Sidetracked Revolution

By Jill Smolowe

"This is a nation that, with the triumph of the revolution, moralized itself. The people have been able to recuperate national pride, the pride of being a Nicaraguan."

--President Daniel Ortega Saavedra

"With all my heart, I tell you that it is worse here now than it was in the times of the Somoza dictatorship."

--Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, presi dent, La Prensa

Compared with the New York City subways or the dark alleys of Mexico City, the streets of Managua are remarkably safe. Police are courteous, and people feel free to come and go, anywhere, day or night. At government-hosted "Face the People" forums, citizens bellyache about everything from food shortages to the draft without fear of reprisal. Moreover, the country has an array of political parties, church groups and civic organizations from which to choose. In comparison with many East bloc countries, Nicaragua is not the "totalitarian camp" of which President Reagan speaks.

Yet there is no denying that the Sandinistas have imposed severe totalitarian restraints on the Nicaraguan people. Nina Shea of the New York City-based International League for Human Rights recently led a small delegation to Nicaragua to try to answer the question, How free is a Nicaraguan not to be a Sandinista? Some members of the Roman Catholic Church, opposition political parties and labor organizations, she says, suffer "undisguised and hidden repression." Her team heard repeated accounts of arbitrary arrests and interrogations that included food and water deprivation, simulated executions, and detention in dark cells. "The country is not yet totalitarian," she says. "What we saw was a government in the process of consolidating its power."

Nicaraguans are divided in their assessment of the Sandinistas. On one side are ardent believers who charge that the yanquis are imperialists, the contras are traitorous mercenaries, and the comandantes are true nationalists. To many, the revolution has meant better schools, improved health care, and the forging of a national identity. On the other side are those who understand the Sandinistas to be dedicated Communists, and some would say, with Reagan, that they will stoop to any crime to impose a totalitarian state. As many as 250,000 people have fled Nicaragua since the triumph of the revolution in 1979. The disheartened who remain behind say they stay to fight for the democratic society that the Sandinistas once promised and have long since betrayed.

As Nicaragua is not a society open to opinion polls, it is hard to gauge where most of the 3 million citizens stand in the polarized debate. Dispassionate observers estimate that 15% are hard-core Sandinistas, 15% are militant opponents, and the rest, much like the U.S. Congressmen whose vote last week could have swung either way, blow with the prevailing winds. Although discontent has risen palpably since last October, when the government reimposed a state of emergency, the crackdown on civil liberties has not produced a significant rise in support for either the contras or the opposition parties. Most Nicaraguans seem to accept things the way they are. "Sure we're Sandinistas," says Maria Berrios, who sells bread in Managua's Eastern Market. "We have to go along with whoever is here."

Nevertheless, each new round of repression confirms for many in Managua and abroad that the Sandinistas are intent on gaining absolute control. "The state of emergency is part of a master plan to get obedience from the population," says Jaime Bengochea of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP). "Our rights never existed except on paper." Critics report that their phones have been tapped, their offices ransacked, their lives threatened. Hundreds of people have been detained, many of them suspected of collaborating with the enemy in contra-infiltrated areas. Like Reagan, many Nicaraguans and outside observers believe that such repressive measures prove that the Sandinistas are carving out a Marxist-Leninist state designed to thwart all democratic expression.

The Sandinistas reject such labels as Communism and Leninism, arguing that Sandinismo is a hybrid ideology unique to Nicaragua. They charge that their revolution has been skewed by a U.S.-sponsored military threat. "All repression," says a Foreign Ministry official, "is a result of the war." Otherwise, the Sandinistas argue, they would be well on the way to honoring the three pledges they made in 1979: to pursue a nonaligned foreign policy, to encourage political pluralism and to establish a mixed economy.

