NICARAGUA: THE INNER STRUGGLE: IS THERE STILL A CHANCE FOR POLITICAL PLURALISM?
Brumberg, Abraham
The first part of my report from Nicaragua in the Spring 1986 Dissent ended with a promise that I would deal with some of the countervailing forces that serve to moderate the...
...one piece referred to an induction center as a "concentration camp...
...In 1984, when the state of emergency was amended, the government promised to censor only material of a military nature...
...Among the rights formally suspended were the right to trial by jury, the right to free movement and choice of residence, and the rights to "individual freedom and personal safety...
...New York, March 6, 1986), only six evangelical ministers were briefly detained and interrogated in Managua in November 1985...
...28-36...
...I have chosen the State of Emergency as the lens through which to examine the Nicaraguan situation because of its sweeping nature, and because its provisions bear on the judicial and legal system, on the political opposition, on the ethnic minorities, and on Nicaragua's relations with the outside world...
...299 gloomy—but not monochromatic...
...But fear can be instilled by various methods—and fear, clearly, is what the DGSE intended to elicit.' The second target of the new wave of repression has been the press, which means, above all, the single oppositionist newspaper in Nicaragua, La Prensa...
...By January, the wave of arrests had come to an end...
...Scope and Legality ON OCTOBER 15, 1985, the Nicaraguan government decreed a State of Emergency, suspending for a period of one year nearly all the rights and guarantees contained in the 1979 "Bill of Rights and Guarantees of the Nicaraguan People...
...See my article "Matyas Rakosi on Bolshevist Strategy and Tactics," Problems of Communism, 4: 1952, pp...
...It would clearly expose their claims to "political pluralism" (not to speak of a "mixed economy" and other declared features of their political system) as a flagrant hoax...
...1 ° Some certainly knew that sweeping arrests of oppositionists would cast further doubt on the FSLN's stated principle of political pluralism...
...Popular discontent, now largely apolitical and under control, would burgeon, threatening the very legitimacy on which the Sandinistas stake their rule...
...303...
...The issue of Iglesia confiscated by the Sandinistas carried six articles criticizing the draft (in veiled terms...
...Yet in a manner that has become typical of this raging feud, the Church deliberately neglects to ask for prior permission, stages processions and outdoor masses—and more often than not gets away with it...
...above all, a desire to maintain mass support as the source of their domestic legitimacy, as well as the goodwill of the world outside as the source of their international legitimacy...
...When I was in Managua in January of this year I heard of people forced to spend long hours in small, unlit cells, subjected to harsh interrogations and threats...
...New York, N.Y.: Praeger, 1985), p. 187...
...The DGSE has been equipped, since March 1982, with the power to arrest political suspects without judicial warrant, and to detain them for an indefinite period of time before charges are filed against them...
...Congress voted down Reagan's proposal for more lethal and "humanitarian" aid to the contras, the trip shocked many representatives and outraged the American public...
...Thus far, Washington has not been willing to call Managua's bluff—it's much easier to keep this low-cost war going, thus "proving" Nicaragua's "Communist," and the administration's impeccably "anti-Communist," credentials...
...A careful study by Americas Watch (With the Miskitos in Honduras, April 11, 1986) concluded that the flight did not result from any abuses committed by the Sandinistas, but from a deliberate effort by KISAN, abetted by the U.S...
...The nature of the relationship between the Church and the Sandinistas is complex...
...In a response, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States, Carlos Tunnerman, accused La Prensa of engaging in lies about the situation in Nicaragua and Ruiz of lying about the real reasons for the state of emergency...
...Envio is a monthly publication of the Central American Historical Institute (with a chapter at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C...
...13 To make good on their threats, the Sandinistas then suspend Iglesia and Radio Catolica, and arm themselves with the "legal mechanism" to ban outdoor religious ceremonies...
...That decree instituted preventive censorship, abolished the right to strike, outlawed outdoor political rallies, and imposed restrictions on freedom of movement throughout much of the country...
...It is precisely because the Sandinistas wish to avoid this somber eventuality that they are most likely to yield to their critics (among them not a few party members), and that the final draft of the constitution will turn out to be significantly different from its present version...
...A Communist party official told me that his newspaper, Avance, has been virtually "censored out of existence...
...What is not without significance, also, is that in the final vote not only did the opposition in the National Assembly maintain its stance, but that a number of Sandinista members also registered their opposition, if not by voting against it, then by abstaining...
...The disastrous impact of the trip might have been reduced had Henry Ruiz, another member of the National Directorate, replaced Daniel Ortega...
