CENTRAL AMERICA
A new power
International Viewpoint # 231 • June 22, 1992 nal for the region.
The group Las Entendidas will soon have been in existence for five years; it has encouraged the birth of another organization, Las Humanas. These two groups have had the courage to organize the second
MARCH 22 to 27, 1992 saw the first meeting of women from
Central America and the Caribbean in Montelimar,
Nicaragua under the slogan "a new woman, a new power".
More than 500 women took part, peasants, academics, unionists, artists, fighters, Black, White, Native, from
Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Costa Rica and Belize.
ANNE DURIEUX
HE THEMES dealt with at the meeting illustrate the high level of development of the Central
American women's movement.
While it does not in its majority define itself as feminist - rather as a movement pursuing demands specific to women - it is becoming increasingly feminist both in terms of its practice and its discussions.
A whole series of intensely "political"
themes were addressed, including the strategy the women's movement should pursue, myths and realities of feminism, participation in mixed organizations, the effects of war and neo-liberal policies on women, the situation of refugee and displaced women.
Other themes, hitherto taboo, also aroused great interest - domestic violence, domestic labour, power relations in the family, prostitution, homosexuality and heterosexuality, as well as the creativity and spirituality of women.
Endemic social injustice
Most of the region's women's organizations are highly influenced by the endemic social injustice and poverty, war and violence, and (apart from Costa Rica) the lack
Most of the associations were initially formed in response to pressing needs, for survival, to defend human rights or as part of mixed unions and parties. However over the years these groups have challenged their lack of independence.
In Honduras for example, the women's organizations arose from the struggle for political rights, often in the union milieux, before coming together to form the Federation of Women's Organizations in 1951.
These women's groups were formed in the fight for a return to constitutional government, and it is only in the past five years that organizations taking up women's rights have been set up.
The rapprochement between these orga-
20 nizations, union groups, Catholics, Native groups, academics and managers took place in two ways.
On the one hand, a permanent women's forum has been set up to work out concrete proposals for the women's commission of the National Assembly - for example to reform the Family or Labour Code and on the land reform.
On the other, several seminars have been organized, as well as a national meeting on the need to work in a unitary manner and
In Guatemala, apart from the women's organizations closely tied to the popular struggle or concerned with the struggle for survival, there are two longer standing groups, of widows (Conavigua) and of the families of the disappeared and political prisoners (the GAM — Mutual Support Group), which are made up in their majority of Native women who have only just begun to think about specifically women's
It is rare to come across women who call themselves feminists - those who do are to be found above all in the cities and universities. The only association calling itself feminist in Guatemala is Terra Viva.
A symbol of struggle
The figure of Adelaide Foppa, a poetess and co-founder of the review Fem, who was assassinated at the start of the 1980s, is a symbol for the struggle of Guatemalan women. Rigoberta Menchu, the tireless peasant revolutionary of Quiche, has explicitly stated her opposition to feminism.
Costa Rica has some features that set it apart in the region, including relative (if declining) prosperity, an absence of armed civil conflict and a well-known democratic tradition.
These factors go some way to explaining the particularly long standing nature of the women's movement as well as its strength and independence and rather more clearcut feminist character. The existence of two organized lesbian groups is also exceptio-
Latin American and Caribbean meeting of lesbian feminists in 1990.
Despite government repression - the interior minister prohibited women from entering the country during the meeting — it was something of a success.
Las Entendidas, Las Humanas and other lesbians were the "stars" of the meeting in Nicaragua. For the first time in Central America the taboo subject of lesbianism was openly addressed in three seminars which had to be repeated to meet the inter-
In the space of five days, the women who came to the meeting believing that lesbianism was a horrible hormonal disorder or a mental disease and certainly a mortal sin were convinced that, if you don't have to be Black to fight against racism or have been raped to oppose rape, you don't have to be a lesbian to defend freedom of sexual choice.
Before leaving they promised their solidarity to lesbians and their hopes to inspire a more profound discussion of the issue of patriarchy in their countries.
