rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (02/05/86)
<Dozo meshiagate kudasai!> SENTINEL OF THE PEOPLE'S HAPPINESS ================================== "Last July 1 a man named Alvaro Jose Baldizon Aviles slipped across the border from Nicaragua into Honduras. He was no ordinary refugee. Baldizon was chief of the special investigations commission of Nicaragua's Ministry of Interior. He worked for Tomas Borge, the interior minister and a powerful figure in the Sandinista government. Baldizon had an eye-popping story to tell of massive human rights abuses by the Sandinistas. In September and October, under the guidance of the U.S. State Department, he told it all over Washington." "Citing specific names, dates, and locations, Baldizon disclosed hundreds of murders of peasants, prisoners, Indians, businessmen, and opponents of the Sandinista regime, all of them carried out by Nicaraguan government soldiers or police. Borge personally ordered some killings and whitewashed others, Baldizon said. In 1981 Borge allegedly standardized the practice of murdering political foes by issuing a secret order allowing `special measures,' the euphemism for assassinations. He institutionalized the deception of foreign visitors, appearing before Christian groups in an office with a crucifix, a statue of Jesus Christ, and a Bible. His real office is adorned with pictures of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and copies of THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and DAS KAPITAL. Moreover, Borge was involved in cocaine trafficking, put former criminals in police jobs, and installed Cuban advisers in operational posts. Baldizon also said the Sandinistas were training Costa Rican guerillas and using mobs of young Sandinistas to break up gatherings of political opponents." from "The Sandinista Lobby" by Fred Barnes, a senior editor, The New Republic, 1/20/86, page 11. The following is a summary by quotation of Stephen Kinzer's "Portrait of Tomas Borge," NYTimes, 9/3/85, p A2. Stephen Kinzer is a leading Latin American reporter, and coauthor with Stephen Schelsinger of BITTER FRUIT (Anchor, 1983), a study of the 1954 CIA-directed coup against the Arbenz government in Guatemala: "Tomas Borge is a man of many public identities. Sometimes he appears in battle fatigues. Other times he is dressed as a policeman. At a recent fire in Managua, he turned up in a fireman's suit, complete with rubber overcoat." "Mr. Borge deports priests whenever he deems it necessary, but his official boigraphy lists the Bible as his favorite book. He says he no longer considers himself a Roman Catholic, but he has accumulated a collection of crucifixes that fills an entire room." "In one of his offices, he proudly displays a moon rock presented to him several years ago by a visiting American astronaut. But he also delights in shocking Western visitors by showing them an album of photographs of himself with `my bad friends.' They are figures of the left ranging from Fidel Castro to Kim Il Sung. Enemies view Mr. Borge as a Leninist ideologue determined to impose totalitarian rule on Nicaragua. But he considers himself to be, in the phrase he has had painted on the front of the Interior Ministry building, `Sentinel of the People's Happiness.'" "Door Is Open To The Poor" Borge has an antibureaucratic streak: every Tuesday he dresses in civilian clothes, and is accessible to ordinary Nicaraguans to hear their private grievances; while Kinzer visited him, Borge listened to a disabled veteran, an impoverished biology student, and a ragtag kids' baseball team, and offered assistance. "Be A Priest, His Mother Said" "But Mr. Borge would be the first to acknowledge that being a revolutionary requires more than that. He has been one since his early youth, rebelling first against his mother, who wanted him to be a priest." [The young Stalin was a Russian Orthodox seminary student.] "`I told her that I would not be blackmailed by her gentleness and naivete, and that I was a Communist,' he recalled in a magazine interview years ago." "Now at the seat of power, Mr. Borge is often viewed as among the hardest-line of the nine Sandinista commanders who run Nicaragua. Some say he and his supporters form a power center that rivals the group around the supposedly more moderate president, Daniel Ortega Saavedra." "As Interior Minister, Mr. Borge's domain is vast, and his power within it is all but absolute. In addition to the police and fire departments, he oversses the prison system, the state security and intelligence apparatus, the press censorship office, the customs service and the nationwide network of Sandinista Defense Committees." [The latter seem to function as residential block spy groups, modeled on similar Chinese and Cuban organizations similarly named.] "A Man Of Contradictions" "He also controls elite combat units believed