Nicaragua
“Ours is a Civic Struggle, But...”
Envío team
In later retrospectives about the multiple changes Nicaragua is undergoing, November 9 will be remembered as one of the important reference points. On that day, as during the strikes of May and July 1990, many people from different walks of life were swept up in a rebellion that recalled the insurrection against the Somoza dictatorship. Unlike the outbursts of rural violence in recent months, this rebellion, which was centered in Managua and some provincial cities, produced no deaths. But it rattled the government, the political parties, the United States and some international spheres far more.
It also shook the FSLN. As before, the extreme right accused Daniel Ortega of directing the actions by remote control, but, also as before, the truth is that the Sandinista members and sympathizers who spontaneously took to the streets that day did not even consult the FSLN leadership.
A day of rageUnlike May and July 1990, the violence of November 9, 1991 did not emerge from the union movement. Other groups took the lead in expressing the indignation and fury that every Sandinista, whether active or inactive, employed or unemployed, close to or distanced from the National Directorate felt that Saturday morning upon learning that dynamite had blown a gaping hole in the tomb of FSLN founder and Commander-in-Chief Carlos Fonseca Amador.
The very day before had been the 15th anniversary of Comandante Carlos Fonseca's death in combat. In customary fashion, families brought their children to the Plaza of the Revolution to deposit a flower at the Sandinista hero's tomb. In the afternoon, there was a rally in the plaza, smaller than in previous years but still far larger than any political party or President Chamorro herself could draw.
Observers noted that the number of people who filed individually past the tomb throughout the day outnumbered those who assembled for the rally. Some interpreted this as a sign that Comandante Fonseca has greater drawing power from his grave than current Sandinista leaders do from their offices, that the call from the "dead who never die" was that of a symbol above the debates and complexities of the moment. It is a symbol that evokes the era of "victory or death," so different from today's ambiguous search for something between those two extremes. It speaks of struggle and resistance, and lets the government know that Sandinismo refuses to either die or accept the "new order" which is rapidly acquiring—or at least tolerating—characteristics of the old Somocista order that killed Fonseca. In other words, it is not a symbol that should be fooled with lightly.
"They touched God with dirty hands," said one old woman at the plaza on November 9. Like first hundreds, then thousands of enraged Sandinistas from all social classes, she had been drawn there again that day to confirm firsthand the unfathomable news that flew across the country early that morning. In what some saw as a signal to the government, the general staff of the Sandinista Popular Army announced several hours after the attack on Fonseca's tomb that they would take charge of repairs, but by that time people in the plaza had already sealed the hole and were busily searching for paint as the cement dried.
While some turned to restoring the mausoleum, however, others gathered into groups to punish those responsible. As one Sandinista sympathizer described it, not without a hint of nostalgia, "Each individual initiative gathered strength, became a group, galvanized into action and scoured the city for someone to blame. The winner was the most hated of the Somocistas and everything he reminded us of. The havoc and its consequences were not part of anybody's plans, they simply happened. The levels of rage escalated, fired by the affront. As the politicians say, it was a social outburst."
The "winner" of the search for someone to blame was Arnoldo Alemán, mayor of Managua, staunch anti-Sandinista, one-time youth activist in Somoza's Nationalist Liberal Party and already an active aspirant to the presidential office. There is no mystery to why the demonstrators' fury fell full force on him following the desecration of Fonseca's tomb. Shortly after taking office as mayor, he had launched a personal campaign to tear down, cover over or otherwise destroy every monument, symbol or wall mural erected by the Sandinista government and people during the past ten years. He had already extinguished the permanent flame on Fonseca's tomb and, in a more recent gesture of open contempt, had commissioned a bust of Luis H. Delgadillo, Liberal Party author of the national anthem, to be positioned right alongside but facing away from the tomb.
Less than a block away from the plaza, the demonstrators torched several municipal trucks and used others to transport themselves to other symbols of their wrath. They set fire to Alemán's municipal headquarters and partially destroyed Radio Corporación, the key anti-Sandinista station and platform for the Somocista mayor. In Matagalpa and León, demonstrators burned tires in the streets and attacked other radio stations. Throughout the long day, the police dedicated themselves to providing physical protection to top government officials.
