NICARAGUA: THE STOLEN REVOLUTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00363R000501130004-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 23
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: MISC

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M-e
on Central America for The
Washington Post, The Miami Herald,
Commentary, and the Reader's
Digest. He is a founder and former
president of the Hudson Institute.
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Introduction:
Making Judgments
ree and progressive people
throughout the world exult when a
revolution succeeds in overthrowing a
tyrant. And so it is hard to accept facts
that show that the hopes raised by a
successful revolution have been
betrayed, and the revolution has been
transformed into a new tyranny and a
new colonialism.
The Sandinista leadership
promised pluralism and pragmatism.
Did they mean it? Or were they classic
Marxist-Leninists determined to
impose their ideology on their
countrymen by force as quickly as
they prudently could? Were the visible
elements of pluralism and prag-
matism evidence of uncertainty or
disagreement within the leadership?
Or were they the result of a Sandinista
decision to move only gradually to
install totalitarian rule? Did the
Sandinistas move slowly in squeezing
independent groups to conceal their
true nature for as long as possible, and
thus preserve the benefits of Western
financial and political support? Or were
they forced to militarize and to repress
opposition because of hostility and dan-
ger from the United States?
Initially, the question of what they
"intended" was confused with the ques-
tion of who "they" were. Was the revo-
lutionary government that of Alfonso
Robelo, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro.
Eden Pastora, and dozens of other re-
formers and democratic revolutionar-
ies, or was it firmly in the hands of the
Marxist-Leninist leadership of the
Sandinista National Liberation Front
(FSLN)? If the FSLN Directorate was
in control, was it unified, or were there
pluralist factions within it?
Despite the difficulty of these
questions, some people seemed to
know the answers before they looked
at the facts. Many in the United States,
Europe and elsewhere seem to think
that any reform designed to help the
poor at the expense of the rich and
middle class is at least the first step
down a slippery slope to communism.
Some still see any criticism of the United
States, or any connections with
Russia or Cuba, as proof of com-
munism. And some have a double
standard that perceive any violence
against a government, however
tyrannical, as intolerable, but condone
violence by government forces.
On the other hand, many in-
dividuals uncritically accept the claims
of any group who learns how to
disguise its true character with the
thinnest blanket of anti-Western,
leftist rhetoric. Such people see any
attempt to question the credentials of
those seeking power "on behalf of the
masses" as automatically
reactionary, or as excessive anti-
communist zeal.
Given such strong preconceptions
among large numbers of individuals,
the inability of political experts and
ordinary citizens, within Nicaragua
and without, to reach clear-headed
judgments about the nature of the
Sandinista regime is not surprising. The
difference between a genuine
commitment to democracy may be
difficult to distinguish from a forgery, at
least initially. Therefore, it is necessary
to go beyond a recitation of superficial
facts and statements and look at
character, motivation and intention.
Today, after a record of three
years of Sandinista rule, the evidence
now is there for all to examine.
Nicaragua Now
hat are facts about
Nicaragua?
The Sandinista leadership
declared that they were committed to
pluralism and the encouragement of a
mixed economy. Neither of these
commitments is being kept. As the
facts demonstrate, the Sandinistas
have instituted policies designed to
harass, eliminate or win control of the
press, independent labor unions and
political parties, the Church and ethnic
minorities such as the Miskito Indians.
In short, the Sandinista Directorate is
openly repressing the very groups
that are the essence of political and
social pluralism.
Post-revolutionary Nicaragua
probably has registered some gains.
Health care has improved in some
areas, and literacy has been increased
by 20 percent according to official
reports. At least for a time, more citizens
had a sense of political participation
through a revolutionary block system,
the Sandinista Defense Committees.
But the price has been high: economic
failure that has resulted in intermittent
food shortages, uncontrolled inflation,
growing foreign debts, a weakened
private sector vulnerable to
expropriation and severe problems in
agriculture.
Cuban and Soviet influence is
large and growing, and the Sandinistas
have launched ambitious programs to
militarize substantial segments of the
society. Nicaragua's military,
underwritten by the Soviet bloc,
provides training, arms and logistical
support to guerrillas in El Salvador and
threatens its neighbors, Costa Rica
and Honduras.
As a result of these domestic and
international policies, the Sandinista
Directorate today is isolated: many of
itsformercomrades-in-arms have left in
disillusionment, and support for the
regime is waning among virtually every
sector of Nicaraguan society-among
the very people in whose name the
Sandinistas fought the revolution.
