[News] Nicaragua’s Sandinista Government Allies with Anti-Imperialist Forces

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=13949

Nicaragua’s Sandinista Government Allies with Anti-Imperialist Forces
by Phil Stuart Cournoyer; Socialist Voice; October 05, 2007

More than six months have passed since the 
inauguration of the new "21st Century Sandinista" 
government of Nicaragua last January. Jubilant 
celebrations of that event expressed the 
excitement of hundreds of thousands of Sandinista 
supporters. New hopes for an escape from the hell 
of neoliberal catastrophes breezed across our 
country’s mountains, volcanoes, valleys, and 
lakes, from the large cities to the remote hinterlands and coasts.

The FSLN leadership had used the election 
campaign to assure the country (and Washington) 
that no second edition of the 1979 revolution 
would take place. Even so, many wanted to believe 
that the new government would signal a return to 
the inspiring days and social advances of the revolution.



What does the first six-month performance of the 
new government tell us about the relationship between reality and such hopes?



The Ortega government inherited a nearly 
"Africanized" country. Nicaragua is second only 
to Haiti as the poorest country in the 
hemisphere. Almost 80% percent of the population 
lives on less than US$2 a day, and over half of 
them on less then US$1 a day. The health and 
educational systems have been hollowed out. Over 
the previous 17 years a million or more 
Nicaraguans have gone into economic exile (mostly 
to Costa Rica, El Salvador, and the United 
States). The country now depends on family 
remittances and foreign aid to stay afloat.



Lights out



The privatized national electrical system has 
been bled dry and brought to near collapse ­ 
especially its generating capacity. In 2006 
severe power cuts were imposed across the 
country. The new government alleviated the 
problem for a time, relying on donated generator 
plants from Cuba and Venezuela. But more 
breakdowns in the system soon forced a return to 
long power cuts, from five to 10 hours daily in 
both rural and urban areas. This has created 
havoc in the economy, especially the retail 
sector, the health system, and people’s daily lives.



The collapsed electrical system can be taken as a 
metaphor for the condition of the republic on the 
eve of the elections. The Sandinistas won the 
presidency largely because the traditional 
right-wing forces assembled in the Constitutional 
Liberal Party (PLC) had split down the middle. 
The Catholic Church was also divided, with now 
retired Cardinal Obando y Bravo opting to back 
the FSLN in return for its support to a 
government-initiated bill that illegalized 
therapeutic abortion. These divisions, splits, 
and confusion in traditional ruling class 
formations (the Church hierarchy included) 
stemmed from a mounting lack of confidence in 
their own ability to keep the ship afloat, or 
rather, to re-float the shipwreck and pilot it away from rocky shores.



The FSLN drove through the gap opened by the 
split in the oligarchic parties and won a 
minority government in the November 2006 election 
with just 38% of the national vote. What followed 
caught the country and most political analysts, 
including this writer, quite by surprise.



Inauguration day



The course of Ortega’s new government was 
foreshadowed by the events surrounding its inauguration on January 10.



Presidents and high-level delegations attended 
from most Latin American and Caribbean countries, 
including the presidents of Mexico and other 
Central American countries. Hugo Chávez attended 
from Venezuela, and Evo Morales from Bolivia. 
Cuban vice-president José Ramón Machado stood in 
for Fidel Castro. Taiwan sent its president Chen 
Shui-bian; Iran and Libya sent high-profile 
representatives. Spain sent its Crown Prince. 
Perhaps just to be different, Canada and the 
United States sent low-profile delegations whose 
presence was not even noted in the official welcoming.



It turned out that Chávez had to delay his 
arrival by over three hours. Ortega kept the 
assembled VIPs and the Crown Prince himself 
waiting throughout the hot afternoon until our 
Venezuelan guests appeared. The event, including 
the long wait, was televised live. Broadcasts on 
rightwing TV and radio were punctuated by howls 
of protest from commentators about the "national 
disgrace" entailed in making Spanish royalty and 
visiting presidents wait around (and around!) for Chávez.