to number about 5,000 men, and is in charge of formulating government policy for the volatile Atlantic Coast region." [Home of the Moskito Indians.] .... He "....periodically imrpisons political activists in isolated cells." "`He told me,' said Enrique Sotelo Borgen, a conservative member of the National Assembly, `that within half an hour after the first American paratrooper lands in Nicaragua, all the opposition leaders will be rounded up and killed.'" "....After studying guerilla warfare in Cuba [one year at a Cuban military school], he became one of the most senior Sandinista leaders." [He's the only surviving founder of the FSLN.] "He [Borge] was tortured by the National Guard, and guardsmen were apparently responsible for the killing of his wife only weeks before the Sandinista takeover in July 1979." "Film Depicts His Ordeal" Mr. Borge has established a filmmaking unit within the Interior Ministry, and as one of its first tasks, he assigned the unit to film a dramatization of how he was tortured in jail. He shows the film to visitors on request." .... "`Originally, the Sandinista Front had conceived a different kind of revolution,' he said. `In ideal terms, it would be a deeply radical revolution, evem at some point reaching the abolition of private property, a revolution within the classically socialist framework.'" "`But reality taught us that in the special condition of Latin America and Nicaragua, this was not possible.'" "Mr. Borge said that in the coming months Sandinista leaders may decide to take `firmer attitudes' toward their domestic adversaries." "`Without a doubt, U.S. imperialism has decided to destroy us,' he said. `This consolidation of revolutionary forces means if we have to hit even those sectors which partially support the revolution, then they must be hit. We have to consolidate those who are ready to die for Nicaragua and its liberation.'" "Like many Nicaraguans, Mr. Borge is a poet. His most famous work is the Sandinista anthem, which has been set to music and is sung before every Sandinista ceremony. It includes the line `We fight against the Yankee, enemy of humanity.'" So who is Tomas Borge? Felix Dzerzhinsky in Managua? A good progres- sive cop, conscientiously doing his duty? Sentinel of the people's happiness? An enemy of humanity? Who is Tomas Borge? Better well-read than Red, Ron Rizzo
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/07/86)
In article <1686@bbncca.ARPA> rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes: > >So who is Tomas Borge? Felix Dzerzhinsky in Managua? A good progres- >sive cop, conscientiously doing his duty? Sentinel of the people's >happiness? An enemy of humanity? > >Who is Tomas Borge? > > Better well-read than Red, > Ron Rizzo The answer is fairly simple, I think. Borge is the last surviving founder of the Sandinist movement. He's a big symbol, and he knows this and plays on it. I doubt his followers will get anywhere after his death, since the Ortegas lean towards collective leadership. Borge is usually regarded as a hard-liner in that he likes to contemplate repressive solutions out loud. But saying what you want to do or what you think the state should do out loud is a positive democratic action, even when what you want sounds hard line. Borge's position is usually one of competing with the bourgeoisie for public attention, and that's a positive democratic action. Putting down opponents verbally is a sign that you recognize their presence and you want to compete with them in public arenas. Those who worry about democracy should worry more about the Sandinists who yak about national unity and national consensus, etc.. They're the ones who when faced with dissent, would rather suppress it than compete against it. I'd be more confident about the future of democracy in Nicaragua if I saw the Sandinistas building more living symbols like Borge who would be successful public politicians, instead of building more successful bureaucrats like the Ortegas. Tony Wuersch {amdcad!cae780,amd}!ubvax!tonyw
rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (02/11/86)
<followup to Tony Wuersch: Tony, don't take any of this personally; there's just something about your political postings that loosens my tongue.