Nicaragua: the return of the Sandinistas
As Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinistas,
scraped home as president, thousands took to the streets of the capital,
Managua, hooting car horns, sounding football klaxons and setting off
fireworks to celebrate the victory. The Bush administration was
horrified. But is this the same Ortega who led the Sandinistas to power
in 1979? KEVIN SIMPSON assesses whether the result represents another
shift to the left in Latin America.
THE ‘THUMPING’ THAT Bush and the Republicans
received in the US mid-term elections overshadowed another symbolic
defeat for US imperialism just 24 hours later. This time it was south of
the Rio Grande, in Nicaragua where legislative and presidential
elections took place. It was not a good week for the reactionary
right-wing cabal heading the US superpower.
Daniel Ortega, long-time leader of the FSLN (Frente
Sandinista de Liberación Nacional), one of the former leaders of the
Sandinista revolution in 1979, and bệte noir of US imperialism
throughout the 1980s, won the presidential elections with just over 38%
of the vote. His nearest rival, Eduardo Montealegre, standing for the
ALN (Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense), received 29%.
This is a year of elections throughout Latin
America. And the increased radicalisation and class conflict throughout
the continent against harsh neo-liberal policies have been reflected in
many of the election results. For example, the left populist Evo Morales
was elected president of Bolivia, the first time someone from an
indigenous background has reached such high office. In Mexico, Andrés
Obrador, former mayor of Mexico City, was narrowly defeated as the new
president as a result of election fraud by the ruling elite. Hugo Chávez,
president of Venezuela, continues to whip up anti-imperialist rhetoric
in his campaign to be re-elected in December.
But does Ortega’s victory mean that another
administration is prepared to join Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia in
providing what these regimes regard as a radical alternative to US
imperialism’s domination of Latin America?
The Sandinistas had led a spontaneous movement from
below which overthrew the brutal Somoza dictatorship in 1979. This was
the culmination of a decades’ long guerrilla war conducted by the
Sandinistas and a wave of spontaneous general strikes in the big cities.
The Sandinista regime acted as a firebrand of hope
lighting one corner of a continent in which a number of countries had
been crushed under the iron heel of military dictatorship. It provided
an example to millions of workers, young people and poor peasants in
Latin America and across the globe. It signalled that even the most
brutal military regimes backed by US imperialism could be defeated
against apparently impossible odds. Important reforms and increases in
living standards were won as a result of the revolution.
Many young people from the rest of the world
traveled to Nicaragua to help defend the regime in what was seen as a
modern day repetition of the brigades that went to defend republican
Spain against Franco’s fascists in 1936. These young people saw it as
their role to defend Nicaragua against US-coordinated economic sabotage
and the reactionary paramilitary, US-backed Contras who fought to
overthrow the regime. Dripping with reactionary poison from every pore,
the propagandists of the imperialist powers referred to the Sandinistas
as ‘communists, Marxists and socialists’, and in other terms which
painted them as modern day ‘Antichrists’.
US imperialism’s visceral dislike of the Sandinistas
lasts to this day. In April, the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul
Trivelli, met the two right-wing parties, the ALN and the Partido
Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) offering them funding and advice, and
appealing to them to have one united candidate. In the end, the US
administration called on Nicaraguans to give their support to
Montealegre. This approach leaves more than a stench of hypocrisy
considering the Bush administration’s attacks on Chávez for
‘interfering’ in elections in Bolivia, Peru and Nicaragua itself.
The fact that a party with this history has won an
election could make Ortega’s victory potentially extremely significant.
Undoubtedly, the Sandinistas displayed utmost heroism in their struggle
against the Somoza dictatorship. On coming to power, initially, they
implemented important reforms for the working class and peasantry. But,
at the same time, they put forward the ideas of a mixed economy and an
alliance with ‘progressive’ sections of Nicaragua’s capitalist class to
end US imperialism’s influence in the country. This approach is
completely different to a genuine revolutionary socialist struggle. A
socialist movement, armed for self-defence against the reactionary
paramilitaries, would mean the complete overthrow of capitalism. This
would be the first step towards the development of a democratically
planned economy under the control and management of the working class as
part of a democratic workers’ state. It would be the first step in a
struggle for a socialist federation of Latin American states.
