Nicaragua
Maze of the General; Maze of the Left
Envío team
In mid-January, the army awarded a medal to the military attaché of one of the many embassies in Managua upon terminating his tour of duty. This practice, common among armed forces toward departing foreign colleagues, would not have caused so much as a ripple in any other country.
But Nicaragua is not any other country, nor was the medal just another decoration, nor was the army awarding it just another in the typical Latin American mold, nor was its recipient the military attaché of any old country. In a public ceremony, the gold "Camilo Ortega Saavedra" medal was pinned to the chest of Lieutenant Colonel Dennis F. Quinn, military attaché to the US Embassy, by General Humberto Ortega, head of the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS), inactive FSLN National Directorate member, and brother of the FSLN's Secretary General as well as of the revolutionary martyr whose memory the medal honors.
The deed unleashed a fiery debate among Sandinistas, the vast majority of whom viewed it as the desecration of a symbol previously conceded only to exceptionally meritorious Sandinista combatants in defense of the revolution and national sovereignty against an army organized, financed and directed by the government that Lt. Col. Quinn represents. For the first time since 1979, the issue even brought a member of the National Directorate to the point of publicly registering his difference of opinion with General Ortega. Directorate member Luis Carrión openly reproached Ortega for what he called a "political error." It consisted of not taking into account the sentiments that the use of such a symbol would call forth among the Sandinista base.
General Ortega did not recant. Just as publicly he defended the army's right to make its own decision about the decoration—which has also been awarded to other military attachés—and justified the US officer's merit as having maintained a helpful channel of communication with the army command since 1989, particularly during times of major political tension.
The debate's bottom lineVery few Sandinistas came to Humberto Ortega's defense; at best, some argued that he should have used a different medal to recognize Quinn. Each side of the debate had its own logic, and each claimed that its position grew out of a revolutionary perspective that defends Sandinismo in general and popular interests in particular. But this is precisely where the problem lies: Sandinismo has not yet reached agreement on what it means to be revolutionary in the Nicaragua and the world of 1992. The debate over the medal thus perfectly symbolizes the lack of overall coherency in current Sandinista thought.
Although the Left throughout the world is facing a similar problem, it has a particular impact on Sandinistas when dual political positions such as this rise to the surface. No one denies that the army is part of the state, but this does not explain the top officers' active defense of executive branch positions. After two years, this policy has earned General Ortega and his chiefs of staff reciprocal loyalty from part of the Cabinet, particularly Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo, despite ongoing and severe criticism of him from the far-right UNO parties and their representatives in the National Assembly.
At least before accepting the medal, the US government shared this rightwing opposition to the understanding between the army and the UNO executive. In Washington's judgment, Sandinista influence in the various armed forces was a destabilizing element to its policy in Nicaragua and the region as a whole; the pro-US coalition that won Nicaragua's February 1990 elections needed its own repressive apparatus to defend its neoliberal project. Even more serious, in the US government's view, was evidence that the EPS was providing military support to El Salvador's FMLN. The two official EPS acknowledgements that sensitive weapons had been removed from its warehouses only confirmed this perception. Washington remained ever poised to remedy the situation.
The Sandinista popular base used the very same points to analyze the medal issue. From the day the FSLN lost the elections to now, one point it has steadfastly refused to negotiate with the government is any change in the top EPS command structure, viewed as indispensable to the physical protection and the confidence of Sandinistas faced with threats from demobilized contras, recontras, those trying to take back their confiscated urban and rural properties, and vengeance seekers in general. With respect to El Salvador, more than a few Sandinistas applauded the "arms flight" to the FMLN as an act of revolutionary solidarity, and publicly insisted on a pardon for the detained army personnel charged with the act.
