NICARAGUA: A MIXTURE OF SHADES
Brumberg, Abraham
Anyone who returns to Nicaragua after a two-year absence—as I recently did—must be struck by a marked deterioration in every facet of life in that country. Two years ago, despite the increasing...
...Let me again quote from my interview with Roger Sanchez: AB (re Sanchez's claim that the opposition parties are "tied to our enemies"): Yes, I know that some of the opposition parties here are in one way or another sympathetic to the contras...
...If we seem to assume such an arrogant attitude about it, it is simply because we have to defend our Revolution...
...There are three other left-wing groups in Nicaragua, one of which—the Maoist party (MAP)—is represented in the National Assembly...
...not once did local campesinos refuse to talk to us...
...The budget for defense has risen commensurately...
...Much of the country's GNP was being eaten up by the war effort...
...This is all the more true when local insurgents are backed by a superpower bent on overthrowing the regime...
...A party that prided itself, not without reason, on maintaining the support of the bulk of the population, and that simultaneously understood its survival to depend on the active sympathy (read: economic and military aid) of Latin America and Western Europe, the FSLN was visibly eager to relax some of its controls and reach an accommodation with its critics...
...One could, then—following the diplomat's words—write a convincing article about the Sandinista version of a "new class," nomenklatura Nicaragua-style...
...About a third of the population, over 900,000 people, live in Managua, yet there is no sign of construction, let alone reconstruction...
...inferior American poets, given to howling their verses to indifferent Sandinista soldiers and gaping tourists...
...In Nicaragua, political parties loudly disagree...
...inflation is at an all-time high...
...Basic consumer goods are rationed and are in woefully short supply...
...174 Well into the first week of my recent visit, I met a Western diplomat (whose name I cannot disclose...
...The six opposition parties that ran in the election of November 1984 (see my article in Dissent, Spring 1985) and that have since participated in the deliberations of the National Assembly, openly grumble that they are ignored and bypassed...
...Generally, the Sandinista officials I talked to were far more ready to concede their mistakes and failures than were their foreign admirers...
...While the rest of Latin America was experiencing a negative rate of economic growth, Nicaragua's continued to increase steadily...
...To take cognizance of the force and weight of Latin American traditions is neither to deny their pernicious implications nor to suggest that the Sandinistas are blindly following in the footsteps of their enemies...
...This typical comment reveals the current polarization in Nicaragua, blurring the line between legitimate dissent and outright "counterrevolution...
...AB: I understand why it is infinitely better to have a collective leadership rather than a personal dictator...
...as Marx himself said in the Eighteenth Brumaire, the machine is being "perfected . . . instead of [smashed...
...Bismarck Carvallo, denies that over 100 priests have signed a petition protesting Obando's action...
...They oppose, and frequently vote against, legislation introduced by the FSLN (whose members, whatever their private misgivings, always vote en bloc...
...The government, to be sure, had committed economic blunders and inanities, such as its initial attempt to convert into collective farms all the land seized from the Somoza oligarchy and its cronies...
...in the November 1984 elections the opposition was "allowed" to get some 40 percent (less, in fact...
...There was a dialogue with the Church...
...TB: I will certainly look into your request...
...This is a country that only now is embarking on a program of social transformation, and the bourgeoisie is certainly unable to undertake this task...
...The political horizon has also darkened...
...Not once were we stopped and asked to produce documents...
...yet enough was left for various agricultural and industrial projects, for education, for health programs, and for a generally higher standard of living...
...A taxi driver in Managua: "I hate the Sandinistas, but I can't talk about it to my sons and nephews who served two years in the army—they're crazy about the FSLN...
...Obando has announced his intention to expel the "red" Franciscan priest, Father Molino, whose Sunday masses resemble ardent political rallies more than religious ceremonies...
...Somoza never looked for competitors, only for cooperators...
...It is, however, to point out that the Sandinistas understand fully what happens when a government is not in control of its army...
...If only one person makes important decisions, this can lead to personal dictatorship and totalitarianism— and we don't want that in this country...
...Somoza insisted on total control...
...The Fourth International is represented by a tiny Liga Marxista Revolucionaria...
...But then, what happens to your principle of "political pluralism...
...All other prisons, housing either suspects—both criminal and political—or individuals already convicted, are open to organizations such as AW and the Red Cross...