As U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State for Inter-American Affairs
Thomas Enders has charged: "The
new Nicaraguan regime is turning into
a new dictatorship based once again on
a privileged and militarized caste. Like
the Somoza regime before it,
Nicaragua's government is beginning
to make war on its own people."
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Daniel Ortega (at microphone) one of the leading members of the Sandinista Directorate. speaks
to a gathering shortly after victory over the Sornoza regime in 1979
The Background
It is not necessary to detail the
wrongs committed by the Somoza
dynasty during the nearly half century
that it ruled the small Central American
republic of Nicaragua. It is an all-too-
familiar story of greed and corruption by
a regime maintained in power by the
repressive use of force.
The Somozas were no mild
authoritarian regime reasonably
reflecting the desires of most of its
constituency and omitting only the
forms of popular control. The last of the
line, Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza,
added incompetence to the family's
list of vices. He exploited and
oppressed the people of Nicaragua,
and in return provided neither
efficiency, inspiration, nor any other
redeeming feature.
The best evidence of the nature of
Somoza's rule is that by 1979 all
elements of Nicaraguan society
except the National Guard had decided
that the regime must be overthrown.
The consensus against Sornoza
included workers, the priests and
bishops of the Catholic Church,
business and professional com-
munities, peasants and villagers.
The history of pre-revolution-
ary and revolutionary Nicaragua is a
complicated story of organizational
and ideological maneuvering among
various opposition groups and social
sectors. The final stage in the struggle
began in January 1978 after the
murder of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro,
owner and publisher of La Prensa,
Managua's principal daily newspaper.
Democratic and moderate opposition
groups then realized that all hopes of
peaceful political protest and reform
were vain, and decided to join forces
with the Sandinista movement,
accepting the leadership of its nine-
man Directorate, which included
Daniel Ortega, Humberto Ortega,
Tomas Borge and Jaime Wheelock.
The main sectors of the commu-
nity, including the Broad Opposition
Front, the Superior Council of Private
Enterprise (COSEP), and the National
Patriotic Front led by a distinguished
"Group of Twelve" democrats, agreed
to work with the FSLN only after nego-
tiations in which the Sandinistas agreed
to preserve political pluralism and a
mixed economy, and to hold free elec-
tions quickly.
Most of the Sandinista
Directorate were known to influential
Nicaraguans. It is a small country and
generally the Sandinistas were not
peasants or villagers from the
hinterland, but sons of members of the
small middle- and upper-class groups
of Nicaragua. Citizens knew that the
three main factions of the FSLN had
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been united by Fidel Castro, and that in
the preceding years Castro had
supplied at least two of the factions with
guns and money.
But the leaders of the democratic
left and center who opposed Somoza
decided to accept the risk of alliance.
The third "Tercerista" faction of the
FSLN was less clearly Marxist-Leninist,
and the entire Directorate made
solemn promises of political pluralism
and a mixed economy. The moderate
leaders hoped that if the democratic
groups joined the struggle with the
Sandinistas, and they made a re-
volution against Somoza together, the
democratic majority would be able to
prevail. "By playing the game, we
hoped to influence the process," said
Arturo Cruz, who held a series of high
positions in the revolution until he re-
signed as Ambassador to Washington
early in 1982.
Joaquin Cuadra Chamorro,
father of Joaquin Cuadra, current FSLN
Defense Vice Minister, expressed a
similar hope when he said: "So we
reached an agreement with the clear
understanding that socialism is not
possible for Nicaragua. I saw my role
as trying to rescue our youth from
radicalism."
The Sandinista promises to their
revolutionary allies were embodied in
the program released by the Junta of
the Provisional Government on June
27,1979, in San Jose. These promises
included: "effective democracy," "the
operation of political parties without
ideological discrimination (except
Somocistas)," "universal suffrage,"
"freedom of expression, of worship, and
forforming unions, guilds, and popular
organizations," and "a foreign policy of
independence and nonalignment."
The Sandinistas made similar
commitments to the Organization of
American States (OAS) in a letter ofJuly
12, 1979, which also explicitly
promised "the first free elections our
country has known in this century."
But even after virtually all of
Nicaragua decided that Somoza's
rule had to end, and agreed to work
together under Sandinista leadership
to do the job, Nicaragua suffered
massive bloodshed and destruction
before Somoza was ousted. The armed
struggle probably cost more than
10,000 lives.
During the final stages of the
revolution, the Sandinistas, because of
their broad popular support at home,
received significant help from
democratic governments in the area,
such as Venezuela and Costa Rica.
