Nicaragua's Revolution in Evolution
HUSARSKA, ANNA
ONE STEP FORWARD Nicaragua's Revolution in Evolution By Anna Husarska Managua At every major intersection here there are stalls selling luscious fresh fruits, one of the rare food items...
...Every evening around 8 p.m, 77 copies of that morning's New York Times are hand-delivered in Managua...
...As the conversation progressed, he confessed to hiding four of his brothers and a friend in his house to help them escape the draft...
...another 4,500 were wounded, some by accidentally triggering rebel or Army land mines...
...Rivera had directed Miskito guerrilla groups fighting the Sandinistas on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast...
...Probably officially condoned because it marked the 10th anniversary of the assassination of La Prensa director Pedro Joaquin Chamorro—which coalesced the forces that overthrew Somoza in July 1979— the event drew some 10,000 people...
...Previously, it would only deal with them through two foreign intermediaries, U.S...
...The other delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco, takes only the Times...
...On January 30, as Congress was preparing to vote on aid for the contras, Denby was allowed to go home...
...That history has necessarily resulted in a wait-and-see attitude concerning the rights that are now supposed to be restored...
...They also deliver seven copies of the Washington Post ($1,280) and seven of the Woll Street Journal ($420...
...after the regional peace treaty was signed...
...Early in January Deputy Minister of the Interior Rene Vivas Lugo admitted that 1,600 members of deposed dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle's National Guard, plus a similar number of individuals accused of counterrevolutionary acts, remain in prison...
...So it is surprising to find the sparsely stocked shelves ofa Supermercado del Pueblo, a People's Supermarket, laden with cans of peach halves and pineapple slices, all imported from Taiwan or California...
...The hardcover Viking edition of Salman Rushdie's The Jaguar Smile is available for a very reasonable 50,000 cordobas ($2.38...
...If a person convicted of counterrevolutionary activity were picked up again for the same offense, he would have to serve the rest of his previous sentence and the new one...
...At the State-owned People's Supermarket across from the Ministry of the Interior, one finds a very different array of periodicals, all in Spanish: Sputnik, La mujer sovietica ("The Soviet Woman," with patterns for fashionable winter clothes), Novedades de Moscu, Socialismo-Teoria-Practica, Revista Militar Sovietica, and—for the little ones—Misha...
...Lino Hernandez Trigueros, coordinator of the independent Permanent Human Rights Commission, raises another objection to the partial release: It was actually a pardon...
...In the past their requests were turned down on the grounds that a (Sandinista) trade union already existed in their enterprise...
...Many Nicaraguans are opposed to the U. S.-supported contras, but there is growing discontent with the draft...
...On the positive side, four months before it ended the state of emergency the government let the opposition newspaper La Prensa resume publication without censorship...
...Two years ago the monthly ration was reduced from six to three rolls per family, and it cost 18 cordobas a roll...
...Still intrigued by what seemed a tropical version of carrying coals to Newcastle, I asked why the canned fruits were being imported...
...Anna Husarska, a frequent contributor to the NL, recently returned from a five-week stay in Central America...
...Whatever the outcome of the municipal balloting, if it is eventually held, conversations in different parts of the country quickly reveal that at the moment the vox populi is an angry one...
...lawyer Paul Reichler and German Social Democrat Hans Jurgen Wischnewski, and it insisted that any direct peace talks had to be held with the Reagan Administration...
...As the Sandinistas were fond of repeating, they wanted to speak "with the circus director and not the clowns...
...They include: freedom of expression, freedom of domestic movement and residence, the inviolability of home and communications, the right to hold public meetings without previous permission, the right to strike, and the right to habeas corpus...
...The price of a monthly one-pound ration of sugar, to take a single staple at random, is set at 800 cordobas (up 30 times from last year...
...Under the combined pressure of popular discontent and ever stronger organized internal and external opposition, the Sandinistas have in the last month made a string of conciliatory gestures...
...Shortages of almost everything and ever spiraling prices are trying the patience even of those once ready to tighten their belts for the cause...
...Do they ever...
...They plan to do so, he emphasized, in a "rational and responsible way...
...But he was confident the FSLN would receive at least the 67 per cent of the vote it secured in the 1984 national election...
...Did you look at the price of a can...
