THE WIDER WAR: Nicaragua
Amid falsehood and sophistry we have reached the extreme in which the campaign against Nicaragua is carried out in the name of democracy. It is no small paradox that the destruction of a...
...1 3 Pressuring the Weakest Point The Nicaraguan economy is still dependent on large injections of foreign aid, resulting at least in part from Somoza's policies in the final years before the FSLN victory...
...Particularly effective on wavering middle-class sectors, it is being carried out with fervent selfinterest by the opposition parties, the reactionary press and sectors of the religious hierarchy (see Update article, this issue...
...Nicaragua enjoys support not just from the socialist countries, but western capitalist governments as well...
...Intercontinental Press, December 1, 15, 1980...
...Central America Report, May 23, 1981...
...New York Times, March 17, 1981...
...No attempt has been made to restrict their mobility in or out of the country or to interfere with their activities...
...Thus, the U.S...
...4 In spite of its show of military force, the Sandinista government is actually weak and could be overthrown by a determined, coordinated and sharply focused effort...
...Quite apart from the opportunities for agitation this gives opposition trade union confederations such as the CUS and CTN, it also demands discipline and a longrange view from a working class with limited political experience...
...Practicing with old World War I rifles or wood makebelieve ones, they learn to march, to run with a rifle, to hug the ground, to shoot straight...
...See NACLA Report on theAmericas, "Nicaragua's Revolution," May-June 1980...
...and the extent to which the popular base of the revolution understands and is incorporated into the decision-making process itself...
...AIFLD, it should be noted, was also one of the few organizations funded by AID during the destabilization campaign against the Allende government...
...6. Ibid...
...Comandante Henry Ruiz, Minister of Planning, January 13, 1981 It is a truism that economic conditions generate political responses, but the nature of those responses depends on myriad other factors...
...aid for fiscal 1982, credits to the government currently affected by the cutoff include the $15 million balance of the original loan package, $10 million in PL-480 food aid and $11.4 million for rural development, education and health.' 6 Not affected are grants for the private sector and U.S...
...Some are convinced the United States will intervene directly...
...ALAI...
...3 4 Another new organization, the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG) has just taken its two seats on the Council of State...
...It presupposes that persistent economic hardship will significantly erode support for the Sandinista project...
...5, No...
...And finally, an estimated one million Nicaraguans-nearly half the population-have been marching with their neighborhood defense committees to polling sites to sign a Letter of Dignity which expresses their unity in the face of aggression...
...8. "Socialist International Nicaragua Solidarity Committee Meets," Socialist International Press Release, 21/80, December 6, 1980...
...According to a Ministry of Planning summary, production reached 99% of its overall projection for 1980-that is to say, nearly 1978 levels...
...A second purpose of his Miami visit was to get food, clothes and medicines for these supposed "refugees from Sandinista repression," who have already been rushed such supplies by the Honduran government...
...After Fagoth's provisional release in mid-May he fled to Honduras, where he was joined by an estimated 3,000 Miskitos...
...Inforpress Centroamericana, May 21, 1981...
...a policy designed for a long time to come to accelerate the hard features of a communist society in Chile...
...Export-Import Bank, on the other hand, provided $8.9 million in credits for commercial foreign sales during the final year of Somoza's rule, and dropped that figure to $40,000 in the first year of the revolution.'" This cutback affects, among other items, much-needed spare parts...
...7 In February 1981, the United States suspended economic aid to the Nicaraguan government...
...Ibid...
...29NACLA Report has been hampered in its objective by limited economic resources as well as cultural animosities that date back to the colonial period...
...Due mainly to increased employment and salary increases for the lowest paid workers, the latter rose 23% in 1980.23 The goal for this year is 1977's production level-higher than war-distressed 1978...
...1 In short, "The economic disaster inherited by the Government of National Reconstruction has no precedent in Latin America...
...Parade Magazine, March 15, 1981...
...Diario Las Americas, June 6, 1981...
...Costeilos still refer to people on the Pacific side as "the Spanish...
...When we get started, the people are going to come with us...
...Nicaragua is richly endowed and, given its small population, has great economic potential...
...6 Another observed pointedly that Honduras had recently received about 20 medium-weight British tanks, better suited to the border terrain between the two countries...
...Agence Latino-Americaine D'Information (ALAI), Vol...
...6 But such a goal is the stuff of which pipe dreams are made, and the presence of ex-National Guardsmen within their ranks is hardly a political asset...
