Nicaragua: The Opposition Mounts

Already with the battle lost

your bones

stuck to the pavement

and your precious blood

gushing

through the gutters and sewers

with a powerful voice

despite your agony

shout!

Don't surrender!

You must die fighting!

it will be like this for

a long time

They have come holding on

with their bones stuck

to the pavement

and their precious blood

gushing

through the gutters and sewers

Thousands of Nicaraguans

Fighting!

THIS POEM, WRITTEN by a Nicaraguan woman named Christian Santos de Praslin, recently appeared in a Managua newspaper. Its publication dramatizes the fact that revolution in Nicaragua, a country whose people have long been silent under the oppressive dictatorship of President Anastasio Somoza, is alive and flourishing. Freedom of the press is a relatively new development in this Central American nation of 2.5 million--opposition to the 42-year-old Somoza dynasty has only surfaced in print within the last year, in the wake of President Carter's proclamations about human rights.

The events of the last few months have revealed just how widespread opposition has become to Somoza, whose family exercises virtually absolute control over the political, military and commercial affairs of the country. Outspoken resistance to the regime had traditionally been confined to members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a 16-year-old underground socialist group named for General Augusto C. Sandino, a Nicaraguan Military commander who fought for the ouster of U.S. Marines from the country in the 1930s. But in recent weeks and months, scores of businessmen, "legal" political groups, journalists, and of course the overwhelming mass of poor Nicaraguans have joined forces with the Sandinistas in an overt attempt to topple the again dictator.

The high point of this widespread effort has come in response to the January 10 machine-gun slaying of the very popular Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, editor of the opposition newspaper La Prensa. As news of the murder spread, thousands took to the streets in Managua, burning, looting and angrily chanting "Muera Somoza!" (Die Somoza!). Authorities estimated damages incurred by the rioting at $7 million. In the next few days, a national strike was organized to protest the continued rule of Somoza. The strike lasted 17 days, ending on Feburary 7, during which time three quarters of the country's businesses shut down. Even employees of the Central Bank, an actual government organ, participated.

THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS of February 5 further exposed the pervasiveness of the anti-Somoza consensus. In that election, 52 of the 132 candidates of the Conservative Party, the country's only legal opposition group (characterized by one Nicaraguan national at Harvard as "His Majesty's loyal opposition"), withdrew their candidacy in protest against the regime. And despite reported offers of free food and liquor in return for a pro-Somoza vote, government figures showed that only 143,000 out of 700,000 eligible voters voted.

A group of wealthy Nicaraguan businessmen, lawyers and other prominent figures, including poet and national hero Ernesto Cardenal, have left the country for Costa Rica, vowing never to return until Somoza's fall. Calling themselves Los Doce, ("The Twelve"), the group issued a statement praising the "political maturity" of the FSLN guerrilla movement and warning that the Sandinista front must participate in any solution to Nicaragua's problems.

All these developments indicate a sharp rise in support for the Sandinistas, once a small group of only 200 revolutionary insurgents, now at the vanguard of the anti-Somoza movement with a combat force of over 1000 and widespread popular approval, especially in the poverty-stricken countryside. But regardless of their popularity, the FSLN can never succeed with a purely military approach. The strength of Somoza's power derives from his control of the 7500-member Guardia National, a combination army and secret police force trained and equipped by the U.S. The campesinosand slum-dwellers of Managua have no weapons to combat this counter-insurgent force; and their collective poverty further weakens their ability to resist.

Standards of living for many Nicaraguans are among the lowest in the world. More than half the work force earns an average annual income of only $90, only half the population is literate, almost half the deaths reported are among children under 14, and the majority of homes have no sanitary facilities, no running water and no electricity. Observers attribute the end of the national strike just over a week ago to the threat of starvation facing many Nicaraguans--they simply could not hold out any longer.

THIS POVERTY CONTRASTS with the $500 million fortune of the Somoza family. Somoza owns more than one-fifth of Nicaragua's arable land and runs more than 40 companies. Between his family and his lieutenants, Somoza has managed to totally manipulate the political and economic affairs of the nation. Elections are fixed. Somoza's corruption infects the business community. Military people occupy high places in government, and government contracts mysteriously go to family business. The key to business success in Nicaragua, observes one Harvard Latin American expert, is a Somoza family connection, and businessmen who lack one are "banging their heads up against a brick wall." But despite the corruption, the chief objection to the abuses of the Somoza regime has been aimed at its brutal use of the National Guard. Amnesty International released a report on Nicaragua last August which concluded that "instances of political imprisonment, denial of due process of law, use of torture, and summary executions" were extensive.

American support for such an oppressive regime, after years of faithful is beginning to show signs of ambivalence. In June, the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut off the $3.1 million in military aid which goes to the regime. But two months later, after heavy pressuring from professional lobbyists hired by Somoza, the committee reversed its vote. The State Department did decide, however, to withhold $12 million in economic assistance to the Somoza government. Admittedly, the President's human rights stand has sparked the emergence of outspoken opposition. And the increasing attacks on Somoza recently appearing in to the columns of Jack Anderson, in The New York Times and The Washington Post have seriously undermined any support the dictator may have enjoyed in this country.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Somoza's National Guard carries American guns, drives American tanks and flies American planes. They are often trained by the Pentagon, either by American advisors in Nicaragua or at the U.S.-run School of the Americas in the Canal zone. Somoza, himself a graduate of West Point, boasts that a higher percentage of his officers are trained at this school--which emphasizes counter insurgency--than that of any other armed forces in Latin America. Moreover, American dollars flow through international institutions such as the World Bank and the Harvard Business School's INCAE program and banks into the hands of the Somoza government and family businesses. However admirable the developmental aims of these institutions, their financial success depends on stability, and therefore implicitly, on Somoza.

IN THE RIOTING that followed Chamorro's murder, one of the Managua offices the mobs attacked was Citibank of New York. Lest our true allegiances be forgotten, we should note that the Harvard Business School awarded Somoza with an honorary degree. Furthermore, while beans, corn and other key foodstuffs are in short supply in Nicaragua, significant amounts of the arable land in the nation are owned by U.S. corporations and used for cultivating cash crops, such as coffee, cotton and bananas. Most importantly, America must not forget the conclusion that then Congressman Edward Koch of New York reached last summer after the approval of military aid to the regime: "If we support Somoza by providing him with U.S. arms to repress his own people, then we become oppressors."

As the opposition movement grows, the U.S. will have to more clearly define its role. Because the safety of their investments depends on stability, powerful American interests would prefer to see a smooth transition to a democratic government. The late editor Chamorro was seen by many as the United State's preference for a successor to Somoza. But Somoza, whose health is beginning to fail, appears to be grooming his 27-year-old son, Anastasio Somoza III '73, as the heir to the throne. The younger Somoza, known as "Tachito," is widely believed in Nicaragua to have been responsible for the death of Chamorro. In any case, if the situation remains unchanged, his father is likely to make him the victor of the next presidential "election," scheduled for 1981.

BUT IT IS DOUBTFUL that the situation could remain the same for that long. Just last week, the Sandinistas launched another in a series of military offensives that began last October, engaging the National Guard in the villages of Granada, Rivas and Corinto. The Sandinista front has made a conscious effort to transcend their narrow revolutionary ideology and military approach, and instead enlist the support of all Somoza opponents in a pluralistic coalition. With the increasing political support of non-Socialist groups such as the Conservative Party and the "radical Christians," the Sandinista effort to topple the dictatorial Somoza regime appears bound for success.