...In my attempts to get some answers to this question, I spoke to resident journalists, to diplomats, and to sources close to—but not speaking for—the government...
...Some were released after vigorous protests from their parties...
...The first few emergency measures enacted by the Sandinistas in 1980 and 1981 in fact invoked this clause, as did the more comprehensive decree of March 1982...
...For the first time, they all united in condemnation of the decree, demanding that it be immediately abrogated...
...8 Whether there was any substance to these allegations is one thing (which I shall deal with in a moment...
...Congress to fund the contras...
...The Church believes—rightly—that its claim on the loyalty of most Nicaraguans, overwhelmingly and devoutly Catholic, is being challenged by another institution or power whose philosophy and program it heartily dislikes...
...Compare this statement with the one made by Vice-President Sergio Ramirez in the same article: ". .. What we are doing is precisely making use of the legal mechanisms that the laws themselves give us, through exceptional measures, to be able to confront these situations...
...Were they in power instead of us, he might say, they'd string us up from the nearest tree...
...The first part of my report from Nicaragua in the Spring 1986 Dissent ended with a promise that I would deal with some of the countervailing forces that serve to moderate the centralizing tendencies within Nicaragua—what they are, and to what extent they are significant...
...12 Much the same attitude characterizes the state's relationship with the Church—on both sides...
...In early March, at a luncheon sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, the vice president of the Nicaraguan Conference of Bishops, Pablo Antonio Vega, accused the Sandinista government of having murdered three priests—a charge that turned out to have no substance whatever...
...The reason was economic: Nicaragua's oil reserves were nearly depleted...
...The provisions concerning separation of powers, especially the respective roles of the executive and the legislative branches, were subjected to merciless criticism, both by the American participants as well as members of the delegation...
...In the 1984 elections, it won more votes than any other opposition party, and now occupies fourteen seats in the National Assembly...
...Such arrests did not mark a fundamental departure from the past...
...it is reliably reported that Ortega told him the entire State of Emergency could be lifted were Washington to stop financing the contras—a change from the previous position, which offered to trade an end to the emergency law for a complete halt to the war...
...In the concluding segment, I shall examine that part of the draft of the Nicaraguan constitution— now under discussion in the National Assembly and the country at large—that deals with the power to promulgate similar emergency measures as one of the major clues to the future of the Nicaraguan political system...
...In other words, the constitution would allow him to justify its necessity not, as the Covenant requires, on the grounds of a clearly defined and verifiable "threat to the life of a nation," but merely on the arbitrary grounds of a "threat to the security of the state" (i.e., the Sandinista government...
...its effect was a dramatic congressional reversal on the aid issue...
...Petty and arbitrary harassment of this newspaper, which makes no secret of its hostility to the Sandinista regime, and some of whose editors are patently sympathetic to the contras, has been going on for a long time...
...To which the answer is that if the constitution is ratified in its present form, the opportunity for the evolution of Nicaragua toward a freer and more pluralistic direction would be decisively squelched...
...In addition, this would provide the opposition with greater opportunities to participate in the political process, to restrict the power of the FSLN, and to press for gradual liberalization and democratization of the system...
...As one distinguished Western diplomat in Managua told me, there was at least some evidence that contra supporters within the country had been alerted to prepare "safe houses" and logistical support—including arms and explosives—for agents sent in from Honduras and Costa Rica...
...a mistrust of political alliances, yet also a desire to forge alliances and to placate and accommodate their allies...
...It is, however, doubtful that the substitution of Ruiz for Ortega would have satisfied the House, which had defeated Reagan's original package by only a few votes...
...For as in so many respects, so in this one, too, the Sandinistas have demonstrated a determination to preserve their hegemony—but not their monopoly—of power...
...Ruiz reportedly urged Ortega to let him go, but the latter refused...
...Whether this evidence was "conclusive," he said, was a different matter—but he added that the borders of Nicaragua were certainly porous enough to allow such infiltration...
...At this point two questions arise: First, of what importance is a constitution, particularly in a state ruled by a group of men determined to preserve their power...
...15 Memorandum by Americas Watch, May 16, 1986...
...Both sides exacerbate the tension...
...Others told stories of being made to stand silently for many hours, of being deprived of sleep and family visits, of being deliberately "disoriented...
...According to a detailed report circulated by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A...
...government, to exploit the fears of the local population for its own purposes and possibly "to help persuade the U.S...
...Whatever support they still enjoy abroad would collapse...
...Six days later, in what was clearly an attempt to pour oil on troubled waters, Vice-President Sergio Ramirez appeared at a televised news conference...