That was just the thin end of the wedge. After a 
drastically abbreviated swearing-in ritual, 
Ortega cut short the ceremony to join, as he 
explained, tens of thousands of workers, farmers, 
and youth waiting at a nearby lakeside plaza. 
They too had been celebrating for many hours 
under the hot sun. Off he went, accompanied by 
the new cabinet and his closest allies among the presidential visitors.



In the plaza, Chávez, Morales, and Ortega 
addressed the tired, but tumultuous crowd with 
strong appeals for Latin American unity, 
anti-imperialist struggle, national liberation, 
and socialism. Ortega interrupted his own speech 
to invite Cuba’s José Ramón Machado to take the 
mike. The crowds greeted the Cuban compañero with 
a thundering roar of enthusiasm. The Taiwanese 
president shared the platform but did not speak.



The mass inaugural celebration introduced a new 
theme song for the FSLN, one that has accompanied 
both FSLN rallies and official functions ever 
since ­ la Internacional with its opening appeal 
"Arriba los pobres del mundo" (arise ye poor of 
the world). Our president-elect proclaimed that 
the new government represented a continuation of 
the Sandinista revolution of the eighties. He 
announced that his first acts as president would 
be to restore free education and health services, 
a social conquest of the revolution, reversed by 
the pro-U.S. government elected in 1990.



He also announced that Nicaragua would join the 
Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (its Spanish 
acronym ALBA also means "dawn") to become fourth 
member after Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. ALBA’s 
mandate is to facilitate commerce and cooperation 
among its members based on principles of 
solidarity and economic harmony, in overt 
opposition to the exploitative relations 
maintained by the world capitalist and imperialist market.



The next day the four ALBA presidents convened a 
public session carried live on radio and TV, 
where they signed a packet of agreements 
projecting major trade and cooperation 
initiatives to help lift Nicaragua out of the 
abyss. Venezuela forgave Nicaragua its debt.



Nicaragua-Iran agreements



On the Sunday following the inauguration Iranian 
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Managua 
on a state visit. The two presidents announced 
major trade agreements and ties based on 
cooperation and friendship. Daniel Ortega used 
the visit to denounce U.S. aggression against 
Iraq and threats against Iran ­ a theme he again 
stressed during his state visit to Iran in June.



Recent follow-up announcements include an 
agreement that Iran will build a US$350 million 
ocean port on the south Caribbean coast of 
Nicaragua and a pledge of US$120 million to help 
build a massive hydroelectric project that could 
go a long way to solving the country’s long-term 
electricity deficit. Iranian cooperation, reached 
in bilateral agreements, is coordinated through 
ALBA, because it often involves joint 
Venezuelan-Iranian initiatives such as a recently 
constructed tractor factory in Venezuela that is 
supplying Nicaraguan farmers with low-priced machines.



In March Hugo Chávez returned to Nicaragua. He 
went to the indigenous community of Sutiava (in 
Léon province) where he and Ortega announced that 
Venezuela would build a US$3.5 billion oil 
refinery on the Pacific Coast near Nagarote. This 
refinery will process Venezuelan oil both for 
Nicaragua and for export to other Central 
American countries and to China. Chávez insists 
that it will be completed before Ortega’s 
six-year term is finished, even if work has to 
take place 24-7. An allied petrochemical complex 
will also be built near the refinery, promising 
thousands of long-term jobs to local workers. 
These projects, when completed, should generate 
annually hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue for the country.



Chávez used the occasion to talk about his vision 
of the way forward for Latin American nations.



"Every day I say even more vigorously that the 
only way out of poverty and backwardness is to 
take the road of socialism, a new socialism built by ourselves.




"I believe that Christ is the first great 
socialist of our era, because Christ advocated 
equality, love among us, and the only way that we 
can have equality in society is through 
socialism. Capitalism is the kingdom of 
exploitation, inequality, and hate, of ambition 
and egoism. Socialism is the kingdom of love, 
fraternity, and equality. This was what Christ 
came to preach to the world. And so, even though 
some priests will get uptight, I will keep on 
saying, for me as the Christian that I am, my 
Lord is one of the greatest revolutionaries in 
history, one of the greatest socialist revolutionaries in history."



