Taking Note

...My attempt to deal with a complex and controversial theme in a well-rounded and accurate manner was fundamentally at odds with the medium I chose...

...Each side at the Rio talks accused the others of torpedoing an accord, while an urgent telegram sent later to Daniel Ortega and Arturo Cruz by Socialist International leader Willy Brandt implicitly criticized both sides for losing patience...

...It was paired with a fierce attack on the validity of the elections by conservative Republican Senator David Durenberger of Minnesota...

...Sergio Ramirez's assessment of parliamentary procedures "today and tomorrow" seems likely to hold firm...

...To make a complex argument on the relationship between revolution and democracy in a journal like Latin American Perspectives is one thing...

...My sense of the parallels between Grenada and Nicaragua was overdrawn...

...In an attempt to break the deadlock between uncritical praise and vilification, I opted instead for a more oblique approach to the central question of legitimacy...

...IF THE GOOD FAITH OF THESE MOTIVATIONS is granted, the question becomes one of medium and language...

...But many journalists and foreign observers who expected a "Sovietstyle sham" had to swallow their surprise...

...The point here is that reports of the talks do not substantiate the op-ed's over-simplified contention that "Sandinista negotiator Arce . .. pulled out just when an agreement appeared to be within reach...

...By 1984, Ortega was telling La Prensa that, "If a political group wins the elections by a majority of votes, that group will assume power and proceed to exercise it...

...One early result of this may well be to bring Arturo Cruz back into a future electoral process, splitting his Coordinadora alliance...

...GEORGE BLACK...

...In many ways this reflects the striking originality of the Sandinista model of revolution...

...The second main bone of contention in the article is its suggestion that "The Sandinistas are also victims of their own divisions...

...Despite the abstention of Arturo Cruz's Coordinadora and the hopeless confusion of Virgilio Godoy's Independent Liberals (on the ballot despite having officially withdrawn), the elections took place as scheduled on November 4. They were not quite what the Sandinistas had hoped or planned for, in the sense that Cruz's CDN and Godoy's PLI chose to withdraw...

...My piece proved controversial...

...Like the original op-ed, this letter from the editor should be read as reflecting my personal views and not those of the NACLA staff as a whole...

...Beyond this, our staff appear on network television shows, write for major magazines, newspapers and specialist journals, and have become vital contributors to the policy debate around Central America...

...Arturo Cruz was unable to rally more than 50 people, most of them press...

...public, as a prelude to further military attacks...

...An oblique and convoluted argument was also fatally prejudiced by what many readers rightly criticized as the use of "buzzwords...

...But two critical points of controversy demand an answer...

...The violence and disruption of opposition rallies proved trivial in com- parison to recent election campaigns in Panama, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, where party activists were killed...

...Some members of the Directorate stress the primacy of mass mobilization and military defense, em- phasizing the role of the Sandinista Defense Committees and the militias...

...The signs are that the Sandinistas, if they survive, will continue to rule Nicaragua with an astute awareness of realpolitik, a realistic assessment of the strength of their opponents at home, and a fundamental willingness to engage the thorny equation of revolution and democracy...

...Our shelves are too full of books whose titles begin "The Lessons of . . . " One article I found especially thought-provoking was Colin Henfrey's "Grenada: Between Populism and Leninism," in the Summer 1984 issue of the academic journal Latin American Perspectives...

...the argument of the piece gave inadequate regard to the consensus view of my colleagues...

...First, where did the major blame lie for the problems that surrounded the Nicaraguan elections...

...It would no doubt have picked up some of the spoiled ballots and some of the abstentions, perhaps enough to give it the 13% won by the Democratic Conservatives or the 10% that went to the PLI...

...Those of us who believe that the Nicaraguan government is a legitimate one, and poses no threat to the national security of the United States, are, tragically, fighting a rearguard action...

...Many observers, of Left and Right alike, continue to hark back to the famous speech by Defense Minister Humberto Ortega on August 23, 1980 as a blueprint for the elections...

...It was certainly misleading to suggest that these distinctions are sharply factional or antagonistic, or that individual members of the Directorate are pursuing agendas hostile to the consen- sus...

...As far as the question of institutional pluralism is concerned, all the evidence suggests that the November 4 elections will not be the last...

...That response has made it clear that the op-ed failed to convey its intended message explicitly or to meet the standards which many long-time readers have come to demand from our work...

...T IS DEEPLY IRONIC TO BE WRITING THIS AT A moment when the entire Sandinista experiment is threatened with extinction...

...What would have happened if the CDN had run...

...As often as not, the emphasis that one member of the Directorate places on an issue is a straightforward reflection of his own job responsibilities...

...we take new risks...

...That refusal to go down the electoral path of legitimation may have been a key factor in the NJM's internal divisions and ultimate failure...

...This is hardly the environment in which to test the substance of an open election...

...And why...

...As for the Rio de Janeiro talks on October 1-2, after which Cruz's CDN definitively refused to stand, the evidence of what happened remains murky and contradictory...