Unfortunately, these ideas were never put forward or fought for by the
Sandinista leadership. Its rightward political evolution since the 1979
revolution and the economic situation in the country makes it unlikely
that Ortega will play a similar role in Nicaragua to Chávez or Morales.
Imperialist domination
IN ORDER TO understand what may happen over the next
few years and what the real significance of the FSLN victory is, it is
necessary to look at the role and character of the Sandinistas, which is
integrally linked to the history of this poverty-stricken country in
Central America.
Up until the overthrow of Somoza, Nicaragua’s
political history was one of coups and counter-coups, splits within the
ruling elite and civil wars, and military intervention by the
imperialist powers. Socially and economically, the scene has been
dominated by a weak, divided capitalist class which has amassed enormous
wealth through the super-exploitation of the working class and poor
peasantry. They make up the majority of the Nicaraguan population, who
were treated little better than pack animals throughout their lives.
Capitalism as a social and economic system arrived
late in Nicaragua in comparison to the developed capitalist economies in
Europe and the US. Moreover, its development was distorted and
influenced by these gigantic economies which dominated regional and
world economic relations. First Spanish, then British and French, and
finally, US imperialism treated Nicaragua as a raiding ground for goods
like coffee and gold, as well as for the slave trade. It became
particularly important for US imperialism because of plans (ultimately
unrealised) to build a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans
across Nicaraguan territory.
In order to develop into a modern capitalist state,
Nicaragua had to build up its industrial base, resolve the land question
(moving away from feudal relations in the countryside), develop an
independent and unified nation state, and institute a relatively stable
parliamentary democracy. However, Nicaragua’s capitalist class, because
of its political and economic weakness, was unable to carry out these
tasks – something which the advanced capitalist countries had been able
to do to one degree or another. In countries like Nicaragua, only the
working class has the potential power to carry through these changes.
And once they embarked on these tasks, the working could not be confined
within capitalist limits. The workers would inevitably strive to take
the movement further forward, down the road of revolutionary struggle
against imperialism, the Nicaraguan landlords and capitalist class. They
could go all the way over to a socialist revolution, as the Bolshevik
Party did in the 1917 October Russian revolution, when it led the
working class and peasantry to the first democratic workers’ state in
history. But a genuinely socialist Nicaraguan state would face the
threat of imperialist intervention, and so would have to be the starting
point for a continental and international struggle for socialism
Nicaragua’s capitalist class was not able to play an
independent role from its landlords or western imperialism. Its weakness
was further shown by the existence of a historical split between a
conservative wing and a liberal wing. The former, based on the rural
landlords, was an outright supporter of the interests of US imperialism.
The liberals, based on traders and small businesses, put forward the
idea of lessening US influence in the country. The relative weakness of
the ruling elite has made pacts between its different competing factions
and other social forces – including, at times, resting on sections of
the working class – a feature of Nicaraguan politics up until today.
Nicaragua’s capitalist class has never played a progressive role and,
when its interests have been threatened, has always used brutal force to
attempt to remain in power.
Stalled revolution
THE FSLN WAS formed in 1962. It based itself on the
tactics of guerrilla struggle – of small, armed groups fighting in the
countryside against the Somoza regime and its brutal, US-trained
National Guard. Despite the bravery of those who conducted an armed
struggle against this vicious reactionary opponent, this was an
incorrect strategy, for it completely sidelined the Nicaraguan working
class to the role of bystanders in the struggle to change society. It
also ruled out the creation of a democratic workers’ state in the long
run, for which a mass, conscious and revolutionary movement of the
working class is required. Generally speaking, such guerrilla movements
become isolated from the working class. They can even develop a
suspicion and contempt of the role of the working class in the struggle.