> STYLE VERSUS SUBSTANCE Tony Wuersch performs miracles I can't believe. Like his earlier critique of Shirley Christian's NICARAGUA, in which he transformed a purported history of a revolution into an exercise in English Composition (he exposed Christian's rhetorical strategy & noted that some kinds of evidence -- such as interviews -- rather than others prevailed at certain points in the book, & thus disposed of its entire substance: a consideration of style replaced one of facts), he converts the grim words & alleged crimes of a secret police chief into evidence for an open political system. I can't accuse Tony of belaboring the obvious. So let me lay bare Tony's underlying rhetoric & examine the kind of evidence, explicit & otherwise, that he adduces. Tony uses the language & assumptions of pluralism to describe, both inside & outside the FSLN, Nicaragua's current politics & to persuade us of its hopeful direction: "competition", "attention" or publicity, implied interest groups, etc. Yet despite the oft-declared place of "pluralism" in the junta's (phoney) trinity of accomodation with pesky democrats, & despite the strenuous efforts of Nicaragua's genuine opposition to retain even a toehold in the governing of the country, "pluralism" is hardly an appropriate model to explain the contemporary political scene: The regime allows other political parties, but these are often heavily harassed; it permits independent newspapers, but heavily censors them, and controls the TV (radio, too?); it fixed the only national election in 1984; it has packed the junta and the now rubber- stamp National Assembly with its own creatures; and the army and the actual governing body of Nicaragua, the Sandinista National directorate, are appendages of the FSLN, and not public institutions. As for other sources of independent power -- labor, education, other voluntary associations, even part of the Church -- these are largely controlled and manipulated through Sandinista mass organizations, and perhaps also by the security police and paramilitary groups: but these latter means of control remain shadowy, that is to say, we have precious little information about them. My article tried to suggest what may be happening. Specific information on the actual means of physical repression is often among the last disclosures to be made in the exposure of a totalitarian regime; Cuba's a good example. If Tony's implicit account of political diversity was meant to apply only within the FSLN, nevertheless pluralistic diversity hardly describes a power struggle between factions of an authoritarian revolutionary elite; the FSLN is not the GOP. Tony draws a non sequitur when he assumes that such conflict parallels the diversity of an open political system by necessarily accruing to society's benefit. To get specific: > Borge is the last surviving founder of the Sandinist movement. > He's a big symbol, and he knows this and plays on it. So Borge is a kind of harsh-spoken "old bolshevik", is unlike the other commandantes, & is a "symbol", larger than life; thus he's relatively harmless if nevertheless quaint. But Borge is MUCH MORE than a symbol, & his very real power looms much larger than even his would-be legendary personage: he is chief of the police & fire departments, of the secret police, of press censorship & customs, of the prisons, and of state intelligence and the Sandinista residential block committees. > I doubt his followers will get anywhere after his death, since > the Ortegas lean toward collective leadership. Borge may be the oldest commandante, but he's not that old. And why expect hardliners to fade once Borge dies? In fact, of the 3 most powerful commandantes, 2 are hardliners (Borge & Bayardo Arce, head of the army; Humberto Ortega's the 3rd). Between them Borge & Arce monopolize the means of physical coercion, control most of the surveillance apparatus & some of the propaganda organs. > Borge is usually regarded as a hard-liner in that he likes to > contemplate repressive solutions out loud. The other commandantes do so silently? :=( Given Borge's awesome powers, why treat even his public statements only as indications of aspirations & not also of current actions? Would the Ortegas oppose such actions, or merely Borge's teasing public hints about them? At times Tony himself seems to imply that junta members differ only in personal style & not in general aims & programs. > But saying what you want to do or what you think the state should > do out loud is a positive democratic action, even when what you > want sounds hard line. It ain't necessarily so! The candor of a powerful comissar doesn't imply any freedom of speech or political openness. And Borge's wishes don't merely "sound" hard line; they are hard line, if the phrase has any meaning. > Borge's position is usually one of competing with the bourgeoisie > for public attention, and that's a positive democratic action. Who are the bourgeoisie? La Prensa, the now powerless nonleftist political parties and business organizations? They can no longer mount an opposition worth noticing. Why would chief cop Borge need to compete against enfeebled opponents publicly, verbally? If Borge competes against anyone, it's against the other commandantes. If he plays to an audience, it's to international public opinion, as do the other junta members (whom he perhaps tries to upstage with his sardonic gallows humor): the Sandinistas have astutely realized its importance in gaining for themselves the needed