...It is still subject to contradictory impulses and influences, both from within and without...
...many of our leaders have laid down their lives in the struggle, and now there are parties that didn't take part in it and want to dispute with us over power...
...Some of the more bitter opponents of the regime maintain that the Sandinista reign is as repressive as—if not more repressive thanSomoza's (a claim regularly advanced by the Reagan administration, too...
...With one exception, leaders of all the political parties— including Domingo Sanchez, head of the "Marxist-Leninist" Socialist Party* and a vo* The Socialist party is actually the traditional proMoscow Communist party, founded in 1944...
...And both," he added with a smile, "would be equally true...
...They are being given no choice, furthermore, by Washington's obdurate refusal to enter into any negotiations with Managua either bilaterally or through the Contadora process...
...By itself this guarantees nothing—but it does hold out the hope that under more normal conditions they might succeed in checking an unhealthy trend...
...Is it, as some would assert, inevitable, insofar as economic decline and political bloody-mindedness are the essential earmarks of a communist regime, and all communist regimes are hellbent on monopolizing power and crushing any obstacles...
...More than 50 percent of the GNP now goes to defense, as a result of which numerous social 173 programs have been either curtailed or discontinued...
...At least some of the comandantes are, in the view of many Western observers in Managua, well aware of the danger of excessive bureaucratization and are trying to curb its growth...
...so too the Sandinistas...
...Relevant examples from other areas of Nicaraguan life could be found to illustrate the thesis that the Sandinista Revolution, impelled by an inner dynamic, is traveling in an authoritarian direction...
...The idea that they would have as many as 140 members in one voting district is simply comical...
...exports, predictably, are at an all-time low...
...It is not in the interests of the Sandinistas to allocate so much of their budget for defense: they are fully aware that their popular support rests in large part on their success in redressing social and economic inequalities and fulfilling some of their promises...
...In my obscenely posh hotel (posh by any standard, obscenely so when measured against the average monthly wage of about 25,000 cordobas), the water was turned off twice a week, as it is all over Managua...
...But their power is limited, both de facto and de jure, and their freedom of maneuver circumscribed...
...177 over power to political parties that began to develop a political program only after the Revolution...
...The Sandinistas make no bones about it...
...I spent a full day, together with three other Americans, driving through the northern reaches of the country where contras are still operating...
...every version is wildly and improbably at odds with every other version...
...Conflict with the Catholic Church, patently a foe of the regime, still raged...
...Maybe some are allied with the counterrevolution, maybe some are not—but we are suspicious of all of them, and so we arrogate to ourselves the authority to make all the ultimate decisions...
...That's really unthinkable...
...The Sandinistas' ideological proclivities had antagonized a good part of the country's middle class, and potentially productive sectors of it had consequently emigrated...
...TB: Because this is the reality of this country...
...But my question is, why are decisions like that vested in the party rather than the state...
...Even some of the demands voiced by the "loyal opposition" (parties that remain within the National Assembly), such as separation of party and state, and the establishment of the checks-and-balances system of a parliamentary model, are scarcely likely to be met...
...RS: What we say is that the Revolutionary Project is not under discussion...
...The government has banned strikes...
...There was no need to rig them, if only because there is no doubt whatever that the FSLN still had the backing of the majority of the country...
...That is why we have a collegial mechanism...
...Or is it, as others would affirm with equal certainty, that the war, openly espoused, financed, and controlled by the United States, has forced the Sandinistas to take repressive measures...
...Recruits and volunteers alike undergo an ideological and political training that even diehard enemies of the Sandinistas agree is highly successful...
...Small Changes WHAT THE SANDINISTAS MAY AGREE TO are some cosmetic changes...
...Dr...
...But neither can it be understood in the Western parliamentary sense— and those who try to compare Nicaraguan reality with their own desired model, whether of social or liberal democracy, are bound to be disappointed...
...The emphasis of their TV "commercials"about the draft has already shifted from defending the Revolution to defending la patria...
...We have been in the struggle for more than twenty years...
...it had failed to establish a coherent wage and price policy or a sensible system of graduated incentives to production...
...Indeed, it is precisely the lack of any independent control over the armed forces that makes Duarte's rule in El Salvador and the newlyelected Vinicio Cerezo's in Guatemala so tenuous...
...Obando's spokesman, Rev...
...Somoza had a system of mock pluralism...