Three other events in January, coming on the heels of the medal episode, affected this now-delicate balance within Sandinismo. These events were the peace accords in El Salvador, US Secretary of State James Baker's visit to Nicaragua and an announcement that a Pentagon "technical" mission would begin to work with the EPS. The attempt to grapple with the larger meaning of these events has given new force to a latent question: Has the army ceased being a factor of revolutionary and anti-imperialist influence on the UNO government, to become instead an instrument of Nicaraguan and US governmental influence on Sandinismo? This new context has also intensified the previously sluggish debate about the revolutionary nature of Sandinismo and the strategy it should follow in the future.
The Salvadoran peace accordsWith the stroke of a pen in New York on December 31, 1991, and in Chapultepec on January 16, 1992, the peace accords that ended the civil war in El Salvador also changed the correlation of forces in Nicaragua, and probably in the other Central American societies as well. For some years now, the fundamental objectives of US policy in Central America were to prevent an FMLN military victory and to regionally isolate the Salvadoran conflict. US relations with Nicaragua—and, more concretely, with the FSLN and the EPS—were largely dictated by the conflict in El Salvador. As long as it remained unresolved, these US objectives stood in the way of "normalizing" relations with the FSLN, even as an opposition party. They even provoked frictions in Washington's relations with the Chamorro government, since the latter did not want to tangle with the EPS on the subject of El Salvador.
FSLN and even EPS efforts to improve communications with the US Embassy ran up against a mistrust that not even Lieutenant Colonel Quinn could dispel. Washington surely recognized the FSLN's important and confidential initiatives, to say nothing of General Ortega's, to contribute to a negotiated solution to the Salvadoran conflict, yet it continued—even after the FSLN was out of office—to condemn the FSLN's links with the FMLN and the facilities Salvador's revolutionaries enjoyed in Nicaraguan territory. Just as surely, however, the shift in Washington's position regarding military logistical aid provided to the EPS by Taiwan in November was linked to the Sandinistas' "good behavior" on El Salvador.
In any event, the signing of the Salvadoran peace accords removed the main roadblock to a normalization of US relations with the FSLN and the EPS. But even if Washington is now open to such normalization—which is by no means certain, although some read its acceptance of the EPS decoration as an encouraging sign—the medal issue and differing interpretations of the peace accords revealed that the FSLN's logic as a party and the EPS's logic as a state institution are different. The polemic between Humberto Ortega and his detractors within the party arose because each unrealistically believed that the logic of the two organizations should be the same.
According to General Ortega's logic, there was no political error in giving the medal. For him it was a correct political decision for both the FSLN and the army to take advantage of the new regional situation and give the US a clear signal of wanting to reach an understanding. Doing so might free up US aid previously conditioned by FSLN and army conduct, and could possibly even increase the aid package to Nicaragua. It would also strengthen those in the Chamorro government who argue that Sandinismo is a "responsible" opposition force that should neither be ignored nor disrespected. From this perspective, as General Ortega did not hesitate to point out, the political error was made by those who opposed the decoration, and became particularly serious when a member of the National Directorate took their side.
Faithful to his style, General Ortega was forcing Sandinismo finally to come to terms with its position towards not only the new Nicaraguan government, but the US government as well—in a word, to define its strategic program. Ortega's own position was well known, but the debate had not been tackled head on before. Unlike the FSLN National Directorate, which has divergent views, the General did not need to establish consensus before making his move; he is supported not only by the rest of the army command but also by some FSLN legislators and businesspeople.
James Baker and the new policeUnfortunately for General Ortega and his backers, the Salvadoran accords and the awarding of the medal came only a few days before James Baker's arrival in Managua. It was the first visit by a US Secretary of State since George Shultz came—also for only a few hours—in July 1984 to work out an agreement for the only round of direct negotiations that the Sandinista government ever succeeded in getting with the US government.
