Central America-Nicaragua

This is a complex region that became prominant for Americans in the 1980's as a result of civil wars and revolution in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Nicaragua was a focus of attention for the U.S. going back into the mid-nineteenth century when Cornelius Vanderbuilt built a railroad to transportgoods from the Atlantic to lake Nicaragua and then to the Pacific Oceon. The U.S.and the British were the arbiters in struggles between the Liberals (based in Leon) and the Conservatives (based in Granada) as both of these nations competed for the control of Nicaragua as the future location of a canal that would link the Pacific and the Atlantic. In the late 1840's and early 1850's, William Walker, an American filibusterer from Tennessee, took control of Nicaragua and tried to establish a slave state. He was eventually shot in what is today Honduras. By the early 1900's a nationalist movement was in formation opposed to the heavy presence and intrusion of the the U.S. in the affairs of Nicaragua. Jose Zelaya opposed the U.S. dominance of Nicaragua and was deposed as president in 1909 with U.S. support. In 1911, a U.S. marine legation was established in Nicaragua to protect U.S. interests. We also installed Adolfo Diaz, a former employee of the Los Angles Mining Company, as the president. The marines were to stay until 1927.

A Nicaraguan nationalist, Augusto Cesar Sandino, created a guerrilla army and fought the U.S. in order to remove the marines from his country. Nic. was one of the earliest places in which the U.S. used air power against a guerrilla army. Sandino was and is a hero in Nicaragua where he is known as "the general of free men." In a prelude to the good Neighbor Policy, the U.S. decided to pull out of Nicaragua but not before creating a National Guard to maintain order. This guard fell under the control of Anastacio Somoza who, after betraying and assassinating Sandino and the President Sacasa, established himself as the ruler of Nicaragua. The Somoza family ruled as a dynasty in the country from 1936 until 1979 when the last of the Somoza's was overthrown by the Sandinistas.

Somoza curried favor with the U.S. by protecting American interests in the region. Staunchly anti-communist and pro-business (F.D.R. is reported to save said that he was "an S.O.B. but our S.O.B."), Somoza eventually controlled about one-fourth of the best lands in Nic. He also had control of the Mercedes Benz distributorship, the cement industry, the blood plasma industry, and much of the rest of the economy. When killed by a crazed poet in 1956, he was followed to power by his son Luis Somoza. Upon the death of Luis in 1963, Anastacio Somoza Debayle (the younger son) assumes the presidency.

Arrogant, West Point educated, and with excellent connections in U.S. political circles (like his West Point colleague Congressman Thomas Murphy), the last Somoza became increasingly ruthless and corrupt as opposition mounted to his regime. He and the National Guard sold goods donated to the victims of a 1972 earthquake that levelled Managua, the capital. In 1978, he ordered the assassination of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro a middle class opponent and editor of the largest newspaper La Prensa. This turned the middle class against him. He used airpower against his own people when he bombed the city of Masaya in 1978. 50,000 Nicaraguans were killed by Somoza in his last year in power (1978) alone. The chief opposition came from the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), a group organized by young people inspired by the Cuban Revolution that took its name from Sandino, the nationalist hero of the 1920's.

The FSLN was a broad-based movement containing a variety of tendencies. As the FSLN won victories and advanced toward Managua, the Carter administration tried to get Somoza to resign by naming an interim president. Carter sought to maintain the National Guard intact. On July 19, 1979, the FSLN marched into the capital and established a left-leaning, nationalist, regime. It sought to govern as a non-aligned government that practiced political pluralism with a mixed economy. Newly-elected U.S. President Ronald Reagan perceived this government as an extension of Fidel Castro--a communist regime intent on destabilizing all of Central America. Based on the Santa Fe Document, a pre-election policy document that outlined Reagan's policy of rolling back communism (our policy since WWII was "containment"), Reagan sought out and organized remnants of the leaders of the National Guard who, in turn, organized counterrevolutionaries (known as the Contras). Their purpose was to prevent the consolidation of the Sandinista Revolution. (See, August 5, 1985 New Republic article by Chammorro, "Confessions of a Contra").

In 1980, Nicaragua was bankrupt. Somoza had stolen a 1.6 billion dollar aid package provided by the World Bank. Nonetheless, the Sandinista government was able to wipe out polio and receive the World Health Organization award as the country making the most advances in health care of its people for 1982. Illiteracy was reduced. There was more access to land by the poor. But the contra groups attacking from Honduras to the North cost the Sandinistas 50% of the national budget. In 1985, I was part of a delegation that meet with the chief economic advisor to the President who stated that roughly 400 million per year was spent fighting the Contras.