...Preparations, however, were already under way...
...The official rate of exchange in 1984 was 150 cordobas to the dollar...
...Tolerating Some Diversity "POLITICAL PLURALISM," THEN, is not exactly or entirely a sham...
...What is important is that the FSLN led the Revolution, and is the only party that presented a truly national program to the people of Nicaragua...
...Such measures elicit, both at home and abroad, new apprehensions about Sandinista intentions...
...The growth of the armed forces is a case in point...
...It is still capable of moving—broadly speaking—either toward greater authoritarianism and centralization, or toward a more pluralistic and consensual system...
...Those who condemn American policies do not necessarily excuse the FSLN (here I exclude the groupies, American and West European, who litter the Nicaraguan scene and to whom any criticism of the regime is sacrilege: a delegation of venerable survivors of the Lincoln Brigade...
...and how such crosscurrents of interest and opinion make Nicaragua so interesting and unpredictable a place...
...There is no evidence, for instance, that parties in the National Assembly that clamor for a separation of state and army have any "ties" with the contras...
...this new Cardinal's militant anti-government sallies, expressed within and beyond the borders of Nicaragua, have brought efforts at improving church-state relations (always sporadic) to a virtual standstill...
...It had relied excessively on food subsidies...
...There are parties here that can make a contribution to the Revolution, but then there are those out to destroy us...
...Two years ago, despite the increasing cost of fighting a war on both borders, there was ample evidence of improvement in the life of the average citizen...
...It has further restricted the activity of political parties, which must now ask for special permission to hold outdoor rallies...
...some estimates, which include indirect costs of the war effort, go as high as nearly 60 percent of the GNP...
...Impoverishment is visible everywhere...
...They are," he said, "as dishonest as, in fact more dishonest than Reagan...
...Now it is 750...
...5, 1985), Robert S. Leiken reports that "two leaders of the registered opposition (the PLI and the PSN) told [him] that the opposition parties had participated in a preelection agreement with the FSLN to allocate the votes...
...But the FSLN is dead set against any meaningful concessions in this realm: even the name of the army—Orcito Popular Sandinista—is not negotiable, for symbols can be no less important than realities, indeed, are realities...
...The granting of special privileges to the army can also be seen as a quid pro quo for ensuring its loyalty...
...Nevertheless, change was in the air...
...In the sequel to this article, which will appear in the next issue of Dissent, I will deal with some specific examples of centralizing tendencies in Nicaraguan politics and society...
...We should be fools to hand * In his article "The Nicaraguan Tangle" (New York Review of Books, Dec...
...Nevertheless, not even the most severe critics of the Sandinista regime could—or did—deny that the average Nicaraguan was living better, and could expect to live considerably longer, than ever before...
...I then checked another matter with him...
...I exclude what used to be called lunatic fringe conservatism, which out of ignorance or hypocrisy pronounces the contras heirs to Washington and Jefferson...
...Some stray sense of propriety prevented me from asking about its magnitude...
...The example of the armed forces illustrates, I think, why a single "model" or explanation— however plausible, seductive or even, to cite my diplomat informant, "true"—is inadequate for understanding Nicaragua today...
...The PC de N is utterly out of touch with reality...
...Politically, too, things seemed to be looking up two years ago...
...As one Western diplomat put it, the army can be seen as the "Praetorian Guard of the revolution...
...If nothing else, Borge deserves applause for his candor—which also points to some of the serious problems in present-day Nicaragua...
...AB: Well, then: the attitude of the FSLN is, "We have the power, we conceived the Historic Revolutionary Project, therefore other parties are suspect...
...You can write two articles about Nicaragua, each of them based on the same facts and each arriving at diametrically opposite conclusions...
...And there can be no doubt that popular discontent is growing...
...176 ciferous critic of the FSLN—concede, begrudgingly and despite their suspicions of the Sandinistas, that the elections were "fair and accurate...
...Words lend themselves to different interpretations, and in the still fluid conditions of today's Nicaragua their practical application may undergo significant changes...
...Read it...
...Our exchange took place during a two-and-one-half hour meeting of Borge and several members of Americas Watch (AW...
...Yet such an article would fail to account for the fact that any country confronted by a military threat will maximize its military strength and turn for appropriate aid wherever it can...