Such statements are clearly propaganda. True, it will never be known how the revolution might have progressed had there been no U.S.-backed contra challenge. Yet it is clear that the Sandinistas have long since backed away from their three original pledges, if they were ever meant seriously. In its foreign policy, Nicaragua today is indisputably aligned with Moscow. The comandantes both vacation and attend conferences in East bloc countries, Nicaraguan students are sent to schools in Cuba and the Soviet Union, and the country's formidable military forces are armed by Moscow and trained by Cuban and Soviet advisers. The Sandinistas say their sympathies are understandable. Whereas the U.S. mined Nicaragua's harbors, the Soviet Union provided helicopter gunships to combat the contras. When the U.S. imposed a trade embargo, the Soviet Union offered more oil.

But Washington's antipathy was the result rather than the cause of this pro-Soviet stance. Even as the U.S. was still supplying aid to Nicaragua during the year after its revolution, the Sandinistas chose to develop powerful party, military and internal-security organs that mirror those of the Soviet system. The nine-man directorate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (F.S.L.N.) is fashioned after the twelve-member Soviet Politburo. The comandantes make decisions communally, keep their inner maneuverings secret and issue unchallengeable edicts. The Sandinista People's Army seems a miniature replica of the Soviet armed forces, relying exclusively on East bloc military doctrine, tactical planning and weapons.

Parallels can also be drawn between the KGB and Nicaragua's General Directorate of State Security (DGSE), which keeps effective tabs on the population. Armed with emergency powers that enable security police to detain virtually anyone for any length of time without charges, the DGSE is intimidating, although it is less repressive than the security apparatus in some other Latin American countries. "It is the primary instrument utilized to consolidate the revolution," says a Western diplomat. "Its objective is to identify and neutralize counterrevolutionaries and prevent and neutralize the development of an internal front."

In recent months, dozens of Nicaraguans have been summoned to Casa 50, the interrogation center run by DGSE. In November, for instance, police rounded up several Nicaraguans who worked in various foreign embassies. The detainees later said they had been accused of collaborating with the counter revolution and were grilled for up to 13 hours. None were beaten. Before they were released, a number were encouraged to work for the DGSE. Some subsequently quit their jobs.

Despite the Sandinistas' promise to permit political pluralism, Nicaragua's opposition parties have found it difficult to communicate their messages to the public. Last month, for example, six parties issued a document proposing a cease-fire, an end to the state of emergency and a new schedule for elections. The proposal was censored from La Prensa, the country's only nongovernment newspaper, which regularly has stories excised by Interior Ministry watchdogs.

Still, opposition parties are entitled to hold rallies, post billboards along the highways and publish newsletters, although they are subjected to government censorship. Ironically, the Sandinistas suffer some of the most heated criticism from the leftist parties. Eli Altamirano, president of the Nicaraguan Communist Party, charges, "The Sandinistas are ideologically promiscuous. They have priests, nuns, evangelicals and bourgeois in their government. It has nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism." None of the parties have achieved the popularity of the ruling F.S.L.N., and no politician has emerged as the primary opposition spokesman.

At the moment, that role is claimed by Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, the popular leader of Nicaragua's Roman Catholic Church. The Sandinistas have tried to muffle Obando and his followers. Church bashing has become a favorite sport of the two official newspapers, and both Radio Catolica and the Catholic printing press have been shut down in recent months. Priests have been hauled in for interrogation and offered the option either to leave the country or to sign up with the army. Last January, after the Cardinal delivered a letter to the United Nations charging the Sandinistas with attempting to "neutralize religious activity," he was accused by Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of "high treason against the nation."

Even so, the Cardinal can still celebrate Mass with little obstruction, and the Roman Catholic Church continues to draw a far more sizable crowd than the People's Church, the officially sanctioned church, which fails to attract a large segment of the population and even alienates some ardent Sandinistas. "We will not provoke. We plan to continue our work," says Father Bismark Carballo, Obando's special assistant. "We still have the pulpits; they are still open."