...2 Targets and Victims BEFORE REVIEWING THE POSSIBLE reasons for this wave of repressive actions, let us examine its principal targets: members of the political opposition, the press, and the Catholic Church...
...Nevertheless, there is no discernible evidence that the Sandinistas are bent on destroying the political opposition...
...Since March 1982, La Prensa—like all other media—has been subject to prior censorship...
...One is that the emergency law was decreed in response to pressure from two of the top leaders of the National Directorate, Tomas Borge and Humberto Ortega...
...6 Reasons and Pretexts To COME BACK, then, to the question I posed before—why...
...Its usual suppliers, Mexico and Venezuela, were in economic straits and unwilling to sell their oil for soft currency...
...Until March 1982, censorship took the form of occasional suspension of the paper on the grounds that it disseminated false political or economic information that undermined national security and public order...
...There have been, however, cases of petty and vindictive harassment: one of the more unsavory incidents occurred in 1982, when the government chose to display, on television, pictures of Monsignor Bismarck Carvallo-spokesman for Cardinal Obando y Bravo— caught in flagrante delicto with one of his female parishioners...
...The one party that enjoys a significant measure of popular support is the Democratic Conservative party, a moderately left-wing offshoot of the traditional Conservative party of Nicaragua (now split into four separate factions...
...All six opposition parties may withdraw from the Assembly and, in the words of one of the leaders of the Democratic Conservative party, Eduardo Molina, announce to the world that "political pluralism in Nicaragua is dead...
...Americas Watch Report, Human Rights in Nicaragua, 1985-1986 (New York: Americas Watch, March 4, 1986), p. 47...
...Carvallo, the Church's spokesman, told me) with church matters...
...And as long as they go on, the prospects for a gradual evolution towards a more open and pluralistic system in Nicaragua cannot and must not be ruled out...
...An important clue to the future of opposition parties in Nicaragua, incidentally, and to their ability to carry out any meaningful activity under the restrictions imposed by the emergency regulations, will be the municipal elec302 tions, to be held either in the spring or summer of 1986...
...an ideological belligerence combined with a dose of pragmatism and flexibility...
...In 1983 the regime attempted to force Catholic schools—which educate about 30 percent of the nation's children—to accept the curriculum obligatory in state schools...
...According to the present draft, however, the 300 president's power to announce a state of emergency will no longer be subject to the three conditions stipulated by the International Covenant— namely, "necessity, temporarily, and proportionality...
...One of them is the renewed outbreak of hostilities on the Atlantic Coast, after a year in which the Sandinistas had clearly demonstrated a willingness to make amends for past outrages, and to come to terms with the disaffected Miskito population...
...Iglesia, incidentally, refused to register with the Media Office, claiming that it dealt exclusively (so Msgr...
...There is very little evidence that the Sandinistas would like to bring such a situation about...
...The Church, for example, charged the government with the forcible drafting of Catholic seminary students, contrary to its policy of exempting them from military service...
...in interviews, he describes the government as "totalitarian," and in his frequent travels through the country, he delivers homilies and sermons in which he pointedly, and with copious quotations from the Gospels, attacks "tyrannical" and "unjust" secular leaders...
...By April of this year, about 8,000 of them had crossed over to Honduras, after several clashes between Sandinista and anti-Sandinista forces...
...Many of those detained for varying lengths of time were told they were suspected of crimes "endangering state security and public order" (that is, "counterrevolutionary" activities...
...As anyone (including myself) who has been present at Obando's masses can easily testify, this is humbug...
...Both the manner in which it was announced (first on national television, by a grimlooking Daniel Ortega, flanked by the eight other equally grim-looking members of the National Directorate, and then on radio broadcasts repeated every few hours) and its magnitude produced tremors of shock, confusion, and outrage within the country and abroad...
...The state of emergency decree seemed to put the "Media Office" into a frenzy: as much as 60 percent of the copy submitted to the censor by La Prensa—according to its editor, Jaime Chamorro—has been excised, as compared to about 40 percent before October 15...
...On the very day the decree was announced, he called the Court into permanent session...
...they were overruled...
...In November 1985, the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) was informed that all of its publications must henceforth be submitted for censorship before publication—a step that would certainly curtail the dissemination of reports on human rights violations in the country...
...But the "juridical framework" had been in force for years...
...14 The Reagan administration has taken up the hierarchy's cause with a vengeance, often charging the government with a concerted campaign to "eradicate religion" altogether...
...Yet it is notable that in 1984, when the numerical strength of the contras was at its peak (about 16,000, as compared with current figures of between six and nine thousand), and when the contras were inflicting heavy casualties on the Sandinista forces, the state of emergency was substantially relaxed...