Venezuelan aid



Fast forward to July 19: Chávez and Morales 
returned to Managua to join the celebrations of 
the 28th anniversary of the 1979 insurrectionary 
defeat of the U.S.-backed Somoza dynasty. The 
three presidents again united their voices to 
stress the urgent need for Indo-Latin American 
unity and vigilant anti-imperialist struggle. 
Chávez, never shy, once more used his formidable 
oratorical skills to advocate a socialist, 
anti-capitalist course for our Patria Grande ­ 
our term for the vast Indo-Black-Latin American 
nation extending from the Rio Bravo on the 
U.S.-Mexican border to Tierra del Fuego at the 
southern tip of the continent, taking in the Caribbean island countries.



Venezuelan aid and trade agreements now amount to 
over US$5 billion dollars. Much of this aid will 
be executed over a period of several years, and 
the overall amount will no doubt increase 
significantly over that time. Projects, in 
addition to the refinery, include an all-season 
highway from Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) on the north 
Caribbean coast, southwest to Rio Blanco. The 
highway project will require the rebuilding of 
the Puerto Cabezas docks and a modern hospital 
for road construction workers that will also 
serve regional communities. Other programs 
include agricultural inputs such as farm credits, 
fertilizers, and related technologies, and also 
educational and health projects. Venezuela has 
guaranteed the country’s petroleum needs at fair 
prices, in the ALBA spirit. This involves 
long-term, low-interest payment agreements, 
including the option to pay in kind with 
agricultural, maritime, and mineral products ­ 
hence opening the possibility of expelling the 
dollar from commerce between the two Caribbean 
countries. All oil collaboration between the two 
countries is being channeled though an autonomous 
company ­ ALBANISA ­ responsible to the 
Venezuelan and Nicaraguan state oil companies.



Cuban aid mainly targets the health and 
educational sectors and is also channeled through 
ALBA. Cuban doctors and medical specialists are 
working mainly in the Caribbean coast autonomous 
regions, and in a newly opened eye clinic in 
Ciudad Sandino near Managua, part of ALBA’s 
Operation Miracle (OM). To date more than 12,000 
Nicaraguans have attained improved or restored 
vision through the OM program. Many received 
their operations either in Havana or Caracas, but 
soon it will be unnecessary for Nicaraguans to 
leave our country to get treatment. Two more 
clinics will be opened in each of the two coastal regional capitals.



Nicaragua is to become a regional center for the 
program, enabling people from Mexico and Central 
America to get attention here. Cuban specialists 
are training Nicaraguan doctors who will later 
take full responsibility for the Nicaraguan 
component of OM. As well, about 80 just-graduated 
Nicaraguan general practitioners have recently 
returned from medical school in Cuba and are 
doing their internships with Cuban doctors in 
remote areas of the autonomous regions.



Cuban educators play a key role in the national 
literacy program, set in motion by an 
FSLN-inspired NGO two years ago. The new Ministry 
of Education adopted the program, creating the 
National Literacy Council to press the attack on 
a 34% illiteracy rate. Using the Cuban Yo sí 
puedo technique and tens of thousands of TV 
monitors donated by that country, the program has 
now conquered illiteracy in Managua. Soon UNESCO 
will declare Managua the first Central American 
capital to free itself from illiteracy. The 
Literacy Council’s two-year target is to help 
800,000 more Nicaraguans to read and write.



Brazil’s Lula



Other countries beyond the ALBA alliance and Iran 
are also stepping up aid to Nicaragua, most 
importantly Brazil. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 
(most often known as Lula) visited Nicaragua in 
July and signed a series of agreements in various 
areas including tourism, education, energy, 
forestry, industry, commerce, generic medicines, 
and agriculture. He and Ortega concurred that 
ethanol should not be produced from corn or other 
food products except sugar cane or palm oil, a 
compromise position that was subsequently endorsed by Venezuela.