...They may all add up to a step forward, but they do not provide proof of a longterm commitment to democracy...
...Some prices are kept artificially low by heavy subsidies...
...But what we need here is a political solution, not a military one...
...Ricardo Wheelock, head of the two-man Nicaraguan delegation to the cease-fire talks with the contras, isa regular reader of Soldier of Fortune...
...The government clearly hopes a cease-fire agreement can be reached with the rebellious minority population...
...A man I met after a baseball game pointed to a graffito proclaiming, "They take them in trucks and return them in boxes...
...Mobilization programs are the regime's way of diverting attention from its own incompetence, says Godoy...
...trade embargo and the shortage of hard currency have made it virtually impossible to secure spare parts...
...In January alone the price of the dollar on the black market went from 30,000 to 60,000 cordobas...
...A few days later, members of Coordinadora Democratica met in Guatemala with contra leaders...
...The pli's Virgilio Godoy estimates that in a fair contest the Sandinistas will not do better than 25 per cent...
...But he was not interested in politics, the young man stressed...
...An average taxi ride is 5,000 cordobas in a shared car of up to six passengers, or 70,000 in a single-passenger car...
...The next evening I asked Minister of Interior Tomas Borge—the sole surviving founder of the Frente Sandinista de Liberation National (FSLN)—whether further surprises might be expected...
...This call, the first of its kind according to veteran observers, was symptomatic of a developing rapprochement between part of the internal opposition and the contras...
...Thus he climaxed his January 16 press conference in San Jose with an announcement that his government was ready to hold face-to-face talks with the contra leaders...
...Under the "amnesty project" Ortega announced on the 16th, these people (his figure was 3,300) would be set free when a ceasefire with the contras is reached, or if a country outside Central America agreed to accept them...
...Created in 1983 and operating completely outside the regular court system, these tribunals dealt with most violations of the Public Order Law...
...Paso a Paso, his party's just reopened weekly, has reported that the FSLN's internal polls predict a mere 17 per cent...
...Dr...
...Over half the budget is earmarked for defense, which also occupies one-third of the country's work force...
...This year's price is 1,000 cordobas a roll, the monthly family allotment is down to two rolls and it remains in chronic short supply...
...I ventured, since Nicaraguans from President Daniel Ortega Saavedra on down have a penchant for the form...
...The final case presented in Managua happened to be that of James Denby, the American whose private plane was brought down after entering Nicaraguan airspace, but before it could be taken up the TP As were disbanded...
...Radio Catolica returned to the air at the same time, and its director, Father Bismarck Carballo, was soon allowed to re-enter his native Nicaragua after more than a year of forced exile...
...Subsequently, other closed stations were permitted to begin broadcasting again...
...Payphones still work on one-cordoba coins, if you can find them...
...Granting the greater autonomy it is seeking would improve the Sandinistas' image, damaged by past human rights violations against the Miskitos...
...She subscribes to Time, Newsweek, Satellite Dish, Vogue, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and Hair & Beauty Guide...
...Nevertheless, it was the social discontent he personifies, combined with the pressures of both the internal and external opposition to the Sandinista regime, that led to a virtual coup de théâtre in San José: On January 16, following the formal conclusion of the meeting to review the five signatories' compliance with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias' regional peace plan, Ortega suddenly announced at a press conference that his government would suspend its state of emergency, open direct talks with the contras, and offer amnesty to political prisoners...
...In fact, municipal boundaries have yet to be defined, nor has an electoral law been adopted...
...Except for the Soviet Ladas belonging to government and party officials, or the brand new Jeeps and other fourwheel drive vehicles of the various foreign humanitarian missions, one rarely sees intact automobiles in Nicaragua: Many have broken windshields, or none at all...
...The young man, who is married and has two children, went on to pour out his grievances against the Sandinistas...
...The decision to abolish the Popular Anti-Somocista Tribunals (TPAs), a related demand made at San Jose, was in his view much more clear-cut...
...What Managuans Subscribe to...
...The police, for example, can hold a suspect nine days during an investigation, and the prosecutor has three more days, so 12 days might pass before a defendant appears in court...
...The Ministry of Defense has reported that the war death toll in 1987 was 2,500...
...It includes sundry Nicaraguan magazines in English, the writings of Sandinista contondantes and works by Colonel Muammar elQaddafi...