All these actions were more than the sum of individual acts of grievance against a particularly outrageous injustice. They were also the release of a resentment that had been building among Sandinistas for months. The resentment stemmed from the extreme right's provocations and open threats, the repeated news of more Sandinistas killed by recontras in the north, the frustration of witnessing pitched battles between riot police and striking workers, the absence of a clear line from the FSLN leadership and soaring levels of unemployment and poverty.
A monument for a monument Alemán fueled that smoldering resentment and gave it a target. Every time he venomously spit out the word "frentista," it would lick into a little internal fire. His refusal to even utter the word Sandinista was more infuriating than his absurd insistence on blaming them for everything from Nicaragua's economic crisis to the multiple splits in the Liberal Party.
But the hate-spewing Alemán was far more than just a symbolic target. He and the other extremist mayors have their share of real responsibility for provoking the outburst. In addition to pushing for an armed municipal police force under their direct tutelage, other provocations had been coming at an ever faster rhythm in the days leading up to November 9. In the first days of the month, Alemán's Constitutionalist Liberal Party announced that it was taking Daniel Ortega to court on charges of terrorism and inciting terrorism. It also announced that it would petition the Political Parties Commission to withdraw the FSLN's accreditation. Those arriving to commemorate Fonseca's death on November 8 noticed that Delgadillo's bust had been reduced to rubble. That day, workers in Managua's municipal offices repeatedly overheard the phrase, "A monument for a monument!"
A symbol for a symbolOn November 9, Sandinismo revealed a new organizational dimension to the rest of Nicaragua, the world and, above all, itself. From daybreak on through the morning, as news of the bombing spread, Sandinistas tied on their red and black kerchiefs, in a number of cases gathering into small groups, and streamed out of their neighborhoods—mainly, but not only, the poorer ones. Those at the head of the groups that took to the streets were not the old leaders of the weakened party structures; as in the insurrectionary period of over a decade ago, they were for the most part "nuestros muchachos" young activists from the barrios themselves—but this time with more advanced political levels. These leaders were a diverse group, made up largely of now-unemployed people from the previous government apparatus and the armed forces, although among them was a sprinkling of older community leaders.
This new dimension is a product not only of years of experience in struggling "from below," but also of its own development in recent months. Convinced that only the people can save the people, these "urban recompa" self-defense groups have emerged out of people's need to organize to protect themselves against an extreme right offensive that openly threatens to eliminate anything that smacks of Sandinismo.
They did not go out into the streets to indiscriminately attack La Prensa or the presidential ministry, or to tangle with the police. Nor was it a spontaneous economic riot such as those triggered off among the disadvantaged in cities from Buenos Aires to New York. Not one of the luxurious supermarkets promoting the new wave of consumerism the government refers to as "economic improvement" was looted. Born on the defense, this time they took the offense, and, perhaps by political instinct, perhaps by conscious decision, their targets were very discriminate. Alemán and his kindred souls were going to pay the bill for what they had fostered: monument for monument, symbol for symbol.
Although the political effect of the violence by the two "extremes"—that of the ultra-right and that of the Sandinistas—could be catalogued as similar, the costs are not. No deaths were reported on November 9 in Managua, while in the previous weeks nearly 50 Sandinista peasants, individual or cooperative farmers were killed.
Energies redirectedAlthough the extremist elements were the specific targets of popular wrath, the central government's image took a beating as well. Not knowing how far this mini-insurrection might go, government officials did not venture out during the entire, seemingly endless day. Prisoners of panic, they ceased to govern. Perhaps they felt that the common joke, "You could knock this government out with a radio patrol," was too real for comfort. That the government was finally forced to ask Daniel Ortega to calm the demonstrators revealed Nicaragua's paradoxical political reality yet again.
Given the pent-up rage, the FSLN National Directorate could not have prevented the events of November 9. But neither would it have led them. Its own legitimacy over these same months has been too intimately linked to its efforts to avoid any destabilization of the central government. While Daniel Ortega has championed people's right to defend themselves against threats by the right, in no sense can this be interpreted as a justification of offensive violence. Confrontations between Sandinista police and workers, or offensives such as this one, in fact, delight the government and the right since they stir up such tensions within the FSLN.