On July 19, 1979, a Government
of National Reconstruction (GRN)
headed by a five-member Junta which
included two non-Marxists, Alfonso Ro-
belo and Violeta Chamorro (widow of
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro), officially as-
sumed power. The Junta also estab-
lished a large Council of State whose
members represented a wide range of
views and affiliations, but which proved
to have no substantial power.
The Struggle for
Revolutionary Control
Since the Marxist-Leninist
minority had most of the top positions
from the beginning, the "struggle for
power" was never a close contest.
Arturo Cruz, who was a member of the
Anastasio Somoza. ousted
dictator of Nicaragua
"Group of Twelve" allied with the
FSLN, and who had been made head of
the national bank in the Provisional
Government (GRN), described to
Patrick Oster of the Chicago Sun-
Times how he realized in the second
week after the revolutionary victory
that the Sandinistas and not the GRN
Junta were in control. On one day he
got approval from the Junta for a bank
action. But on the next, the Junta met
again with two uniformed members of
the Sandinista Directorate present,
and the Junta reversed itself. It was
clear to Cruz that the Directorate
controlled the majority of the Junta.
The following April, Cruz reports,
the Sandinistas expanded the Council
of State to give themselves a majority
on that body too. That action led to the
resignations of Alfonso Robelo and
Violeta Chamorro from the Junta
(Chamorro "for reasons of health").
But Robelo urged Cruz to take his place.
And Cruz, although he says that he
already could see that pluralism wasn't
working, decided to join the Junta and
try to change the situation. His efforts
were frustrated and he resigned from
the government, but he was prevailed
upon to accept the post of Ambassa-
dor to Washington-an action that, in
retrospect, was part of a successful ef-
fort by the Sandinista regime to conceal
its true character and direction.
Yet the fact is that the
Sandinistas, like many ideologues,
wrote and published openly about
their intentions. And even though they
spelled out their totalitarian plans and
their commitment to the Soviet bloc,
they still were able to convince people
that they were "well-meaning idealists"
and at least potentially neutral. On
October 5,1979, the Sandinistas issued
an "Analysis of the Situation and
Tasks of the Sandinista People's
Revolution" containing the political
and military theses presented to a three
day Assembly of FSLN Cadre held
from September 21 to 23. In this report,
the FSLN Directorate stated:
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-The GRN (which had two
independents on the five-member
Junta) was an alliance of
convenience organized by the
Sandinistas to thwart Yankee
intervention [and] it was not necessary
to negotiate with the bourgeoisie, just
to give some representation to people
with a patriotic reputation. "
-They noted that although
without doubt there is no domestic
power stronger than the FSLN, " they
had so far produced ''only a
foundation " and were setting up a wide
array of their own organizations,
including "an army politicized without
precedent, organized within a state
that was trying to conserve relics of old
institutional forms. "
-In their discussion of the
economy they said that because of
grave difficulties at the present
moment it is necessary to maintain a
neutral position with respect to the
imperialists. "
-They saw no immediate danger
from a resurgent National Guard or
from their neighboring countries. The
main factors that had influenced their
policies since July 10 included: the
Arturo Cruz, a former member of the Junta,
was disillusioned with the Sandinistas
but continued in the revolutionary
government until 1982, when he
resigned as Ambassador to Washington
need to train the army, to maintain an
alliance with the bourgeoisie and ''the
expectation of financial help from the
Western bloc. " But they noted that this
"need to appear reasonable during
the' intermediate'period was beginning
to cause dangerous problems such as
an independent labor movement. "
-The Directorate said that a
variety of steps needed to be taken to
protect the FSLN from "enemies ofthe
revolution" during the "stage of
democratic transition" in which small
political parties must be maintained
"because of international opinion. "
-They emphasized the need for
unity in an ideology of ''support of the
World Revolution. " And they concluded
by making it plain that we are an
organization whose greatest aspiration
is to retain revolutionary power" and
that the first task is to educate the
people to recognize that the FSLN is
the legitimate leader of the
revolutionary process. "
This extraordinary document
makes it clear that the Sandinista
leadership was determined from the
beginning to hold power by totalitarian
The Nicaraguan Junta with Costa Rican
President Rodrigo Carazo Odio in 1979
From left to right Moises Hassan, Sergio
Ramirez, Violeta de Chamorro. President
Carazo, Daniel Ortega and Alfonso Rohelo
Chamorro and Robelo. both non -
Marxists, resigned in 1980
methods and to use that power to
establish a Marxist-Leninist system.
