decisions are made because of pressure from the populace...
...PiRoman: And it was the Sandinistas who arranged for us to meet with them and with the Coordinadora...
...Meier: There were no other varieties of socialist literature...
...They take turns walking the beat...
...But we may become another Mexico...
...PiRoman: They told us what stories were censored the most: any story at all critical of the Eastern bloc or the Soviet Union...
...Meier: Not passionately...
...Their first targets are the technicians who come into the countryside...
...affiliate of the Socialist International...
...One of them said he was fired for coming to work five minutes late...
...They talked politics...
...We met for three hours with the secretary-general of the Central de Trabajadores Nicaraguenses (CTN), the central body of the opposition trade unions, and more briefly with the CTN executive committee...
...There is still a market system of distribution...
...None of their claims were of that variety...
...The CTN outlined a number of ways in which it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the independence of the CTN as a union...
...For her work as an educator, she was the recipient in 1981 of the Fund ' for the City of New York's award for outstanding civil servants...
...We are not an island...
...But everyone else, including the U.S...
...What would have happened if the U.S...
...Similarly with the large military build-up...
...Even the U.S...
...It was impossible to get an answer...
...Meier: The sense is that if people show revolutionary fervor, they will be coopted into the leadership...
...They are organized block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city...
...Newscasts aren't allowed on the private radio stations, and television is entirely controlled by the government...
...At one point there was a reference to the fact that "our people are ignorant" -they lived a long time under Somoza and the opposition groups are taking advantage of the people's lack of sophistication...
...Maybe there was something they would have said had he not been there...
...So it is clearly a political act for the international banks not to lend them money...
...This lack of interest suggested to me that they have not learned anything about the risks to the revolution itself in this facile dismissal of liberal democracy and the importance of a legitimate opposition...
...At this period, they argued, everyone had to pull together and face the military threat from the United States and the grave economic problems...
...At the time of Somoza's overthrow there was much insistence on maintaining economic and political pluralism...
...The leaders are mindful of what people want, of what different sectors want...
...An army and a militia under the control of the Sandinista party are, in the long run, a danger to democracy...
...Everybody in power has always said it's divisive to hold an election -and it always is...
...The CTN headquarters are a big building, and no one was reluctant to tell us where they were...
...We raised questions about whether some of the censorship of La Prensa wasn't frankly ideological...
...right now the breakdown is 40 percent government, 60 percent private enterprise...
...People made a whole new range of contacts...
...Sometimes they referred to the emergency decrees in place since March 1982...
...Meier: What he meant by another Mexico is that you'll have a party permanently in power, and opposition parties will be allowed to have considerable freedom of press and then it will be restricted more or less...
...Meier: There were two elements of opposition with which we had no direct contact, the regional opposition from the Atlantic Coast and the Catholic hierarchy...
...Clearly they don't draw from a lot of other sources ideologically...
...Deborah Meier is a democratic socialist,active for several decades in the civil-rights, anti-war, and women's movements as well as in efforts for educational reform...
...To date, there hasn't been the mass exodus that occurred in Cuba after the revolution...
...PiRoman: We met with the executive committee of the opposition political front, the Coordinadora Democratica, which encompasses a number of political parties, the CTN, another opposition labor group, and the businessmen's association...
...ambassador admitted, in a manner of speaking, that our concern for human rights was a bogus legitimation of that kind of activity, given our support for Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala...
...We were told by the Sandinistas,' 'No, they are allowed to hold meetings.'' But the opposition all said it was not possible...
...But another part is to insure that scarce goods are equally distributed-and also goods that are not scarce but necessary...
...They insure that there's no hoarding...
...The goal is to keep the profitable sector of the economy happy economically while reducing its power politically...
...They are obviously afraid of losing their jobs and the possibility of being arrested...
...They believe they have to do this to survive...
...A large portion of the land was owned by Somoza, and that is essentially what they have expropriated...
...People will, in fact, make accusations you feel are unfair...
...Remember, Somoza was always elected...
...The emphasis, however, is on providing a minimum standard so that no one starves...
...Meier: The same ones...
...Rafael PiRoman is business agent for the east coast's Local 15 of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians...
...PiRoman: Economically, the Sandinistas have been very pragmatic and intelligent...
...You said there was a mixture of appointment and election...
...It's a total scandal, especially considering the phony excuses...
...was not belligerently hostile, as it is today...
...PiRoman: They definitely elect the leaders of block organizations...
...She kept insisting, "But we don't disagree with the government...
...Would there come a time, we asked, when censorship would not be necessary...
...In fact, I was more interested in those figures about schools...
...Next to it is the party, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), led by the nine comandantes...
...The definition of what is counter-revolutionary is always being tightened...
