A Sandinista Failure
COLBURN, FORREST D.
THE CORN ISLANDS A Sandinista Failure by forrest d- c°lburn Great Corn Island Forty miles off Nicaragua's east coast lie two of the country's beautiful backwaters, the Corn Islands. Their name...
...There never were any fortunes to be made on either...
...A second reason is the price paid to private fishermen...
...His surprised interlocutor wondered, "Whereareyoufrom...
...Every time the issue of the draft is raised its prospective targets appropriate state-owned fishing ships and head for San Andres, CostaRica, Honduras, and, in one instance, Jamaica...
...Nonetheless, everyone had enough to eat as well as clean clothes to attend one of the numerous Protestant churches...
...here they are just bums...
...He often walked around without a single bodyguard, something he would never have dared do elsewhere in Nicaragua...
...Somoza's overthrow meant nothing to the inhabitants of the Corn Islands and their brethren on the Atlantic Coast...
...At the turn of the century Managua gained formal control of the area, but the populace continued to see itself as in some sense "English," and to view Nicaraguans from the Pacific disdainfully as "Spainards...
...Experience suggests to the Corn Islanders that this policy threatens the welfare of their former paradise in three ways: First, overzealous efforts to extract "surplus profits"— applied to the poor as well as the prosperous—undermine incentive...
...The people—Afro-Americans, mulattos, Indians (Miskitos, Ra-mas and Sumos), and zambos (of mixed Afro-Indian descent)—look not to the westbutto the east, to San Andres (another small Caribbean isle), the Caymans, Jamaica, and Florida...
...An old-timer explained: "The government is likea stretched rubber band thai is going lo snap...
...An older producer summed up the attitude of most: "We just have to hop along...
...His sole fan was a woman held to be crazy, or "stay-up" in the vernacular...
...Their bitter fate points up the difficulty of imposing radical change in the small nations to the south of the U.S., especially if ethnic divisions complicate the task...
...Nicaraguan currency is contemptuously referred to as "monkey money...
...Thus far every boat has been recovered at high expense...
...The regime's self-serving explanations for (he current distress—emphasizing, of course, the counterrevolution—generate little interest, let alone sympathy...
...Lobsters and coconuts are the Corn Islands' mainstays...
...Those islanders who have stayed are convinced that present conditions cannot last, that something must happen...
...During six years of Sandinista rule, however, the quality of life in the islands has suffered a tumultuous decline, underscored by the flight of nearly half the natives...
...The state has proved incapable of handling the managerial responsibilities it has assumed, and its attempt to cover up these inadequacies by expanding its control is resented...
...One reason for this is that Promar, over the islanders' objections, insists on paying the fishermen it employs a set monthly wage instead of a sum keyed to the number of lobsters they bring in, seriously weakening incentives...
...And "nobody worried nobody...
...Subsequently the new rulers did indeed take over the packaging plant of one of the firms and what was left of its fleet...
...If earning a livelihood at sea is not tough enough, fishermen are finding it hard to maintain their deteriorating boats for lack of paint and other supplies...
...This obscure region's history is comparable to that of Belize, where British entrepreneurs nibbled away at Spain's Caribbean underbelly in Central America to extract hardwoods and anything else of value...
...Meanwhile, the artificial suppression of prices for Corn Island products has to be measured alongside the skyrocketing cost of nearly everything brought here...
...Nevertheless, practically nobody bothers to clear off underbrush or to plant coconut saplings—steps necessary to maintain yields...
...After five years of being held constant in the face of galloping inflation, moreover, an increase finally granted this year was so niggardly it was almost meaningless...
...Nothing would please the residents of the Corn Islands more...
...Economic difficulties have undermined the Sandinistas' legitimacy in the Corn Islands...
...Here the influences are Caribbean, not Latin...
...assistant professor of political science at Florida International University in Miami, recently returned front a vear in Xicaragua...
...The Somozas ignored the Atlantic Coast and it ignored them...
...Instead you see coconuts, endless forests of graceful palm I roes bearing fruit...
...Worse, many things are simply not available, such as medicines, spare parts and building materials...
...While AnaForrest D. Colburn...
...Perhaps of greatest potential importance in these circumstances is a recent government promise to grant the entire Atlantic Coast increased autonomy...
...The government, aware of this assessment and of the resulting discontent, has sought to win islanders' support: A small health post has been constructed, inefficient electricity plants are being subsidized, and transportation linking the islands to the capital has been improved...
...Far from lifting up the economy, the authorities are pulling everything down, confirming the feeling of the traditionally independent locals that there is nothing to be gained from forging close ties to the mainland...
...True, the government does ration some commodities—principally rice, beans, flour, and sugar—at controlled rates...
...Toothbrushes that once sold at 3 cordobas now sell at 195...
...But strong loyalties have not been enough to prevent roughly half the islands' original residents from finding the hardships unbearable and emigrating...
...Aburly youth on Little Corn Island told how the last time he went to the mainland a bureaucrat inquired if he had fulfilled his military service obligation...
...Following the eclipse of the British Empire, its commercial and cultural roles were filled by the United States...
...Consequently, an unspoken agreement has been reached: The government will no longer try to draft the island's youths and they will no longer steal its fleet...
...The Chinese merchants bolted, and the owners of the three local fishing companies, fearing expropriation, ordered their ships to San Andres, Honduras or Costa Rica...
...All the revolution gave them was economic difficulties, accompanied by the promise of a better time to come—and they have seen no evidence to date that Managua could deliver even if the counterrevolution and its burdens were to end...
...when the bureaucracy found itself inundated with paperwork, aswitch was made to monthly permits...
