[Marxism] Nicaragua: Ortega Vows to Bury "Wild Capitalism"

[Mike Friedman]

Jarquin's vp candidate is Carlos Mejia Godoy. His brother is Luis 
Enrique Mejia Godoy. Both are well-known singers/songwriters, as is 
their nephew, the pop singer Luis Enrique.

It's hard to say which of the two Sandinista tendencies would be 
"better." I'm not there and my wife's family totally rejects 
"Danielismo," so unless I take the time to actually look up 
information, that's the only viewpoint I get. Beyond the well-founded 
accusations of sexual abuse against Ortega, he is deeply resented for 
his autocratic rule within the FSLN and his personal enrichment at 
the expense of the people. Nevertheless, his stabs at neoliberalism 
are on target.

The question is, what would he do about it? What will he do about 
"capitalismo salvaje"? He has affirmed in the past his acceptance of 
foreign investment and IMF-imposed austerity measures . His hands are 
certainly tied by the porosity of the Nicaraguan economy and the lack 
of a viable social movement to confront imperialism, although the 
latter is the product of his own manipulative, autocratic and 
caudillistic approach to politics. Social movements that have arisen 
over the past years have been instrumentalized to enhance Ortega's 
clout and parliamentary horse-trading, and then dissolved when they 
were no longer needed, or they have been attacked as ultraleft. Two 
cases in point being the mass mobilization that took place around the 
last election and the movement by impoverished farmworkers against 
pesticide poisoning two summers ago.

Three factors *favor* (as opposed to determining) Ortega and the FSLN 
following an anti-imperialist approach that favors the masses.

First, the FSLN's historic trajectory and the continued existence of 
a (much-diminished) social base among the masses, which could 
potentially generate some pressure on the FSLN to act in line with 
its rhetoric and in line with popular expectations, which is the 
second factor. Ortega's words about the effects of neoliberalism 
resonate with much of the working masses, who have born the brunt of 
the imperialist re-penetration of their economy, making Nicaragua the 
second poorest country in the hemisphere. These broader masses -- 
Sandinista or not -- would expect the FSLN to comply with its mandate 
and trajectory, and would exercise pressure on it to do so, pressure 
that the pro-imperialist parties are not similarly subject to, 
precisely because they are not the FSLN. That, by the way, is the 
reason Washington hates the FSLN so much. The third factor is the 
alignment of forces in Latin America. It's clear that Washington 
totally rejects Ortega, while Ortega has aligned himself with Chavez. 
Even if this were mere rhetoric by a man looking for allies, Chavez' 
assistance could only help improve the living standards of 
impoverished Nicaraguans and favor the re-emergence of movement from 
below.

On the other hand, the current U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, 
combining elements of blackmail and fear-mongering, is aimed, 
precisely, at exacerbating the principle traumas and fears of the 
Nicaraguan people from the Sandinista period: the war, the economic 
blockade and the draft. Yesterday, on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman 
interviewed Vilma Nunez, former head of the Nicaraguan Human Rights 
Commission and the country's first female judge. She pointed out that 
U.S. intervention in Nicaraguan politics has been a constant 
throughout its history, but it has never been so blatant as it is 
now. The effects of this intervention should not be underestimated, 
but there is potential for it to become a two-edged sword that will 
turn against the U.S. The Nicaraguan people have a longer historic 
memory than people in the U.S. They are a stubborn people and reject 
imposition (ask my wife...). A single spark could cause that resolve 
to gel.