...On the need to cross-check suspicious stories, I offer the following examples: According to Minister of the Interior Tomas Borge, Cardinal Obando has "expelled over 150 priests and nuns" from Nicaragua, for presumed insubordination and for championing the cause of the "popular church...
...Most important, the Sandinistas had abandoned the disastrous attempt to "integrate" into the "Revolutionary Project" the indigenous population of the Atlantic Coast (Miskitos and two other Indian tribes, as well as Caribbean blacks, all traditionally hostile to the "Spaniards" of the West...
...Demands that the FSLN relinquish its exclusive role in the political education of the army and open it up to representatives of other political parties are shrugged off: "How can you possibly expect us," said Roger Sanchez, a young Sandinista militante who is a well-known cartoonist for the FSLN's newspaper, La Barricada, "to allow parties that are tied, openly or not, to the enemies of our country to conduct their political work [in the army] and possibly even recruit our men for their purposes...
...Censorship, introduced as part of the State of Emergency in March 1982 after several nasty contra attacks well inside the country, was still heavy—and heavyhanded...
...Current Conditions Two YEARS LATER, the landscape looks bleak...
...The opposition was and is fragmented into small, squabble-ridden parties...
...Expansion of the Military THIS SHREWD REMARK CONTINUED TO RESONATE during my stay...
...But short of negotiating with the contras—which for political reasons they will not do—they have no choice...
...These people live in a world of fantasy...
...Right now, in Nicaragua and among some writers in the United States, the Latin American "model" seems fashionable...
...But suspicion and hostility are close to the surface—on both sides...
...The president, the ministers, the head of the army, and other state officials are all leading members of the party...
...The PC de N split off in 1967 in protest against the Socialists' "reformist" line and is wildly pro-Moscow...
...But I cannot make such an important decision myself— only the National Directorate can do it...
...Black market activities thrive openly...
...We do not turn a deaf ear to what other parties are saying—we certainly must have their opinions in order to reach just and correct conclusions...
...A good deal of evidence supports this contention...
...But surely this does not apply to the parties in the National Assembly, such as the Popular Liberal party, the Democratic Conservatives, or the Popular Social Christian party...
...The Western diplomat's response: "Yes, it's quite a problem...
...As WITH ALL HYPERBOLE, there is a germ of truth to this—but not much more...
...Let me quote quite an authoritative source, Tomas Borge, minister of the interior, member of the nine-man National Directorate and the only living founder of the FSLN...
...The one exception is the Nicaraguan Communist Party (PC de N), whose leader angrily told me that the count was "falsified," and that in one voting district where his party has "140 members" the tally showed only "40 votes for our party...
...In general, it is a wise rule in Nicaragua not to take the word of any partisan, pro- or antiSandinista at face value...
...Mariano Fiallos, chairman of the Supreme Electoral Council and by all lights an honest and honorable man, commented, "Have you looked at the Communist party organ, Avance...
...There are many forces at work in the country, and to focus on any single one of them is to lose sight of the complexity of the situation...
...The Sandinista system is far from hardened...
...There is a space for pluralism within the Revolution...
...they insist on "hegemony...
...Discussions with various political parties, even those that discreetly (or not so discreetly) cheered for the contras, were proceeding...
...After several massacres and the emergence of a Miskito resistance movement, the Sandinistas recognized their egregious errors and, with apologies, tried to substitute a political and economic compromise...
...Nearly everybody one meets in Nicaragua is genial and articulate, and each one offers his version of a fact...
...A distinguished Western diplomat was scathing on the disenchanted who, when they find that the comandantes are not "closet social democrats," turn to Reagan's inflated imagery of "totalitarians" and "communist tyrants...
...The elections were not rigged...
...Nevertheless, the government has now armed itself with legal justification to detain for an indefinite period anyone suspected of committing "crimes against the security of national and public order"—and there were indeed many such cases in the first weeks after the decree was passed...
...The Vatican's appointment, early last year, of Archbishop Obando y Bravo as Cardinal is seen by the government as a political provocation, and not without reason...
...Somoza came to power through bullets...
...They complain that legislation is either railroaded through the Assembly by the FSLN, or merely announced—with hardly a word of consultation—by presidential decree (for which, read: by decision of the nine-man National Directorate of the FSLN...
...But they tend to explain even highly disturbing actions as responses dictated by American aggression...