Baker came after attending the signing of the Salvadoran accords in Mexico, and after stopping in El Salvador to make clear his government's determination to defend the new negotiated political framework and support the more pragmatic, less bloodthirsty sectors of the Salvadoran right wing. Although some figured he was coming to bid adios to a region that is entering a new historic stage of no further interest to the United States, that was not the case. The end of the war in El Salvador does not mean the end of US interference, either in Nicaragua or in El Salvador. In both countries, the popular forces, even as civilian opposition, are still an obstacle to full implementation of neoliberal policy and its infamous adjustment programs. The United States' "historic mission" does not conclude with the "pacification" of the countries in conflict but with the consolidation of neoliberal regimes that will guarantee the stability that the State Department requires to declare its final victory in both the hot (military) and cold (political) wars. Then, and only then, can it relegate its "backyard" to oblivion.
The change in the regional situation and the signals of pragmatism sent by the Nicaraguan army and a sector of the FSLN were not enough to deter the US objective of providing the Chamorro government with its own coercive apparatus. In Managua, Baker publicly stated that the security and stability Nicaragua needs must come through private investment, but that no such investment will be forthcoming until there is a professional police force, "independent and nonpartisan." The message was as clear as a bell. The US finally said in public what it had been privately demanding of the UNO government for nearly two years, both repeating and inspiring the litany of the rightwing business interests and UNO parties: the current police force is incapable of protecting the "order" that workers, peasants, squatters and the growing army of unemployed have been disrupting by their refusal to bow to economic measures, legislative initiatives and threats, or political provocations such as the attempt to destroy Carlos Fonseca's tomb on November 9.
The State Department had sent Nicaragua's government a written message in December outlining its displeasure with the posture of the police toward the furious crowd gathered in protest that November day. It was politically unacceptable to Washington that the police force had limited itself to physically protecting high-level government officials; such passivity went against the neoliberal plan of political and economic "stabilization," designed down to the last detail by the State Department and AID.
Even political and diplomatic circles closest to the government were put off by Baker's insolence in coming to Nicaragua to insist, from his "pragmatic" perspective, on reorganizing the police. But none were more discomfited than the executive branch and the Sandinista leadership, who had already invested a lot of effort into discreetly measuring forces and negotiating over the very same issue. The FSLN had pressured that the top officer echelons be respected, but probably conceded to some restructuring demanded by the government and the US Embassy to "modernize" the force and equip it with training and resources in the fight against drug traffic increasingly passing through Nicaragua. Throughout 1991, advisers from third countries, particularly Spain, had been fronting for the US pressures to remake the police structures, but the State Department and the unsavory Drug Enforcement Administration—which is impervious to the domestic sensitivities of the countries in which it works—evidently now want to participate more openly, as they do in other countries of the region.
For the popular forces, particularly for workers protesting their economic situation, it must have been hard to separate Baker's declarations from the government's increasing practice of sending in anti-riot squads to break up strikes. Police beating workers is an ever more frequent news item in the media. As the adjustment plan rolls forward and the combined under- and unemployment rate climbs to over 60% of the economically active population, the government can be expected to turn more frequently to police intervention. This will provoke growing tensions not only between the FSLN and the government, but also between the FSLN and the police and even within the FSLN itself, since the majority of its base members are being hit hard economically and sometimes even physically. It could even create tensions between the FSLN and the army, which stresses its role of protecting public order. So far, the army is referring to the rural zones where the recontras operate, but in practice, it’s the same role the police play in the cities against striking workers. Naturally, all this will happen before the complaisant eyes of Baker, the US Embassy and the rightwing opposition to the UNO government.
The Pentagon missionOn January 30, the day the police debuted their new powder blue uniforms and fancy white motorcycles with matching blue flashing lights, Minister of Government Carlos Hurtado dropped another bomb on the army. Apparently without prior consultation, he informed the National Assembly that a US Army technical mission would be arriving in a few days to work with the EPS in setting up an arms control system. He also left the impression that the mission would participate in disarming civilians.