Shortly before noon, the FSLN National Directorate made a call to its membership to gather in the Plaza of the Revolution later in the afternoon. Even before the appointed hour, the plaza was filled with over twice the number that had been there the day before. Amid still-burning trucks and smoking tires, Sandinistas gathered to listen to FSLN Secretary General Daniel Ortega, who was accompanied by the entire Directorate. Ortega defined all the events of the past months as clear indicators that Somocismo was trying to make a comeback. He accused the political, economic and military expressions of this neo-Somocismo—specifically naming Alemán, Vice President Godoy and National Assembly president Alfredo César-of having a set goal of eradicating Sandinismo and encouraging such actions as the desecration of Fonseca's tomb. The right branded Ortega's speech "radical," as usual missing the point. The National Directorate's message was, in fact, consciously prepared as a political escape valve, aimed at discharging tempers and avoiding a spiral of events that could end in a bloodbath.
Ortega called for the formation of an alliance of all sectors opposed to the return of Somocismo. He stressed that the FSLN has no interest in destabilizing the government, much less overthrowing it, but that these are, in fact, the ultra-right's objectives. The FSLN seeks national stability, he said, to which end it demands that the government stop permitting the ever more emboldened advance of the extreme right. If Sandinistas in general and workers in particular are willing to work for such stability, he argued, the right must do so as well. It cannot continue to insist on the use of police repression, the creation of the municipal police force promoted by Alemán and the return of properties to Somocistas and other land barons. It must comply with the accords on privatization to workers and agree to tone down the anti-popular economic policies. If not, Ortega warned, people's anger would continue bubbling to the surface. He encouraged all Sandinistas to go home and get some rest so they could dedicate themselves to the task of strengthening Sandinista organization with renewed energy. The speech, punctuated with vigorous chanting from the crowd, was broadcast live on all the pro-Sandinista radio stations, and could be heard emanating from houses even in middle-class neighborhoods.
A new political landscapeBy the following morning, the episodes of violence had almost disappeared. But although the cities returned to apparent normalcy, the political landscape had changed.
The ultra-rightTogether with the US Embassy and even some within the central government in Managua, the ultra-right opposition has consistently pushed the thesis that the FSLN is well on its way to falling apart. While this thesis has been challenged by reality on previous occasions, the events of November 9 finally forced the right to rethink its strategy. That day revealed clearly that the FSLN's organizational dispersion does not translate into an inability to take the streets and paralyze the nation, leaving the government itself on the sidelines, a mere spectator.
Genuinely alarmed, the most extremist sectors demanded protection from the threat they felt. They finally understood that the decision they made in October to test Sandinista strength to see how far they could push it had been a big mistake. Suddenly they were the ones on the defensive.
Although the UNO bloc supporting National Assembly president Alfredo César has been unraveling around the edges for a while, the explosion of November 9 may have something to do with the fact that he has now lost his absolute control of the UNO bench. At least 10 UNO representatives have switched their votes to the President's positions within the Assembly. Those 10 votes, together with the Sandinistas' 39, effectively put to rest the attempt by César and the US Embassy to pull off a "technical coup" against the executive branch. The thrust of that effort had been to transfer to the UNO bench in the legislature all fundamental decisions on the country's political and economic life, starting with such basic issues as property, privatization, the budget, reforms to the Constitution and the regulations governing the armed forces.
In spite of César's direct and intense personal pressures on bolting UNO representatives, they refused to override the President's veto of César's property law—a law openly promoted by the US Embassy and COSEP, the rightwing business umbrella. The executive branch managed to organize its own tripartite commission (government-UNO-FSLN) to examine reforms to the law César had pushed through the legislature in August. In this commission, which the FSLN supports, the possibility is greater than in the Assembly of negotiating reforms that will be more compatible with the commitments signed in the concertación forum. If this is achieved, the minimum interests of the popular project will be assured on such a strategic issue as the structure of property ownership in the country.