On the political front, the Sandinistas had elections in 1984 that were widely regarded as fair. The Sandinistas won two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly in which six parties were represented. Farmer groups, labor groups, popular organizations combined into a mass base that clustered around the ten "comandantes" that led the Sandinistas. There were two priests in the government (Miguel D'Escoto as Minister of foreign Relations and Ernesto Cardenal as Minister of Culture).

In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the Boland Amendment that prevented further use of U.S. funds to finance the Contras. A rogue operation was put into effect out of the White House (headed by a lieutenant colonel Oliver North) that used armed merchants (Secord and Hakeem) to sell weapons to Iran the profits of which were to go to finance the Contras. This constitutued an end run around the will of Congress and a privatization of the war and foreign policy. This was the infamous Iran-Contra scandal where a lot of noise was made but where the major culprits got away unscathed. (Compare that to the stain on Monica's dress and the sanctimonious platitudes of the House Judiciary Committee in 1998 and 1999.)

In 1987, the Sandinistas surprised the U.S. by agreeing to the Contadora Accords which called for a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Nicaragua. The U.S. government wanted military victory to the last Nicaraguan. 100,000 Nicaraguans died in the decade of the 80's in the civil war. Exhausted and war-weary, the Sandinistas agreed to hold elections in 1990 which they thought they would surely win. The U.S. organized a political party known as the United Nicaraguan Opposition out of 22 parties and factions. The National Endowment for Democracy (out of the U.S. Dept. of State) spent $24 million in the 1990 election to make sure that UNO would win. UNO was bitterly divided but they agreed to back the candidacy of Violeta Chammorro, the widow of the editor of La Prensa who was slain by Somoza in 1978, as the presidential candidate for UNO. Out-financed, the Sandinistas lost the election although they won 40% of the vote and were the single largest political party in Nicaragua. A war-torn country voted to bring the war to an end.

The Violeta Chamorro Presidency (1990-1996)-
The new president faced a number of key problems that included: bringing about national reconciliation; dealing with the issue of the Sandinista-controlled military; the bringing about an economic recovery.

The United States sought a figurehead leader in Mrs. Chamorro but instead found one determined to bring about national reconciliation (much to the chagrin of vindictive right wingers such as Senator Jesse Helms, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee). She kept the Sandinista army with Daniel Ortega's brother,Humberto Ortega, at its helm. She tried to reintegrate both Contras and Sandinistas into a period of peace by promising them land to farm and by getting the National Assembly to pass an amnesty law in 1990 to avoid recriminations on both sides. Since the U.S. had financed her election and put together her UNO party, there were pressures put on Chamorro to dump Ortega as head of the army and to restructure it. Also the U.S. demanded that she adopt neoliberal economic policies.

U.S. pressures created difficulties for Chammorro because the Sandinistas, with 40% of the vote, were the single largest political force in the country. The Sandinistas declared strikes and stymied her moves toward privatization of state-owned enterprises. In 1994, even Humberto Ortega ordered troops to fire on demonstrators in Esteli who were protesting the dismal economic downturn in the economy and the new economic policies of austerity followed by Chammorro. 40 Sandinistas were killed in that clash. The U.S. would not provide loans to Nicaragua without the government adopting an austerity program. By the
fall of 1994, austerity programs had led to:
-a 23% increase in infant mortality
-a 50% increase in maternal mortality
-a 75% reduction in expenditures for public health
-Over 50% unemployment
-more than 14,000 children "working" in the streets of Managua
-a 66% reduction in credit to small farmers
-a wiping out of domestic production by cheap imports

Meanwhile, UNO was divided by personality squabbles involving members of the UNO-controlled legislature who felt that Chamorro's son-in-law (Lacayo) and top advisor exercised too much influence over her. Some openly declared she should step down as president. They did not think she had enough control over the army and over Humberto Ortega. For their part, the Sandinistas were divided between the moderates that worked with Chammorro and those who favored more radical ideas. The appropriation of prized homes and lands by Sandinista leaders in the last days of the Sandinista government (an event known as the Pinata) led to a loss of prestige for the Sandinista leadership among sectors of its rank and file. Eventually, moderates like the gifted writer Sergio Ramirez were purged from the Sandinista ranks (he went on to form his own party).In 1994, The Sandinistas divided into two factions: The Democratic Left (or Izquierda Democratica) that continued to support Daniel Ortega andf the Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo (MRS) headed by Sergio Ramirez. In October of 1994, a purge of the staff of Barricada, the party's newspaper, led to the resignation of former Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal. The MRS favored less of a vertical and authoritarian structure in the party, less emphasis on armed struggle, and more emphasis on democratic political competition. It no longer considered itself a vanguard party (a concept that it found relvent in the struggle against Somoza but no longer as useful.