Within hours, both the EPS and the Ministry of the Presidency refuted the statement. The army insisted that the delegation was only a "technical working group" that planned to "hold meetings and analyze the possibility of cooperation" in the area of arms and munitions control, adding that the government and army itself had requested this advice on "arms protection and stock security systems." It further assured that the mission would have no role in civilian disarmament. But the damage had been done; the specter of US troops wresting weapons away from the population made Sandinistas' skin crawl.
Hurtado had been right in stating that the crux of the problem is that the army has no effective arms control system; it is also an old complaint of the US Embassy. The latter, however, extends this argument to deduce that the lack of control over arms that then end up in the hands of civilians, recompas or Salvadorans means that the government lacks control over the army.
It is no secret that thousands of weapons were given out all over the country during the war years, and that many more were probably secreted away by both sides. The ultra-Right and the United States always blame the EPS for this, and it, in turn, has always responded by blaming technical deficiencies and a shortage of means by which to effectively control its weaponry.
The United States is now taking the army at its word by sending a mission to help it establish inventory controls. The idea is not a new one. It was first implemented a year ago by the Soviets, who supported EPS efforts to plug inventory leaks after the discovery that Soviet-made missiles belonging to the army had gotten into FMLN hands.
The US objective, however, appears to be neither administrative, nor technical, nor even supportive; the US is evidently imposing itself, and in a very political way, to try to neutralize the "destabilizing" capacity of the EPS at a time in which it fears that former Nicaraguan soldiers, former Salvadoran guerrillas or current Guatemalan guerrillas could request military support from the FSLN and "its" army.
Within this general context, the measure could also be part of a deliberate US strategy oriented to making FMLN rearmament more difficult should the Salvadoran government or military fail to live up to their commitments. Some, on the other hand, suspect that this control over the EPS is a complementary agreement the United States requires in exchange for the pressures it is beginning to apply on the Salvadoran army after the signing of the peace accords.
Finally, US control of the Nicaraguan army's military inventory means ipso facto control over the possibility that any third country could ever purchase its socialist-manufactured armament base. Each of these interpretations makes sense within the current US foreign policy aim of assuring that pro-US governments and their neoliberal policies have a monopoly over the use of force.
In the final analysis, most interpretations of the US-EPS rapprochement agree that the army is defending its own interests. As one commentator summed it up, "The medal on [Quinn's] chest is a request for aid to bolster an apparatus that has been left with no sponsor, no enemies to shoot at and no possibility of incorporating its personnel back into civilian life without problems, but which wants to remain as an institution."
Normalization of FSLN-US relations? The regional perspective that has been part of Sandinista thinking since its birth always linked the fate of the revolutionary movement in one Central American country with that of its struggling counterpart in the others. The FSLN never forgot the Salvadoran revolutionaries' important contribution to its struggle against Somoza. Once in power, the Sandinista government fulfilled what it considered its historic role by doing its utmost to return their material solidarity. And, as the National Directorate recognized in its report to the FSLN Congress in July 1991, it did so to a degree that exceeded its real possibilities.
The price Nicaragua paid for this solidarity over the years was extremely high, although there is no doubt that the Reagan Administration did not need much evidence of Sandinista complicity in transferring arms to the FMLN to carry out its dirty war against Nicaragua. Sandinista solidarity was constant and never well hidden; it ranged from the integration of individual Nicaraguan revolutionaries into the ranks of the FMLN to the semi-failed supply of EPS weapons in November 1989, during the FMLN's general offensive against the Salvadoran government. This latter effort hardened the US position at a delicate moment in the electoral campaign, tarnishing the FSLN's image in the eyes of sectors whose vote it sought.
By that time, however, material collaboration between Sandinismo and the FMLN was framed by a shared decision—growing out of independent national analyses—that both forces should seek a negotiated political solution through reconciliation formulas that would end the violence and destruction. Even before the elections in Nicaragua, the conviction prevailed in Sandinista strategy that it would be harder to end the conflict and consolidate the political spaces it had won in its own country unless there was also peace in El Salvador. After so many years it was clear that the pacification of El Salvador, with full acknowledgement of the strength and representativeness of the popular struggle there, was indispensable to gaining official US recognition of the FSLN's own legitimacy, and that of the Central American left in general.