...1 Last year, the United States was the largest single donor and second largest lender after the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), providing $118.5 million in donations and loans through November (14% of Nicaragua's total foreign aid for the period...
...from Cuba...
...In a recent conference, a Planning Ministry official identified three main areas of political tension that are expected to arise.26 The first is that the middle class, in particular those involved in domestic commerce, will feel the consumption restrictions most, and are least ideologically prepared to accept them...
...The Internal Contradictions If they are trying to destabilize us, to weaken our resolve and, finally, to clip the wings of the Sandinista Revolution, these dangers will disappear to the degree that the working class unites, the national sectors unite, and their unity becomes strong and consistent...
...Avances de la Revolucion Popular Sandinista (Managua: International Relations Department of the FSLN, January 1981), p. 13...
...It only needs time to rebuild from the war damage, reduce the foreign debt, and reactivate industrial and agricultural production...
...private institutions totalling $10.6 million...
...Ibid...
...2 0 A leader of the UDN's paramilitary wing, the Nicaraguan Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARN), adds, "We have the support of the democratic groups [sic] right now...
...There is also the ominous and pervasive counterrevolutionary threat, punctuated, lest anyone sleep too easily, with new deaths in border clashes...
...2 9 The U.S...
...New York Times, April 21, 1981...
...The third tension, it is obvious, stems from the international political conjuncture within which the Sandinistas must function-the allout determination of the Reagan Administration to put an end to revolutionary efforts throughout the region, including the re-isolation of Cuba...
...wheat credits...
...One day they'll be right...
...a popular insurrection similar to the one that toppled the Somoza regime") as well as military support from neighboring countries to the north...
...The new government inherited a staggering $1.6 billion debt, with only $3.5 million in foreign exchange left in the Central Bank...
...He and other members of the private sector were accused of conspiring with counterrevolutionaries in the exterior...
...6 (November-December 1978), p. 9. 18...
...This newest of the Sandinista mass organizations represents the interests of more than 100,000 small and medium landowners, mostly producing basic foodstuffs for the domestic market...
...In April, European countries pledged a total of $30 million...
...Dissent Paper on El Salvador and Central America," DOS 11/6/80 (DM-ESCA #80-3), November 1980, p. 11...
...On the diplomatic front, the effort to blackball Nicaragua has found little if any echo...
...It might be just the counterrevolutionary groups training abroad, with logistical support from Honduras, or it might, as we have seen, be the Honduran Army itself...
...There were also major social achievements, such as the Literacy Crusade and advances in health, housing and consumption of basic goods...
...Nicaragua is 26MaylJune 1981 not only an "agent of international terrorism," but it is also under Marxist-Leninist "domination" and, hence, fast becoming a "totalitarian state...
...Miami Herald, February 4, 1981...
...Two beneficiaries of these include the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), a major opponent of the government, and the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD...
...Next the Administration had 100 Nicaraguans invading El Salvador in a wooden boat...
...The Sandinista government last year declared the integration of the Atlantic Coast a priority...
...Aggression Accelerates Unity U.S...
...4. Inforpress Centroamericana, November 27, 1980...
...Diario Las Americas, June 11, 1981...
...Economically, the Administration has had no better results...
...government has given money to Honduras, and at least comfort and encouragement to independent groups, some ten of which are training in Miami and California.so Last winter, dissidents in the Carter Administration were already claiming that, "U.S...
...Only as long as Nicaragua can continue to count on diversified lending sources will it not be critical...
...Refusing to dignify it with an affirmation or denial, Comandante Humberto Ortega, Minister of Defense, declared Nicaragua's right to defend its national sovereignty and the revolution.'o The propaganda spinoffs of this "accusation by assertion" campaign are many...
...Implicitly acknowledging their own weakness, counterrevolutionary leaders admit that their strategy is contingent on gaining massive support inside the country...
...Latin America Weekly Report, May 15, 1981...
...The Coast was colonized by England which helped its inhabitants successfully fight Spanish incursions for almost 400 years...
...And last year, the member parties of the Socialist International (SI) formed a solidarity committee which pledged to "avert foreign intervention in Nicaragua's internal affairs by outside powers" and to respect Nicaragua's "right to self-determination...
...It is no small paradox that the destruction of a democratic regime is proposed in order to save it from future risks or that an attempt is made to create a chain of peripheral dictatorships to maintain the welfare of the central democracies...
...In its first year and a half, the Sandinista government had been very successful in securing new bilateral credits and technical assistance from diverse sources...