Chamorro was a transitional figure who tried to reconcile a deeply divided country.

The Return of Somocismo ? - After weeks of haggling among conservative ranks Arnoldo Aleman won the 1996 elections and took office in January of 1997. Aleman's father was an official in the Somoza government . Arnoldo Aleman was jailed for 9 months by the Sandinista in 1980 as a counterrevolutionary. Throughout the 80's, he was a prominant member of coffee-growers association and during 1989, he opposed the government's control of dollars earned from the coffee trade. His farm was confiscated by the Sandinistas.

In 1990, Aleman ran for mayor of Managua as a candidate of a splinter group of the Liberal Party--the Liberal Constitutionalist Party or PLC. He enlisted the PLC in UNO for the 1990 elections and he developed extensive contacts with Nicaraguan business leaders and exiles in Miami. As mayor, he developed a political machine providing employment to loyal followers using money provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) and by exiles in Miami. The A.I.D. provided funds to cities that were controlled by parties other than the Sandinistas in order to build an anti-Sandinista base. While Chammorro was imposing austerity, he was building public works and rewarding supporters.

All of the anti-Sandinista opposition and the clients of his political machine lined up behind him as the Chammorro government became discredited. Aleman got contributions as high as $200,000 for his campaign (with contra leader Enrique Bolanos as his Vice President). The Cuban American National Foundation created a Nicaraguan Foundation for Democracy and Development as a conduit into which Cuban exiles could pour money in return for Nicaragua allowing Cuban exiles to set up an anti-Castro radio station in Nicaragua. The governing board of the Nicaraguan Foundation has many members who also sit on the boards of companies that provide supplies for municipal governments in Nicaragua and there is a huge network of interlocking funds that backs Aleman.

One of the first things dome by Aleman was to call for a Truth Commission to "investigate the abuse of civilians " during Sandinista rule. Ironically, the austerity policies that made Chammorro unpopular reduced debt and improved the export picture for Nicaragua thus providing Aleman with an even greater opportunity to build a permanent political base.

Aleman is an ardent supporter of economic liberalization that has empaupered Nicaragua. The freely-imported foodstuffs has undermined small farmers while the government subsidizes production on big commercial estates. Land was handed back to the Somoza era land barons. Banks have been privatized and restrictions imposed on NGO's. He has drastically cut the budget so as to meet debt-payment obligations and so as to meet the requirements for membership in HIPC (the debt reduction plan for heavily-indebted poor countries). Debt cancellation was granted only if the country followed an austerity program sponsored by the International Monetary Fund. Nicaraguan debt payments eat up more than half of its national revenues. Public agencies have had to cut expenditures between 30% and 90% in real terms since 1994.

The social impact of these policies can readily be seen in rising poverty. The World Food P{rogam and UNICEF report that 24% of Nicaraguan children under age six suffer from physical maldevelopment due to malnutrition. The world Bank found that on the basis of the 1995 census, 82.3% of the population lived in conditions of generalized poverty. Illiteracy in the countryside is up to 42.8% and 40% of the economically active population has been forced to seek work outside of the country (Bendana, 23). In 1997, the government spent tow and a half times as much on foreign debt payments as it did on health and education combined. Nearly 40% of the people of Nicaragua do not have access to clean drinking water and more than half of the country has no sanitary services. More than half of the government's post-Sandinista revenue has gone to pay debt. Even though the World court ruled in 1986 that the U.S. government owed Nicaragua some 17 billion dollars in reparations for direct and indirect damages caused by the Contra war, the government of Violeta Chamorro succumbed to U.S. pressure and withdrew the case. (Vukelich, 24).