After the elections, some Sandinistas thought that the first step in this prolonged effort would be to capitalize politically on the new international situation, and on the fact that the FSLN had not been defeated militarily, to seek coexistence with the United States—defining coexistence as synonymous with US acceptance of the left's new role as civilian opposition.
Many Sandinistas view "normal" relations with the United States as indispensable not only for geopolitical reasons but also for electoral ones. Their reasoning takes into account the undeniable weight the US exerts on the positions and perspectives of an important sector of the non-revolutionary Nicaraguan population that Sandinismo continues hoping to reach. This longed-for normalization of relations, which the FSLN had been unable to achieve with its victory over Somoza, its tenacious military defense, with perestroika and the collapse of Eastern European socialism, with its open electoral process or even the peaceful transition of government, now seemed possible with the pacification of El Salvador.
The visit to Washington by Henry Ruiz, the FSLN National Directorate's head of international relations, and his very optimistic comments about future reconciliation, fueled the debate over relations with the United States. What would "normalized" relations mean between an electorally defeated party and an empire celebrating the world triumph of capitalism? How far should the FSLN bend in its search for normalized relations? In fact, the by-now hackneyed question defies a concrete definition. Does normalization mean that Sandinismo must stop opposing imperialism? Or does it presuppose that the United States has stopped being imperialist? Is it that US imperialism ceased to exist when the Soviet Union disappeared? What system, then, had Sandinismo fought against for 10 years, and, before that, Sandino himself?
On the other hand, are "normalized" relations with the FSLN/EPS really in the US interest as long as the war in Guatemala continues, or as long as the FSLN refuses to renounce its solidarity ties with Cuba or other revolutionary movements, or even as long as the FSLN itself is still the biggest opposition party in Nicaragua and could possibly return to power? As Washington itself had suggested during the 1989-90 electoral campaign in Nicaragua, would not any indication of normalized relations only help increase the FSLN's ability to influence centrist Nicaraguans and others who consider a vote for the FSLN to be a vote for conflict with the United States? Looked at in this light, what possible interest could the United States have in being, or appearing to be, friendly to a force such as Sandinismo, which has declared its aim to dismantle the neoliberal project, or at least subordinate it to its popular project?
At this moment, Sandinismo only stands to lose from the medal incident. For the popular sectors, it meant a loss of confidence in the army, thus creating more divergent views at a time when the FSLN wants to close ranks. But condemning the decoration reaffirmed for many other Nicaraguans the FSLN's eternally bellicose and anti-US image. Sandinismo also has in its ranks those who worry about image and are questioning the "viability" of such old positions toward the new reality and the future electoral struggle.
Given all this, it was no coincidence that some sectors of Sandinismo should respond to the changing regional and international circumstances and the FSLN's presumed identity crisis by following General Ortega's lead to some degree. They presented not a medal but a formal document that threw yet more fuel on the internal debate about the Sandinistas' identity and role.
A "center" group in the FSLN"From Sandinismo, a Proposal for a National Project" was the title of the document that 18 ranking FSLN members presented to the National Directorate, Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo and the media. The signers repeated the arguments favoring a project of national consensus, which, in their opinion, should guide the FSLN's discourse and actions, within strict adherence to the laws of the land. Some of the document's signers called their current "centrist" while others called it "progressive," but Sandinista base members were more inclined to dub it rightwing or pro-Lacayo. By whatever name, the current's adherents argue that there is an "urgent need to develop the country's legal and political institutional nature by strengthening the state of law, and firmly and effectively exercising authority so that it be complied with, in order to avoid greater social deterioration and the symptoms of anarchy and chaos prevailing in the country." They add that it "is imperative to totally exclude the use of violence as a method of solving conflicts."