A genuinely revolutionary approach would seek to involve the mass of the
working class leading other oppressed sections, such as the peasantry,
in a mass struggle to change society. Under certain conditions, an armed
struggle in the countryside may be necessary but as an auxiliary to the
main struggle in the urban areas and industrial centres.
Unfortunately, the FSLN did not follow this
approach. Its takeover of power involved the destruction of the Somoza
state machine, the remnants of which fled the scene. But without a
spontaneous uprising of the working class, leading to insurrectionary
general strikes in the main towns and cities, the FSLN would not have
been able to seize power.
Because the FSLN leadership believed in the ideas of
a mixed economy and ‘progressive’ elements within the capitalist class,
it left industry in the hands of the bosses despite having the potential
strength to take it over and organise production in the interests of the
majority. At the time, the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI)
warned of the dangers of this approach.
The 1979 revolutionary movement terrified the
capitalist class of Nicaragua and beyond. But by leaving economic power
in the hands of the bosses, the FSLN opened the way to the regrouping of
the forces of reaction, economic sabotage of the new regime, and US
intervention behind the scenes. Unfortunately, this is exactly what
happened.
At the same time, the Sandinista leadership could no
longer rely on extensive support from the Soviet Union. The Soviet
bureaucracy, wrestling with the internal crisis of Stalinism, made it
clear that it was not prepared to extend to Nicaragua the same kind of
economic and military backing, or even diplomatic support, it had
provided for Fidel Castro after the Cuban revolution.
The remnants of Somoza’s National Guard, armed by US
imperialism, formed the Contras, a reactionary paramilitary force whose
aim was the overthrow of the FSLN regime. Thus a ten-year civil war
started which led to the deaths of over 50,000 Nicaraguans. The Contras
used brutal terrorising tactics such as the ‘waistcoat’ torture which
involved cutting off the arms of their victims. The civil war was backed
up by economic sabotage and a blockade by US imperialism which led to
hyperinflation, mass unemployment and increased poverty.
As a result of this campaign, the parties
representing the Contras were able to win elections in 1990 on the basis
of the disappointment and exhaustion of the mass of the working class
and peasantry. The new government implemented vicious neo-liberal
attacks which further drove the working class into poverty.
The sell-out
THE FSLN MOVED sharply to the right in the 1990s.
Its leadership desperately wanted to keep hold of the privileges it had
become used to during its period in power. In fact, before the new
right-wing regime won the elections, FSLN leaders seized big parts of
state assets to guarantee their own personal living standards in the
future.
But Ortega went much further than this. In the late
1990s he initiated discussions with Arnoldo Alemán, the leading figure
behind the PLC which formed part of the alliance which defeated the FSLN
in the 1990 elections. This pact involved an agreement which led to the
two parties effectively seizing control of the Supreme Court and the
offices of the attorney-general and the comptroller-general.
The pact effectively meant that the two parties
could hand out jobs and thus maintain a grip on power without having to
occupy the position of the presidency. Alemán did very well out of this.
He had been charged with money-laundering, corruption and embezzlement
in 2002 and given a 20-year prison sentence. However, because of the
pact, he has been able to serve his sentence living at home – his only
restriction is that he is not allowed to leave Managua.
Ortega also used the pact to change the electoral
law so that a presidential candidate could win on the first round of the
elections by getting 35% of the vote, as long as the leading candidate
was at least 5% ahead of the second-placed candidate. Prior to this the
barrier used to be 40%, a figure Ortega had failed to achieve in the
three previous elections.
The pact has become hated among many Nicaraguans,
being seen as responsible for maintaining ‘mega-salaries’ and pensions
for the political elite. For example, the top 695 government officials
in Nicaragua consume 1% of GDP each year purely through their wages and
perks, while 80% of the population live on less than $2 a day!