...2 Homes, factories, hospitals, schools, roads, croplands, whole cities were destroyed...
...Representing all union confederations except CUS and CTN, the creation of this Coordinating Committee culminated unity discussions begun last April...
...France's new Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, offered a similarly strong pronouncement...
...Economic strangulation," however, is not an end in itself, but another means...
...This one has even produced skeptics within the State Department itself...
...It was only two years ago that Nicaragua finally drove Somoza and his National Guard from the country-at a cost of 40,000 dead, an equal number of children orphaned, 100,000 wounded, 200,000 families left homeless and 750,000 dependent on food assistance...
...The laughter isn't because they don't feel the gravity of their commitment, but because they do...
...The Soviet Union, Bulgaria and Sweden donated a total of 38,000 tons, East Germany has pledged 70,000 and Canada is beginning to supply wheat in June, albeit not at the favorable credit terms provided by the U.S...
...Last November, Jorge Salazar, acting head of the private sector's umbrella organization, the Superior Council of Private Enterprise, was killed in a shootout with Sandinista security forces...
...Therefore, one of the most important questions is whether the United States will next use its power to block concessional loans to Nicaragua...
...Washington Post, May 19, 1981...
...Volunteers of all ages join Militia to defend revolution...
...5. New York Times, April 2, 1981...
...21 The Sandinistas themselves make no secret of the economy's continuing difficulties, nor of the grumblings that result...
...According to sources at both agencies, no overt signs of pressure have yet been evident...
...The private sector, divided on the question of aid cutoffs, is participating albeit warily, and slowly, in preparations for a forum to explore ways to further national unity in the face of U.S...
...One aspect of this campaign is to intensify the already active propaganda machine that plays on the anti-communist legacy of Somoza's reign...
...Reagan's train of thought isn't the least derailed by the apparent paradox that La Prensa, Nicaragua's reactionary daily, remains free to make equivalent accusations...
...Inforpress Centroamericana, April 9, 23, 30, 1981...
...In their initial conference, some 200 delegates to the CSN heatedly discussed the difficult issues facing workers in the coming period...
...The Sandinistas, he claims, only want to "force the nearly 200,000 Misurasata members to accept communist rule...
...For this to have the necessary impact, however, Reagan must extend his offensive to the international arena, to dissuade other countries from filling the financial gap...
...at most, certain sectors have links to one of the myriad counterrevolutionary groups outside the country...
...In both the IDB and the 27NACLA Report World Bank, the United States exercises veto power, and at present Nicaragua has 14 loans totalling $300 million pending before these two institutions...
...First the Nicaraguan government was accused of supplying Soviet and Cuban weapons to the revolutionary forces in El Salvador, a charge the Nicaraguans have consistently denied...
...Now with astounding resilience, 100,000 Nicaraguans all over the country are preparing to have to fight again...
...food assistance program...
...Intercontinental Press, April 20, 1981...
...New York Times, May 8, 1981...
...ALAI...
...3. Intercontinental Press, April 13, 1981, p. 352...
...How would the American government react," asked Daniel Ortega, "if suddenly in Nicaragua...
...Nicaragua is no 25NACLA Report Chile...
...3 1 Nicaraguans are not moved by Reagan's explanation that the groups are training on private property and therefore untouchable...
...In the days following his arrest, the government released documents from intelligence archives showing that Fagoth had been an informer during the 70s, denouncing Miskitos who collaborated with the FSLN...
...Hey, companero, did you come just to get off all that weight you've put on with your soft desk job...
...But it doesn't end with political and economic attacks...
...Immediately following the U.S...
...Ibid...
...3 3 An apparently charismatic personality, Fagoth had opportunistically used the powerful historic demands of the indigenous people who represent some 60-70% of the Coast's population to spread disaffection with the revolution...
...Latin America Weekly Report, May 15, 1981...
...NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...XII, No...
...Most recently, the United States warned that it would cut Nicaraguan beef imports if Nicaragua goes ahead with its plans to purchase breeding stock from Cuba...
...On the predominantly English-speaking...
...A second aspect is aimed at the most vulnerable point of the revolution, an economy still ravaged by the effects of civil war...
...The opposition has no access to state military power...
...7. Isabel Letelier and Michael Moffitt, Human Rights, Economic Aid and Private Banks: The Case of Chile (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1978...
...Second, the increase in labor productivity creates contradic28MaylJune 1981 tions for the working class...
...Ambassador White himself had to backtrack on that one...
