NICARAGUA the Soviet Union in 1986 had been used by the Salvadoran Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) in November 1990 to combat helicopters supplied to the Salvadoran army by the United States. 1° The Soviet foreign ministry publicly declared that it expected the Nicaraguan authorities to put a stop to such acts.
To get out of this impasse, the EPS leadership imprisoned four Sandinista officers who had given arms (without any material gain to themselves) and 11 Salvadorans. Furthermore, in a communiqué on January 1, 1991, the EPS accused Joaquín Villalobos, the FMLN leader, of having organized the transfer of the missiles.
On January 4, 1991, a declaration added: "this small group of officers, blinded by their political passion and guided by extremist arguments, have injured military honour and infringed the loyalty of the institution and its commander, which is equivalent to an injury to the sacred, patriotic and revolutionary interests of Nicaragua".
The missiles crisis came as a big shock and disgusted many Sandinista militants who put their duty of international solidarity at the top of their scale of values. The Sandinista youth and the FNT have denounced the EPS stance and that of the FSLN leadership who supported it. The decision of the EPS to condemn internationalist servicemen has deepened the crisis in that institution's ranks which started in August 1990 when Colonel Pichardo, head of the airforce, and also held responsible for giving over-zealous help to the FMLN, was dismissed.* any case, would eat up enormous resources, criticized internationally and become the central subject of negotiations. The doctrine of a war of the whole people was put on ice, awaiting the invasion, while the professional army was never able to totally fight the counterrevolution....
The Interior Ministry developed in another framework and ensured the immediate and direct confrontation with the Contras. It set up the Pablo Ubeda special troops which, with those of the State Security, dealt rapid and hard blows to the counter-revolution and infiltrated ranks of the enemy rearguard. This irregular struggle achieved successes and led to the creation of the Battalions of Irregular Struggle (BLI), the Light Rangers (BLC) and finally the Small Units of Special Forces (PUFE).
The EPS has continued to make its main
Strategic defeat and tactical victory priority the defence of national sovereignty.... In order not to too much affect the sensitive structures of the army, it was necessary to have recourse to military service: thus an administrative solution was given to a strategic problem.
It is estimated that only 40% of the
THE document published below is taken from Nicaragua desde
Adentro, a bulletin produced by an important role they were not efficient enough and did not get adequate training....
youth who went into the army, went willingly — the rest were compelled - and this had its effect on fighting efficiency...
Furthermore the demobilized youth - militants of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) close to Tomas Borge. It puts forward the view that the fact that Contras had neither demobilized nor surrendered was one of the main reasons for the Sandinistas electoral defeat on February 25,
Contrary to the experience acquired during the long years of the guerilla struggle against Somoza's Guard, the EPS confronted the counter-revolution with regular methods of strug gle. The Contras, who were at that time only at their beginnings, would have been more vulnerable to special units - all who identified much more with the revolution after their military service — ended up swelling the ranks of the unemployed; this meant a loss of potential cadres for the FSLN.
Seeking direct negotiations with the USA
In 1987 people began to talk about the
1990. It was first published in July
1990.
DOCUMENT
A FTER the revolutionary vic-
tory, an army was set up to protect our frontiers and defend national sovereignty and not — as in the past — for the purposes of internal repression. The army had a popular character - its cadres were formed in the guerilla struggle against the
Somozist dictatorship and it thus had a clearly defined class character.
Knowing that the United States would not accept the existence of a popular revolution...the Sandinista People's Army
(EPS) became a regular force to defend the country against foreign invasion. At the same time, Popular Militias were created: their main task was to confront the counter-revolution which was beginning to get organized in Honduras. The 14 main burden of the militias fell on the • workers and students: while they played International Viewpoint #205 • April 29, 1991 the counter-insurrectionary manuals recommend this. The EPS expanded to the point where it had too many tanks - in a nonoil producing country; it had a sophisticated anti-aircraft system, designed to fight against modern aviation, but of no use at all against Contra raids; it became an army of professional cadres, trained for the most part in conventional techniques.
Even if a danger of a confrontation with US forces existed, it would be illusory to believe that a Third World army, even if very well equipped, would be able to fight a successful conventional war. If there had been a war, there would have been massive air bombardment, which, without doubt, would have destroyed the EPS' heavy ground troops land.
Some say that, in such a situation, there should be a people in arms that could be led by the professionals of the EPS and which would inflict heavy losses on the invader. A man with a rifle, well dug in and preparing an ambush would be much more efficient in the long term than bulky and sophisticated technology which, in strategic defeat of the Contras. This was true in the sense that the latter had no chance of taking power through arms; but the Contras remained one of the main forms of pressure financed by the US in its low intensity war and they already had an important social base in the country. The FSLN persisted in its desire to establish direct negotiations with the United States, and refused any dialogue with the Contras. But insofar as the Esquipulas peace process advanced, the possibility of negotiating with the US receded and pressure for bilateral negotiations with the Contras became stronger.
1988 saw an endless spiral of unilateral concessions by the Front, which ended up with openings to the right, on the backs of parts of the popular sectors; inflation reached 34,000%. The popular sectors were no longer active. They had become the objects of supra-structural political and economic decisions; the revolution began to weaken.
In 1988, after the Sapoa negotiations with the counter-revolutionary leaders, the EPS hit the Contras with operation Danto 88; this would have been hard to push back if the harassment had contin-