The Mess in Managua
HALPER, SAM
EVOLUTION OF A REVOLUTION The Mess in Managua bysamhalper Managua rhatever happened to the Revolution?" Twenty years ago I had asked the question in Cuba. Now I was asking it in Nicaragua. The...
...Or, as LaPrensa's P.J...
...They were exchanging sharp views, pointed quips and bursts of easy laughter...
...The government is frightened," says Robelo...
...The Sandinistas in the Consejo suggest that the opposition sign a statement attacking U.S...
...Soon there was an anonymous wall painting: "1 never said that shit...
...3) the two independent labor unions...
...The dialogue resumes amid a persistent feeling of unease...
...August 23...
...helping hand is nonetheless betrayed, we will have lost little...
...They have to listen to the opposition because they're weak in logic...
...Well-intentioned Carlos Nunez handles the protest badly...
...in nearby lands human rights leaders are killed routinely, just for being pro-human rights...
...The Sandinistas had the principal role in the military struggle, but prior to the assassination [in 1978] of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro [the greatly respected anti-Somoza editor of Nicaragua's leading newspaper, La Prensa], their military action had little popular support...
...in vitriolic terms, then privately asked the President to do whatever he could to smooth relations between Washington and Managua...
...Consequently, the GNP is down 32 per cent from 1978-79, while inflation is up 35 per cent and unemployment, officially 17.5 percent, is estimated to be closer to 45 per cent...
...Evidence points to serious differences between the DNC and more radical elements in the working level of the Sandinista Secretariat, among the block committee apparatchiks, and within the nine-man DNC itself...
...He blames this on government direction being "confused and lacking organization and expertise...
...Now, the balance of power is completely changed...
...To co-opt conapro, the influential confederation of professionals, the Sandinistas had set up a parallel organization...
...The government's own ventures into enterprise have not inspired confidence...
...When the Marines departed in 1933, following an 18-year presence (1912-25, 1926-33), they left in their place the infamous U.S.-trained Guardia Nacional, with Somoza as commander...
...Last January the Conservative Democratic Party (PCD), Somo-za's historic enemy, issued a manifesto about the Sandinistas that said in pan: "This guerilla corps tries to be at the same time an army, a police force, a government, a labor union and a political party...
...In short, like Fidel Castro in Cuba, the Sandinista chiefs have manipulated Nicaragua to the point where they, too, could turn their country into a Communist state of one variety or another...
...assistance that offered the Sandinistas a way out of their dilemma might slow the drift to Moscow and Havana which they, themselves, suspect to be unpromising...
...The vital Defense Ministry is turned over to a former colonel in Somoza's Guardia Nacional, a minor national hero who had tried to topple Somoza, failed and fled...
...Pauses in the Sandinistas' push to the Left testify to their hesitation: ?Following the suspension of U.S...
...For instance, a human rights leader, who had been jailed for saying abroad that imprisoned Guardia Nacional soldiers were tortured was released after apologizing...
...It was unclear when there would be elections...
...Enrique Dreyfus, president of the Superior Council of the Private Sector (cosep), warns that the foreign debt is growing by $1.25 million a day due to "shortages of basic goods that were never scarce in the past...
...Eleven months after promised, the DNC brings forth the Consejo de Estado, a legislative Council of 47 members representing the unions, political parties, private enterprise, etc...
...A little of the history of U.S.-Nicara-guan relations—about which we know little and the Nicaraguans know a great deal—is in order...
...The 11 democrats quit the Council—and the dialogue dies...
...Before leaving Mexico City, where he met with President Jose Lopez Por-tillo last May, Junta leader Daniel Ortega excoriated the U.S...
...A garden party I attended at the Venezuelan Embassy one balmy evening was revealing as well...
...Their hard currency requirements for foreign purchases have not been met...
...By the start of July, the logic that at the end of May had brought a return of reasonable discussion with the six opposition groups once more begins to give way to passion, to shrill accusations and shriller answers...
...They run circles around those idiots," says a diplomatic observer...
...Marines, and thereafter by a surrogate despot whom they imposed, Anastasio Somoza Garcia...