The Sandinistas also made it
clear that they saw the world as divided
into imperialist and socialist camps,
and were determined that Nicaragua
would reject true nonalignment and
ally itself completely with the socialist
camp (which does not include the
West Germany led until recently by
Helmut Schmidt).
Humberto Ortega, one of the rep-
resentatives of the ''least Marxist" Ter-
cerista faction, made another explicit
statement of FSLN thinking in a speech
to a meeting of "military specialists"
on August 25, 1981.
Ortega said:
Marxism-Leninism is the
scientific doctrine that guides our
revolution, our vanguard's analytical
tool for... carrying out the
revolution.... We cannot be Marxist-
Leninist without Sandinism, and without
Marxism-Leninism Sandinism cannot
be revolutionary. Thus, they are
indissolubly linked.... Our political
strength is Sandinism and our doctrine
is Marxism-Leninism.
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Ortega's speech is over 4,000
words of pure, hard-line Marxism-
Leninism. For example, he refers,
without any hint of satire, to the Lenin-
led Bolshevik revolution as the
creation of a classless society in which
man's exploitation of his fellow man
could gradually be eliminated."
He went on to say that:
... on July 19, 1979, world society
was polarized into two major camps....
the camp of imperialism, the camp of
capitalism, headed up by the United
States and the rest of the capitalist
countries in Europe and throughout the
world... [and] the socialistcamp made
up of various countries in Europe, Asia,
and Latin America and with the Soviet
Union in the vanguard.
Although Ortega delivered this
speech two years after the FSLN took
power, no one who reads it can believe
that he only recently had arrived at
these convictions. At no point did he
refer to any statements or actions of
the Reagan Administration as having
influenced his view of the United
States. He gave no basis for seeing how
any amount of American friendliness
or generosity toward the Nicaraguan
revolution could have changed his
view of the world.
In the same speech, reported by
Branko Lazitch in the Paris-based
magazine Est & Ouest, Ortega notes
that, "on 19 July...our people
were... ideologically backward." And
he also explained that the elections
planned for 1985 "...will in no way-
like a lottery-decide who is going to
hold power. For this power belongs to
the people, to the FSLN, to our
Directorate......
In the same article Lazitch refers to
another statement of Ortega's
describing the temporary alliance with
the middle class as "exclusively
tactical. We have acepted the
collaboration of the middle class,
which is ready to betray its country, but
at any moment we can take its
factories without firing a single shot......
It is now clear that the defeat of
the democratic left majority in the
revolution in Nicaragua was, to use the
word preferred by revolutionaries Eden
Pastora and Alfonso Robelo, a
"counterrevolution'' from the top-like
that of Fidel Castro and the Cuban
Communist Party in 1959-60. Instead of
a real struggle for power, there has
been the largely one-sided process of
concentrating the tools of political and
physical power in FSLN hands, while
weakening all independent groups
and leaders.
From the moment of victory over
Somoza, the Marxist-Leninists of the
FSLN Directorate have controlled the
revolution almost totally, with no inten-
tion of sharing power. They allowed
the normal disagreements, failures of
coordination and differences of phras-
ing among themselves to deceive peo-
ple about their essential unity. And
from time to time they indulged their per-
sonal feelings and relationships with
individual non-Marxist Nicaraguans to
give an image of "personalism" and
flexibility. And they have made tempo-
rary concessions whenever neces-
sary to reduce resistance and to pre-
serve illusions of their pragmatism
or openness.
The Sandinistas also have used
the simplest technique of all to confuse
people about their intentions. They
lied. As late as April 1982 Tomas Borge
said to James Nelson Goodsell, Latin
American correspondent for The
Christian Science Monitor, "Nothing
will deter us from maintaining political
pluralism and a mixed economy... no
matter what the cost." Goodsell also
quotes a "top Sandinista leader" as
scoffing at reports of Nicaraguan
complicity in the arms flow to El
Salvador as "a pack of lies," and cites
Junta president Daniel Ortega as
saying, "We believe in nonalignment."
This technique worked even with
a reporter as experienced as Goodsell,
who reports that "the Sandinista
Directorate... is composed of nine men
widely viewed as well-meaning
idealists who are genuinely concerned
about the Nicaraguan people," and
are "self-proclaimed Marxists." A
theme of Goodsell's article was that
the Sandinista leadership is still "trying
to find its way." The government of
"Marxist-leaning guerrillas... has yet
to define itself."
Human Rights
mmediately upon taking power, the
FSLN began to build totalitarian
instruments of physical coercion
and control.