In August Taiwan’s president again visited 
Nicaragua, promising to increase his government’s 
aid. Taiwanese capital employs over 30,000 
Nicaraguan workers, mostly in the maquila sector. 
Chen Shui-bian promised that Taiwan would buy 
Nicaragua’s entire coffee crop, hoping that this 
and other aid will entice Nicaragua not to follow 
Costa Rica’s lead and break relations with Taipei 
in order to re-establish relations with China. In 
his parting words as he left for home, Chen 
Shui-bian suggested that Daniel Ortega would 
merit a Nobel Prize if he succeeds in convincing 
Beijing to accept Nicaraguan recognition without 
compelling a break with Taipei!



Days after the inauguration Ortega scuttled the 
former government’s plan to privatize water. He 
appointed Ruth Herrera (longtime Sandinista and 
leader of the consumer protest against water 
privatization) to take charge of the national 
water utility. She immediately decreed that the 
wealth-burdened elite ­ including their 
plantations, breweries and bottling plants, 
industries, and hotels ­ would have to pay their 
water bills. They shed this obligation once their cronies took power in 1990.



The most important economic initiative of the 
government in the countryside is the Zero Hunger 
Campaign aimed at the poorest sectors of the 
population, especially women farm-owners. This 
US$150 million project is expected to benefit 
75,000 families during the next five years 
through programs to revive and support small-scale family farming.



Nearly two-decades of neoliberal "adjustment" 
devastated small farmers and traditional crops 
that could not compete with highly subsidized 
U.S. agricultural exports. During that time most 
of the gains of the agrarian reform of the 
eighties were reversed as old and new capital 
bought out farmers bankrupted by lack of access 
to affordable credit. The new program provides 
farmers with impregnated cows and sows, chickens, 
seeds, and free agronomy services. In tandem with 
the Zero Hunger effort, ALBA launched a low 
interest farm-credit program, largely financed by 
Venezuela’s National Economic and Social 
Development Bank (BNDES) through its new Managua branch office.



When Hurricane Felix devastated Nicaragua’s 
Atlantic coast in early September, the central 
government responded energetically and in concert 
with authorities of the regional autonomous 
government ­ largely an indigenous 
administration. Longtime Miskitu leader Brooklyn 
Rivera, who in the eighties led a wing of the 
indigenous armed struggle against the 
Sandinistas, lauded the government not only for 
its humanitarian aid but for having "reacted with 
sensitivity, taking into account conditions in 
the indigenous communities, their way of life, 
their organization, and their world view." (For 
information on reconstruction aid, see end of article.)



Economic policy



The most puzzling feature of the first six months 
of the government has been the relative lack of 
discussion of basic economic policy, including a 
new agreement being negotiated with the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF). Daniel 
Ortega’s February budget was a remake of the 
previous government’s numbers, with the exception 
of a significant increase of spending on 
education and health, and allocations to the new 
Zero Hunger program. A reprieve from some large 
foreign debts made this spending possible.



The budget failed to include more progressive 
taxation measures, despite widespread clamor that 
the rich ­ especially bankers and financial 
sharks ­ should begin to pay taxes. The budget 
included commitments to continue to pay off the 
internal debt, a large part of which is owed to 
speculators who snapped up a government bond 
issue used to rescue deposits holders following 
major bank collapses in 2000-2001. Later, 
official entities such as the Auditor General and 
the State Prosecutor declared that this "debt" is illegal.



Nevertheless, the previous and current 
governments and the National Assembly have argued 
alike that failure to honor this "debt" would 
unleash "panic in financial markets" and "ruin 
Nicaragua’s international credit status." The 
debt payments are crushing, and dwarf the entire 
fund being devoted to the campaign against 
hunger. This provokes deep resentment among poor 
and middle-class sectors who question why their 
taxes, and foreign aid, should be converted into 
handouts to parasites ­ the bankers, finance companies, and coupon clippers.



The FSLN leadership’s economic strategy is to 
lift the country out of the pit of neoliberal 
devastation through market-oriented, capitalist 
measures coupled with social and budgetary 
policies to cushion the poorest and most 
vulnerable sectors from the worst impacts of free 
trade and capital accumulation. They believe this 
will only succeed if more foreign investment 
comes in, and if a "good investor climate" is 
assured. Hence, the reluctance to repudiate what 
is clearly an illegal internal debt.