...Now investment represents faith in the future, and in Nicaragua's social, political and economic uncertainty it makes no sense...
...When this is rejected, the Sandinistas back off...
...our hemispheric hegemony belongs to the past...
...With the opposition thus temporarily contained, the Sandinistas nail down the real power...
...One month before So-moza falls, the five-member Junta Go-bierno, seated temporarily in Costa Rica, is formally announced by the Sandi-nista National Directorate (DNC...
...Benign U.S...
...In the spirit of George Orwell's classic 1984, Daniel Ortega delivers himself of doublespeak: "The power handed to the FSLN by the people will not be gambled in an election...
...Both sides recoil from the edge of the abyss...
...If some citizens sense that a dangerous precedent is being set in allowing them full control of the political situation, they are reluctant to raise the issue...
...We can guarantee credits, profits and stability...
...Besides, things will work out...
...The democrats in the Consejo protest the denial of the rally permit...
...Interior Minister Tomas Borge again says No...
...The attempt to split the private sector didn't work, and in May of this year as the new discussion was getting under way Ramirez made a veiled threat: "The stability of the private sector's role depends on the acceptance of the irreversibility of the Revolution...
...We're saying what people want to hear...
...The rally is called off...
...Yet they hesitate...
...Robelo once more asks permission to hold an MDN rally in Nandaime, and this time Interior Minister Borge says Yes...
...The private sector also remembered his open challenge some months earlier: "It would be very easy to promote class warfare...
...The present state of affairs in that troubled country flows directly from actions that were taken by our government...
...At first, no one owned the revolution against Somoza," says businessman Alfonso Robelo, formerly in the forefront of the opposition to Somoza and today a leader of the opposition to the new regime...
...That the status quo in Nicaragua remains pretty much unchanged, too, confirms the impression of Sandinista hesitation: ?La Prensa, probably the most pain ful thorn in the Sandinista side, is still free, still gets its share of imported newsprint...
...The private sector's pinnacle organization, cosep, comprised of a hundred or so professional guilds, chambers (commerce, industry, construction), and regional farmer associations is more united and defiant than ever...
...Overall the Cabinet actually has more conservatives and moderates than Leftists...
...The fact, however, is that the present-day Sandinista Revolution triumphed because it was presented with a popular cause...
...But, I felt fairly comfortable because of the support from democratic governments—President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela, President Rodrigo Carazo of Costa Rica, and the United States...
...The conflict is that the private sector will not participate in a system where they have no power...
...As for the Sandinistas, it would appear that they are no longer so sure they can follow the course they envisioned those summer days two years ago when they took over the country...
...Washington's bad deed led to another, thisoneby theSandinistas...
...There was balding, bulky Tomas Borge, glass in hand, a holstered revolver flapping by his side, surrounded by a circle of well-to-do private sector types, the sort that get invited to embassy receptions...
...Its members are Alfonso Robelo and Vio-leta Chamorro, widow of the martyred editor, representing the bourgeois parties and the private sector...
...SixgroupsopposetheSandinistas: 1) the private sector...
...The Sandinistas, who havebeenshed-ding their blood, are the heroes...
...governments...
...Soon reality starts to set in...
...During the Revolution, Ortega had repeatedly urged his fellow Sandinistas to recognize the need for Popular Front alliances with the progressive bourgeoisie...
...This was precisely the sort of conciliatory gesture the Sandinistas would make to Washington if they were looking to patch up relations...
...But mainly because they need to camouflage the regime...
...Two steps forward and one step backward, as Lenin said...
...The role of the private sector is guaranteed, but within the objectives of the Revolution...
...This seems too good to refuse...
...Once in power they did what they pleased...
...The crowd of 150,000, mostly 18 and under, cheers wildly, whereupon the Sandinistas announce that the country has voted to accept the 1984-85 charade...
...They are eager to avoid a split with the vital private sector and "very much concerned" that they be seen as doing precisely that by the watchful Venezuelan and U.S...
...on one plane at least, the two sides respected each other...
...The opposition parties continue to exist, although they are intimidated, as in the case of the Nandaime pogrom...