The Sandinista police, or security
force, which performs the functions of
the former Somoza National Guard, has
grown to more than 5,000 men. In
addition, a revolutionary block
committee system, the Sandinista
Defense Committees (CDS), similar to
that established by Castro in Cuba,
has been established to provide direct
sources of information and coercion
for the FSLN in each neighborhood.
Eden Pastora, Commandante
Zero, a hero of the revolution, stated on
April 15, 1982:
... in the light of day or in the dead
of night, the seizures, expropriations
and confiscations oppress
somocistas and anti-somocistas,
counterrevolutionaries and
revolutionaries, the guilty and the
innocent. In the jails they beat the
counterrevolutionaries together with
the Marxist revolutionaries, these
latter punished for the grave crime of
interpreting Marx from a different point
of view than the comrades in power.
One of the most widely respected
figures in Nicaragua for many years
was Jose Esteban Gonzalez, a vice
president of the Social Christian Party,
who organized the Nicaraguan
Permanent Commission for Human
Rights in 1977 to oppose abuses of the
Somoza regime. As noted in reports of
his press conference in August 1982,
during Somoza's rule Gonzalez had
been able to arrange the release from
prison of Tomas Borge and other
Sandinista leaders. Borge returned the
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favor by having Gonzalez jailed and
lifting his passport. Only through the
intervention of the International
Commission of Jurists, Gonzalez says,
was he able to go into exile. He since
has been sentenced in abstentia to 16
years in prison.
Gonzalez now heads the
Nicaraguan Committee for Human
Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica. In
March 1982 he wrote the following in
The Washington Post:
The Press
here now are three newspapers
in Managua. The afternoon paper is La
Prensa, which has been the country's
leading paper for many years and one
of the foremost opponents of the
Somozas. It is now edited by Pedro
Joaquin Chamorro, Jr., the older son of
the man murdered by Somoza. The
two morning papers are Barricada, the
official paper of the FSLN, run by
Carlos Fernando Chamorro, Pedro
Joaquin's younger son, and El Nuevo
Diario, a paper started by Pedro
Joaquin's brother, Xavier Chamorro.
Previously there were four
newspapers. In January 1980,
security forces closed down the far-left
newspaper El Pueblo, and Bayardo
Arce of the Directorate warned that
other media could receive the same
medicine. Similar threats are made
frequently, and the regime has issued
a number of decrees constraining the
news media.
In April 1980, a Sandinista-
backed strike closed La Prensa for
three days. As part of the strike
settlement Xavier Chamorro left La
Prensa and started the new pro-
Sandinista paper, El Nuevo Diario.
In July of the following year, the
government shut down La Prensa for
two days. Since then it has been forcibly
closed a number of times: five times in
the last three months of 1981 alone. The
Orwellian reason given is that it
"violated freedom of the press." Then
in January 1982, a mob attacked
the paper. Three people were wound-
ed by shots from the paper's guards,
and it was closed again for two days.
A few days later the government
closed Radio Amor indefinitely for
broadcasting a report that the owner of
the station was beaten for having
broadcast a Venezuelan denial of
Sandinista charges that Venezuelan
Embassy employees were plotting
sabotage in Nicaragua.
After declaring a "State of
Emergency" on March 15, 1982
(originally for 30 days, now extended
until January 1983), formal censorship
began. Censorship is used
extensively to harass the press and to
hold back news that the Sandinistas
don't want publicized-including such
straightforward items as the Conserva-
tive Party's announcement that it was
supporting Argentina in the Falkland-
Malvinas dispute (as was the FSLN).
The government even closed the
friendly El Nuevo Diario for a day for
the offense of using the phrase "state of
siege" (reminiscent of Somoza) to de-
scribe the new state of emergency.
In his March Washington Post
article, Jose Esteban Gonzalez said:
"The official Sandinista press
What has happened in Nicaragua
is very grim. There have been
massacres of political prisoners. I
myself with other members of the
Human Rights Commission examined
mass graves at two different sites near
the city of Grenada in October 1979 and
March 1980. Other persons in whose
truthfulness I have full confidence have
witnessed similar evidence at other
sites-and even those who are still in
Nicaragua will so testify. These killings
cannot be dismissed as rash acts of
post-revolutionary anger. They have
continued for over two years-some
occurred within the past few months.
The official number of political
prisoners in Nicaragua now stands at
4,200-higher than the highest figure
ever registered under Somoza. There
have been hundreds of disappear-
ances-although the government
never responds to inquiries about
such persons.