Secret talks



The negotiations with the IMF have largely been 
held in private. To date not much is known about 
them, except that macroeconomic policy will 
remain largely unaltered. Both right- and 
left-wing critics of the government have 
complained about the secret nature of these 
talks, although the previous three governments 
were never known for openness in their dealings 
with imperial masters. Details of the finalized 
IMF agreement should become clear with the 
discussion of the 2008 budget that will have to 
take into account the impact of last year’s entry 
into a "free trade" agreement with the United States.



The U.S. cries foul



The grand scheme is to cobble together a 
two-pronged economic course that relies both on 
U.S.-sponsored "free trade" and the ALBA 
alliance, in addition to trade and aid with Iran, 
Brazil, and Taiwan. But imperialism can hardly be 
expected to accept this combination without 
protest. The inherent conflict was laid bare by 
Nicaragua’s recent (and still unresolved) 
conflict with Esso, the giant U.S.-based oil concern.



In mid-August Esso arrogantly refused to allow 
Petronic (Nicaragua’s public petroleum 
corporation) to offload and store Venezuelan oil 
in its tanks at the port of Corinto on the north 
Pacific coast. The government responded by 
sending Esso a bill for millions of dollars in 
unpaid taxes and custom charges, and a Corinto 
judge impounded the oil storage tanks pending 
resolution of the dispute. The Esso tanks were filled with Venezuelan crude.



Esso and the U.S. ambassador Trivelli cried foul, 
denouncing the alleged violation of property 
rights. The big-business association COSEP 
parroted this line, as did ALN head and banker 
Eduardo Montealegre, and other right-wing 
politicians. Vice-president Jaime Morales shot 
them down. "No private interests," he insisted, 
"can be allowed to trump national interests." He 
stressed that the oil was desperately needed to 
cope with constant electricity cuts.



Esso is refusing to negotiate unless and until 
the court restores full and uncontested control 
of the tanks to their foreign owners. Morales 
warned Esso that it was making a grave error, 
resorting to a popular expression: "No sólo se le 
fue la mano sino también los pieds." His image 
here is unmistakable ­ such errors can cost an 
arm and a leg! Strong words from our vice-president, a former Contra leader.



Meanwhile the city of Managua has also moved 
against Esso for unpaid local taxes, and the 
Ministry of the Environment has re-opened an 
investigation of a recent perilous oil spill just 
outside Managua. Esso says vandals caused the 
spill. As one skeptic put it, "Some spill! Some vandals!"



Contesting ‘hegemonic values’



Esso’s provocation in Corinto this August recalls 
the initial skirmishes between Cuba and the U.S. 
government and oil monopolies in 1960 that 
sparked Cuba’s showdown with imperialism. The 
Nicaraguan government’s alignment with 
anti-imperialist forces and its initial, limited 
measures to alleviate popular suffering invite 
U.S. retaliation, combined with increasing class conflict and polarization.



Frente leaders are well aware of the dilemmas and 
risks involved in the Sandinistas’ economic 
policy, but see no viable alternative. 
Sociologist Orlando Nuñez, perhaps the main 
theoretician and ideological defender of the FSLN 
government, and head of the Zero Hunger campaign, put it this way:



"For a party with a socialist mission like the 
Sandinista Front, our situation is very complex 
and contradictory. The party holds the presidency 
and has the most political sympathizers in 
Nicaragua. However, it is still a minority in 
other state powers, and faces an opposition that 
is trying to unite and jointly oppose it. This 
party, now in power, has to administer a country 
where capitalist economy dominates and must 
govern a society whose hegemonic values are 
liberal and neo-liberal. Its strategy implies 
defending revolutionary measures of the 
government and acting as a party opposed to the 
capitalist system now in force."



But how can we Sandinistas contest capitalist 
"hegemonic values"? In Venezuela, repeated 
popular mobilizations turned back the right-wing 
assault. Can Nicaragua follow a similar path?







Phil Stuart Cournoyer is a Nicaraguan citizen and 
longtime member of the FSLN [Sandinista National 
Liberation Front (Sandinistas)]. He has been an 
active socialist in Canada and Nicaragua for almost 50 years.





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