...Managuans, who have been doing without running water two days a week for several years, learned on January 16 that electricity was being cut three hours per day...
...That rejection was one of the strong grievances voiced by eus members participating in a rally staged on January 10 by Coordinadora Democratica, a coalition of anti-Sandinista political business and labor groups...
...The Sandinistas' potentially most significant step toward meeting the democratization provisions of the Arias plan has been lifting the state of emergency...
...Enthusiasm for the war, however, is far from unanimous...
...Two copies each of MAD, Ployboy and Mother Jones make their way to other Managuans...
...taxis are a patchwork of different car models from different manufacturers, giving them the appearance of avantgarde metal sculptures on wheels...
...Obsolete as it may seem, the last is used...
...A bus ride in Managua costs 10 cordobas...
...While they were still there Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramirez told me the meeting signified "an organic identification between the armed counterrevolution and the civil counterrevolution" and was "illegal...
...Back in Managua, he wrote to President Reagan saying, in part, that he would give up power if "that is what the people want...
...The inflation rate is now over 1,000 per cent...
...Their handling of the amnesty issue is cited as a particular cause for skepticism...
...Under a pardon, too, confiscated possessions are not returned...
...In the ruins of a Managuan house destroyed by the 1972 earthquake, a squatter family has hung an improvised poster that reads, "Not one step back in defense of the homeland...
...This was our ultimate gesture to obtain redemption," he added...
...We have no more cards to play...
...If they cannot assure even adequate food and clothing," he said, "they should quit...
...The foreign journalists, diplomats and Sandinista officials who receive them (at an annual rate of $735) are serviced by two private concerns offering subscriptions to U.S...
...The gasoline situation started to look grim December 31 when Barricada, official organ of the FSLN, ran a story headlined, "Yesterday there was gas in stations.' At the beginning of January, queues over 100 cars long, joined by crowds with canisters, could be seen all day in front of gas stations...
...The government insists they are necessary to obtain a military victory against the contras...
...Nonetheless, the father was not ready to see his sons join the Military Patriotic Service...
...The agency, he sighed, has 6 million copies of Lenin's books and pamphlets in stock...
...Finally, Ortega promised in San Jose to hold elections to the Central American Parliament before June 30, 1988, and to hold municipal elections at some unspecified point in the future...
...He couldn't say, he was in the literature business...
...Roger Guevara Mena, secretary of the Coordinadora Democratica, believes the newly formed united opposition bloc—embracing 14 parties and groups ranging from the Communists to the Conservatives—will inevitably contribute to the erosion of Sandinista appeal...
...It was captioned, "Never say never...
...An enterprising boy hanging around a phone offered me one of these rare coins for 1,000 cordobas, I accepted, and we both thought we "made a bisnes" as the Nicas say...
...We are only 3 million Nicaraguans, so each citizen would have to buy two volumes...
...Draft resistance receives open support from the Catholic hierarchy...
...A.H...
...ONE STEP FORWARD Nicaragua's Revolution in Evolution By Anna Husarska Managua At every major intersection here there are stalls selling luscious fresh fruits, one of the rare food items that abound in this poor, war-driven country...
...Incidentally, toilet paper, always an intriguing item because of its strange incompatibility with certain political systems, passes the litmus test in Nicaragua...
...Interestingly, 437 of these trials were held in the last four months of the year, i.e...
...For instance, a travel agent working as a private entrepreneur (remember the mixed economy principle of the Sandinistas) has half his commissions calculated at this rate...
...Daniel Ortega, meanwhile, apparently felt the need to start making contacts of his own...
...But it is hard to find in the State shops and at the Mercado Oriental, Managua's main open-air free market, it costs 12,000 cordobas...
...Father Bismarck Carballo further expressed the Church's indignation at the Sandinistas' December call for children under 13 to join profesionalizacion militar, a military skills development project denounced by La Prensa as Nazi inspired...
...I asked Father Alvaro Arguello, a Jesuit close to the regime, when the local elections might take place...
...Undisturbed by the police, they marched beneath banners bluntly demanding, " Sandinistas go away NOW...
...From an improvised podium in front of the cemetery the organizers of the rally then solicited, and obtained, applause for the Resistencia Nacional, as the contras are currently referred to in Nicaragua...
