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August
22, 2003
Post-Sandinista Nicaragua
The
Legacy of the Revolution
By CAROLE HARPER
Many of us in Sacramento, and in other parts of
the U.S., struggled to support the revolution in Nicarauga throughout
the 1980's. I lived in Nicaragua from 1986 to 1990, working with
Habitat for Humanity in several rural communities. I was a member
of a liberation theology Catholic parish in Managua. I went to
Nicaragua to support the Sandinista effort to redistribute resources
and make a better life possible for the poor. I was devastated
by the 1990 elections like everyone else on "our side".
The question that keeps coming up is:
Is it all lost? Were our efforts and sacrifices in vain? Did
the 1990 election mean the end of the revolution?
NO!! On all counts !!!
First of all, I believe that we-- the
solidarity community -- prevented a US invasion of Nicaragua.
People in the US who demonstrated, wrote their congresspersons,
got arrested, protested, all put a damper on "contra"
funding. The North Americans who went to Nicaragua, short term
or long term, with Witness for Peace, Elders for Survival, Habitat,
and other groups, made it too difficult for the US government
to carry out their anti-Sandinista campaign.
People who went to live in Nicaragua
for an extended period of time, months or years, provided the
kind of "human shield" that we tried to provide in
Iraq this year. But in Nicaragua in the 1980's, it was effective.
The only North American killed by US-funded "contras"
was Benjamin Linder. And his parents made such a major counterattack
on the government, with excellent public information in the US,
the government didn't want that to happen again.
When I returned to the US in 1990 I started
a small nonprofit organization called El Porvenir which has worked
in rural communities for the past 13 years. I have visited Nicaragua
at least twice a year and sometimes more often, and am in constant
communication with our Nicaraguan staff as well as with other
friends in Nicragua, US and Nica. I have followed with keen interest
the changes in Nicaraguan political and economic life these past
12 years.
Without the Sandinista revolution, El
Porvenir could not exist. El Porvenir works only with organized
communities. We do not initiate projects, but count on the basic
organizing and education that the Sandinistas did during their
decade in power. Throughout the past 13 years we have responded
to poor communities who believe that they can change their lives.
This will to self-determination has not diminished since 1990.
It is strong and widespread. In every area where we work, in
three regions of the country, there are hundreds of communities
who believe they can make a difference for themselves. They do
so with our financial and logistical support.
The poor of Nicaragua did not have this
strength and confidence before the Sandinista revolution. They
have it now, and nothing and nobody is going to take it away
from them. We have worked with 172 different communities over
the past 13 years. Every one of them has organized themselves
and sought us out, carried out the project on their own, and
maintained it long term after construction. This is an enduring
success of the Sandinista revolution.
El Porvenir maintains strict political
neutrality in Nicaragua and works with everyone of all political
persuasions. Many of the villages which organize themselves and
seek our help identify with the other party, and many were "contras".
But what they are doing is a direct product of the revolution,
as is our response to them.
Another great permanent change that the
Sandinistas made in Nicaraguan life is that Nicaragua now has
real elections. During the years of the Somozas, there was only
one party and voting was an empty exercise. The night that Daniel
Ortega lost in 1990, he gave the greatest speech of his lifetime
and called on all Nicaraguans to accept the election results
peacefully and support the democratic process. The Sandinistas
could have retained power by a coup. They did not do so, but
turned over power peacefully through the electoral process.
Now every election is hotly contested,
and there are real parties. Although the Sandinistas have not
won the presidency since 1990, they consistently win about 40%
of the popular vote, which means they control 40% of the national
legislature, and in the recent mayoral elections they swept the
major cities of the country, winning city hall in dozens of important
towns including Managua.
The fact that elections are real means
that politicians have to pay some attention to the voters, a
situation which is most beneficial to people in the rural municipalities.
All of our project communities learn how to petition city hall
for help with their projects (they ask for use of the mayor's
truck, the city's mason, extra supplies, etc.) and after the
El Porvenir project is completed they often go on to petition
governmental agencies for other things they want and need. Some
of our communities have successfully advocated for road improvements,
electricity, and elementary schools. None of this would have
happened in Somoza's time. It is all a success of the Sandinista
revolution.
Another great permanent change in Nicaragua
is that the army is under left-wing control. All of the generals
are Sandinista. As one general retires, another Sandinista general
replaces him. This has happened twice since 1990. This army has
never opened fire on a civilian demonstration. This army was
not at the disposal of Arnoldo Aleman in his attempts to assume
dictatorial powers, and will not be for any other president who
wants to use the army to control the populace.
It is a sad fact that the Nicaraguan
Army has sent members to the School of the Americas, but this
small and miserable participation has not resulted in violence
against the poor in Nicaragua. We should work to oppose any Nicaraguan
Army participation in the SOA, but we should not lose sight of
the great strength of the army as a left wing force, still.