...The tendency to rely on the armed forces as a power base is borrowed less from Soviet-style political models than from a tradition firmly rooted in Latin American history and political culture...
...zealots like the Jesuit poet and Minister of Culture, Ernesto Cardenal...
...One member of the AW delegation asked Borge for permission to visit a detention prison for those suspected of "counterrevolutionary crimes...
...At that time—two years ago—elections were still nine months off...
...Having leafed through some issues of Avance and the eighty-page program of the party, I can only agree...
...idealistic young "internationalists" helping out with the cotton and coffee harvests...
...Somoza was hardly the only Latin American ruler to use the army to safeguard his power...
...TB: Because we must reach decisions collegially...
...They are in fact unanimous in condemning the contra military aggression as both morally reprehensible and politically counterproductive...
...He listened to me good-naturedly as I complained about my difficulties in establishing the truth about anything, everything, the simplest fact...
...The armed forces are privileged: they have access to special stores and to hospitals equipped with facilities and medicines unavailable to the average Nicaraguan...
...The population of the capital has climbed to unmanageable proportions, largely as a result of migrations from the war zones in the north...
...I asked many people about this, including leaders of the two parties Leiken cites, and none had ever heard about such an "agreement...
...Opposition parties do not resemble their sycophantic "counterparts" in Eastern European "people's democracies," which cheerfully accept the leading role of the Communist party and almost invariably vote the party line...
...To understand this is to understand why, right now at least, it is absurd to expect the Sandinistas to accede to "outside" opposition parties' demands for genuine power-sharing...
...so did they...
...What has caused this dismaying reversal...
...Outside the National Assembly, among opposition parties, hostility toward the regime is more rampant than ever before...
...This does not mean there is no freedom of expression—and I assure you I don't mean this rhetorically...
...These provisions may be more fearsome on paper than in practice: freedom of movement, for instance, is suspended, yet there is no sign as far as I could learn that the suspension is being enforced...
...Yet I think that companero Sanchez's candid formulations reflect the basic assumptions of the Sandinista leadership: namely, that the FSLN is History's chosen instrument of social change in Nicaragua, and that the party has no intention of relinquishing this role...
...a bureaucracy is reproducing itself according to the models of bureaucratic machines in communist countries (charted by, among others, Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky, and Maria Hirszowicz...
...The Latin tradition of personalismo—political alliances formed around a single leader—is considerably stronger among the various opposition parties than within the FSLN, which has been able to conceal its internal wranglings (of which, knowledgeable observers say, there is no dearth) behind an impressive facade of unanimity...
...Political parties smarted under restrictions that made it impossible for them to pursue their activities on even remotely equal terms with the ruling FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberaci6n Nacional...
...RS: Well, I am not entirely sure that they are altogether free of those ties...
...The original impulse to social justice and equality is dwindling...
...the Sandinista version is equally phony...
...The Sandinistas, you will hear it said, are really reproducing, in their own way, the very system they replaced...
...The head of the Jesuit University: "I myself obtained 20 signatures from my fellow Jesuits...
...whether these are in practice moderated by equally significant countervailing forces...
...NOTHING HAS CONTRIBUTED more to the high level of tension than the new provisions of the State of Emergency, enacted last October...
...Leaders of the Revolution are also leaders of the state...
...AB: Excuse me, comandante, but may I ask you why the National Directorate is to make this decision, and not an appropriate government agency...
...By now it is proverbial that any party or leader that comes to power in Latin 175 America must either seize control of the army or be substantially dependent upon it...
...The bare facts are (I think) indisputable: since the introduction of "Patriotic Military Service" in 1983, the total number of troops in both the regular army and the "citizens' militia" has risen to 120,000...
...q 178...
...Even members of the FSLN do not always excuse themselves...
...Under Somoza elections were rigged to give the opposition (Conservatives) about 40 percent of the vote...
...It can be argued that the military buildup began before the contras constituted a real threat, that the buildup was rooted in the determination to create a cadre of loyal followers with an ideological and material stake in the system...
...And it is this understanding that virtually precludes any possibility of a "depoliticized" Nicaraguan army in the foreseeable future...
...When I checked Borge's claim with the head of the Jesuit University of Nicaragua (himself pro-Sandinista, as is the entire Jesuit order in Nicaragua), he answered with a smile: "That's an exaggeration...
Vol. 33 • April 1986 • No. 2
