Nicaragua:
How the defense against the
"eyes and ears of the revolution."
Every neighborhood committee organizes night watches on a voluntary basis. This is to prevent counterrevolutionary activities, but also to combat theft, drug abuse, prostitution, and illegal gambling.
Maintaining the night watches is one of the tasks every CDS does. Such guards also function in middle and upper class counterrevolutionary attacks is being organized contrarrevolucionario
MILES DE OJOS
CDS neighborhoods, where the activity of the CDS is not so inspiring. private property to defend.
On the social level, the CDS have a lot of tasks. They take part in the mass vaccinations against polio, among other diseases, and in adult education, which is important to follow up the literacy campaigns carried out earlier.
The CDS are also involved in giving out building sites for the new housing
They organize voluntary work for building schools, repairing roads, and installing electricity and water.
The basic necessities of life are not rationed in Nicaragua today, but there is no
VICIL ANIA REVOLUCIONARIA Comite de Defensa Sandinista
Speculators could have a field day. To block speculation and assure access to the basic necessities, the CDS have begun to organize their own distribution network.
"Thousands of eyes are watching you, 24 hours a day' (DR)
Mats TINNERWALL and Ulf JUNGMAR bute building materials if the local people
MANAGUA - "La soberania del pueblo! La lucha sigue!"
"Popular sovereignty! The struggle will do the work themselves. The school committee calls on everyone to volunteer for work.
The meeting is interrupted as a truck drives up in front of the community cen-
In the suburb of Carlos Fonseca Amador, one of the families has taken on the task of distributing the necessities. People in the neighborhood can go to them and buy rice, beans, maize, maize oil,
This is also a way of keeping up the level of real wages. The CDS check to see slogans echoed through the ter. walls of the newly built community center in the suburb of Carlos Fonseca Amador, named after a murdered leader of the Sandinistas.
Friday, the CDS (Comites de Defensa Sandinista - Sandinista Defense Committees) hold a meeting in the area.
Representatives have come here from committee in the town, sixty to
The meeting begins with the national
Then, there is a minute of silence in honor of four people from the area who died recently in batttles against the counterrevolutionaries along the Hon-
The names of the four are read, one by one, and after each name the crowd
The participants in the meeting are sitting on benches along the wall. area coordinator is standing behind a half-wall and chairing the meeting. He is talking about hitting back against imperialism, about the need to defend the revolution. About half the participants are women. Some children are playing on the floor.
There are some important points to be discussed this evening. The school in the area is a big problem. According to the compulsory education law, 1,200 children should be going to school. But the only available building will hold just a few hundred.
The state does not have the economic means to build a school, but can contri4
A loudspeaker broadcasts slogans against U.S. imperialism. Some boys sitting in the back of it answer. They have enlisted in the reserves and are going up
The last point on the agenda deals give heated speeches saying that everyone should join the militia. question is asked: How many of those at the meeting cannot enlist in the militia. Only one hand goes up.
A lot of people sign up during the meeting, but after two hours discussion a lot of the faces look tired, and the children have gone to sleep. The discussions are very quiet. Things do get heated at one point, when the question comes up whether drugs should be allowed at the town festival. The meetings ends with a revolutionary song.
The town of Carlos Fonseca Amador is only a year old. Most of the people living there lost their old homes in floods. There is a great enthusiasm for developing the town and an immense determination to defend the revolution. The CDS are the political instrument the people have for participating in the work of building a new Nicaragua.
The main task today is to strike back hard against the counterrevolution and imperialism. The threat from the north is palpable.
In Managua, you see gigantic posters with the slogan, "Remember, Counter-revolutionaries, half a million eyes are watching you!" The CDS are called the that the prices set by the government are
The CDS's role in military defense is to campaign to persuade people to enlist in the militia. It is hard to get exact figures of how many are involved in military defense (the army, the militia, and the reserves), but the number of 800,000 is being cited, out of a total of 3 million people in the country. All military defense is based on voluntary participation, but there is no problem in finding people to take up weapons.
How did the CDS acquire this role as one of the pillars of the Sandinista re-
The insurrection against Somoza was a people's uprising, not a clearly socialist workers rebellion. In the civil defense committees that preceded the CDS, all opponents of the dietatorship were organized, workers as well as bourgeois, although of course the workers took the
In today's Nicaragua there are several conditions that make the CDS the underpinning of the revolutionary process. There is a revolutionary government and a mass defense out of the control of the bourgeoisie. But at the same time there are no workers councils, and the bourgeoisie continues to run a large part of industry.
The situation in Nicaragua is complicated. But there is no doubt about one thing. The CDS are of crucial importance in giving people a chance to influence the development of the revolution.
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