...But Managua lacks the resources to reverse the downward spiral of the quality of life here, at least in the immediate future...
...By law they must sell everything they trap to the government, and the rate offered has in their view been ridiculously low...
...Quite a few islanders live off earnings from coconuts and have no alternative to selling their pickings...
...People have drawn their conclusions on the basis of actions taken by inefficient and domineering officials, and of simply feeling that "nothing is right on the islands...
...Most of the Miskitos have been replaced, too, largely by Afro-Americans who arrived via Jamaica...
...Rubber sandals that sold at 15 cordobas sell at 500...
...Their name purportedly reflects the extensive corn fields of the original inhabitants, the Miskito Indians, but today it is a misnomer—not a single stalk of maize remains...
...On the islands the committees are dismissed as "a lot of nonsense," or as a gimmick " for you to watch me and for me to watch you...
...Cornls-land," the young man recalled responding...
...Then thegovernment, realizing that the diversions were affecting the output of its own plants, summarily prohibited them...
...Asoneman, summing up the attitude of nearly all the locals, bluntly stated: "In Managua the comandantes are supermen...
...It remainslobeseeniftheSandinistas can accommodate lhat reality...
...Initially these were issued on a daily basis...
...As the regime consolidated its power, it announced that in addition to seeking broader-based economic growth on the Atlantic Coast, the government would try to mesh the hitherto "marginalized" territory into the nation as a whole...
...Today, according to an islander, "When you want to build a house you first have to mash up an old house and use lumber that before you would only use for a pigpen...
...He answered no...
...Second, the meddling of clumsy and ill-trained officials is a continual source of annoyance...
...stasio Somoza Debayle did keep houses in Bluefields (a large coastal town named for a Dutch pirate) and in the Corn Islands, no one paid any attention to him when he visited...
...The humid eastern lowlands make up some 40 per cent of the country's territory, yet embrace only 8 per cent of its population, mostly along the littoral...
...Third, an inept and burgeoning bureaucracy consumes the resources the state extracts, with only paltry sums and benefits finding their way back to society...
...Yet even with 10 new fishing boats provided by Peru on generous credit terms, production is less than desired...
...With circumferences of 7 and 5 miles, respectively, Great Corn Island until recently had roughly 7,000 inhabitants and Little Corn Island a mere 400...
...The Corns' population has remained stable only because residentsofNicaragua'smainland Atlantic Coast, notably Miskito Indians, have come fleeing the fighting in their areas...
...At most, the young see armed opposition to the Sandinistas as strictly a problem of the "Spainards...
...Although in the distant past these out-croppings were visited by lurid buccaneers, they eventually became an oasis of harmony...
...Unhappily, in practice both the efforts to promote equitable development and the moves toward integration have disrupted the islands' way of life...
...An articulate young woman caplurcd the essence of the situation when she commented ironically, "The Sandinistas want to liberate us, bul we are too independent lo be liberated...
...Theother one is functioning at 50 per cent of capacity, in spite of an order forbidding the islands' third, and private, plant to extract oil...
...Two small coconut oil plants and a hotel owned by an American couple were similarly confiscated...
...The Sandinistas' ideology and development strategy call for state management of the "commanding heights of the economy" and extensive regulation of the private sector...
...there has been much resistance to the idea of forming Sandinista neighborhood committees, widely used elsewhere in the country to dispense food...
...In Nicaragua, though, the British could not dominate the fiercely independent Miskitos and therefore established a kingdom for their benefit, appointing (and of course bribing) the monarch...
...Besides the rationed items—only available on certain days, at certain places, and in limited quantities—all goods are prohibitively expensive, or "dear" as the local people are wont to put it...
...She has claimed for years that she is his true wife, and still pesters visitors to Great Corn with requests to deliver letters to President Somoza in Managua...
...Coconut farmers have not fared significantly better...
...Fear of confiscation adds to the reluctance of farmers to exert themselves beyond collecting fallen coconuts, although one grower says that does not worry him because "The government is interested in control," which it already has...
...Shortly after the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Agrarian Reform began running the two nationalized coconut plants, the newer of the them broke down, reportedly because of faulty management...
...Many do not bother to get a passport and visa, they just slip away to join relatives or friends elsewhere in the Caribbean, often eastern Honduras and Costa Rica...
...Ethnically and culturally, the Corn Islands are linked to Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast...
...You do not know when it is going to snap, though, or which end will be the longest...
...By contrast, despite the fact that nowhere on the Atlantic side was there fighting in the course of the Sandinistas' insurrection, their July 19,1979, victory declaration had immediate consequences for the Corn Islands...
...In Nicaragua's populous Pacific region the Sandinistas derive support from having prevailed in the prolonged struggle against the hated old order...
...The government office that is supposed to provide them with such materials has employees, payrolls and nothing else...
...Asked why, he said he was not Nicaraguan...
...Given this mentality, it has been impossible to implement conscription on the islands...
...A further considerable irritant is Managua's insistence that each fisherman secure a permit before taking out a boat—even a rowboat...
...For a brief period farmers were able to sell their coconuts on the mainland to private merchants at three times what the regime was paying...
...But it has trouble with distribution...
...The crustaceans abound in the surrounding shallow waters, and the state fishing company, Promar, devotes itself exclusively to catching and marketing them...
...This has not changed the perception of the required document as one more instrument of state domination, to be manipulated at will...
...The situation reflects the cutback in production by the growers, who are dissatisfied with the officially imposed return on their crops, lagging periodic increases notwithstanding...
Vol. 68 • May 1985 • No. 7
