Letters
Reinventing Solidarity In an otherwise fine essay about North-South solidarity and human rights activism ["A Typology of Activism," March/April 1995], Margaret Keck claims that "the human...
...and 3) the organization of Nicaraguan fishermen in order to address their political marginalization vis-a-vis the state...
...John Lindsay-Poland PBI Colombia Project San Francisco, CA Readers are invited to address letters to The Editors, NACLA Report on the Americas, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 454, New York, NY 10115...
...Marc Allain OXFAM-Canada Nicaragua Program Officer 1982-1988 Halifax, Nova Scotia...
...nonetheless, in principle there are real differences...
...2) the collection of used fishing gear in Atlantic Canada to provide both material aid and to extend the Nicaraguan solidarity movement into Canadian coastal communities...
...It was the result of patient political work over an extended period of time inspired by a fundamental commitment to autonomous and democratic producercontrolled organizations...
...PBI has been subjected to threats, a bombing and a stabbing incident in Guatemala, and other forms of repression...
...In practice, of course, one can stand proxy for the other...
...PBI does not primarily gather information about human rights abuses, but attempts to use governments' concern for their international human rights image as a way to protect and maintain the space in which local organizations can carry out their work nonviolently...
...In fact, organizations such as Peace Brigades International (PBI) have explicitly made shared risk an important vehicle for their human rights work...
...Implicit in this methodology is the assumption of risk by those who can make use of Northern privilege to protect on-the-ground organizing for peace and justice...
...INPESCA remained the main obstacle to the organization of fishermen in Nicaragua until the Sandinista defeat in 1990...
...When I differentiate between solidarity and human rights organizations, I do not mean to imply that solidarity organizations are not concerned with human rights, but that by placing themselves beside people at risk, they stress a commonality of fate in very concrete terms...
...While the work of OXFAMCanada was not without its contradictions and mistakes, it was clearly on the side of popular empowerment, and deserves a bit more prodding and sophisticated analysis...
...PBI has fielded teams of international volunteers who accompany activists and groups threatened by political violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, indigenous communities in Canada, and now Haiti...
...The Nicaraguan government's fisheries model was an extreme version of the monolith that many Canadian fishermen were struggling against in Canada...
...should read: "The question of land has been...ignored in the latest World Bank report...
...From its inception, the program had three components: 1) the experimental introduction of Canadian technology aimed at increasing production in the artisanal fisheries sector...
...OXFAM-Canada began programming in the fisheries sector in Nicaragua in 1985...
...OXFAM's involvement in the organization of Nicaraguan fishermen, however, was a very delicate matter...
...Moreover, it had the power to decide which forms of legal organization were appropriate for fishermen...
...Similar work has been done by Witness for Peace and Christian Peacemaker Teams...
...By 1987 discontent with INPESCA amongst fishermen was widespread as the ministry's corporate arm tried to extract more and more surplus from the small producers in order to generate foreignexchange earnings...
...OXFAM's contribution to the emergence of a national organization of Nicaraguan fishermen in 1992 did not stem from a sudden recognition of the limitations of technology transfer...
...L aura Macdonald is mistaken when she suggests that OXFAM-Canada adopted a paternalistic, developmentalist approach to fisheries programming in Nicaragua and ignored issues of political organization prior to 1989 ["A Mixed Blessing: The NGO Boom in Latin America," March/April, (Continued on page 45) Erratum Due to an editing error on page 9 of Carlos Vilas' "El Salvador After the Accords"[May/June,1995], the sentence that begins "The question of poverty...
...The aim is to be the eyes and ears of the international community in places where human rights violations occur...
...PBI does not intervene in the work of local activists, but by physically accompanying them, we raise the stakes for those who contemplate violence against nonviolent activists and communities...
...It also tried to draw both the farmworkers' and farmers' unions (ATC and UNAG) into organizing fishermen either as affiliates or towards an independent national fishermen's organization...
...Margaret Keck responds: would characterize PBI, Witness for Peace, and others who do this kind of work as solidarity organizations precisely because they take on the element of shared risk in their methods...
...This context made the organization of inshore fishermen that much more urgent...
...Thus, in my view, the notion of solidarity implies a broader commitment to the goals or philosophies of those to whom it is extended than does the defense of human rights...
...Normally they do this in relation to people whom they believe to be engaged in worthwhile activities-resisting oppression and so forth...
...Reinventing Solidarity In an otherwise fine essay about North-South solidarity and human rights activism ["A Typology of Activism," March/April 1995], Margaret Keck claims that "the human rights methodology has not included expressions of shared vulnerability...
...OXFAM was, after all, a foreign NGO pursuing an agenda that, to many, was pushing the boundaries of acceptable solidarity...
...OXFAM worked diligently and discreetly to involve other NGOs-both foreign and domestic-in direct relationships with the pockets of organized fishermen...
...In addition to technology transfer and political solidarity, OXFAM believed that the Canadian fishermen had a lot of organizing experience to offer their Nicaraguan counterparts...
...Here, "rights" pertain to prisoners of conscience of all persuasions, and their defense is justified under explicit provisions of international law...
...The human rights work to which I referred in the typology, on the other hand, is the information-gathering and verification methodology pioneered by Amnesty International and the Watch Committees...
...Unfortunately, INPESCA was quite content with its hegemonic role and, unlike many other Sandinista ministries, had totally abandoned any pretense of supporting meaningful social transformation...
...INPESCA, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Fisheries, was the country's only fish company, with a vertically integrated trawler fleet and a monopoly over the purchasing, processing and marketing of fish...
...Letters can be sent by e-mail to: NACLA @igc.apc.org...
Vol. 29 • July 1995 • No. 1