The recent report of Gonzalez's
Commission on Human Rights,
covering the first three years of the
revolution, cites many instances of
torture by the security forces. Minister of
the Interior Tomas Borge admitted the
Sandinista use of torture as early as his
press conference of November 14,
1979, at which he made unredeemed
promises to punish those responsible.
Past and present editors of La Prensa. Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. Sr (left), an outspoken
critic of the Somoza regime, was assassinated by an unknown gunman in 1978 Chamorro
son. Pedro (right), took over as editor Pedro Chamorro Jr has endured even worse
censorship and harassment than his father as a result of the papers independent often cntu:al
stance toward the regime in power
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regulations permit less freedom of the
press in Nicaragua today than under
the 'black code' of the Somoza
dictatorship." In his Washington press
conference in August 1982, Gonzalez
reported that in July Sandinista thugs
beat up Horacio Ruiz, an editor of La
Prensa, and that they attacked Cruz
Flores, a photographer, afewdayslater.
Censorship and harassment of
La Prensa continues. In August 1982,
editorial page editor Humberto Belli
stated that he left Nicaragua for exile in
Caracas because it was no longer
possible to publish his opinions in La
Prensa. Even within the strictures of
existing censorship, he added, the
selection and play of the news angers
the Junta and results in repeated
closings of the paper.
One survey of La Prensa in mid-
August 1982 showed that the Junta's
Office of Communications Media
censored 60 to 65 percent of news
material intended for publication. Most
of the censored news stories related to
confrontations between church and
state, notably reports of violence in the
town of Masaya that differed
significantly from official versions
published in pro-Sandinista
newspapers.
Violeta Chamorro wrote the
following in a letter to "The People of
Nicaragua," which was censored in
La Prensa:
With each passing day, freedom
of the press is found to be more
limited.... But the ultimate limit of this
lack of freedom has occurred with the
letter which Pope John Paul 11 sent to
the Nicaraguan bishops, which on three
consecutive occasions we were
prohibited from publishing. And when
permission to publish was given to us,
they wanted to impose the obligation of
heading the letter with a communique
from the Office of Communications
Media, which besides being insulting
to His Holiness, was false. For those
reasons La Prensa did not publish on
(the 9th, 11th and 12th) of August.
Compromiso en la Dominicana
Arafat se instalarc en Tunez
Different front pages of the August 17 1982 issue of
La Prensa illustrate the impact of censorshsp
imposed by the Sandinistas Two headlines of the uncensored
edition top Violence In Masaya avid The Inadent in the
Religious Schools contrast with the censored version above
approved by the government Pluralism Confirmed Best
Government arid PLO Exit Plan Approved
c3A
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Scarcely three years (after I
entered my homeland at the head of a
new Government of National
Reconstruction) the Sandinista
government, guided by totalitarian
ideologies imported from other
countries far from our history and our
culture, is trying to maintain the concept
that liberty of conscience is
divisionism or ideological war.
It has been my fate to live... during
the greater part of the 45 years in
which we endured the bloodiest
dynasty that this hemisphere has had.
Many of the current leaders had not
yet been born and therefore do not
know the brutal methods used by
Somoza.... But I feel now that I am
reliving that horrible nightmare.
In sum, Nicaragua is not yet as
totalitarian as some other countries with
regard to the press. Independent
media still function, albeit under
tremendous pressures. They
continue, however, to be regarded as
enemies of the revolution, are
censored and harassed, and will be
tolerated only on Sandinista terms.
Political Parties
Nicaragua has five political
parties in addition to the FSLN (which
Daniel Ortega told Chicago Sun-
Times reporter Patrick Oster is not a po-
litical party but the vanguard'' of the
revolution): the Nicaraguan Democrat-
ic Movement (MDN), established in
1979 and headed by Alfonso Robelo,
member of the first revolutionary Jun-
ta; the Social Democratic Party; the So-
cial Christians; the Democratic Con-
servative Party, a long-time opponent of
Somoza; and the Liberal Constitution-
alists. In April 1981, all of the parties
joined in a statement condemning the
Sandinista attacks on political organi-
zations as demonstrating a "decision
of the Sandinistas to set up in our coun-
try a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship."
In November 1980, the govern-
ment denied the MDN a permit to hold
a rally. A mob sacked party headquar-
ters, with police watching; authorities
prohibited publication of the story.
In March 1981, the Sandinistas
blocked a MDN rally and mobs sacked
the houses of some of Robelo's
supporters. In January 1982,the police
cancelled a rally of the Conservative
Democratic Party.