Ortega’s corrupt practices and violent swing to the
right had repercussions within the FSLN, leading to a split-off calling
itself the Movemiento de Renovación de Sandinista (MRS) in 1994. This
party criticised Ortega for having betrayed the original ideas of the
Sandinistas. Despite this criticism, however, the MRS still remained in
an electoral alliance with the FSLN up until the most recent elections.
Ortega has ruled the FSLN with an iron hand – in 2005 he expelled Herty
Lewites, a prominent Sandinista leader, for daring to put himself
forward as a candidate within the party for the presidential elections.
Lewites went on to join the MRS as its presidential candidate but died
of a heart attack in the campaign.
While the MRS put forward a radical programme in the
elections demanding free education and health provision, and an
emergency house-building programme of 40,000 dwellings, it does not
explain where the resources for this would come from and does not put
forward the necessity for the overthrow of capitalism and the struggle
for a socialist Nicaragua. Following the elections, the MRS leadership
called for an alliance with all parties who were opposed to the pact
between Ortega and Aléman. This would mean an alliance with the
US-backed Montealegre, which means raising dangerous illusions in
politicians of this sort. In fact, the MRS leadership did not call on
the working class to launch a struggle against the pact.
Dealing with the Contras
IN THE RUN-UP to the elections, Ortega continued the
swing to the right within the FSLN. While he spoke about acting against
the worst excesses of ‘savage capitalism’, he spoke about national
reconciliation and the main slogan of his campaign was "United Nicaragua
can triumph". He changed the party’s colours from red and black to pink
and turquoise and replaced the anthem of the Sandinistas, which spoke
about "Yanqui imperialism being the enemy of humanity", with a Spanish
translation of John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance. In the aftermath of
the election victory he said he would guarantee the stability of the
economy and the safety of all foreign investors’ holdings in the
country.
Although Ortega threatened to withdraw from US
imperialism’s Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and,
instead, join Chávez’s alternative Alternativa Bolivariana para América
(ALBA), the FSLN allowed the passage of CAFTA through the Nicaraguan
parliament in the run-up to the elections. Incredibly, Ortega also
backed the campaign by the Catholic Church to make all abortions illegal
– even those where a woman’s life is in danger.
Even more indicative of his political trajectory was
the alliances he formed in the run-up to the election. He chose Jamie
Morales Carazo as his candidate for vice-president. Carazo is a former
leader of the Contras, the very same organisation which butchered
thousands of Nicaraguan workers and peasants during the civil war! In an
interview with the Spanish El País newspaper, Cazaro gave an account of
his discussions with Ortega: "When he called me he said to me that he
wanted me very much to join him in his government and I said to him that
my ideological convictions are what they are, that I believe in
capitalism, and that one cannot play around with inflation; that it’s
necessary to maintain very good relations with the gringos [western
imperialist powers], with the International Monetary Fund, with the
World Bank and that we can’t pick fights with anybody. And he said to me
that he was completely in agreement".
Although Ortega and Chávez have both boasted about a
close political association, it is unlikely that Ortega will match even
in rhetoric the Venezuelan president’s populism. Nicaragua relies on
western aid for 35% of its budget and has to import 80% of its
electricity from outside the country. It has none of the economic
independence that the Venezuelan regime accrues from its oil reserves.
In fact, one third of its imports and half of its exports are related to
trade with the US.
If Ortega attempts to continue the neo-liberal
policies of his predecessors, explosive movements will develop in
Nicaraguan society. There have already been student movements protesting
against transport cost increases and a six-month health strike for
increased wages.
Through these battles and the development of
socialist ideas, the Nicaraguan working class and peasantry, resting on
their proud and courageous traditions of struggle against imperialism
and brutal capitalist oppression, can find a way out of the poverty they
face on daily basis. A socialist Nicaragua would provide such a
solution. It would also be a fitting tribute to the 50,000 martyrs who
fell in defence of the 1979 revolution against the bestial Contra
paramilitaries who sought to crush forever the will of the Nicaraguan
working class and peasantry to struggle.
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