As for Edmundo Jarquin and his running mate Carlos Mejia and all of 
the excellent Sandinistas who formed the MRS, their intentions are 
good, for the most part. I should point out that Jarquin as head of 
the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo was largely responsible for 
implementing the IMF reforms in Nicaragua. The MRS, under Lewites, to 
my way of thinking was way too fixated on the FSLN, to the extent 
that it met with the U.S. envoys that have gone to Nicaragua over the 
past couple of years in order to discredit Ortega and failed to 
denounce their repeated interventions. I don't know if this has been 
true of late. The MRS and its electoral allies are probably not too 
different from the FSLN in terms of electoral program (although the 
MRS prominently rejects the FSLN's "pactismo" with the Liberals). 
They count on many prominent Sandinista stalwarts, but they don't 
have the resources the FSLN does, the name, the social base or the 
history. What they will do is allow Eduardo Montealegre and his 
pro-imperialist liberal-conservative alliance win the election. Were 
I Nicaraguan, I would urge the MRS to support Ortega in the first 
round. Were I Nicaraguan, I would have to agree with my 
brother-in-law -- a former FSLN militant, but now virulent critic of 
Ortega -- and vote for the FSLN as the lesser evil. In Nicaragua, 
that counts for something.

If readers are interested in following these developments somewhat 
more closely, they can go to the Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diario's 
website at: http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni


>Message: 6
>Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:10:31 -0700
>From: "Walter  Lippmann" <walterlx at earthlink.net>
>Subject: [Marxism] Nicaragua: Ortega Vows to Bury "Wild Capitalism"
>
>In 1981 and 1983 I visited Nicaragua for two-week stays. The first
>time it was at the invitation of the FSLN, the second it was with a
>group of U.S. leftists led by the then-leftist Marc Cooper. I'd just
>been expelled from the U.S. Socialist Workers Party and wanted to see
>what was going on there for myself. Lots of things have changed since
>then. Now, Danial Ortega is running for yet a third time for the
>presidency after his 1990 defeat, and all of the media are saying
>he's got a very good chance of being re-elected.
>
>They've even dredged up Oliver North who has been in Nicaragua
>campaigning against Daniel Ortega. North's line is to oppose "foreign
>intervention" in the country. He's referring to Venezuela and Cuba,
>of course, but it takes one to know one and it was North who
>organized the contra war inside Nicaragua in the 1980s along with
>Luis Posada Carriles.
>
>Neither of these reports tells about the campaign of the other
>Sandinista trend, which had been headed by the former Managua mayor,
>Herty Lewites who died during the campaign. His running mate, Edmundo
>Jarquin moved up to run for President, and the famous folk singer,
>Carlos Enrique Mejia Godoy, who's also the father of the well-known
>U.S. military resister Camilo Mejia. Everything I've been hearing
>from my friends who've either travelled to Nicaragua or who are now
>working there tells me that Jarquin and Mejia Godoy would be the best
>of the candidates, but that they have little money and, like the
>Greens and the other alternative candidates in the U.S. are pretty
>much excluded from the coverage in the corporate capitalist media.
>In Nicaragua, Jarquin and Mejia Godoy are being reported in the media,
>and they are a serious electoral force, from what I hear.
>
>It's really difficult to tell from far away in Los Angeles what could
>possibly be going on in Nicaragua itself. Most of us can recall the
>polls and nearly everyone predicting Ortega would be re-elected in
>1990, just before he was defeated. (Think "Dewey Defeats Truman",
>that so-famous 1948 Chicago Tribune front page banner headline.)
>
>There must be at once annoyance within the country that Washington's
>ambassador, along with Oliver North who brought Nicaragua the Contra
>war, and Congressman Dan Burton have been campaigning against Ortega
>in Nicaragua. On the other hand, Ortega's having been charged with
>sex abuse by his step-daughter, and his electoral and parliamentary
>alliances must stoke deep feelings of distrust and cynicism in the
>Nicaraguan public. This is mostly guesstimation on my part, but I'm
>sharing it anyway. I certainly hope that Jarquin and Mejia Godoy of
>the Sandinista Renovation movement are the only ones opposing the
>steps being taken in the congress to repeal the limited abortion
>rights Nicaragua has had since the end of the 19th century.
>
>
>Walter Lippmann
>Los Angeles, California.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_election,_2006
>================================================
>

-- 
Michael Friedman
Doctoral Candidate in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior
City University of New York

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