...The FSLN and the workers must come to terms with the conflict between the growth of militant and democratic trade unionism and the stringent constraints on workers' economic demands...
...Four pro-Sandinista parties, which last summer formed the Patriotic Revolutionary Front, played a major role in preparing the agenda for these meetings, and suggesting active forms of solidarity against aggression...
...In fact, AIFLD's average anntial budget of $100,000 per year for its Nicaraguan programs was more than tripled by the Agency for International Development in 1981...
...The new recruits to the Sandinista Popular Militia tease each other lightly as they form into practice o squads, taking particular aim at the veteran guerrilla fighters among their ranks...
...5 It also has the allegiance of the majority of its people...
...Diario Las Americas, June 7, 1981...
...Social democratic countries and the Soviet bloc nations provided primarily technical assistance and personnel...
...Another proSandinista group participating in the meetings is the new Nicaraguan Trade Union Coordination Committee (CSN) established last November...
...Reagan's roll-back strategy assumes that all these factors are moving in his favor...
...22 Production was marked by serious unevenness, with agriculture surpassing the mark by 11% and industry missing it by 20...
...Plan 81" calls for increased investment and employment in priority productive sectors and energy, and a 9% increase in productivity...
...Furthermore, the war itself caused $480 million in material damages, not including the revenues lost from the paralysis of economic activities during the war, particularly in agriculture...
...NICARAGUA 1. New York Times, May 8, 1981...
...The Sandinistas are loathe to divert scarce reconstruction funds to military spending-according to junta member Rafael Cordova Rivas, still only 1% of the gross national product -but energies are certainly diverted...
...3 5 The consolidation of UNAG is an important advance in providing the campesino base of the revolution with its own voice and enabling the government to help them increase much-needed food production...
...boycott is significant...
...President Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico, undaunted by a visit from White Paper drum-beater Vernon Walters, pledged that, "Mexico will defend the cause of Nicaragua as its own...
...2. EPICA Task Force, Nicaragua: A People's Revolution, Washington, D.C.: EPICA, 1980...
...A major beneficiary of its 16 years of labor training and project assistance has been the Confederation for Trade Union Unity (CUS).' 7 Together with CTN, a SocialChristian oriented union confederation, CUS joined several bourgeois parties and COSEP last year in withdrawing from the Council of State...
...Diario Las Americas, June 10, 1981...
...As the end neared, Somoza compensated for massive capital flight with increasing foreign indebtedness, ultimately contracting government debts on his own properties in order to liquidate his assets and place his wealth abroad...
...Apart from $53 million in proposed U.S...
...2 4 Unparalleled increases in oil prices and debt service, which together will require 67% of export revenues, as well as deteriorated terms of trade (imports cost 15% more while the price of coffee dropped), will mean a serious restriction of "non-essential imports...
...There too, the Administration faces an uphill battle...
...As if in confirmation, the United States is also threatening to stop exporting the resin used in making polyvinyl chloride, necessary for myriad Nicaraguan plastics manufactures, presumably because Nicaragua might sell its surpluses to Cuba...
...The U.S...
...The Sandinista government is for the most part only seeking loans on soft terms available either bilaterally from other governments or through international lending agencies...
...Ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry: "Once Allende comes to power in Chile we will do all in our power to condemn Chile and Chileans to the utmost deprivation and poverty...
...actions...
...3 2 In earlyJune, Jose Francisco Cardenal, political leader of a Miami exile group,* made common cause with the leader of a counterrevolutionary movement on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast by accompanying him in a vitriolic press interview held in Miami.32 Steadman Fagoth, head of the indigenous organization, Misurasata, until his arrest in February for plotting separatist actions, was in Miami to unite all exiles "in a common effort against the aggressors in our lands...
...Atlantic Coast (which for the most part remains an historically isolated and politically troubled area), the Voice of America resonates with the Reagan line...
...Economic Commission for Latin America, Nicaragua: Economic Repercussions of Recent Political Events (New York: United Nations, September 1979), p. 43...
...Despite advances such as developing the Literacy Crusade in English and Miskito, improving health and transportation services and developing new agricultural projects, it *Jose Cardenal, now a member of the Nicaraguan Democratic Union paradoxically fled to Miami last year after being selected vice president of the new Council of State by the government...
...While the rationale is the possible spread of aftosa (hoof and mouth disease), the Brazilian Aftosa Institute and other organizations discount the existence of that disease in Cuba...
...The letter will be sent to governments all over the world, most pointedly to the United States...