...An honest show of patience by Washington toward Nicaragua would not be simply an act of kindness, it would be an act of restitution...
...July...
...The private sector today accounts for 60-63 per cent of the GNP, more than the government sector...
...TheU.S...
...When, after a day of phoning, I could not reach him or anyone else to work out the details of the arrangement, it was apparent he would be no more available than the other Sandinista leaders with whom I had tried in vain to talk...
...Local matches are short, needle thin, made of paper, and likely as not to fold up without lighting when struck...
...His objective was a patriotic one: to free his country of foreign occupation, initially by the U.S...
...All six groups are significant and the concerns of each of them figure in the discussion that has been launched...
...One encounters signs—in addition to those cited above?suggesting a different ending may be possible...
...Theirs is a recurring struggle between their hearts and their minds, their passion and their logic...
...The Defense Minister is also bypassed...
...November...
...Efforts to undermine the strategic upanic, the tight cluster of some 50 regional coffee, cane, cotton, and cattle farmers associations, have met stiffer resistance...
...They also harbor terrible doubts about whether it is possible, and whether it will work...
...Beyond failing to recapitalize, the owners of private enterprises, say the Sandinistas are decapitalizing, e.g., paying themselves dividends...
...In Managua a gang of Sandinista youths sack the MDN headquarters...
...A military deadlock requiring a political solution has been anticipated, with part of Somoza's Guardia Nacional staying on...
...The roster shows 33 Sandinistas to 11 democrats, a 3-1 majority...
...We're going to participate," saysRobelo, "even though we have been deceived before...
...The Sandinistas can produce a revolution, but not the wherewithal to sustain it...
...The U.S...
...2) the five democratic parties, ranging from Center Right to Center Left...
...The moderates would then try to establish the Junta, technically the highest government authority, as a legitimate political body free of DNC control, and move to work independently with the Cabinet...
...In Mexico City, during a state visit, Daniel Ortega, who as coordinator of the Junta de Gobierno, is the top man in government, makes an incredible speech praising "the political pluralism that our Revolution defends...
...A packed government-sponsored meeting winding up Nicaragua's literacy (cum propaganda) campaign is suddenly turned into a political rally...
...Mm-April...
...Both sides need each other," a highly-placed diplomat observes...
...There was quick endorsement of Costa Rican President Carazo's proposal that the leaders of all five Central American countries and Panama meet next month in Mexico Citv with the presidents of Venezuela and Mexico to analyze the region's problems...
...The DNC sets up a Cabinet with key economic posts—Economic Planning, Industry, Agriculture/ Agrarian Reform —going to private sector people...
...May...
...There are shortages of most of these staples, however, and the increased consumption is only part of the reason...
...Late last November, the Junta member Sergio Ramirez approached the "real" businessmen with flattery and promises:" I f we felt a general resistance from the private sector to produce, then there would be a crisis," he said...
...A new rent law has reduced the poor's housing costs and city hospitals have been opened free to all comers, with medicines either free or requiring token payment...
...March 1981...
...We are facing an economic disaster...
...Some six months after taking power, the Sandinistas, trying to demonstrate that they are truly San-dino'sheirs, launched a "Sandino Says" campaign...
...In those days a Salvadorean Communist, Farabundo Marti, insinuated himself into Sandino's organization and served as his secretary, until Sandino discovered Marti's politics and expelled him...
...Clearly it is not too much to say that the Communist takeover the Reagan Administration sees as imminent, if not already accomplished, began with Washington's mistaken policy—a policy pursued, albeit with diminishing enthusiasm, until a year before Somoza's downfall...
...If our helping hand is accepted in good faith by the Sandinista government, there is a chance that Nicaragua, the linchpin in Central America, could salvage itself...
...February...
...5) the independent media, primarily La Prensa, the daily tonic of the opposition...
...The DNC replaces the conservative Agriculture and Economic planning Ministers with two of its own, and similarly transfers the powerless Defense portfolio from the poor colonel to Commandante Hum-berto Ortega with full powers restored...
...President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself saidof "Tacho" that "He's a son of a bitch but he's our son of a bitch...
