Nicaragua Decade of Despair

By JOHN MOODY MANAGUA

Nicaragua has a precise way of marking time, like a.m. and p.m. or B.C. and A.D. Everything that happened during the 43 years prior to July 1979 took place "during the dictatorship"; everything afterward is "since the triumph of the revolution." Ten years ago this month, a victorious band of guerrillas who called themselves Sandinistas, embraced a unique brand of tropical Marxism, and promised to educate, heal and enfranchise the poor triumphed over the corrupt rule of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the inheritor of a family dynasty begun in 1936. The Sandinistas had ridden to power on an armed uprising, aided by a cutoff of U.S. support to Somoza and pressure from Nicaragua's Latin neighbors. Jubilant Nicaraguans believed their national darkness had been lifted at last. With Somoza gone, things would have to improve.

They were wrong. After ten years of rule by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (F.S.L.N.), the misery that marked life for most of the country under Somoza is, if anything, worse. The red and black anniversary valentines that bedeck roadside billboards aptly reflect what has always been the regime's strong suit: romantic rhetoric, not reality. The sole success of the F.S.L.N. is holding on to power, despite an eight-year war by the U.S. and its contra rent-an-army. Says Alfredo Cesar, a former contra director and now an opposition political leader in Managua: "The Sandinistas are good fighters. But they never made the transition from being guerrillas with guns to a government with laws."

The price of that failure is immense. Nicaragua is a wreck, inhabited by despair. A report secretly commissioned by the Sandinistas confirms the country's plight: with an annual per capita income of $300, Nicaragua is possibly the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Unemployment may reach 30% this year. Those who have skills to sell and some place to go get out: more than 10,000 have joined the contra counterrevolution, and at least 250,000 out of the population of 3.5 million have fled, many to the U.S.

Those who stay behind dwell in a Latin version of Dickensian squalor. Managua is a succession of seedy shantytowns, abandoned buildings and lots where cows, goats and horses forage. Twice a week water is cut off, and rotating power blackouts add to the capital's desolation. In the countryside some farmers live well off their own land, while a few miles down the road naked children from a dusty village drink from and relieve themselves in the same brown stream.

Inflation last year skyrocketed to 36,000%. The national currency, the cordoba, is virtually useless; some merchants just price their goods in dollars. Public transportation barely exists. In Managua or along country roads, knots of people wait for buses that may come in an hour, a day, or, if the driver cannot find gasoline, not at all.

Victims of illness or accident who cannot afford treatment outside Nicaragua must rely on scandalously inadequate health care. The leading cause of death among children is diarrhea. Dysentery, malaria, tuberculosis and hepatitis plague communities. Dengue fever, wiped out in Somoza's day, is again a common menace. Malnutrition is a growing killer.

The government blames every adversity on the eight-year war against the contras, which ground to a halt when the U.S. Congress cut off military aid in 1988. The conflict did exact a terrible price. Some 23,000 persons were killed and twice that many injured, many of them civilians. The bill for destruction of property hovers around $12 billion. Then in 1988 Hurricane Joan compounded the pain, causing more than $800 million in damage. On top of that, the U.S. trade embargo initiated in 1985 has paralyzed the economy.

Much of the country's desperation, however, rests with the Sandinistas' administrative incompetence and ideological intransigence. Loans and credits from once generous contributors, such as West Germany and France, gradually dried up as the regime refused to adopt basic political and economic freedoms. Disillusionment with Sandinista rhetoric became clear during President Daniel Ortega's hunt for handouts in Europe last April and May. Instead of the $250 million he sought, Ortega attracted only $32 million. To a suggestion that more democratization in Nicaragua might again loosen European purses, Ortega declared, "No more concessions!"

In spite of its evident failures, the F.S.L.N. stays firmly in power, not least because of the bedrock support of the 70,000-member Sandinista People's Army. As the name implies, its job is to defend the party, not the nation. The army is a well-oiled machine, its comandantes agile tacticians at outmaneuvering the counterrevolutionaries. Soldiers attend mandatory political-education classes, and most can recite, if not explain, the party line.

The F.S.L.N. also promised to bring a better life to Nicaragua's poor, pledging dozens of reforms the Sandinistas have yet to deliver. It assured struggling mothers like 39-year-old Esperanza Lopez that her children would flourish. But her job as a maid in Chinandega pays only about $10 a month, to support three young ones. Says she: "I can only feed them once a day. Maybe it's true that we earned less under the dictatorship, but you could buy more with it."

Many children learn the skills of survival at a painfully early age. Today some 23,000 homeless children, compared with an estimated 2,000 a decade ago, roam the streets of Managua. At a busy intersection, a twelve-year-old girl throws a pack of cigarettes through a car window into a driver's lap. As she stuffs a wad of money into her torn blouse she blows a kiss, leans forward and asks, "Do you want to see more?"

The Sandinistas undertook to wipe out illiteracy, and for a while they almost did. But the voracious military budget swiftly eroded the gains, and by 1985 illiteracy had shot up to 30%. Children lucky enough to go to school often lug their own desk and chair from home to class.

The revolution promised religious freedom. But when Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church, offered help in rebuilding the country, he was curtly told to mind his own business. Obando became one of the regime's chief critics. Says he: "We just can't stand by with our arms folded. You can pray to God, but you must also do your part." Priests who criticize the government have been expelled from the country, and the Catholic radio station is intermittently shut down.

The F.S.L.N. vowed to root out corruption. Instead, it has developed its own nomenklatura, a cadre of top leaders who live better than everyone else. Sandinista comandantes have moved into mansions once inhabited by Somoza's cronies. A former top aide to Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, the President's brother, says both Ortegas have salted away funds outside the country.

As the regime lurches into a second decade, it is almost totally isolated diplomatically. Hoping to fare better with President Bush, Daniel Ortega proffered fresh promises of reform: no more confiscation of private property and fair elections next February. But so far, the Sandinistas seem to be backtracking, intimidating opposition leaders, denouncing labor leaders and restricting press access. Although the Bush Administration has bowed to Congress's refusal to continue financing the contras, it remains unimpressed with Nicaragua's reformist talk.

Nicaragua's Latin neighbors have pressed the Sandinistas to adhere to a peace plan they signed in 1987. But progress has been minimal. Last week, after five hours of talks with the plan's drafter, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, Daniel Ortega promised vaguely to discuss election rules and press access for the opposition but gave no guarantees.

The Sandinistas attained power through force, and they make it plain they will not give it up without a fight. Having outlasted Ronald Reagan and held off the contras, the regime is in no immediate danger of being toppled. Opposition political parties, riven by petty disputes, pose little threat as long as the F.S.L.N. controls the electoral machinery. Nor is a popular uprising likely among a people worn out by war and unsure whom to blame for their suffering.

But Nicaraguans cannot expect much in the way of a better life anytime soon. The prospects for new international assistance are dim without some semblance of democracy. The Bush Administration has abandoned Reagan's goal of overthrowing the Sandinistas, but it is mainly interested in containing the Sandinistas, not helping them. Ortega's Central American neighbors will keep * trying to nudge him toward democracy, but without much hope of success. Even the Soviet Union, Nicaragua's major backer, has reduced economic aid significantly.

The Sandinista triumph in 1979 rid Nicaragua of one dictatorship only to replace it with another. The victors' soaring rhetoric counts for little against the plain fact of a decade of misrule and the grim prospect of a future filled with still more empty promises.

With reporting by Jan Howard/Managua