...Discovering evidence before dragging someone into jail and subjecting him to harsh interrogation takes a back seat to flaunting one's machismo and showing the world that you are tough, vigilant, and alert to potential conspiracies...
...Covenants on civil, political, economic, and social rights, as well as the American Declaration of Human Rights, contain a "derogation" clause that allows a government faced by direct military threats to suspend certain (but not all) civil liberties for a limited time, and for well-defined and patently compelling reasons...
...The security police have on several occasions produced "self-confessed spies...
...The result, as noted before, was that some of the most objectionable features of the decree were indeed eliminated...
...The increased presence of Sandinista forces along the Rio Coco, incidentally, may well have resulted from genuine fears that KISAN and the CIA were planning to stage a massive military operation in that region...
...Embassy in Managua has maintained close links with the CNPEN, participating in some of its meetings, and facilitating its members' frequent trips to the United States...
...And, in fact, the conflict is essentially political, not religious...
...The Church has been, for example, the single institution consistently critical of the draft, on the grounds that the army is used not to defend the country as a whole but the "Communist regime" ruling it...
...At the same time, the national assembly of the FSLN met in what I was told was a "stormy session," with numerous rank-and-file members forcefully demanding that the decree be either withdrawn or at the very least significantly altered...
...In a statement delivered to the House Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs on December 5, 1985, for instance, Elliot Abrams, assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, charged that the Sandinistas "use force to prevent the public from...
...According to a study conducted by two Norwegian journalists in December 1985, in which they examined the material censored from La Prensa for a period of two weeks (which is available to anyone who wants to see it), not only material bearing directly on military matters, and not only economic information bearing indirectly on security, but any items that reflect unfavorably on social conditions in the country have found their way into the dustbin...
...The Sandinistas themselves, after all, had used just such tactics against Somoza in the 1960s and 1970s: why shouldn't their enemies do the same...
...At least one member of the U.S...
...And what accounts for the new reprisals against the Church...
...Some of the reprisals taken by the Sandinistas have rebounded to the Church's advantage...
...What they are trying to do at La Prensa we have already done...
...As of this writing, the bishops have yet to respond to this offer...
...I used to be a conspiring journalist myself...
...Comandante Bayardo Arce, another member of the nine-man National Directorate, might argue similarly about the increased censorship of La Prensa...
...4 But not any more...
...In pastoral letters and in homilies delivered by both the cardinal and local priests, Nicaraguans are urged to defy the government...
...one, Jose Altamirono Rojas—a leader of the trade union organization CTN—vehemently denied any involvement with the group, claiming he had been repeatedly asked to join it but had consistently refused...
...Suffice it to say that the sudden eruption of hostilities between the Sandinista troops and one of the Miskito anti-Sandinista groups, KISAN, in January and March of this year, threatens to upset not only the fragile truce that has been in force for more than a year, but perhaps more important, the negotiations about the autonomy of the Atlantic region, where several indigenous peoples— besides the approximately 120,000 Miskito Indians— reside...
...Indeed, countervailing forces operating within Nicaragua manifest themselves dramatically in precisely this context...
...It is generally conceded by most outside observers, as well as by the Moravian Church that claims the allegiance of most of the Miskitos, that after the initial outrages committed by the Nicaraguan government in 1981-82, the government has made serious attempts to undo the damage, initiating talks with Miskito representatives and allowing about 14,000 Miskitos to return to their original homes along the Rio Coco, from which they had been forcibly evacuated in 1982...
...A year later, the Nicaraguan government claimed (and still claims) that the situation has vastly improved...
...It only remains to be said that as long as these prospects exist, the wisest policy the U.S...
...only the Soviet Union agreed to sell Nicaragua oil on a barter basis...
...Charges and countercharges are hurled, some true, some false...
...The Supreme Court has protested this practice, and is attempting to secure constitutional jurisdiction over the special courts that try defendants accused of serious political crimes (Tribunales Populares Antisomocistas—TPAs...
...Moreover, in some cases (though not all), those found guilty of atrocities have been brought to trial...
...According to my informants, however, Ortega had no choice but to accept Moscow's invitation, and to leave as scheduled for a trip planned months earlier...
...Should the bishops finally respond to the government's overtures, it is likely that Radio Catolica and Iglesia will be allowed to resurface...
...rather, their policies have been manifestly shaped by the exigencies of the situation and, frequently, by a desire to mollify both internal and external critics...