...Lesser groups have succumbed to such pressures in varying degrees, too...
...The Sandinistas had promised their allies in the war against dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle that free Nicaragua would have a pluralistic democracy, a mixed economy and a nonaligned foreign policy...
...The Sandinistas control 100 per cent of the Government, the Army, the police, the militia, the banks, foreign trade, and television as well as 80 per cent of the radio stations, two-thirds of the press, and 60 per cent of organized labor...
...Sandinista hardliners then put on a physical show of terror and destruction that recalls the infamous Krisstaltnacht in Berlin in 1938, staged by Nazi stormtroopers...
...More important, they propose private talks with the Roman Catholic bishops and a semi-public discussion with the opposition parties about the political direction of the Revolution...
...At its most productive, the private sector is an innovative, free-thinking, curious, chance-taking group, and those qualities cannot exist within a rigid Communist orthodoxy, or any other for that matter...
...Neither are the other promises...
...A foreign diplomat discerns shock and fear over the possible consequences of Nandaime: the flight of technicians and middle management, departure of the intimidated private sector, more discouragement of investment...
...A veteran diplomat who has watched this drama here unfold since the day it started is pessimistic: "Give them another six months, 12 months, 18 months," he says of the new regime, "and they'll destroy themselves along with everything else...
...Nicaragua would end up, as the diplomat puts it, "on a crummy diet...
...It is hard to call him a gusano...
...The Sandinistas also have decreed lower food prices, making it possible for the poor to buy and eat more and better—eggs, rice, beans, cooking oil, sugar, occasional meat...
...The veil of pluralism, already thin, is wearing transparent...
...imperialism...
...A construction engineer, Cardenal was imprisoned seven months in 1959 for trying, together with Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, to overthrow Somoza...
...In 1934, "Tacho" Somoza invited Sandino to a peace meeting, killed him, and subsequently installed himself as President—the first of three Somoza presidents who looted Nicaragua until the Revolution ended their dynasty in July 1979...
...The reason is not complicated...
...To add to the cover, Bayardo Arce is replaced as presiding officer of the Council by the softer and more conciliatory Carlos Nunez...
...Doubt about the move toward Communism has already cropped up in Sandinista councils...
...The last of the moderates—former Doce leaders Carlos Tunnerman, the Education Minister, and Maryknoll Father Miguel De-scoto, the Foreign Minister—see the light, turn and continue in the Cabinet...
...June 1979...
...Nicaragua's highly-organized private sector commands its members' loyalty almost like Middle Ages guilds...
...Unlike the lush Cuban vista that unrolled before Castro in 1959, they have inherited an economy looted by Somoza and devastated by the fighting...
...Most of the remaining conservatives are out...
...The Sandinistas have proposed private talks with the Bishops, but have banned Archbishop Obando's Sunday telecasts...
...1 had some doubts...
...What to do...
...If the government is to produce it has to come to terms with the businessmen who produce...
...responsibility for initiating the Somoza dictatorship, and thus creating a revolutionary situation, is incontestable...
...The Interior Minister generously invited me to join him on the trip over the coming weekend so that we could talk...
...Let me end this troubling report on a lighter note...
...and Moises Hassan, aCommunist...
...The fact that we're operating shows that the country is not completely totalitarian," says feisty editor Chamorro, "but there have been some bad steps in that direction...
...Sandinista moderates urge reopening the dialogue with the private sector...
...These include prescription medicines, toothpaste, motors, buses, cars, automotive spare parts, refrigerators, and airplane parts...
...A demand by the MDN for early elections brings a Communist reply that there is no need for elections before theendof thecentury...
...But it won't be easy...
...The Sandinistas announce that the election is to be held in 1985...
...Violeta Chamorro and Alfonso Robelo conclude they have been used and quit the Junta de Gobier-no...
...The Sandinistas understand the need to keep the private sector here," says the foreign economic expert, "but this runs against their desire to keep political power entirely in their own hands...
...They are referred to contemptuously as "Sandinista matches...
...Denied the emotional and intellectual support systems that nourish its distinctive qualities, the private sector would be incapable of functioning efficiently, and instinctively it knows this...