The army is no longer called "The
Sandinista Army", it is officially called "the Nicaraguan
army" but it is under Sandinista control. The statue of
Sandino, in huge silhouette, illuminated every night, still stands
over the city, because it is on Army property.
Something that has not changed since
the 1980's is employee rights under the labor code, which are
incredibly strong. I have heard many employers and NGOs commenting
(complaining!) in recent years on the strong position of the
employee in any job termination or benefits dispute situation.
It is true that labor unions as unions
do not fare well in Nicaragua or in any Central American country,
but remember that under the Sandinistas, only the official Sandinista
unions were allowed to organize! There never was strong labor
union legislation in Nicaragua like the NLRB in the United States.
However, individual workers frequently sue their employers or
ex-employers with the assistance of free government attorneys
from the labor department, and if the employer has not followed
all the requirements of the labor law, the worker wins and gets
penalties against the employer.
Employers must cover all employees under
the Social Security system (INSS) which includes health care
and temporary disability pay as well as old age pensions. Employers
must also pay the 13th month's pay in December as a bonus to
every worker, as well as providing 30 vacation days a year or
their equivalent in extra pay. At termination, no matter what
the reason for termination, the employer must pay the worker
an "indemnity" or severance pay of so many months'
salary depending on years of employment. This is not an empty
law. It is enforced constantly.
The employer/employee funded INSS system
provides both work-related and non work related illness and injury
coverage. It is quite good health care too: one of our employees
was seriously injured last year and benefited greatly from his
INSS health coverage (five surgeries, many X rays and tests,
medications, months of physical therapy, all in private hospitals
and clinics, all paid for by INSS.) It is also still a strong
custom in Nicaragua that when an employee is on "subsidio"
(disability pay from INSS, 50% of his/her salary), the employer
pays the other half so that the employee continues to receive
100% of his/her salary while disabled or ill. This benefit is
better than in the U.S.!!
Of course many people are not working
in the formal economy and are not covered by this system and
do not receive these benefits. But many poor people continue
to receive healthcare, even now. The wonderful Bertha Calderon
Hospital for women, a recipient of tremendous solidarity attention
during the 1980's, is still providing healthcare for poor women
today.
A friend of mine who works as a maid
and house cleaner, who lives in a dirt floor house in a very
poor barrio of Managua, is receiving extensive treatment for
uterine cancer, including doctor's visits, radiation, and personal
counseling for her depression and anxiety, all at the Bertha
Calderon, all at no cost to her. Our support to the Bertha Calderon
in the 80's was not in vain. Far from it!
As for employment and unemployment, I
think the percentage of people in the "informal sector"
is about the same now as in the 1980's. In those years there
were many more government jobs than there are now, (and alas,
many more "jobs" in the army). There were also many
fewer private sector jobs in the 80's and there are huge numbers
of such private sector jobs now. Different people had jobs then:
"our side" had the jobs.
The private sector in Nicaragua is vigorous
now, and has created thousands of jobs that did not exist when
I lived in Nicaragua. Both in the 1980's and now, about 70 %
of the population can be described as working in "the informal
sector". You know what that means: selling watches or oranges
at traffic lights, making tortillas for sale in the neighborhood,
washing and ironing other people's clothes, cobbling together
a living here and there. These people can also be described as
"underemployed". They are considered "unemployed"
or "working in the informal sector" in the official
statistics. But the percentages are about the same from decade
to decade: about 30% of the population has "straight jobs"
and about 70% are in the "informal sector".
The life of the rural people, the campesinos,
has not significantly changed as I perceive it, since the 1980's,
except that now there is no war, no draft, no blockade, and no
terrible shortages of basic goods as there was in the 1980's.
Then and now, campesinos are dependent on rainfall for agriculture,
which leads to frequent hardship and is not affected by political
changes.
I know that "our side" takes
the position that everything is worse now than it was then, that
it gets worse every year, that structural adjustment has devastated
the life of the poor, etc. It is unquestionably true that structural
adjustment harms everyone but the very rich, in every country,
including Nicaragua, and that it has reduced the public budget
for education and health. It is also true that the collapse of
the coffee industry has led to terrible suffering among coffee
workers. But the truth is complex. Some things are worse and
some things are better. We would like to believe--would we like
to believe? And if so why would we like to believe it?--that
everything is more and more terrible each year since 1990. But
it is not so.
There is no blockade now. There is very
good telephone communication now. There is extended electrical
service now, beginning to reach to even some rural communities.
The water shutoffs are about the same in the provincial towns
as during the Sandinista years, and the water shutoffs in Managua
are fewer. You do not have to stand in line now to get get a
ration of beans, corn, oil, sugar. All food commodities are plentiful
and available everywhere.