...That the government's attitude towards that paper is dictated more by animus and pique than by rational considerations of "national security" is illustrated by the fact that the government allows much more latitude to the six independent radio stations in Nicaragua, which have a far greater audience than La Prensa...
...Given the treatment of political opponents in other Central American countries, this is something to be thankful for...
...Against the objections of those FSLN members who argued that the cost effectiveness of the new restrictions on civil liberties would be either zero or negative, the comandantes in favor of this measure asserted that Reagan, by the logic of his own words and actions, would be bound to embark on new efforts to destabilize the regime, and that plenty of evidence pointed in this direction...
...He was released a few weeks later...
...Both figures may be slightly exaggerated...
...As I noted in my first article, the Sandinistas' attitude towards their political opponents is one of suspicion at best, hostility at worst...
...Under such circumstances, the question of who is really an enemy and who a stubborn critic tends to become moot...
...but alas, this seems too much to hope for...
...The conflict between Church and state continues unabated—though in this case, as noted before, the government has indicated a readiness to come to an accommodation...
...a Jesuit body, which, although it provides useful data and analysis, is manifestly sympathetic to the official Sandinista position...
...Furthermore, the Nicaraguan government has thus far observed the other relevant requirements of international law, such as informing the secretary-general of the United Nations of the specific reasons for enacting emergency measures, and the period they would remain in force.' Organizations such as Amnesty International and Americas Watch, while severely critical of various abuses committed by the Sandinistas, never challenged their right to invoke the "derogation" clause as such...
...attending the Cardinal's masses...
...See "Nicaragua: What Censorship is Really Like," by Horacio Ruiz (managing editor of La Prensa), the Washington Post, May 6, 1986...
...In early February Jimmy Carter visited Nicaragua...
...That includes, for instance, photographs of streets with no pavements (not a rare sight in Nicaragua) or of trucks in disrepair— anything, in other words, that contradicts the glowing stories and pictures, appearing in the Sandinista paper La Barricada, of happy workers paving the streets and smiling youngsters harvesting coffee and cotton under the blazing Central American sun...
...Announced only a few days after the U.S...
...About 200 Catholic church workers, including thirteen priests, were detained for brief periods in October and November...
...Shortly thereafter, he informed Ortega that in the unanimous opinion of the Court, many of the decree's provisions were decidedly "unjustifiable and wrong...
...Here, I think, there is considerable ground for optimism...
...To begin with, for example, the decree was greeted not only by a storm of protests outside Nicaragua, but by bitter objections within the FSLN's ranks as well...
...The Sandinistas have indeed on occasion failed to appreciate the impact of some of their actions on public opinion at home and abroad (Daniel Ortega's purchase of designer eyeglasses comes to mind)—but a measure of such baleful magnitude could hardly have been made more palatable by being "handled" more skillfully...
...Until now, the president, not bound by any constitutional restraints, has had the power to announce a state of emergency, though formally with the assent of the legislature...
...In February of this year, for instance, the Sandinistas sent two letters to the Conference of Bishops, asking for a meeting at which all outstanding issues, including the banning of the radio station and newsletter, would be discussed...
...An extremely controversial measure, the decree promulgating the State of Emergency, and its specific provisions, have been hotly debated within and outside of Nicaragua...
...The debates, the bargaining, the give-andtake arrangements that comprise the sine qua non of the political process, therefore, go on...
...Borge wanted it because of his constitutional— or ideological—proclivity for harsh measures against real and potential "troublemakers," Ortega because of his hostility to the Church for its support of draft evasion...
...As Arce's colleague, Comandante William Ramirez, said: "We know La Prensa is conspiring against us...
...Perhaps even more disturbing, in the long run— and more germane to the subject of this report— are some of the provisions in the draft of the constitution, which is now being debated in the National Assembly and in various "public forums" throughout the country, and which is to be voted upon this coming January...
...If these statements are true, how can the Sandinistas justify—to themselves and to others— the abolition of freedoms they had restored only a year earlier, when the country was under serious military threat...
...There have in fact been no forced conscriptions of seminarians: in the only case about which the Church submitted a written complaint, the young men involved turned out to have been instructed by church authorities to pretend that they were enrolled in a seminary...
...Was the new State of Emergency, then, perhaps simply yet another of those "salami tactics" employed by communist parties in Eastern Europe in their march to absolute power—which is to say, part of a grand design to emasculate and then liquidate the regime's political opponents?9 I see little merit in this theory...
...In January, three newspapermen, two of them associated with La Prensa, were summoned before the DGSE and arrested for illegally circulating a one-page newssheet, Prisma...