...So we're going to talk to the real producers and not to their leaders...
...They expand the Army to45,000, makingit by far the largest in Central America, larger than the combined forces of El Salvador and Guatemala...
...Somoza flees, and the FSLN scores an unexpected total victory...
...Within a few days of this appointment, Council Vice President Jose Francisco Cardenal flies to Miami...
...Some days they suffer as many killed and wounded as Castro forces did in their entire first 16 months in the Sierra Maestra...
...In a way really understandable by very few other than revolutionaries, they dream of seeing communism, that theoretical Utopia...
...Downtown Managua, devastated by the 1972 earthquake, remains the same—a surrealist landscape of endless weed-grown fields punctuated here and there by hollow concrete shells and unroofed buildings that harbor poor families...
...A Junta de Go bierno of five members would be set up, representing the main groups in the struggle: the Frente Sandinista de la Liberaaon ,\'ai7(»iu/(l-"SLN), the democratic parties, the trade unions, the private sector, professional organizations, and such traditional opposition forces as La Prensa and the Church...
...Until elections could be held, the Junta would function as a government of national reconstruction based on three principles: a pluralistic democracy, a mixed economy and a nonaligned foreign policy...
...Alfonso Robelo, who in June has asked for and been refused permission to stage a rally of his new Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (MDN) in Nandaime, a small town 35 miles south of Managua, asks again...
...this, in turn, touched of f the spontaneous popular insurrection that gripped all Nicaragua and finally finished Somoza...
...If the U.S...
...They fear invasions and/or counterrevolution, and with some reason...
...Even some radicals acknowledge the danger...
...Embassies have been opened in Brazil and Argentina for the first time since the Revolution...
...Not bad...
...This could not have been done while Sandino was alive...
...The private sector lives off its past, slowly consuming the investments?machinery and plant—made in bygone years...
...That is to lend the Nicaraguan government—in clearly defined, mu-tually-agreed-to terms—the economic assistance it must have in order to survive and cannot get from the Communist world...
...An air of shabbiness is settling on the capital...
...Chamorro Jr., puts it: "Thegovernment wants the private sector to become aligned...
...Nica-raguans are overwhelmed by their courage...
...A few weeks later, obviously troubled, they come back with an offer to swap: They will tone down the treatment of the opposition in their media if La Prensa will reciprocate...
...What we see is a political group that is trying to manipulate the rest...
...They planned to join the Communist camp and went a long way in that direction, including setting up the totalitarian framework...
...equivalent would be a militia of 23 million...
...The reality is that production has declined...
...Sandino's murder enabled the international Communist movement, ever opportunistic, to quickly clothe itself in his mantle...
...There was basic agreement about what would happen alter Somoza," Robelo continued...
...and the private sector continues to hope against hope that it can head them off, that a viable compromise pointing to a middle way can be reached...
...Actually, the Sandinistas remain hesitant, they worry about what lies at the end of the Communist road...
...There is to be no preelection activity before 1984...
...It would seem ungrateful and petty...
...There is one possibility, a thin one to be sure, but it offers some glimmer of hope as Managua approaches the crunch...
...Yet this climax is not inevitable...
...Already we see the shadow of violence, not external violence but internal violence as a logical reaction to a police state...
...The Interior/Security, Defense, Economic Planning, Agriculture /Agrarian Reform, Social Welfare, Culture, Foreign Affairs and Education Ministries are now in Sandinista hands...
...Pilots on an internal air route recently walked out, refusing to fly their worn-out plane until new parts were installed...
...TheU.S...
...They think that by using Marxist buzzwords they win...
...No danger of being kidnapped or killed by unknown persons in street clothes carrying heavy weapons exists in Managua either, as it does in some neighboring capitals...
...The prolonged Sandinista hesitation has been punctuated by emotional explosions, like pentup steam escaping and subsiding: First a threat, then a placatory gesture, and afterward, perhaps, the extended hand...
...The DNC also declares that a legislature-type Consejo de Estado (Council of State), embracing all the anti-Somoza elements, will be set up shortly...