The other "stars" of the meeting were the delegations from Nicaragua and El Salvador. The women from Nicaragua had at the start to endure fierce criticism from certain elements in the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Women Militants (AMNLAE), tied to the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), who denounced them as "petty bourgeois" and accused them of betraying the people's struggle.
In the end, however, some AMNLAE leaders took part in the meeting along with many women FLN activists.
No easy models
A lot of the region's women arrived in Nicaragua hoping to find a model, but the Nicaraguan women pointed out that experiences cannot be exported. Their contributions underlined the need for real political, economic and ideological autonomy for the women's movement.
The defeat of the FLN in the 1990 elections was an important lesson; after a period of doubts and confusion, many women have begun to take advantage of what seems to them to be increased and new freedom to re-establish an independent personal life and do more women's work, no longer out of party duty but from conviction.
Women had begun to ask questions concerning power structures and rank-and-file democracy which brought them under the influence of feminism.
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CENTRAL AMERICA / 500th ANNIVERSARY
June 22, 1992
The climate of confidence and the energy of this meeting inspired some women to talk for the first time and with great sincerity about the machismo inside political organizations and among male comrades in arms, about sexual harassment and rape in the guerilla armies, as well as the drama involved in being a woman suspected of being a lesbian in the maquis.
The memories were heard in silence by the Salvadoran women who would clearly have liked to have shared their own. For the latter the issue of autonomy in relation to the organizations of the left and especially the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a burning one.
All the Salvadoran women's groups are in one way or another products of the left and the FMLN. Initially formed to recruit women and to organize tasks for the companions of militants - support for the struggle and collection of funds - some of these groups are still closely controlled by political parties and sometimes even have male officials.
At the same time some women and groups have questioned this situation for several years and sought to win more independence.
### Intellectual autonomy needed
But, as participants in the seminar on autonomy - mostly Nicaraguans and Salvadorans — pointed out, organizational and even financial autonomy are not enough. Also needed is intellectual autonomy, and this is the most difficult to achieve.
However, the Sandinista defeat in Nicaragua and the signing of the peace agreement in El Salvador, as well as the questioning of socialism occasioned by the disappearance of the Soviet Union, have led many Salvadoran women to challenge organizational and political principles which have been dominant for more than 12 years.
One Salvadoran woman explained that to take one's distance from the party was like becoming an orphan. However, many women asked: "what should you do when the FMLN completely forgets women during negotiations or in the project of national reconstruction and democratization?"
At the moment Salvadoran women's cies. One of them focuses on developing entails.
The new Women's Cooperation is part of this current. It brings together in a flexible and open form more than 25 organizations of all kinds and organized the preparation of the first national meeting and the participation in the Nicaragua meeting.
On the other side is the Coordination of Women's Organizations (COM), which brings together the four longstanding women's organization, all of which are closely linked to political parties. However there have been efforts to bring the two groups together, above all on the part of
In order to establish unity before the 1994 elections, allow women to have an input into national political life and deepen their analysis of the patriarchy in their country, the Salvadoran women agreed, after much hesitation, to organize the next continental feminist meeting in El Salvador, probably in November 1992.
Five basic requirements identified
The Montelimar meeting brought together women with different outlooks, and saw genuine discussion in which views changed. Five basic requirements for organizing a Central American women's move-
Firstly, it is necessary to look at the context in which this movement has developed and its links with the class struggle. This link is both a strength and a specific feature that must be taken into account.
The absence until now of a real impact by the women's movement on political life can be explained by lack of unity which, in its turn, is a result of a lack of an overall project that could form the backbone of united action. And this flows from the absence of ideological autonomy — the winning of which is one of the big chal-
Finally, the working out of a unifying project, requires mechanisms which allow the whole richness of the Central American experience to be integrated.
There has to be space for all the very different social experiences to be expressed, in order to build a women's movement that can take root among peasant women and women in the popular neighbourhoods, which can seek out the Native and Black roots common to all Central Americans, as well as the religious faith which merges into a revolutionary faith. *
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