MDN head Alfonso Robelo had to
flee the country in the spring of 1982. He
Alfonso Rohel,
junta rnemher, resigned after nine
month" with the Sanrlnnsta
Director rte tInd has
announced his support Ir,r
Pastora ICornrnander Zero)
A hero in the 1979 revolution. Eden Pastora, known as Commander Zero
resigned as Deputy Defense Minister of the new government and formed an
organization that opposes the current Sandmrsta Junta
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said in an interview on Panamanian
television:
In Somoza's time many of his
opponents, including myself, faced
him openly and decisively .... 1 cannot
return to Nicaragua. It would be
suicidal. I fought from inside, first as a
member of the government Junta...
and later from outside the government,
but always from within the
revolution .... I am a part of the true
Nicaraguan revolution, fighting
against the real counterrevolutionaries
who are now in powerin Nicaragua....
spent two years in Nicaragua fighting
from the plains, denouncing the
Marxist-Leninist leaders, who respond
only to Soviet-Cuban interests. My life
had been so gravely threatened that I
felt that I had already taken enough
risks....
Religion
icaragua is 95 percent
Catholic, with a feeling for the Church
that is closer to that of Poland's than to
that of Italy's. Most of the rest belong to
several Protestant denominations,
notably Moravians, Jehovah's
Witnesses and Mormons.
The Catholic hierarchy, led by
Managua's Archbishop Obando y
Bravo, and the bulk of the clergy, were
an important part of the opposition to
Somoza. Most of the Protestant
churches supported the revolution
as well.
The Sandinistas consider the
Church a threat and have moved to
control it and limit its influence,
although they have been at some pains
to emphasize that they are not against
Nicaraguans practicing their religion.
In July 1982,the government
halted the traditional Sunday television
broadcast of the Archibishop's church
service. Twice mobs have attacked the
Archbishop physically, and his car has
been heavily damaged by mobs.
In August a group of men seized
Father Carballo, spokesman for the
Church hierarchy, and beat, stripped
and paraded him in front of a jeering
mob. They then arrested him, refused
to notify the Archbishop, threw him into
a cell and interrogated him, still naked,
for six hours.
In the same month a mob badly
beat the auxiliary bishop, Monsignor
Vivas. Several opposition "church
groups" occupied the Church of Our
Lady of Fatima to protest the
Archbishop's transfer of a priest who
embraced the "theology of liberation."
A small group of priests, several
of whom are in the government, and
who call themselves the "People's
Church," still support the Sandinistas.
But the hierarchy, led by Archbishop
Bravo, and apparently most of the
priests, have become disillusioned
with the FSLN. But as in Poland, the
freedom of the Church to criticize the
government is limited.
Some argue that the "split" in the
Church is between ecclesiastical
conservatives concerned only with
religion and the hereafter, and those
clergy who believe that the Church
also must be concerned with the lives of
its parishioners. And some officials
have tried to claim that the dispute is
between those who believe the
Church should identify with the poor
and oppressed, or with the rich and
powerful. Tomas Borge has tried to
propagate this view, stating that: "We
have a church of the rich and the church
of the poor."
But this description is false and
divisive. Archbishop Obando y Bravo
and his bishops supported the revolt
against the Somoza regime, and have
remained strongly committed to social
action on behalf of the poor and
oppressed of Nicaragua. They believe,
however, that the Sandinistas are not
truly serving the poor.
Pope John Paul II sent an eight-
page lettertothe bishops of Nicaragua
to express his support for them. He
urged them to continue working for the
unity of the Church in Nicaragua, stating
that it was "absurd and dangerous" to
assert that a "People's Church" should
be organized next to the existing
Church. And he described such a
"Popular Church" as a "grave
deviation" from the will and plan of
Jesus Christ.
Most of the Protestant churches
also have become disillusioned with
the Sandinistas after initially supporting
the revolution. In March 1980, the
government arrested 20 Jehovah's
Witness missionaries from the United
States, Canada, Britain and Germany.
Archbishop Obando y Bravo greets some of his parishioners following a mass honorrnq heroes of
the revolution A long-time foe of Somoza he has suffered from Sandinista violence
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Crowds attend a religious
procession in Masaya, where
violent protests in 1982
hetween anti Sandinista groups
and government supporters
over incarceration of a priest left
several persons dead and injured
Nineteen were deported; security
forces killed one "while attempting to
escape," according to the Ministry
of Interior.