...But with the establishment of its own trade union, the Central Trabajadores deSandinistas(CST), the DNC was able to twist arms and win control of 60 per cent of the country's unionized workers...
...The sight of the La Prensa editor and the Sandinista security chief jousting with each other, and enjoying it, was human and reassuring...
...January 1980...
...There with other former Sandinistas in exile, he starts putting together the Nicaraguan Democratic Union to foment a rebellion...
...At the end of May, the DNC makes an offer to the underrepresented oppositionists in the Consejo de Estado: If they will work along in the Council, the Sandinistas will 1) lift the state of siege, thereby allowing private citizens to challenge government decisions in court...
...Indeed, notes an agricultural expert, quantities of several staples that Nicaragua used to export at present have to be imported...
...It went like this: "Sandino Says," then a different quotation every time, each praising Communism...
...Now, about our own country's role...
...4) establish a government corporation to run Nicaragua's two TV channels...
...otherwise, says Robelo, "there would have been a massacre...
...July 19...
...They own half of the country's land, a third of its industry, all of its mines?booty abandoned by Somoza, along with a $1.6 billion foreign debt, when he fled...
...Robelo counters that the Sandinistas are fomenting class hatred and warfare, whereupon Ortega warns that the Sandinistas," answering the clamor of the masses, will take measures against the reactionaries...
...Chamorro's assassination led to two new phenomena: The private sector, the middle and upper classes, went on strike, demanding So-moza's resignation...
...The Sandinistas are self-indulgent and self-important...
...The democrats stay in the Consejo, hoping to continue the dialogue, to keep open the lines...
...But it was clear something had gone awry...
...after some initial success they are beaten off...
...Alienating the private sector has made it impossible for the Sandinistas to fulfill their promises to the poor...
...These people have suffered, many were tortured and imprisoned...
...maybe there was hope...
...The health care is not as good per person, but it reaches more people," says a foreign economist...
...Today our position is more difficult than ever...
...In Nicaragua especially, the time for one-liners, simplistic analyses, facile sloganeering and antique rigidity is over...
...two presumed Social Democratic moderates, FSLN Commandante Daniel Ortega and academician Sergio Ramirez, a member of LosDoce, the elitist anti-Somoza group...
...is now distrusted all over Latin America...
...4) the Roman Catholic Church, headed by Miguel Obando y Bravo, a shrewd Indian with a formidable flock (85 per cent of the population...
...The free trade unions are tolerated, but subjected to raids on their membership by rival Sandinista unions...
...Robelo comments: "Pluralism has become a hollow expression...
...Through years of repeatedly using his name and claiming to be his heirs, it was largely successful in identifying Sandinismo as a Marxist-Leninist movement—in much the same deceptive way that despotic Communist governments today entide themselves "Democratic Republic of ? or "People's Republic...
...Even Fidel, the Godfather, cautions against repeating his mistakes: eliminating the private sector, moving too quickly to set up a Marxist society, creating needless friction with the U.S...
...a General Staff of Sandinista veterans takes operational control of the Armed Forces...
...The maneuver is completed...
...We are facing a dictatorship...
...The Sandinistas pull back...
...Alfonso Robelo, the leading figure in the political opposition, continues to speak his mind and travel around...
...In 1932, back in El Salvador, Marti led an agrarian revolt in which he and more than 20,000 peasants, mosdy poor Indians, were killed, giving Central America's Communists at least one genuine martyr...
...Calmly ignoring the three conservative economic ministers, the DNC decrees radical economic measures, nationalizing domestic banks, export trade, natural resources, etc...
...To understand why, it is necessary to begin at the beginning, about two years ago...
...The thorniest and most recurrent issue, though, is the role of the private sector...
...He further assures his listeners that this will not be one of those U.S.- Costa Rican-style contests held by the bourgeoisie to bamboozle the masses...
...The FSLN comes into Managua facing no restraints...
...In addition, Sandinista price fixing of farm produce, intended to hold down consumer costs, sometimes has bizarre results...
...Theyplayed upon the Somosista crimes, and with the entire nation finally brought to a boil by the killing of democratic, antiCommunist, anti-Somoza LaPrensa editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro in January 1978, they falsely gave solemn promise to the private sector and democrats that when the Revolution triumphed, Nicaragua would be a true democracy...