Although no veteran or new party leaders appear among the signers, the proposal—whose only novelty is the very unusual procedure within Sandinismo of being presented formally and in writing—clearly represents a "renovating" line of thought. Its adherents question both the current Sandinista leadership and the results of the July 1991 Congress, in which the representative weight of the popular organizations and unions predominated. The document thus echoes the government's critique of the FSLN for its schism between a party discourse of negotiated reconciliation (concertación) and a union practice of strikes and often violent protests. Such criticism deliberately passes over the same "incoherence" within the government itself, which fails to comply with the concertación accords then sends in the police when the Sandinista base organizations—the other party to those accords—take umbrage.
The unions and other Sandinista base sectors came down like a ton of bricks on the new "current," which they identify as defending its own status and economic interests. Daniel Ortega also upbraided it, publicly charging that "there are people interested in undermining the authority of the FSLN National Directorate." He accused them of responding opportunistically to the new political conditions and the siren songs of both the United States and the UNO government, thereby "creating confusion within Sandinismo."
For the Sandinista Youth organization, the most serious flaw in the "centrist" pronouncement is that it fell outside of the accords and positions adopted by the FSLN Congress. In a February 19 communiqué, the youth leadership demanded respect for minority positions, but only within a structured internal debate process. "Currents of opinion not only exist but are also necessary for internal development. But we consider it wrong to take a position of non-recognition or de-legitimization of what has been agreed to thus far." From this perspective, they also criticize the National Directorate for not encouraging and activating the functioning of the Sandinista Assembly.
A party crisis or an ideological one?
The centrist current made a major error by presenting its positions directly to the government. But that was overshadowed by an even greater problem: in the same days in which their positions were published (with particular relish by the anti-Sandinista newspaper La Prensa), the government ordered the arrest of 51 workers of Aeronica, the national airline, for protesting the company's sale to foreign interests without honoring the concertación accords, which grant them the right to 25% of this state enterprise.
At the beginning of the year, President Chamorro and her executive minister Antonio Lacayo had announced that they would take a firm hand with any disturbance that clouded the country's image in the eyes of the multilateral funding agencies. With the Aeronica strike, the government's determination was put to the test, thus unleashing what the National Workers' Front (FNT) denounced as "political persecution." It also tested the union sector's determination, as well as that of the FSLN. There were doubts about whether the Sandinista leadership would take on the workers' upcoming protests and strikes now that the government, at the urging of the international banks and AID, had begun to speed up its compliance with the adjustment plan, among other things by announcing that it would not respond to any wage demands. It also accelerated the privatization of more state enterprises with little regard for the property rights and labor guarantees that had been agreed to with their workers. The executive branch did not hide the fact that its determination to "maintain law and order" was an express condition of Nicaragua's creditors, who are insisting that more security and stability is required to produce the private foreign investment flow so conspicuously absent in the UNO government's first two years.
On February 15, the FNT reacted to the jailing of the Aeronica workers—who had gone so far as to block the airport runway with two planes—by announcing that it was paralyzing all negotiations with the government on the privatization of various companies and by threatening partial strikes in workplaces all over the country. "The government is trying to behead the workers' leadership and intimidate the union base," charged one leader of the Transport Workers Federation.
Meantime, the positions of the FSLN "centrists" fell well short of capturing the imagination of the popular sectors. They were busy looking for their own autonomous solutions, and showing numerous concrete signs of success. The end of January saw an encounter of women from diverse social, political and ideological strata whose sharing of experiences ranged from the violence wracking the country, in which they themselves are the main victims, to sexuality and love relationships. A surprising 800 women from all over Nicaragua came to the conference, of whom 57% were heads of family—30% of them unemployed. The women agreed on a number of mobilization activities, starting with International Women's Day on March 8, but postponed for the moment the idea of creating a new structure or organization.