What is most astounding is that the Izquierda Democratica Faction of the Sandinistas that is headed by Daniel Ortega has formed a pact with Arnoldo Aleman! Now Ortega calls him a democrat and non-corrupt. Both support changes in the constitution that would change future election dates. This pact was reached by the leaders at the top with little or no mass input. Analysts say that the pact is needed by both Aleman and Ortega to save theri skins because they are both corrupt. One of the pact's proposals is to allow a departing president and the presidential candidate who came in second (Ortega) to hold seats automatically in the National Assembly for two consecutive terms. This would grant them immunity from prosecution for corruption. Ex-president Daniel Ortega holds parliamentary immunity and he could face criminal prosecution on charges that he sexually abused his step daughter (Zoilamerica Narvaez) should the Liberal Party and their allies in the Congress vote to strip him of this privilege. Thus Ortega is under duress to cut and maintain a deal with Aleman and his corrupt Liberal Party machine. Other erstwhile Sandinista leaders are content to be a loyal opposition in order to secure a permanent foothold in the state apparatus. Now that the FSLN has dropped its pretenses not only to being a revolutionary force but even to being an opposition to the Liberal Party, Sandinista unity has collapsed ( Bendana, 21).

Meanwhile, Hurricane Mitch has left one million people homeless, 3,000 killed, and thousands injured in 1998. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party used relief aid to support Liberal urban strongholds and to build-up Aleman's political machine. Whole containers were stranded in Customs with the government demanding import taxes for this aid relief of from 40 to 80%. Such is the neoliberal transition to democracy in Nicaragua.

Central America-El Salvador
Ironically named "The Savior," El Salvador experienced a civil war during the 1980's that left 100,000 dead. The tiniest country in Central America has too many people and too little land. Historically, a landed oligarchy (sometimes labelled the 14 families) controlled the economy while the military exercised political control at their behest. The military party, the Partido Conciliacion Nacional or PCN (Party of National Conciliation) controlled elections and selected presidents who most often came from the military. In the 1970's there were numerous efforts to achieve honest elections led by reformist and moderate parties. These were crushed and the elections overturned of decided on the basis of massive fraud. Moderate figures such as Jose Napolean Duarte were forced into exile. The famous or infamous massacre of demonstrators at the Plaza de la Libertad in February 27 and 28, 1978 impulsed the formation of the FDR/FMLN (Frente Democratico Nacional/Farabundo Marti Liberation Front).

The Right responded by forming death squads that kidnapped people in the middle of the night and assassinated them. The U.S. enters the fracas and supports the government against the FDR/FMLN. But the U.S. had to seek a democratic facade in order to convince Congress to provide aid to the government. In 1982, elelctions were held for Congress. Despite the fact that the moderate Christian Democrats were the single largest vote-getter, a pact between the PCN and the newly-formed right-wing ARENA (National Renovative Alliance) Party led to a right-wing control of congress. The leader of the ARENA Party, Roberto D'Aubuisson, was labelled by U.S. Ambassador to El Sal. as a "pathological killer" (with the nickname of his favorite tool of torture, "blowtorch"). The Constitution was changed so as to limit the power of the President to negotiate with guerrillas. A limited land reform program was passed which did not touch the largest estates, and a human rights commission was created under the leadership of the head of the National Police that was carrying out tortures and disappearnaces.

U.S. aid was more than $6 billion during the 1980's. The army of El Sal. increased from 15,000 to more than 57,000 men under arms towards the end of the decade. In 1984, we pressured the government of El Sal. to hold presidential elections and vetoed D'Aubuisson's candidacy (he would be too much of an embarassment). Jose Napoleon Duarte, an engineer graduate of Notre Dame, was our candidate and he won the presidency in a war-torn country. But the army, ARENA, and the death squads continued to run the country while duarte provided the fig leaf that covered the reality of terror in El Sal. all for the purpose of continued U.S. aid. In 1987, Duarte passed an Amnesty Law that absolved the military and parmilitary groups of responsbility for thousands of killings and tortures. The economy plummeted as the guerrillas cost the economy $300 million in losses each year.

Beginning in April of 1991 there was an effort to arrive at a peaceful settlement mediated by the U.N. Despite resistence from the ARENA-dominated National Assembly, President Alfredo (Freddy) Cristiani, elected in 1989, agreed to a negotiated settlement under great pressure. The Cold War was coming to an end and the civil war in El Sal was at a costly stalemate. The countries of the region wanted to see a cease fire, U.N. supervised elections, a reduction of the size of the army, an integration of fighting units, etc.

