rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (02/18/86)
[ Reproduced without permission. ] from the Boston Globe, 2/17/86, p 15. THE SANDINISTAS' WRECKAGE by Edward R. F. Sheehan First of four articles [ remaining 3 appear in Globe on suceeding days; I'll post them all.--RR ] SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- "NI SE VENDE, NI SE RINDE": "Neither sell out, nor surrender" is the Sandinista slogan. After a month in Honduras, a week with the CONTRAS, and five weeks inside Nicaragua, I can only conclude, NI REAGAN, NI SANDINISMO. If Reagan is wrong, that does not make the Sandinistas right. They are both wrong. Nicaragua today is tragic -- partly due to Reagan's pressure, but as much the Sandinistas' own fault. They maintain the myth of a mixed economy, but in truth they control nearly every sector of public life. Their experiment in collectivism and state capitalism has ruined the economy. In Somoza's time the Nicaraguan cordoba sold seven to the dollar. When I arrived in Managua in mid-December, it sold on the black market 800 to the dollar. When I left in late January, it was selling for 1220 to the dollar. The cordoba has become essentially worthless -- today in Nicaragua, paradoxically, only dollars count. The poor -- whom the revolution was supposed to redeem -- suffer most of all. But to know Nicaragua one must get out of the capital city of Managua. I visited much of the country -- from the departments of Granada in the south to Jinotega in the north -- talked in Spanish with hundreds of Nicaraguans, from richest to poorest, and was saddened by what I heard and saw. Leon, for example, the nation's second city, the seat of many fabulous churches that evoke a rich ancient culture, is falling apart from neglect, mismanagement and misery. Food and clothes are scarce or prohibitively costly for the poor. The main hospital is dirty and lacks antibiotics and other essential medicines. Water and electricity are often shut off. The streets swarm with begging children, unemployment is high, and most of the population lives in squalor. The Sandinistas have built housing, but by most accounts it is reserved for the party faithful. Such conditions prevail everywhere throughout Nicaragua. In the country- side, despite Sandinista attempts at land reform, state cooperatives and collective farms fare poorly because high inflation and low prices for bsic foodstuffs provide the peasants with few incentives. Soviet-bloc tractors break down; spare parts for remaining American-built tractors are scarce. [ What happened to all the grants of land made from some of the big estates to campesinos during the early '80s? Were they only a prelude to collectivization? If so, Nicaragua is agriculturally headed toward becoming a classic Communist society.--RR ] The private sector faces destitution. In theory, both state cooperatives and private farms negotiate their prices with the government, but in practice all prices are decided by the ministries in Managua. For coffee -- the nation's major cash crop -- in Ocotal and Matagalpa, for example, the government pays a private grower 9,000 cordobas per quintal (about 100 pounds), plus $5 as an incentive, a total of $15 at best, then sells the coffee abroad for $200 to $250 per quintal. The state pockets the enormous difference. Still, Nicaragua's export earnings since the fall of Somoza in 1979 have dropped by more than half. The middle class (backbone of any prosperous economy) is being wiped out, and increasingly the poor -- the vast majority -- are disaffected. The regime -- save for the few who benefit from it -- has become deeply unpopular. The few who benefit are the privileged Sandinistas, particularly the comandantes. They live not only well, but high on the hog, with access to the best houses, the most expensive whiskey, and dollars where they buy the latest luxuries at the SUPERMERCADO INTERNACIONAL. They -- like their models in Russia and the Eastern bloc -- are the New Class. [ Com- plaints about comandante corruption & high living have been coming in for at least 3 years now; apparently nothing's changed.--RR ] Human rights? The Sandinistas have no death squads, but the regime is repressive and growing worse. Officials of the independent Permament Commission for Human Rights estimate at least 5,500 political prisoners, detained without due process and often psychologically or even physically tortured. The highest church officials told me that the number of poli- tical prisoners is considerably higher. Pro-Sandinista Americans in Nicaragua turn a deaf ear to all such serious accusations, and blame all on Reagan. They are misguided zealots. To be fair, it must be said that Nicaraguans still generally speak with candor. Political prisoners are selectively chosen to intimidate dissenters, but so far the tactic hasn't silenced them. The regime has innoculated most Nicaraguan children against disease and raised literacy among the poor. But even education is drenched with Sandinista-Marxist doctrine, and the gains in health are being negated by the ruined economy. The standard answer of Sandinista officials to these sorry facts is that Nicaragua is at war, that nearly half of the nation's resources must be spent on defense -- against the contras and "Reagan's aggression." There is some truth in this argument, but in the end it is a pretext and does not convince. As a writer widely traveled among third-world socialist regimes of the Mideast, Africa and beyond, it seems to me that the Sandinistas have learned nothing from the mistakes of their peers, and are committing the same blind errors and abuses as the Castros and Nassers of this world. They have alienated the most vital sectors of their people; the rich are growing poor, and the poor are abandoned in their suffering. Nicaragua's deepest tragedy is to be governed by incompetent colonels. ************************************************************************* Edward R. F. Sheehan, novelist and a winner of the Overseas Press Club Award, is a former fellow of Harvard's Center for International Affairs.