time and freedom to consolidate their power. Borge may simply be sharp enough to realize that since early in the century a kind of knowing & candid cynicism has been fashionable on the left (eg, Trotsky), perhaps an extension to weak-kneed colleagues of "epater le bourgeoisie", and that such intellectual sadism appeals to a definite segment of left opinion & feeling; as an obvious sadist himself, he'd easily understand the psychological dynamics involved. > Putting down opponents verbally is a sign that you recognize their > presence and you want to compete with them in public arenas. Or that you're targeting them ("recognize their presence") for destruc- tion ("compete....arenas")? The soviets (Lenin, Stalin, etc.) have long recognized the importance of preceding physical attack with a verbal, ideological one. Lenin was always verbally aggressive & abusive toward opponents (except when in coalition with them), even when he was supreme: such behavior was no index of his opponents' power. (See Solzhenitsyn's GULAG and LENIN IN ZURICH for Lenin's verbal violence.) > Those who worry...like the Ortegas. [Ie, devious bureaucrats like > the Ortegas are greater dangers to democracy than blatant hardliners.] Tony has it exactly backwards. Borge & Arce have direct access to the means of suppression; the Ortegas don't. Borge IS a successful politician, not because he's outspoken, but because he has real power: guns, cops, & prisons. In Tony's haste to "interpret" facts, that is, to deny them their obvious import, their weight, & see them only as expressions of institutional dynamics or the rhetorical situation of commandantes, Tony is blind to how the words & deeds of a powerful junta member actively shape, & not merely reflect (& then only obliquely), the character of the FSLN & thus the fate of Nicaragua. Loquaciously yours, Ron Rizzo
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/13/86)
In article <1697@bbncca.ARPA> version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ubvax.UUCP version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA ubvax!cae780!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!wanginst!bbncca!rrizzo rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes: ><followup to Tony Wuersch: Tony, don't take any of this personally; > there's just something about your political postings that loosens > my tongue.> I don't, at all. Ron and I seem to read with different eyes and different ears. Which doesn't disturb me too much, since I've always thought reality, to use Pinter's phrase, "isn't firm ground. It's more like quicksand." >STYLE VERSUS SUBSTANCE > >Tony Wuersch performs miracles I can't believe. Like his earlier >critique of Shirley Christian's NICARAGUA, in which he transformed >a purported history of a revolution into an exercise in English >Composition (he exposed Christian's rhetorical strategy & noted that >some kinds of evidence -- such as interviews -- rather than others >prevailed at certain points in the book, & thus disposed of its >entire substance: a consideration of style replaced one of facts), There were more important facts about Nicaragua, in my opinion, than were contained in Shirley Christian's ideology. I thought mentioning that her account omitted these was a important point to make. The book had a facade of objectivity, and it's useful to note how these facades get constructed. >he converts the grim words & alleged crimes of a secret police >chief into evidence for an open political system. I can't accuse >Tony of belaboring the obvious. It turns on whether one thinks those words were essentially public bull**** or were official enunciations of policy. I think they were bull****, Ron thinks they were serious. I agree that if they were seriously capable of being implemented, Borge's statements would be more worrysome, and my belief that substantial debate does occur in Nicaragua would sound more like Reagan's statement that the Philippines has a thriving 2-party system. I believe Borge's words lack punch because first, as Americas Watch points out, people are happy to denounce the regime and the entire system for international press attribution -- doesn't say much for the fear people have of Borge's KGB. Second, because Nicaragua is an itty bitty little country that has cut off all the reasons its neighbors might have to tolerate it, to the point where everybody is looking to see if Western gunslingers like Borge really have any bullets. If he does, they'll run him and his regime out of Nicaragua. So I conclude he doesn't. >So let me lay bare Tony's underlying rhetoric & examine the kind >of evidence, explicit & otherwise, that he adduces. > >Tony uses the language & assumptions of pluralism to describe, both >inside & outside the FSLN, Nicaragua's current politics & to persuade >us of its hopeful direction: "competition", "attention" or