...A foreign lawyer living in Managua—who has experienced the cruelest Latin American states of emergency, in Chile and Argentina— observed that Nicaragua's broadly written laws make it possible for the regime to keep a lid on any undesired activities...
...Each TPA was composed of a lawyer and two "outstanding members of the Sandinista Defense Committees...
...Workers as well, said a union leader from the opposition Confederation of Trade Union Unity (eus), look forward to being able to strike once more...
...This was demonstrated on January 22, when a meeting in Managua demanding unqualified amnesty for political prisoners was broken up by rock-throwing youths...
...It was 65,000 cordobas ($1.08, $3, or $928, depending on the exchange rate you apply, as we shall see later...
...On the official parallel market it is 21,000 cordobas, and the technical exchange rate is 70 cordobas...
...Sure enough, opposition leaders were arrested upon their return from Guatemala and held for up to two days...
...Taxi drivers complain that instead of the official priceof 3,000 córdobas per gallon, they have to pay 80,000 córdobas on the black market...
...His monthly salary of 500,000 cordobas is 200,000 above the national average, but he wasn't about to spend 13 per cent of it frivolously...
...He conceded that no date has been fixed...
...Asked how come this price was so low, the saleswoman answered "I don't know, they do their own calculations...
...newspapers and magazines...
...La Prensa immediately published a cartoon of the the President sitting at a negotiating table opposite a clown...
...Apoet...
...Armengol Cuadra, president of the Managua TPA, told me that in l987 his tribunal tried 615 persons...
...As one might expect, the shocking TV images provoked unanimous outrage...
...And they shouted" ElFrentey Somoza son la misma cosa" ("The Front and Somoza are the same thing...
...Divine mobs," as the Sandinistas describe their militant supporters, can also be used to curb unwanted behavior...
...In the case of magazines, Rosario Mudilo, the wife of President Daniel Ortega, is one of the best customers...
...He complained, for instance, that a pair of trousers in a State-owned store costs half his monthly salary...
...The media gave enormous publicity to President Ortega's New Year's Day visit to wounded children in a Managua hospital...
...Some 26 unions intend to ask for affiliation with eus...
...The disastrous economic conditions are in large part due to the war, now in its sixth year...
...By midJanuary they disappeared, because so did the gas...
...Virgilio Godoy Reyes, leader of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) and former minister of labor in the Sandinista government, points out that last November the regime released only 25 per cent (or 987) of those being held political prisoners, while the Arias plan called for total amnesty...
...Imposed in March 1982 in response to the contra attacks, it was moderated prior to the November 1984 elections and fully reimposed in October 1985...
...Although it would turn out that this was not the reality, and that when pressed the Sandinistas would take other conciliatory steps, not everyone is prepared to accept their moves at face value...
...The same weekend Ortega arranged for Miskito Indian leader Brooklyn Rivera, living in exile in Costa Rica, to come home...
...At the airport kiosk, where the politica I tourist is the target, the State puts on yet another display...
...An adviser to the Ministry of Justice who asked that his name not be used was skeptical about the effectiveness of the latter solution: In his opinion the Sandinistas might be accused of imposing banishment...
...No, he was employed in the warehouse of Exportaciones e Importaciones Literarias, he explained, pointing to a nearby abundant display of political works, mostly by V. I. Lenin...
...The ravages suffered by the economy are palpable...
...Borge, the most orthodox Marxist in the nineman National Directorate, answered by quoting the last words of Christ, "Todo està consumido...
...In recent months contra attacks have occurred in previously calm zones such as the mining district of Siuna, Bonanza and Rosita on the Atlantic Coast, and the town of Sebaco, 66 miles north of the capital...
...Organized in preparation for the "national dialogue" stipulated in the Arias plan, the bloc (whose members retain their political identities) has put forward a proposal demanding amendments to the Constitution that it considers vital for the country's democratization...
...Asked if he ever buys these products, a young man doing the family shopping, ration card in hand, responded: "You must be joking...
...The U.S...
...Empty foodstore shelves are a genuine tragedy for many families...
...Indeed, he saw no relation between his personal situation and the outcome of the summit of five Central American presidents being held in San Jose, Costa Rica, as we spoke...
Vol. 71 • February 1998 • No. 2