César's "coup" attempt foundered against a combination of Sandinista forms of struggle: popular fury led by the masses in the streets and measured negotiations by the FSLN leadership with the central government to defend the political commitments already signed. The apparent understanding between the FSLN and the Presidency reached such a level that César accused them of scheming to declare a State of Emergency that would permit the President to dissolve the National Assembly and govern by decree with Sandinista support. Lacayo angrily denied César's accusation, and, in fact, there is no real need for such an extreme measure. The César bloc in the Assembly now only has enough votes to defeat the Sandinista bench alone, but not enough to override it and the President's supporters combined.
By the end of November, the rightwing UNO parties had shifted from confrontation with the executive branch to trying to butter it up. They urged Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo to make common cause with them against the FSLN in the National Dialogue, to treat them as part of the government rather than as a "third force." That effort has borne little fruit so far: Lacayo refused their full list of agenda points, accepting only the 13 he judged to coincide with presidential interests.
Although little can be expected to come out of the National Dialogue, the marginalizing of César and the National Assembly does increase the political and negotiating space of the executive branch and the FSLN. The retreat of the far-right sectors represented by Alemán, however, is only temporary, as they wait and watch for a new opening to take their anti-Sandinista show on the road again.
For the moment, these extremist sectors leveled the fury they felt after November 9 on what they called the "Chamorro-Sandinista" government, even openly attacking the President herself. One of their number commented publicly that "Doña Violeta cannot continue just to enjoy her power, showing up only at unimportant protocol events, traveling, dressing elegantly and delegating administration to business people. Either take direct command and exercise it patriotically, or the wisest thing would be to resign. Nicaragua needs a President with a real personality, one the people hear offer analyses and solutions. We don't want a President who just reads speeches someone else wrote; we want a forward-looking President."
Some political observers do not discard the possibility that the extremists could mount a campaign charging the President with having created a power vacuum through her governmental passivity toward the current "anarchy." Since, constitutionally, her successor would be Vice President Virgilio Godoy, the obvious objective of such a campaign would be to force her resignation.
It is an open secret that these same sectors have been studying for some time how to reduce President Chamorro's presidential term. Any mere constitutional reform to the length of the current six-year term would not affect the incumbent. One idea, therefore, is to call a referendum on new elections for a Constituent Assembly, then elect a provisional President (César, in this scenario) and draft a whole new Constitution. There are indications that the United States has also not discarded the possibility of such a change to thus put an end to "Chamorro-Sandinismo." A new newspaper will reportedly hit the stands soon—property of César and financed by AID.
The central governmentThe day Managua erupted, Antonio Lacayo was off in Miami trying to convince more or less recalcitrant Nicaraguan exiles of the positive aspects of his policy of reconciliation and negotiation with the FSLN. Although the government's lack of authority and any real repressive capacity became undeniably clear that day—the Minister of Government even offered his resignation—the executive branch turned its losses into a victory.
With greater force than ever, the government could demonstrate the lack of political and social viability of the extremist sectors' more anti-Sandinista proposals. For Lacayo, the episodes of November 9 again underscored the need to govern by majority and not necessarily by consensus. There could be no consensus without the right, but there could be neither consensus nor majority—in terms of real political forces—without the FSLN. In effect, the extreme right had blown part of its ability to pressure the executive. After November 9, the central government, continually forced to give and get concessions on both sides so as to contain their "two extremes," seems to have leaned somewhat more toward Sandinismo, always more willing than the extreme right to come to a genuine understanding with the government.
Governmental authority was also bolstered by the advances being reached in agreements in the countryside among the army, the police, demobilized fighters from both the Nicaraguan Resistance and the army, and even the recompas and recontras. In Matagalpa, for example, the first Special Disarmament Brigade was formed, made up of 280 members of all these groups under the command of the army. By the end of November it appeared that the arduous efforts of the government and the army to deactivate the armed conflict in the rural areas might bear fruit: the recontras and recompas, represented by their respective "high commands," were already talking to each other. Only one important recontra group—led by "lndomable," whom the right tried had to elevate to legendary status in the first stages of his "uprising"—steadfastly refuses to participate. He is sticking to his aggressive, violent and essentially criminal activities.