...Indeed, three high-ranking Sandinista officials told me that they regarded this claim as both "absurd" and "harmful...
...Examined coldly, the decree neither weakens nor strengthens measures already in force since the original State of Emergency of March 1982, which was enacted after a series of contra attacks inside the country and the disclosure of the contras' ties to the CIA...
...A few hours before the decree was announced, Defense Vice-Minister Joaquin Cuadra asserted that the contras had suffered a series of major defeats, and that the present "correlation of forces" was wholly favorable to the government...
...The question, then, is not whether they stayed on course, but what made them depart from it...
...Why not, for that matter, use 297 it as a bargaining chip if bilateral talks with the United States resumed...
...The opposition has in fact put the FSLN on notice: if it goes ahead with the present draft, it may precipitate an internal (and by extension an international) crisis...
...Worst of all, it suspended the right to habeas corpus of those arrested on suspicion of engaging in "counterrevolutionary" activities, and severely limited their legal rights in other ways as well...
...1 I have spoken to several opposition leaders in Nicaragua who made no secret of their sympathy for the contras and for Reagan's policies in general...
...they were arrested for allegedly distributing "counterrevolutionary" literature and for maintaining suspicious relations with certain members of the U.S...
...5 The censorship practices continue...
...9 To my knowledge, the term "salami tactics" was first used by Matyas Rakosi, the late and notorious Stalinist head of the Hungarian Workers' (that is, Communist) party, in a speech delivered on February 29, 1952, explicitly describing the methods employed to eviscerate the still existing opposition parties in 1945-46...
...13 Barricada (in English), Managua, January 16, 1986...
...The head of the Supreme Court is a distinguished lawyer and member of the FS LN...
...On his way home from Rome the newly-invested Cardinal Obando y Bravo stops off in Miami to celebrate mass with former Somocista leaders and contras...
...To be sure, most governments—not excluding authoritarian ones—like to invest objectionable or unpopular measures with a cloak of legality...
...Four months later, the decree remains in force—but often unenforced...
...3 On January 24, while I was in Nicaragua, the Ministry of the Interior held a press conference in which it produced four men accused of having joined a twentyfive man network tied to the Democratic National Force (FDN...
...During November and the first few weeks of December 1985, members of DirecciOn General de Seguridad del Estado (DGSE), a division of the Ministry of the Interior in charge of security cases, swooped down on perhaps as many as 400 people—leaders of political parties (including those represented in the National Assembly), trade union officials, and religious figures...
...Why all this nasty and pettifogging harassment of parties that—with their small memberships, internal squabbles, and inability to elicit mass support—are scarcely in a position to threaten the government?' Why make life even harder than before for the country's single opposition newspaper...
...They continue to be united and outspoken on this issue...
...Finally, it cannot be ruled out that the Sandinistas were genuinely worried that the contras (and the CIA), defeated on the battlefield, would indeed resort to acts of sabotage or to inciting public unrest...
...Before its latest shutdown, Radio Catolica was closed for two days last October as a warning to stop broadcasting appeals to young men not to serve in the army...
...and the already existing "legal mechanisms"—such as the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of political offenses— could have easily sufficed to deal with any new challenges to the security of the state...
...He admitted that the original wording had been drafted "in haste," and that the government would use its powers "selectively," so as to avoid creating "panic and apprehension...
...I have chosen to examine this concatenation of forces with regard to one particular issue—the State of Emergency, imposed in October 1985, and still in force...
...Sandinistas Are Often Tough, but the Political Debate is Lively in Nicaragua," New York Times, March 20, 1986, p. A8...
...Given the highly charged political atmosphere in Nicaragua, these explanations make some sense...
...To dismiss it merely as one of those "blunders" that the Sandinistas maladroitly but frequently commit is little more than an evasion...
...In fact, what La Prensa was actually allowed to publish was the harshest criticism of its own government that could be read in any newspaper in Central America during 1985...
...There is certainly no dearth of political leaders who openly proclaim their sympathies for the contras and for Reagan's policies," and people like Borge feel strongly that such leaders should be dealt with severely...
...5 La Prensa has not been the only (though it is the main) object of reprisals...
...16 There have been some more disturbing developments, too...
...All international legal documents on human rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two U.N...
...Others were not offered any explanations—or presented with any for295 mal charges—whatever...
...The fact that the October 15 decree was substantially revised is not without significance...
...The attempt was resisted so strongly that the government gave up its efforts...
...10 However reprehensible the method of producing "self-confessed spies," it seems perfectly plausible that at least some of the contras' sympathizers within Nicaragua would be prepared at least to provide them with useful logistical information, and that the CIA would maintain a network of informants in the country...