...To a remarkable extent, the FSLN leadership has con- tinued to operate by consensus and maintained a striking degree of unity even under the fiercest pressure...

...This month's Taking Note column is a welcome opportunity to respond to the concerns that have been expressed...

...In the final analysis, the question of institutional pluralism is one factor among several in devising a democratic system that is responsive to the specific conditions of Nicaragua...

...Since late 1981, when relations between Managua and Washington froze over, scarcely any- press coverage has acknowledged the basic legitimacy of the Sandinista regime and its election plans...

...Its focus and timing were poorly judged...

...On November 2, just two days before the Nicaraguan vote, I published an op-ed article on the subject in The New York Times...

...NACLA confronts a constant challenge in extending the fruits of its analysis to an ever-broader readership...

...The Sandinista decision to hold multi-party elections-with rules as truly "Western-style" as any of their detractors could have demanded-was a remarkable one...

...T HE ADMINISTRATION, STILL FLUSHED FROM its victory in Grenada, has also worked hard to drive a wedge into the unified Sandinista Directorate, which was formed in 1979 from three separate tendencies...

...Many readers have understood the article to suggest that, "The fatal combination of United States intransigence and conflicts within the Sandinista leadership" were somehow equally to blame for the election difficul- ties...

...Any political movement or government, of Right or Left, is essentially a coalition...

...Our readers' reactions-- praise for our successes as well as criticism of our lapses-will be fundamental to our ability to meet future challenges successfully...

...W HAT MOTIVATED THIS CONTROVERSIAL piece...

...Growth is a hazardous business, and it poses a central dilemma: how are we to evolve a discourse, an idiom that is appropriate to this broadening role without resorting to terminology that is more fitting to our adversaries...

...But that early conception of the elections was superseded...

...to make it in the pages of The New York Times is quite another matter...

...ONCE TAKEN IN LATE 1983, THE FSLN'S DEcision to hold competitive, multi-party elections did not waver...

...In the process it has challenged dogma on all sides of the political spectrum...

...We often appear more adept at producing analyses of this sort after the fact, rather than hazarding them while the revolutionary regime in question is in power and under siege...

...And it was an option that Grenada's New Jewel Movement had rejected...

...The record of the daily newspapers is, on the whole, de- plorable...

...at this most dangerous of moments, only the strictest principles of non-intervention in the country's affairs will allow us to see what amalgam of democratic principles, participatory as well as electoral, Nicaragua truly intends to develop...

...In one key passage, Henfrey discusses Washington's contribution to the Grenada debacle by playing on what he calls the divergent "electoral" and "authoritarian" conceptions of defense among the Grenadian leadership...

...If nurtured, the latter, reinforced by war conditions and opposition in the party, would be the Sandinistas' downfall" (emphasis added...

...The Sandinistas apparently reached some such conclusions well before the Grenadian disaster...

...In a country besieged by war and economic strangulation, it has been characterized by a spirit of pragmatism and openness...

...Washington has used the extreme rightists of the Honduras-based FDN as its political spearhead and treated more moderate dissidents as cannon fodder...

...For the last five years, this has meant empowerment and participation in grassroots programs as well as access to government...

...Our Report on the Americas reaches more readers than ever before: as the circulation figures elsewhere in this issue indicate, our paid subscribers have grown by 22% in the last year alone...

...The anniversary of the U.S...

...Its failure to take part did not affect the internal legitimacy of the elections as much as their international impact...

...In many quarters, we are regarded as outright heretics...

...This is where the pressure from the Reagan Administration comes in...

...Mainly, those abstentions meant that the elections bought Nicaragua less space in the international arena than the Sandinistas had hoped...

...Conservative presidential can- didate Clemente Guido's view of it was this: "[The Coordinadora] is not a majority . .. on his latest visit to Managua Dr...

...they are also deluged with articles by supporters of the revolution, and they are largely immune to them...

...Because, in the reasoning of VicePresident elect Sergio Ramirez, "The development of Nicaragua's revolution, together with Nicaragua's geopolitical position and the relationship between inside and outside forces, has made political pluralism and parliamentary democracy unavoidable in Nicaragua's development today and tomorrow...

...That would distance him from its most recalcitrant members, who cooperated with the CIA to sabotage the voting, and deprive Washington of the last of its plausible front men...

...in 1983 alone it inflicted material losses of $128 million...

...Democratic process in Nicaragua is still in its infancy...

...invasion of the island fell just ten days before the Nicaraguan elections...

...T HIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR A POINT-BY-POINT dissection of "what the op-ed really meant to say...

...Some compared the process to Mexico...

...Henfrey concludes, rightly, that Washington will attempt to repeat its Grenada exercise by pushing the Sandinistas in an "authoritarian" direction...

...we seek out new alliances to expand the impact of our work...

...And, most telling, the FSLN won 62% of the vote on a 75% turnout: hardly what one would expect from a totalitarian force bent on destroying its opponents...