publicity, >implied interest groups, etc. Yet despite the oft-declared place of >"pluralism" in the junta's (phoney) trinity of accomodation with >pesky democrats, & despite the strenuous efforts of Nicaragua's >genuine opposition to retain even a toehold in the governing of the >country, "pluralism" is hardly an appropriate model to explain the >contemporary political scene: The system's too young for me to give it a name like "pluralist". I've said in an article some time ago that one can't draw good long term conclusions from governments in the middle of a war. As far as genuine opposition is concerned, the Sandinists have opposition from the left and from the right, which didn't refuse to participate in the election, which was given ample time on TV and in the press to campaign, and which I don't think Ron should be calling non-genuine. >The regime allows other political parties, but these are often >heavily harassed; it permits independent newspapers, but heavily >censors them, and controls the TV (radio, too?); it fixed the only >national election in 1984; it has packed the junta and the now rubber- >stamp National Assembly with its own creatures; and the army and >the actual governing body of Nicaragua, the Sandinista National >directorate, are appendages of the FSLN, and not public institutions. >As for other sources of independent power -- labor, education, other >voluntary associations, even part of the Church -- these are largely >controlled and manipulated through Sandinista mass organizations, >and perhaps also by the security police and paramilitary groups: but >these latter means of control remain shadowy, that is to say, we have >precious little information about them. My article tried to suggest >what may be happening. Specific information on the actual means >of physical repression is often among the last disclosures to be >made in the exposure of a totalitarian regime; Cuba's a good example. I think we've got lots of information about everything there. Nicaraguans of all stripes are all too willing to declare their hopes and fears to foreigners, pro and anti Sandinista. The government still controls less of the economy than many Western European nations. As far as controls of the media were concerned, the government did not censor the statements of candidates for elections. >If Tony's implicit account of political diversity was meant to apply >only within the FSLN, nevertheless pluralistic diversity hardly describes >a power struggle between factions of an authoritarian revolutionary >elite; the FSLN is not the GOP. Tony draws a non sequitur when he >assumes that such conflict parallels the diversity of an open political >system by necessarily accruing to society's benefit. Ron puts words in my mouth, since I don't think the Nicaraguan system is completely open. Just as the West German government feels fine in banning the Nazi and Communist parties, the Nicaraguan government thinks it should ban the contras, for the same reason as the West Germans: these parties threaten the survival of the postwar state. I don't think the contras are the Nicaraguan form of the African National Congress. I also don't think the openness of a political system is the only measure of how much conflict within a political system promotes its legitimacy. The question to me is if the issues seriously discussed span a full range of popular opinion. I think they do in Nicaragua, more or less. >To get specific: > >> Borge is the last surviving founder of the Sandinist movement. >> He's a big symbol, and he knows this and plays on it. > >So Borge is a kind of harsh-spoken "old bolshevik", is unlike the other >commandantes, & is a "symbol", larger than life; thus he's relatively >harmless if nevertheless quaint. But Borge is MUCH MORE than a symbol, >& his very real power looms much larger than even his would-be legendary >personage: he is chief of the police & fire departments, of the secret >police, of press censorship & customs, of the prisons, and of state >intelligence and the Sandinista residential block committees. Maybe Ron has a model of Sandinism where high Sandinists act like warlords jealously defending their right to do anything they please on their assigned turf. My impression is that all significant decisions are made by the Sandinist directorate as a whole. The country is small enough that substantial delegation to bureaucratic departments such as those run by Borge is not necessary, and is not done. The very real power of Borge is his influence on the Sandinist directorate, no more or less. And there he is alone in his generation. That's what collective leadership means. No independent warlords. >> I doubt his followers will get anywhere after his death, since >> the Ortegas lean toward collective leadership. > >Borge may be the oldest commandante, but he's not that old. > >And why expect hardliners to