As for the economy, the pronounced trend has been toward state management and control. Much private property has been confiscated and redistributed. Prices and wages are set by the regime, and even part of the black market is regulated. Earlier this month, the government tripled the price of beans and butter and doubled the price of chicken, beef, rice, sugar and milk. The state also mandated across-the-board salary increases of 50%, a feeble concession to inflation, which is running at more than 200%.

The revolution has all but eliminated the traditional bourgeoisie. Members of COSEP, the principal private-sector federation, have seen their cattle, crops and lands seized. "The Sandinistas are like a sick cancer patient," says Ramiro Gurdian, COSEP's vice president. "We know they will die, but first things are going to get a lot worse." Only a few businessmen have managed to make their peace. The owner of a coffee-processing plant south of Matagalpa, for instance, has entered a joint venture with the government. He furnishes the land, management and factory; the government provides the labor and distribution system. "I get along with them even though I'm not a Communist, and they are Marxist-Leninists," he says. Certainly, Nicaragua's hybrid economic system does not embrace independent trade-union activism. Last October, when several unions threatened to strike for higher wages and a Christmas bonus, the Sandinistas responded by imposing the state of emergency. Union leaders have been jailed and had their papers confiscated. "We will continue to operate normally until they tell us differently," says Sergio Roa, president of the Confederation of Nicaraguan Workers. "We think the workers ask that we represent them, and we can't keep our arms crossed."

By and large, however, most Nicaraguans would prefer to do just that. Neither the revolution nor the political debates seem that relevant to those who find that their day-to-day struggle has been relatively unaffected by the transition from a rightist dictatorship to a leftist regime. Under both Anastasio Somoza Debayle and the Sandinistas, the people have had to endure civil war, internal repression, a sickly economy and criticism from abroad. + For some, the difference comes down to basics. "Before, we had Somoza and food," says a 34-year-old mother of four. "Now we have Sandinistas and no food. You cannot live without food."

With 50% of the national budget going to the war effort and additional losses to government mismanagement, jobs are scarce, salaries are low, inflation is high. The government issues ration cards, but the scraps of paper do not guarantee that needed items will be in the stores. To get milk, bread and eggs, citizens must wait for hours on lines that snake through the sun- baked streets. Such essentials as toilet paper and sanitary napkins are rationed. Shoppers in Nicaragua need know only two words: no hay (there isn't any).

An even more pressing hardship is the military draft. Since Nicaragua imposed its first ever draft two years ago, tens of thousands of young men have been called into service. To evade the draft, many have fled the country. Last October the government added a military-reserve draft that enrolls men between the ages of 25 and 40. Many of these men have families, and they fear that they will be called into active combat. "When they give you a uniform and a pair of boots," says Walter Caracas, 27, a graphics designer in the government craft department, "you know it's not going to be a picnic."

Less controversial was the government call last fall for every able-bodied Nicaraguan to help harvest the coffee crop, the main source of foreign income. Although much of the crop grows in war zones, about 30,000 volunteered. For some young students, it was an opportunity to show their patriotism. For others, it seemed a way to ensure better grades.

Even among the apolitical, much of the blame for the country's plight is placed on the contras. A wide assortment of Nicaraguans, even those most prone to complain about their circumstances, accept the government line that the U.S.-backed rebels are responsible for the destruction of schools, hospitals and the economy. The warm affection that most Nicaraguans feel for North Americans does not extend to the Reagan Administration, which Nicaraguans believe is preparing for an invasion of their country. "The U.S. military aggression," says Eric Ramirez, president of the opposition Social Christian Party, "gives oxygen for the Sandinistas to survive."

If, however, the contras prove that they are a force that can seriously threaten the Sandinistas, attitudes may shift. "At cockfights in Nicaragua, most people won't make a bet until one cock is already bleeding and close to losing the fight," says a Western diplomat. "Nicaraguans want to be on the safe side with the winner. In this war, the people will join in only when the final outcome is absolutely clear to everybody." In the meantime, most will endure, sacrifice and fence-sit as best they can.

With reporting by David Halevy and Laura Lopez/Managua