The government seems to have finally recognized that total disarmament in the rural areas is not yet a political possibility. In this stage, the realm of the possible is limited to reaching truce accords between the armed groups and responding to their social and economic demands. Nonetheless, the formation of the Disarmament Brigade and the accords reached among the different armed groups also contribute to politically isolating the ultra-right's destabilizing positions at a national level. This strengthens the authority of both the government and the army as promoters of consensus in the countryside. Once the recontras are concentrated into areas they themselves agree to, it will be very difficult for anyone to oppose the armed forces' actions against the other armed elements, enemies of any negotiated solution.
The FSLN's demands and its support of popular self-defense in the rural areas has unquestionably contributed to this outcome, which remains precarious as long as Indomable and other, smaller groups continue their rampage of death and destruction. The recompas have quickly become the recognized local interlocutors for the demands of the rural Sandinista populace, and their rebellion has earned them equal treatment to that given the recontras by the government. Once together at the negotiating table, the recompa and recontra leaders have rapidly reached accords, demonstrating that there is no great gulf between the demands of each. Both want the government to comply with the commitments it has made to the demobilized fighters on each side, and both want legal security for the properties assigned to them or for the cooperatives established during the previous government. The main point of divergence is which side disarms first.
The emergence of the recompas—armed structures identified with Sandinismo but autonomous of the FSLN—has reduced the political influence of the recontras and the ultra-right in the countryside as well as in the cities. It has also undermined those who have from time to time pushed for total disarmament or even dissolution of the army, or the intervention of international armed organizations as the only solution. The lesson has been clear: the government responds to pressure only when it is backed by force. This time, Sandinista force strengthened the Presidency's hand, as long as it exercises its power in the framework and spirit of the Constitution.
The FSLN and the popular forcesThere had been another eruption three days before November 9, with the FSLN itself the epicenter. The increase in union protests and recourse to police repression had been leading to heightened confrontations. This time the government took the initiative of calling the FSLN National Directorate to what ended up being a very long meeting. Although important agreements regarding privatization of enterprises to workers were reached during the meeting, the only announcement made at its conclusion was that both parties insisted on the need to dialogue to find a negotiated solution to the conflicts.
The Sandinista leadership refused to negotiate in the name of the workers, as the government had intended, but insisted that the issue must be taken up with the union leadership itself. All the same, as the government left the meeting, it announced publicly that the FSLN had agreed to suspend the strikes.
Only a short distance away from the site of this meeting, the police were following "higher orders" to forcibly remove workers protesting outside the Ministry of Labor. Once again, the level of violence employed by the riot police was excessive. Given this, some union leaders felt betrayed by the Sandinista leadership, causing the Secretary of the Health Workers Federation to reject Daniel Ortega's call for dialogue.
In reality, the call was made to both parties involved in the labor conflicts—the government as well as the workers. The latter insist that they are pushed into taking over buildings precisely because the owners or the ministers, as the case may be, prefer to send the police rather than sit down and talk. Nonetheless, the government, and even some workers, interpreted the FSLN leadership's call as ordering worker capitulation so as not to give the impression that Sandinismo wanted to destabilize the country.
The government had stressed that labor unrest would have a negative impact on the willingness of the United States and the multinational lending agencies to contribute the funds promised for 1992. According to one news source, the government specifically warned the FSLN Directorate members that, if the strikes continued and privatization did not move forward more quickly, the US government would delay its disbursement of the aid expected for the 1992 economic "take-off."
The FSLN could not appear insensitive to these outside economic pressures suffered by the government, nor did it want to risk being blamed for a new economic collapse. But it also could not accept that the population be blackmailed by the extreme right, the US government and the international lenders to push through their structural adjustment programs.
Furthermore, the fact that the FSLN was in the middle of negotiating an accord with the government to deal jointly with the ultra-right version of the property law did not mean that it would sit back and do nothing about the attack on Fonseca's tomb. Surely, some right-wingers hoped to do more than just defile a Sandinista symbol. With luck, the anger they would unleash would either derail the FSLN-government talks or push the tensions within the FSLN to the breaking point.