After the Peace Accords of 1991, a mixed picture of unfulfilled promises remains. These include delays in court reform, delays in trasfering lands to ex-combatants, and delays in eliminating death squads (who were then called "armed groups with political motives"). Although by 1995 the armed forces of El Sal (FAES) had been demobilized and a new civil police (the PNC) was created, problems remained. The military was removed from control of telecommunications, customs, ports, and utilities but the army budget was not subject to civilian control and remained unusually high. Gangs operate for ransom and there was still death squad activity in the mid-90's. For esample, death squads assassinated FMLN leaders at the end of 1993 and killed FMLN's David Merino on November 10, 1994. These were decentralized squads that acted with impunity (above the law).

Although the new national police was supposed to be composed of civilians, many former members of the military were in the national police. The UN pushed for the creation of a human rights prosecutor. the office was created but it was underfunded and got little cooperation from the government. The government accused the UN Human Rights Commission of meddling in its internal affairs.

Neoliberal polices of austerity placed great strains on the population leading to increasing inequality and to increasing poverty. All the war seemed to achieve was the modernization of the ruling class as unemployment and underemployment reached 42% (80% in rural areas). Privatization of the banks increased the wealth of former president Cristiani and also made rich the "gold ring" of men who supported his privatization schemes. Cristiani himself purchased three big banks at bargain prices. State enterprises kept checking accounts that paid them no interest in his banks. For the poor, the major source of livelihood came from remittances from relatives in the United States. In 1993, these remittances were 14% higher than the total value of Salvadoran exports and constituted 10% of El Sal. Gross National Product. In 1994, remittances totalled $950 million. Salvadoran prresidents have pleaded against the repatriation of Salvadorans from the U.S. to their country arguing that this would cause an economic catastrophy there.

Meanwhile, the growing economic crisis in El Sal. produced widespread criminality that, in turn, led to widespread violations in civil rights in order to fight the increase in crime. By November of 1996, 60% of the population lived below the poverty line (30% in conditions of extreme poverty). An export platform industry (maquiladoras or special export zones) developed with Korean, American, and businesses of other nationalities exploiting cheap Salvadoran labor. The salaries average about 4 dollars per day with much of this consumed in transportation costs and in food costs. Women sewing garments have to work 10 to 12 hour days and 70 hour work weeks and are paid at the piece rate of 3 cents per tee shirt for subcontractors of Walmart and other large companies. They are required to take health examinations and pregnancy tests in order to be hired. But the costs of these tests are deducted from their salaries. They are subject to shouting, limited lunch breaks or toilet breaks, and other forms of abuse. And they are summarily dismissed if they engage in any form of union activity. The foundation for Economic Development, a Salvadoran think tank, reports that while the average workers earns $120 per month, a family of 4 requires $450 per month just to meet basic needs (measured by the basic food basket). Since demobilized guerrillas and soldiers have gotten almost no assistance, crime has sky-rocketed.

Public opinion surveys conducted by the University of central America in 1996 showed that more than 1/4 of the Salvadoran population was a victim of crime in that year. M-16's and AK-47's abound. In one week inn 1996, the New York Foundation recovered 920 fire arms in a cash for weapons program.

In March of 1994, Armando Calderon Sol of the right-wing ARENA Party was elected president. He has adopted the standard neoliberal policies in the midst of this economic crisis. He also passed touhg laws increasing maximum sentences for more than 20 different types of crimes including assault, armed robbery, and rape. Parole or conditional release is prohibited even for first-time offenders and youth 14 to 18 are treated as adults in a law of dubious constitutionality. Death squads began to kill poor "delinquents." In 1995, the director of the Olafe Palme Foundation (a Non-Government Organization) stated that more than a dozen children were killed and that 7 of them had clear signs of being systematically murdered in borad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses..

The UN Mission on Human Rights left El Salvador in 1995 before and adequate penal and judicial system was established. ARENA wants to build more prisons (although its austerity policies contribute to the crime). Now 16 prisons designed to hold 3,500 prisoners hold almost 9,000 in apalling sanitary conditions. In July of 1996, In Santa Ana Prison in western El Salvador, prisoners announced a "lottery of death" where they would hang themselves (by lottery) until the government acted to relieve overcrowding.

Meanwhile, the old FDR/FMLN is divided into a Social Democratic current (the ERP, RN, and Convergencia Democratica) and the core of the FDR/FMLN that links democratization to social and economic change (a more radical position).

In sum, in El Salvador and in Nicaragua, there has been a modernization of elite control. There has been advances in elections with the remanants of the FDR winning seats in many local governments as there emerges a democratic left politics. But there is a lack of progress on the socioeconomic front and huge lapses in the safeguarding of civil liberties.