There have been many other changes. Since
1990, many new rural schools have been built and many old schools
rehabilitated, under government programs. In the village where
I used to live, the school has been rebuilt and expanded by FISE,
the government aid to education program supported by USAID. It
is true that the government tries to collect fees from the parents
for children in elementary schools, and all schools, but in our
villages, what happens is, if the parents cannot pay, they just
don't pay, and the child goes to school anyway. Some parents
are ashamed to send their child if they can't pay, and others
are not. The village schools are bursting at the seams with kids.
The government healthcare program continues
under MINSA, and clinics in every large town offer doctor and
nurse and pharmacy services to the poor for little or no charge.
Children in our most remote communities are still vaccinated
every year, at no charge, by outreach workers who come from the
MINSA health clinics with their little ice chests of vaccine.
MINSA continues to provide chlorine to rural villages for disinfecting
their wells. The Sandinista health program for the rural poor
is not lost. It is still functioning to the benefit of hundreds
of thousands of campesinos.
Also Managua looks amazingly better these
days than it used to. The old earthquake ruins have all been
taken down, and parks and fountains put in their place. Some
buildings have been rehabilitated and many, many new buildings
have been built. There is an explosion of paint, signs, electrical
lights, decoration. We miss the murals, the heroic portraits,
the wonderful revolutionary art that has been destroyed. None
of us in solidarity enjoys seeing a mall go up. But the city
looks optimistic, bustling, on the move. People feel a sense
of expectation and possibility which they did not feel during
the war and blockade.
There has been an explosion of NGOs in
Nicaragua since 1990. There are more foreign governments and
organizations working in the country now than there ever were
in the 1980's. The largest and most prominent of these is the
European Union, which finances many NGOs and many development
projects in the rural provinces. Another is Catholic Relief Services,
which left in 1984 and returned in 1991. While it is offensive
to us in the solidarity movement that these groups stayed away
in the 1980's, the benefit to the people of Nicaragua from this
flood of development assistance since 1990 is undeniable. These
organizations are bringing millions of development dollars into
Nicaragua every year, much of it into rural areas.
There has also been a flowering of the
women's movement since 1990. Though the Sandinistas were my heroes,
I have to admit they kept a tight reign on all their popular
organizations, and there was only one official and supported
women's group, AMNLAE.
Now there are more than a dozen active
women's groups, including the impressive Women's Network Against
Violence, (La Red de Mujeres Contra La Violencia) which has managed
to get legislation passed to make beating your wife illegal in
Nicaragua. They have also gotten special police offices established
just to take complaints from women who have been abused. Also,
there is now a women's radio station in Nicaragua! All of this
has happened since 1990. The Sandinista revolution made a space
for women and women's rights in traditional Nicaraguan society,
and women have stubbornly clung to that space and expanded it!
As for the nonSandinista governments
since 1990, one of the most important things about the various
presidents during these years is that they have not stopped nonprofit
development work. Dona Violeta was a relatively benign executive.
Arnoldo Aleman was the opposite, and actively prosecuted one
US woman health worker, a famous case you may have heard about
(Dorothy Granada), and he periodically threatened to tax the
income of nonprofits working in Nicaragua, but he did not ever
actually do that, or stop our work or anyone else's. After Hurricane
Mitch, over 300 nonprofits banded together to form an alliance
of nongovernmental organizations called La Coordinadora, and
the leader of this alliance, Ana Quiroz, is a powerful figure
in Nicaraguan life, speaking for Civil Society in the press and
in the legislature.
New nonprofits continue to obtain legal
status in Nicaragua long after the Sandinista era (El Porvenir
obtained its legal status in 1997, two other U.S.-based solidarity
organizations known to us are getting their legal status now
this year). Nonprofits continue to carry out their programs,
and to interact with government at all levels. Many, including
El Porvenir, have positive relationships with the local mayor's
office, whether it is Sandinista or Liberal.
The Sandinistas made changes in Nicaraguan
life that will endure for a very long time. The Sandinistas'
loss of the presidency in 1990 was not a total loss of power.
Far from it. They remain a potent force in Nicaraguan political
life, despite The Pact, despite the repeated defeat of Daniel
Ortega.
At the July 19 celebration this year,
the Sandinistas enjoyed the blessing of the Catholic church for
the first time since 1980. While this may be a mixed blessing
in the eyes of the US solidarity movement, it shows that the
Sandinistas are acutely aware of how to recover power in Nicaragua
and are taking all necessary steps to do so. The Sandinista Party
may yet transform itself internally, allowing a new and more
viable candidate to run for president in the future. Hundreds
of thousands of Nicaraguans identify themselves as Sandinistas,
today.
Keep the faith. It is NOT all lost. We
all need to hang in there for the long term. El proyecto revolucionario
is still a work in progress:
Adelante, es nuestro el porvenir.
Carole Harper
lives in Sacramento. This article originally appeared in the
Central America Connection.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
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