...Indeed, an earlier draft of the New York Times piece argued that "Ronald Reagan will not succeed in provoking a murderous Grenada-style split in the Sandinistas' ranks...

...Henfrey argues that, "There is nothing intrinsically 'bourgeois' in multi-party electoral democracy...

...Everything is secondary to the military defense of the revolu- tion...

...thinking was that democratic is more dangerous than authoritarian socialism...

...The "cruel and costly war" that the article begins by condemning is the defining reality of Nicaragua today...

...but it must have strengthened their inclination to fulfill their original commitments to elections . . . What Nicaragua also suggests in evident parallel to Grenada is that democratic considerations and socialist realpolitik both point in the same electoral direction" (emphasis added...

...First, a belief that the re-election of the Reagan Administration confronts Nicaragua's experiment in social transformation with the very real prospect of extinction...

...In the debates around the new electoral and political party laws, the FSLN granted key concessions, none greater than to give opposition parties the right to compete for state power...

...The cynical way in which the great MIG scare was fanned in the week following November 6 only confirms fears that the administration, bereft of real pretexts for an invasion, is digging deep into its propaganda arsenal to establish a "Cuban missile crisis" mentality in Congress and among a skeptical U.S...

...The third factor behind my decision was the haunting specter of Grenada...

...In the process, we enter uncharted territory...

...From the outset, it has defied stereotypes and avoided many of the pitfalls that have bedevilled other Third World revolutions...

...Second, was the deNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1984 piction of currents within the Sandinista leadership accurate...

...The Sandinistas are a much Continued on page 17 Continued from page 3 more complex and sophisticated movement than the narrow and divided NJM...

...As anyone who has attempted the medium will know, the 700-word op-ed has much in common with the cartoon: a place to simplify, not to make intricate arguments...

...Others may talk more of the role of the state in economic planning, or the exigencies of interna- tional diplomacy-what Henfrey called "socialist real- politik...

...The second reason was alarm at how much of the administration's spadework has been done by the widespread acquiescence of the major media...

...As Jay Peterzell points out in his valuable new study, Reagan's Secret Wars, "The Administration is in the grip of an obsession...

...As for opinion page editors, they are inundated with at- tacks on Nicaragua, many of which find their way into print...

...That obsession-a hostility to the survival of Nicaragua's revolution in any form-has brought three years of savage war that have cost 8,000 Nicaraguan lives...

...G]iven a choice between [this] and alternatives produced by a vanguard, the first may be less undemocratic for the testing and initial legitimizing of a Third World socialist revolution...

...The Sandinistas were not alone in deriding the Cruz candidacy...

...It is no secret that members of the FSLN leadership have different, though overlap- ping, approaches to the problem of survival under condi- tions of war...

...In the words of one senior Sandinista official, "Nicaragua is at war...

...The Sandinista program, which has majority support in the new Assembly, is committed not only to periodic electoral review, but to the equitable distribution of wealth and power...

...the CIA-backed contras have bombed oil storage tanks and airports, burned down day-care centers and health posts...

...The apparent logic of U.S...

...With what success...

...It provoked a flurry of letters from some sectors of our readers and supporters, sharp disagreement from colleagues and widespread misunderstanding of its thesis and motivation...

...It has forced the Sandinistas to divert a full quarter of the nation's budget to armed defense...

...It seemed to me-and still does-that the significance of the Sandinistas' decision to enter into multi-party elections is strengthened--not diminished-by recognizing the long and intense debate that preceded it, and by acknowledging that some members of the Directorate may have had misgivings about the expenditure of so much energy and political capital on elections...

...T HE GRENADA ANNIVERSARY SPAWNED A rash of post-mortem articles, many of them shrewd and insightful...

...The United States has mined harbors and channeled covert aid to business opponents of the regime...

...What the Coordinadora has had is great international publicity...

...Though the controversial question of elections is known to have' provoked particularly intense discussion, the un- ified Sandinista position has evolved pragmatically, and 17has moved a considerable distance since the organization's first public pronouncements on the subject...

...That same spirit was present during the recent electoral process that culminated on November 4 with the sweeping election of Daniel Ortega to the presidency...

...The op-ed failed this test, but we intend to learn from its shortcomings and make our voice heard more effectively among new audiences...

...Nothing could be further from the truth...

...My goal was to suggest to skeptical New York Times readers that, "Ronald Reagan's charge that the Sandinistas designed the election as a 'Soviet-style sham' is malicious and inaccurate...

...one British Conservative went further and declared that the elections were fairer and more open than those in Western Europe...

...The Sandinistas now propose a "national dialogue" with a wide range of social forces to achieve peace...

...it has destabilized Nicaragua's borders and subverted its political process...

...That polarity, or some local variant of it, is present in all revolutionary movements...

...On that date, Ortega proclaimed the Sandinista's intention to hold elections "to perfect revolutionary power" and not to conduct "a raffle among those who seek to hold power...