Then, at the beginning of February, all the youth organizations in the country, including religious ones and those affiliated with the former contras, held a joint meeting to discuss the possibility of a common agenda. In these two conferences, both youth and women built new levels of unity around their own specific situations, overcoming political differences and demonstrating signs of genuine reconciliation within society.
And in the middle of the month, war disabled from both the army and the former contras culminated months of collaboration by calling the highest government authorities to a conference in order to express a series of demands they had been formulating together, some of which the government accepted. These are only some of the diverse responses, both within Sandinismo and outside of it, both positive and negative, both organized and not, both from the street and from behind desks, that the Nicaraguan people have made to the advance of the neoliberal program.
Neoliberalism's ideological component, however, has already penetrated Sandinista ranks, which was to be expected given the multi-class nature of the FSLN and the attraction of taking centrist positions in this new period. The siren song of the United States and of neoliberalism is inviting: leave behind ideologies and violent class conflict. It beckons to the FSLN to assume a new—albeit subordinated—role in the "new national and international order." And indeed, one sector of Sandinismo would happily bestow yet another medal on the UNO government itself for stabilizing the currency, containing the military conflict and clearing up its outstanding accounts with the international banks and the United States.
The Sandinista popular and union sectors, however, are not lured by this tune. Most of them are familiar with its sour notes: increased poverty, acute lack of jobs and affordable health and education services, as well as US advisers in all the government ministries, including the army and police.
Even though the FSLN cannot renounce its commitment to the stability of the nation and to the political framework it helped create, it is nonetheless obliged—as is the left in El Salvador—to deal creatively with this state of confusion and of struggle. The time has come to define the terms of renewal for the revolutionary left in Central America.
In reality, intellectuals and veteran politicians are feeling the "identity crisis" or "confusion" most strongly, with perhaps the exception of the government's political weather forecasters, who are attentively watching the new centrist trial balloon to see which way Sandinismo's winds are blowing and how much authority the party leaders still wield. It is not irrelevant that the center current and Sandinista base leaders agree on at least one thing: both criticize the FSLN leadership for not taking a stand once and for all between combative struggle and negotiation.
This does not mean that old base leaders are not suffering their own crisis. For over two decades, there was virtually no debate, even internally, and some are now scandalized by the unknown spectacle of a Sandinismo—both at the base and at the leadership level—that airs its differences in public. But embarrassing or not, one thing is certain: Sandinismo is providing real lessons in democracy, both to itself and to the world.
The current debate is unstoppable. Very few now even propose putting a brake on it in the name of unity or in fear of splitting Nicaragua's largest party. What was previously unthinkable has now become indispensable: debate has become both a symbol and a symptom of renewal and of the search for new internal coherence. Defending Sandinista unity can no longer be contrasted with necessary renewal; they are two sides of the same "medal."
The current challenge consists of assuring this renewal, which some continue to mechanically associate with changing National Directorate members and/or other leaders of FSLN structures. But it goes deeper than that, since changing individuals or even the structures themselves does not assure any change in political conceptions or any democratization of Sandinismo as a whole. The FSLN and every one of its members and sympathizers are obliged to face a central weakness, perhaps for the first time since the division of the FSLN between 1976 and 1979: the lack of depth and definition in the FSLN's theoretical and political thought. The Congress defined some principles, but, typical of Sandinismo, the outcome of that meeting was a program of struggle. In other moments, this same weakness was interpreted as a source of strength.
The changing reality caused both the EPS General and the FSLN "centrists" to take some steps that raised a lot of dust. But those dubious steps, in turn, forced Sandinismo to move faster in thinking through a viable and comprehensive alternative vision of Nicaraguan society, and defining its own role in that alternative. Such a vision must include the transformations the popular majority needs to escape becoming the same victim of the "new" national and international order that it was in the old.
|
a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America