...But the government apparently feels sufficiently confident of its revolutionary support to continue a program of economic reactivation that does not contemplate caving in to consumerist palliatives that could guarantee immediate political support at the cost of future economic viability...
...aggression, however, has had the countervailing effect of pulling some sectors closer together...
...8 Thus far, Reagan's major public initiative to undercut Nicaragua's popularity internationally has been to link the country to his "communist expansionism" theory...
...Building for the Roll-Back The Republican National Platform brazenly promised to "roll back" the Nicaraguan revolution...
...Intercontinental Press, December 1, 1980...
...James Cheek, awaiting reassignment, noted merely, "The intelligence community has reported this half a dozen times...
...The Sandinistas have apparently redoubled their efforts to work with the new provisional leadership of Misurasata to reduce the tensions...
...Now the State Department is claiming, again without offering a shred of evidence, that heavy Soviet T-55 tanks are being shipped to Nicaragua "under camouflage...
...the way in which they assess other threats or options...
...It contemplates a maximum inflation rate of 20%, and projects equivalent adjustments in real salaries only for workers in the productive sector...
...Programa Economico de Austeridad y Eficiencia '81 (Managua), 1981...
...The revolution, we are told in the press, is rapidly losing support, and the "near-bankrupt" economy is hastening the rout.19 Edmundo Chamorro, leader of a Nicaraguan exile group, the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), picks up the theme, claiming that 80-85% of the Nicaraguans now oppose the Sandinistas...
...It is perhaps best summed up by recalling a cable to Henry Kissinger from then U.S...
...13 (April 3, 1981), p. 150...
...Washington Post, May 9, 1981...
...When asked, they aren't sure where the invasion will come from, but they are sure it will come...
...Nonetheless, Reagan's strategy must include chipping away the Sandinistas' popular base of support...
...The accusation also produced a rapid and terse response from Nicaragua...
...Previously, they were represented either by the organization of large capitalist growers (which joined the Council of State walkout in November) or by the Association of Rural Workers (ATC), neither of which addressed their real needs...
...2 8 The beef issue has aggravated differences between the Sandinista government and the private sector involved in beef production...
...In These Times, April 15-21, 1981...
...Further exacerbating the situation, a substantial portion of Nicaragua's productive capacity is still in private hands, thus alienating workers from full participation in financial and productivity discussions...
...Western Europe and Canada extended over $100 million in economic aid, 13% of the total, and Latin American countries provided nearly $200 million, or 23% of the total...
...it should occur to some ranch owner to loan his property to train Puerto Ricans to fight for the independence of their country...
...In These Times, April 15-21, 1981...
...the degree to which various sectors perceive that the current revolutionary process is functioning both well and in their best interest...
...2 5 While Plan 81 "guarantees basic consumption for the populace at all cost," and in fact projects a 12% growth in this sector, the government is not oblivious to the sacrifice and hardship it implies for people whose economic expectations are now high...
...Libya, $100 million...
...Mexico's President Jose Lopez Portillo' Mornings before work or on weekend afternoons-once a week-thousands of volunteers gather in Managua's many open fields...
...Cleto DiGiovanni, Department of State Consultant 3 The Sandinista government, in contrast, has the loyalty of an experienced, politically conscious and highly motivated military force, the 40,000-strong Sandinista Popular Army...
...The Miskito are the largest of the three indigenous groups on the Coast...
...9. New York Times, June 3, 1981...
...announcement in April that it would continue the suspension of aid indefinitely, a series of new bilateral loans and donations were announced, demonstrating the serious and complex foreign policy contradictions unleashed by Reagan's assault...
...2 Other countries, such as Canada, reaffirmed their commitment to future aid and assistance, and still others rushed to fill the gap left by the cutoff of U.S...
...2 7 Thus, the motivations are clearly political...
...and Cuba, $64 million in technical assistance...
...After the wheat cutoff, the FSLN launched a worldwide protest campaign called Bread for Nicaragua, which has highlighted the violation of basic human rights inherent in the act of using food as a political weapon...
...But the route to this reversal is still being charted by Reagan's new team...
...intelligence has been in contact with Nicaraguan exile groups in Guatemala and Miami...
...The plan, officially called the Plan of Austerity and Efficiency, is just that...
...In the Nicaraguan case, it will depend on how people decide to balance their own short-term economic demands against the longer-term goal of rebuilding a solid productive base in the country...
Vol. 15 • May 1981 • No. 3