...For reasons that are not absolutely clear, they all said it was impossible to hold large-scale meetings...
...embassy gets xeroxed copies of the censored stories...
...They don't distribute it very widely...
...Nonetheless, judging from everything people told us, the campaign was successful from a broader viewpoint...
...PiRoman: I know we differ on this...
...Meier: The question I was curious about was, given the fact that they seem to be the party that would win an election, why are they so reluctant to hold one...
...The people, we were told, don't understand that La Prensa is really a counter-revolutionary publication...
...We asked: If the women's organization disagreed with that, what would the mechanism be for dealing with the conflict of views...
...Meier: There are two side-by-side structures which represent "the revolution...
...PiRoman: They opposed it...
...What would have happened if that had continued...
...THE EDITORS WHAT WERE the major social and economic initiatives stressed in your discussions in Nicaragua...
...PiRoman: The usual harassment, obstacles to organizing...
...It's a euphemism for the danger of authoritarianism...
...You don't have the impression that they make all the decisions in every town...
...It's a real outrage...
...They said that they had just been discharged on the grounds that they refused to work more than eight hours without a break on Christmas eve and New Year's eve...
...policy...
...Meier: For the first year after the revolution, the U.S...
...If there is a sentiment it's brought up in a group discussion, and if the sentiment wells up, the hierarchy will respond...
...I went to one of the supermarkets...
...In that sense they're not reluctant to speak out...
...To some degree they thought it was stupid...
...Meier: Their own survival...
...At some local level people probably do elect their leaders, formally or informally...
...Meier: In some ways that was puzzling...
...The impact on infant mortality was staggering...
...At the moment everything in La Prensa is precensored...
...Part of their job is literally defense of the revolution...
...Yet when I met with the people from the Sandinista teachers' union and pressed on educational matters, nobody mentioned that information...
...was not intervening militarily...
...Meier: Unfortunately, this assumption, that any real dissatisfaction will rather spontaneously form a new consensus and naturally be heeded by the leadership, provides no mechanism for those who remain in disagreement with a consensus to organize for their viewpoint...
...Whether or not it's a mindfulness that is ad hoc and may wither away as power is concentrated, to the degree that it exists right now, the society is an open one...
...I was less impressed with the campaign because from what I saw I doubted that it could make an enormous dent in illiteracy-if what you mean by literacy is knowing how to read...
...Meier: That's not the same thing...
...Incidentally, one of the countries they don't have diplomatic relations with is Yugoslavia...
...PiRoman: Sergio Ramirez did express concern about the bureaucratization of the revolution...
...It's hard to assess...
...Rafael PiRoman: Because we stayed in the city, we didn't see the development of the countryside-the distribution of land, the distribution of credit-which was one of the things most talked about...
...PiRoman: I suspect they don't see elections as something that would legitimize them that much...
...Meier: Apparently they send out several hundred copies, and that is not done covertly...
...These mass-based organizations are the form in which the Sandinista party is organized...
...And it has the Council of State...
...I think those are compelling arguments...
...In that sense, you had an impression of openness...
...The comandantes select it...
...The exact mechanism for obtaining the rationing cards remains a puzzle to me...
...This is not a marginal thing that's happening The consequences of the northern incursions are real and quite a loss to the Nicaraguan revolution...
...But what the Sandinistas have to gain is enormous...
...PiRoman: Some of each...
...You don't have the impression of a thoroughly authoritarian structure in which decisions are all made at the top and carried out all the way down the line...
...The figures did not seem to be disputed by anybody...
...PiRoman: In Managua we spoke to a leader of the CDS, the Sandinista Defense Committees...
...It is not yet highly bureaucratic...
...No," he said, "Nicaragua will not become another Cuba...
...They went as two of the three co-chairs of a delegation from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a U.S...
...At least in the middle-class neighborhoods the stores looked well-stocked...
...But none of the lessons they stressed had to do with democracy, with the dangers of a small party speaking in the name of "the people...
...Meier: It's peculiar...
...What complaints did the political parties have...
...PiRoman: And that support for the Sandinistas is dwindling...
...To what extent are the restrictions we've discussed the consequences of American pressure on Nicaragua...
...The major effort has been in bringing paramedical help to the villages and teaching people some basic preventive medicine techniques...
...They were very clear and forceful in his presence...
...They cannot conceive why, if they disagree with the government, the government would not heed them...
...Meier: We got different answers from different people...
...Although their trip was brief, they had unusual opportunities to interview numer-ous government officials and Sandinista leaders, as well as independent trade unionists and members of the political opposition...
...They don't seem to have an overall strategy beyond diversifying their trade so as to insure their independence...
...If so, it's hard to imagine what...
Vol. 110 • April 1983 • No. 8