...A pair of respected centrists, an economist and a lawyer-farmer from the traditionally anti-Somoza Conservative Democratic Party are named to fill the two empty seats of the Junta de Gobierno...
...May...
...All this the Sandinistas accepted...
...2) announce on July 19, the first anniversary of Somoza'soverthrow, the date of free elections: 3) give opposition groups access to Sandinista-operated media...
...Resumption of the dialogue with the opposition has been accompanied by occasionally listening to the democratic minority in the Consejo de Es-tado...
...The Roman Catholic Church is free and has not been expropriated, as in Cuba...
...Buttheclos-er they have come to their goal the more they have discovered momentous realities...
...and 6) the misurasata, a grass-roots organization of some 120,000 rather primitive, independent Indians, overwhelmingly from the Mis-kito tribe, living in the vast, underdeveloped Atlantic Coast region, whose distrust of the Sandinistas has already erupted in confrontations costing at least eight deaths...
...The East bloc has made no move to fill the void caused by Washington's suspension of dollar loans...
...The promise to announce the election date is not kept...
...It is a chilling panorama," says Dreyfus...
...Meanwhile, a grim game has been going on in nongovernmental areas...
...Old Bolshevik Borge wasn't ranting, neither was young Pedro Joaquin Chamorro or cosep's Dreyfus, who was wearing an open-necked shirt and an open smile...
...aid to Nicaragua, instead of merely getting mad—which it did, and loudly—the DNC also plucked economist Arturo Cruz from the Junta de Gobierno, where he was a rare private sector figure trusted and consulted by both sides, and sent him to Washington to replace Sandinista militant Rita Delia Casco, a former guerrilla leader, as ambassador...
...This was dialogue, not dictatorship...
...But this proves to be a deceptive political maneuver...
...One was the shutting down of La Prensa for 48 hours this month...
...It had reasonably been assumed that the two "progressive bourgeosie" would attract at least one of the two imputed Social Democrats, Sergio Ramirez or Daniel Ortega, to their side, giving the moderates a 3-2 majority in the Junta...
...The Sandinista Revolution began as a genuinely nationalist movement led by an anti-communist farmer and mining engineer, Augusto Caesar Sandino...
...Signed A.C...
...Contrary to Ramirez, its rote is not possible "within the objectives of the Revolution...
...But we do not...
...The 50 per cent of the country's farmland once owned by Somoza and friends and now under Sandinista operation yields 20-25 per cent less1 than it used to and that private farms still yield...
...This is vital to the Sandinistas because, motivated by principle, not to mention political expediency, they are trying to raise the living standards of the very poor bottom 20-30 per cent of the population...
...No, the purpose of this balloting will be to affirm the Sandinistas in power...
...During a pause, a very dear and gentle friend, Xavier Chamorro, who had succeeded his murdered brother at La Prensa but now edits the pro-Sandinista El Nuevo Diario—which is another story—introduced me to Borge...
...Additional neutrals and non-Sandinistas agree to fill minor cabinet vacancies...
...ArmyComman-der-in-Chief (and Defense Minister) Humberto Ortega accuses the private sector of collaborating with "counterrevolutionary elements and imperialism...
...But what Lenin called "the locomotive of history" is now en route to a further station as Ortega and Ramirez join forces with the Junta's Communist, Moises Hassan, and the body becomes the puppet of the DNC...
...They organize Sandinista Defense Committees block by block to keep close tabs on the citizenry, a la Fidel, and with Cuban instructors helping they train (48 hours of weapons instruction) a militia of 200,000?0 per cent of Nicaragua's population...
...Comman-dante Bayardo Arce, the fastest tongue in the DNC, says the Sandinistas are "ready to lose 500,000 lives to defend our Revolution...
...Sandino...
...But the private sector doesn't want to become aligned...
...At one point the government froze the farmers' rice price below production costs, so it had to import Costa Ricanrice...
...The only construction one sees is being done by the government for government buildings...
Vol. 64 • July 1981 • No. 15