On August 9, 1980, Sandinista
Community Defense Organizations
(CDS) temporarily occupied more
than 20 small churches belonging to
several Protestant groups. The
spokesman for the CDS charged that
the action was directed against the
Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and
Seventh Day Adventists, alleging that
these churches were counter-
revolutionary and in communication
with the CIA.
The Miskito Indians
he Atlantic Coast region of
Nicaragua traditionally had been
largely isolated from the main part of
the country. The 70,000 Protestant,
English-speaking Indians and blacks
who live there, including 55,000 Miskito
Indians, comprise about half the
population of the area. The Indians are
organized in 256 communities with
elected representatives. The people of
the Atlantic largely have kept
aloof from politics in the rest of the
country. They did not support
Somoza. And 115 Miskitos, led by a
member of the Council of Elders,
joined the FSLN, although they left after
a few months because of Marxist-
Leninist indoctrination.
Shortly after coming to power in
July 1979, the Sandinistas tried to
replace the Councils of Elders of the
Miskito communities with Sandinista
Defense Committees. In the first week
of August, authorities arrested a
number of Miskito leaders. The
conflict soon worsened when the
Miskitos grew angry with Cuban
teachers working in a literacy program
who tried to propagate "Marxist
dogma." In October a Miskito leader,
Lyster Athers, was murdered under
suspicious circumstances.
The Miskitos also rejected
government proposals that they felt
would have amounted to confiscation
of their property and given the
Sandinistas the power to select
Miskito leaders. Subjected to
intensifying harassment, some
Indians began moving across the Coco
River into Honduras.
In March 1982,Steadman Fagoth,
the elected representative of the
Miskitos, reported in the AFL-CIO Free
Trade Union News:
While I was in Seguridad Estado Jail
Number 3 in Managua, on March 18,
1981, at seven in the evening Tomas
Borge, Juan Jose Ubeda and Raul
Gordon came to my cell and warned
me that Sandinismo would be
established on the Atlantic Coast,
even if every single Miskito Indian had
to be eliminated. On May 10, 1981, 1
was put under house arrest after having
been tortured for 59 days by the
Sandinistas.
Fagoth was released because he
promised to go to the Atlantic Coast to
try to calm the situation and travel to the
Soviet Union for study. Instead he fled
to Honduras.
The pressure on the Miskitos, and
the movement to Honduras continued
during the rest of 1981. Fagoth states:
"December 27, 1981, there was a
massacre at Leimus. Thirty-five
people were buried alive; some were
dug out by their relatives. One
survivor, a 19-year old named Vidal
Poveda from Waspu, lives today in a
refugee camp in Honduras. On
December 27, 1981, another
massacre occurred in Pilpilia.....
Some investigators who have tried to
confirm reports of such massacres
have found evidence to support the
claims, others have not.
By February 1982, 10,000 of the
55,000 Miskitos estimated to have been
in Nicaragua in 1979 had fled to
Honduras, where about half of them are
living in refugee camps.
The Sandinistas then moved
against the entire Miskito community.
They forcibly removed at least 8,500
Indians from their homes along the
Coco River, leveled their villages and
placed them in new settlements. Many
of them, such as those located at Tabsa
Fry and Sumubila, are more
accurately termed detention camps,
since the inhabitants, after being
marched there, are not permitted to
travel beyond the immediate vicinity of
the camps.
On February 18, 1982, the Epis-
copal Conference of Nicaragua issued
a communique signed by all of the na-
tion's bishops. The communique explic-
itly recognized the right of the govern-
ment to take actions it deems neces-
sary in connection with national de-
fense, but noted that there are "inalien-
able rights that under no circum-
stances can be violated." The bishops'
communique went on to state:
... we must state, with painful
surprise, that in certain concrete
cases there have been grave violations
of the human rights of individuals,
families, and entire populations of
peoples. These include:
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UWA
-Relocations of individuals by
military operations without warning
and without conscientious dialogue;
-Forced marches, carried out
without sufficient consideration for the
weak, aged, women and children;
-Charges or accusations of col-
laboration with the counterrevolution
against all residents of certain towns;
-The destruction of houses,
belongings and domestic animals;
-The death of individuals in
circumstances that, to our great sorrow,
remind us of the drama of other
peoples of the region.
The Sandinistas claim that their
actions are part of a long-term plan to
improve the living conditions of the
Miskitos and to protect them from
"counterrevolutionaries." But the so-
called counterrevolutionaries only
became a threat following Sandinista
repression.
Miskito Indians displaced by the Sandinistas are forced to hve m
resettlement camps which Ihey are not pernutterI to leap , Miskt,? given six hours to (lather their persnnal etiect ,3nI e