Although the right achieved neither objective, the bombing of Fonseca's tomb, coming only three days after the FSLN-government meeting and its resulting call for a direct dialogue between the government and the unions, did indeed reopen controversies within the FSLN. These unresolved debates center on the nature of Sandinista leadership, the methods of struggle appropriate to this period, the compatibility of the popular project with the commitment to a national project, and Sandinismo's relationship to the unions and to the police. All these issues required greater comprehension given the difficult spot reality had thrust on them.
The Sandinista Assembly, which held its first post-Congress meeting a few days later, debated the issues at length and came to a position made public at the end of the meeting. It was a compromise position that maintained the difficult equilibrium between the "radicals," who wanted to convert the fury demonstrated by the people into a permanent combativeness, and the "moderates," concerned above all about the relationship with the executive branch and the need to not scare away other social sectors whose votes would be determinant in the next elections. Workers were shown the importance of not falling into traps set by the government or the extremists aimed at feeding the contradictions within Sandinismo. In this context, the use of popular force undermines the search for consensus and leads to violent confrontations with the police, still considered to have popular influence in its ranks.
The Sandinista Assembly's communiqué was full of nuance. One seemingly straightforward position was the following: "In the struggle to defend democracy, peace and stability, the FSLN will govern its political conduct by the search for consensus among the majority of Nicaraguans and the creation of conditions favorable to the return to political power through the 1996 elections. We do not promote the use of violence as a means of political action and we support dialogue and negotiated consensus in the framework of the Constitution of the Republic."
But in the same communiqué, the FSLN Assembly condemned the use of government repression and committed itself to combat the extremes of the adjustment policies, which affect the fundamental rights of the poorer sectors. The idea is to act with flexibility to attract other sectors, but the point of departure is the firm defense of popular interests.
The FSLN could not in good faith fail to recognize—or to politically repay—the key role played by Antonio Lacayo in assuring the defeat of Alfredo César and the vengeful laws he has tried to push through the National Assembly in the past or could be thinking of promoting in the future. But this does not mean that the FSLN could fail to insist on full compliance with all the concertación agreements, chief among them workers' participation in the privatization of the state enterprises.
And precisely therein lies the contradiction of "Chamorro-Sandinismo." The divergent interests of these two forces became clearer with the government's tactic of avoiding a negotiation with the FNT as a whole. It prefers to take up aspects relative to salaries or privatization bilaterally with each union or producers' association, or, alternatively, to bargain with the Sandinista leadership at the expense of the workers. The government is surely employing a similar logic by economically rewarding the ultra-right sectors for any political concessions it drags out of them.
In the final analysis, even though the FSLN rediscovered hidden energies, it remains on the defensive. The framework around the forms and moments of its mobilization and its offensives is still drawn by the extremist opposition. This framework is also dictated by the society's adverse political environment. Even the union leadership admits the incoherency of calling for a general strike, either because the majority of workers are already on a forced "strike" through the unemployment they are suffering, or because a large sector of Nicaraguan society rejects more violence and instability. In this context, the dynamic and the possibilities of union struggle do not always fit hand in glove with those of a political electoral struggle, which demands a minimum level of stability.
To what point and until what moment can these distinctions be maintained? Are significant differentiations really to be made between the economic Somocismo condemned by the FSLN and the policies of savage capitalism defended by Antonio Lacayo? The people recognized and went to battle with neo-Somocismo precisely because it appeared before them unmasked and defiant. But what is to be done with a form of Somocismo that now appears disguised as economic neo-liberalism? The old and the new forms of Somocismo that are appearing provoke responses in the form of old and new methods of struggle. The popular project today finds itself avoiding at all costs the legitimization of violence as the only form of struggle and desperately seeking new and politically effective paths, trying to sustain itself in the popular energy. It is not an easy challenge. A wall painting that appeared on November 10 captured perfectly the uneasy balance on which the challenge is poised: "Ours is a civic struggle, but..."
|
a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America