...Two weeks later the decree was approved by the National Assembly, with some important modifications...
...a tension between suspicion of, and often remarkable susceptibility to pressure...
...While Catholic school budgets are still underwritten to a large extent by government subsidies, now, in retaliation for the Church's refusal to adopt the national curriculum, all its school books must be bought out of its own funds...
...Contrary to reports disseminated by the Reagan administration, the number of political prisoners remains the same as in the past.' The political parties—including those not represented in the National Assembly—continue to function, though under conditions that severely restrict their ability to broaden the base of their support...
...they were fingerprinted and photographed, and in some cases warned about their alleged antistate activities...
...Although the three editors of Prisma were subsequently released, and Tomas Borge claimed when I met with him that his ministry did not wish to impose prior censorship on CPDH but merely to be provided with copies of its publications when they appeared, these actions obvi296 ously marked another stage in the escalation of the assault on freedom of expression in Nicaragua...
...Solidaridad, a newsletter published by an anti-Sandinista labor union (CUS), has been suspended...
...14a...
...8 "Behind the State of Emergency," Envio (Managua), November 1985, p. 1 la...
...Moreover, he would be able to extend it for an indefinite period of time (with the Assembly not having to ratify it for ninety days), and for the country as a whole, even though the putative "threat" might apply (as it frequently had in the past) to only one part of the country...
...Finally, the third target—the Church...
...Some were detained for a few hours, some for several days, and some for much longer...
...In response, Daniel Ortega shrilly accuses the Church hierarchy of being "the internal force of American aggression," and Borge lets it be known that he and his colleagues have no intention of being taken for "idiots...
...To call attention to the polarization of the country is neither to minimize nor to condone the Sandinistas' contribution to it...
...We know all the tricks...
...He also stated—in line with numerous similar statements made by Nicaraguan leaders over the past few years—that as soon as the U.S.-sponsored aggression against his country ends, the government will lift the State of Emergency (Washington Post, May 11, 1986...
...In addition, the Church's behavior strongly suggests that—despite its ringing appeals for "dialogue" and "reconciliation"—it is far more interested in keeping the pot boiling and thus, with the active support of the American administration, preserving its aura of martyrdom...
...Yet the net was cast so widely, and the arrests came in such rapid succession, that there could be little doubt about their essential purpose: intimidation...
...We can only report official information about the war and we can't put anyone on the air who advocates dialogue between the government and the armed rebels...
...At this moment," Ortega said, "victory consists of the mercenary forces' inability to develop strategically into a military threat to the Revolution...
...Three of them admitted membership...
...Several hypotheses were advanced...
...Grudging concessions by the Sandinistas that many of the criticisms were "just," and that they were prepared to compromise on these crucial issues...
...The tug-ofwar played out by the two antagonists is sometimes comical, sometimes nasty...
...16 According to the New York Times's correspondent in Managua, Stephen Kinzer, an editor of one of these stations told him that "we are able to broadcast just about anything, even saying that the Sandinistas are terrible administrators or that there needs to be more freedom in the country ....There are only two important taboos...
...In the 1970s when Arce worked for the paper, it actively conspired to overthrow the Somoza regime (for which its editor, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was assassinated in 1978...
...I will examine it more closely below...
...It is merely to register the obvious, if melancholy, fact that a siege mentality invariably spawns an ambience in which suspicion, paranoia, and unbridled hostility flourish...
...Furthermore, these measures—for all their reprehensible features—have observed at least the letter of international law...
...The political context in which these charges are made is, unfortunately, often ignored...
...The comandantes found themselves faced with a remarkable show of resistance, in particular on the part of the nation's Supreme Court, most of whose members—including its president—are party members...
...None of the former detainees I myself—or the Americas Watch delegation— interviewed complained of physical torture...
...In a conversation with the Americas Watch delegation in late January, the president of the Court made no bones about his and his colleagues' serious reservations about the decree...
...But the one issue on which the Sandinistas have given no quarter whatever is that sturdy and persistent adversary, La Prensa...
...As a result, about two-thirds of the 221 articles—some of them changed to accommodate the opposition—have already been ratified by the committee...
...But if the powers of the president are curbed, and if the legislatures's powers (as well as, incidentally, the power of the Supreme Court) to overrule the president are sanctified by law, it would be infinitely more difficult for those forces straining to push the country in a more authoritarian direction to have their way...