fade once Borge dies? In fact, of the >3 most powerful commandantes, 2 are hardliners (Borge & Bayardo Arce, >head of the army; Humberto Ortega's the 3rd). Between them Borge & >Arce monopolize the means of physical coercion, control most of the >surveillance apparatus & some of the propaganda organs. I do worry about Arce, and I expect a power struggle once the contra war ends regarding his continued usefulness. >> Borge is usually regarded as a hard-liner in that he likes to >> contemplate repressive solutions out loud. > >The other commandantes do so silently? :=( Given Borge's awesome >powers, why treat even his public statements only as indications >of aspirations & not also of current actions? Would the Ortegas >oppose such actions, or merely Borge's teasing public hints about >them? At times Tony himself seems to imply that junta members differ >only in personal style & not in general aims & programs. > >> But saying what you want to do or what you think the state should >> do out loud is a positive democratic action, even when what you >> want sounds hard line. > >It ain't necessarily so! The candor of a powerful comissar doesn't >imply any freedom of speech or political openness. And Borge's >wishes don't merely "sound" hard line; they are hard line, if the >phrase has any meaning. Again, the comissar analogy is not valid, since Nicaragua is an itty bitty country very sensitive about its public image. As far as "if the phrase has any meaning", the answer is it depends. >> Borge's position is usually one of competing with the bourgeoisie >> for public attention, and that's a positive democratic action. > >Who are the bourgeoisie? La Prensa, the now powerless nonleftist >political parties and business organizations? They can no longer >mount an opposition worth noticing. Why would chief cop Borge need >to compete against enfeebled opponents publicly, verbally? If Borge >competes against anyone, it's against the other commandantes. If he >plays to an audience, it's to international public opinion, as do the >other junta members (whom he perhaps tries to upstage with his sardonic >gallows humor): the Sandinistas have astutely realized its importance in >gaining for themselves the needed time and freedom to consolidate their >power. Borge may simply be sharp enough to realize that since early >in the century a kind of knowing & candid cynicism has been fashionable >on the left (eg, Trotsky), perhaps an extension to weak-kneed colleagues >of "epater le bourgeoisie", and that such intellectual sadism appeals >to a definite segment of left opinion & feeling; as an obvious sadist >himself, he'd easily understand the psychological dynamics involved. Nobody believes that "now powerless" means "forever powerless" in Nicaragua. It's not that stable -- I admit, this is another judgment. >> Putting down opponents verbally is a sign that you recognize their >> presence and you want to compete with them in public arenas. > >Or that you're targeting them ("recognize their presence") for destruc- >tion ("compete....arenas")? The soviets (Lenin, Stalin, etc.) have >long recognized the importance of preceding physical attack with a >verbal, ideological one. The Soviet Union was not an itty bitty country sensitive about the opinion of big mean nasty countries nearby. >Lenin was always verbally aggressive & abusive toward opponents (except >when in coalition with them), even when he was supreme: such behavior >was no index of his opponents' power. (See Solzhenitsyn's GULAG and >LENIN IN ZURICH for Lenin's verbal violence.) I agree with this judgment, since Lenin addressed few public forums, but only those of his party. (Citing Solzhenitsyn as "proof" ...?) That's not the way things work in the Western press and world, and that's not how things work yet in Nicaragua. The USSR has left Nicaragua officially to the US to handle, like the US leaves Poland to the USSR. >> Those who worry...like the Ortegas. [Ie, devious bureaucrats like >> the Ortegas are greater dangers to democracy than blatant hardliners.] > >Tony has it exactly backwards. Borge & Arce have direct access to >the means of suppression; the Ortegas don't. Borge IS a successful >politician, not because he's outspoken, but because he has real power: >guns, cops, & prisons. The warlord analogy again. It's not so. >In Tony's haste to "interpret" facts, that is, to deny them their >obvious import, their weight, & see them only as expressions of >institutional dynamics or the rhetorical situation of commandantes, >Tony is blind to how the words & deeds of a powerful junta member >actively shape, & not merely reflect (& then only obliquely), the >character of the FSLN & thus the fate of Nicaragua. > > > Loquaciously yours, > Ron Rizzo The simple, uninterpreted, truth is usually propaganda or rhetoric. (here, maybe? ) Tony Wuersch {amdcad!cae780,amd}!ubvax!tonyw