...Parts of the Puzzle THE RECENT STATE OF EMERGENCY, then, can be explained in part as a reflection of the polarization of Nicaraguan society, in part as a typical overreaction to real or perceived dangers, and in part as a tactical weapon designed to strengthen the Sandinistas' hand in case of a resumption of direct negotiations with the United States...
...The most contentious and potentially alarming issue is that of the powers to be vested in the executive branch (for which read: the president...
...In the meantime, the opposition parties, too, went into action...
...12 Quoted in John Spicer Nichols, "The Media," in Nicaragua: The First Five Years, Thomas W. Walker, ed...
...17 Important though they are, the intricacies of the Miskito problem are beyond the purview of this article...
...Why this sudden rash of intimidating measures...
...Personal honor, not for the first or last time, seems to have triumphed over political prudence...
...The second question is: How great is the likelihood that the present provisions to which the opposition objects will actually be incorporated into the final document...
...All of them belong to the CNPEN (Evangelical National Conference of Nicaraguan Pastors), an aggressively anti-Sandinista group, which has openly called for draft evasion, and in some cases has been known to provide evaders with shelter and financial assistance for illegal passage out of the country...
...We have put them in a defensive position, which has no prospects for strategic, military, or political development because they do not have their own social base...
...Certainly its cause has been taken up vigorously by the Reagan administration, by the Pope, by La Prensa, by COSEP—the umbrella organization of large landowners and manufacturers in Nicaragua—and by various international human rights organizations...
...The picture presented by the State of Emergency is grim—but not unremittingly so...
...What the National Assembly passed, in November 1985, in effect reaffirmed the 1982 provisions, with two qualifications: strikes, public meetings, and demonstrations were permitted with prior authorization, and freedom of movement was restricted only in war zones...
...Indeed, as several human rights organizations have ascertained over the past few years, physical torture is not a method systematically employed by the security police...
...Nevertheless, it does not alter the sweeping and pernicious restrictions, nor does it explain why the Sandinista government believed the imposition of such restrictions neces294 sary, especially on the eve of Ortega's trip to the United Nations...
...The Revolution would then stand naked and demonstrably betrayed...
...According to the last Americas Watch report: "In the first nine months after the inauguration of Daniel Ortega as President . . . the extent of censorship suffered by the opposition newspaper La Prensa was less than in the period between March of 1982 and late 1984...
...Coupled with some other powers to be vested in the presidency (such as control over the budget, declaring war without even consulting the National Assembly, and ruling by decree when the Assembly is not in session, which is to say for a good part of the year), the document certainly would go a long way towards turning the legislature into little more than a rubber stamp...
...The response...
...The reports of the CPDH, the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, have now been exempted from censorship...
...the "juridical" argument, however, is too specious to be taken seriously...
...A number of evangelical leaders received similar treatment...
...Churches and church schools have given shelter to draft evad298 ers and helped them leave the country...
...q Notes Amnesty International, Nicaragua—The Human Rights Record (London: Amnesty International, 1986), P. 6. 2 Interestingly, my European and American sources in Nicaragua believed that Ortega's Moscow trip—often cited as one of those "public relations" blunders—was unavoidable...
...But indisputably there has been a significant increase in the amount of material deleted, and the censors have apparently abandoned any pretense of sticking to the letter of the law...
...If that were to translate into additional pressure on the Sandinistas to make concessions, the new decree could serve as a bargaining chip...
...The government's standard explanation is that it had evidence that the CIA, having failed to turn the contras into an effective military force, was now determined to resort to "internal conspiracy, sabotage and social destabilization," and that the government considered it necessary to provide itself with "a strict juridical framework to control" this incipient threat...
...But the effects of the State of Emergency on the Church were: the closure and confiscation of the first issue of Iglesia, published by the Archdiocese of Managua, in October, and the closure of Radio Catolica, also owned by the Archdiocese, on January 1. Open-air religious activities cannot now be held without prior permission...
...Only five days earlier, the FSLN newspaper Barricada reprinted an extensive interview with Cuadra's boss, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, which had appeared in the Washington Post in September...
...On April 18-20, several 301 members of the comittee met with a group of American lawyers at an open forum in New York...
...A second possibility is that the Sandinistas had reason to believe that the forthcoming summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev would include discussions of "regional problems...
...They have presented a draft of the constitution to a special committee of the National Assembly (consisting of members of all opposition parties as well as the FSLN), and engaged in vigorous and frequently acrimonious debates with their critics, while maintainng that they wished to arrive at an agreement "by consensus...
...could follow would be not to abort, but to encourage the ongoing political process...
...Embassy...
Vol. 33 • July 1986 • No. 3
