Bitter disappointment
Daniel Ortega runs pro-capitalist campaign
Women in movement
Six hundred women from 27 organizations met in Mexico City in the first week of October in the National Assembly of Women in
Transition to Democracy, one of the largest and most important women's meetings since the Mexican women's suffrage movement of the 1930s.
The Mexican media call this one of the most important such meeting since women won the vote in 1958. The women, representing all the major political parties, women's and feminist organizations, and women workers and peasants groups, adopted a "National Women's Agreement for the Transition to Democracy."
The convention was held with the understanding that feminist radicals would not raise the abortion issue, which would drive out the delegates of the National Action Party (PAN) and some other delegates as well. Lesbian issues were also on the taboo list.
The assembly's final document called for affirmative action for female representation in the political parties. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) both recently adopted new statutes calling for 30 percent minimal representation of women in both party posts and for candidates for general elections.)
The women's "National Agreement" also called for improvements in the social security system, the right to housing, and protection of the environment. Women's Workers Rights
Many of the women's demands deal with labor issues. Women called for recognition in the Gross National Product of the unpaid domestic work done by women, for adherence to the standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations (UN) regarding the protection of motherhood, and the suppression of the sex trade in women and children. The group demanded equality of rights for all people regardless of sex, and equal pay for men and
The women's assembly asked the National Commission of Minimum Wages to create a committee to analyze the minimum wages of women, and raise them. The assembly also demanded an end to employers requirements that women prove they are not pregnant in order to be hired, and for an end to the practice of firing women for pregnancy. Source: MLNA, 16 October 1996.
by Pierre Sylvain
SANDINISTA LEADER DANIEL ORTEGA BENT over backwards TO reassure the right of his democratic and responsible intentions. The former FSLN President of Nicaragua made such a display of good manners towards the
USA and his conversion to the market economy that the media gleefully reported that the former guerrilla had "renounced any kind of revolutionary project."
The problem is that Ortega wasn't pretending. His electoral campaign reflects the steady evolution to the right of the FLN (Sandinista) leadership since they lost power
Six years ago, the Sandinistas left power with their heads held high. They knew that they had been defeated because of the weary, ten year war against the US-backed contras. Economic disruption and heavy human losses had beaten down the resistance of the Nicaraguan people, otherwise attached to the Sandinista revolution which overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.
In 1991, the FSLN Congress revealed a widespread commitment to continuing the struggle: to defend the gains of the revolution from the parliamentary opposition, and through the trade unions and mass movements. There were many strikes against the counter-reforms of the new government of
Indignant voices at the Congress demanded to know the truth about the piñata — the frantic wave of privatisations and transfers in the final weeks and days of Sandinista government. Ortega, who as President had allowed, even encouraged these measures, later claimed that he had acted to ensure that the FLN controlled sufficient resources to continue the struggle.
Other militants protested the corruption and personal gain of leading Sandinistas, and pointed to the ease with which the right and the media could now point to the Sandinista leadership as a privileged caste of red busin-
Mexico/Nicaragua * essmen, more concerned with fluctuations in the rate of inflation than stagnation in wages and abuses of the people's liberties.
Bad as the piñata was for FSLN image and morale, it is not the main reason why
Ortega, and a large part of the Sandinista leadership, now embraces capitalism.
At the 1991 Congress, and again at the
1994 Congress, Daniel Ortega mobilised the militant base of the party to consolidate his personal authority, and neutralise the opposition. Particularly the current around
Sergio Ramirez, president of the FSLN Parliamentary group. Ramirez, who demanded a
"clarification" of FSLN policy — at that time characterised by a mixture of critical support for the Chamorro government against attacks from the far right, and resolute commitment to struggles against the neo-liberal policies of the same government.
Several months later, Ramirez left the
FSLN. Following a crushing defeat in these latest elections, the future of his "Movement for Sandinista Renovation" is uncertain.
The collapse of the USSR, and the brutal reversal in the balance of forces in central America also took their toll on the San-
Salvador's FMLN laid down its arms and negotiated "peace" accords in conditions which could only lead to its splintering and demoralisation. The Guerrilla movement in Guatemala is hardly doing any better.
In the face of such a depressing scenario, the Zapatista revolt in southern Mexico was not enough to reassure Sandinista leaders that there was still an alternative to neo-
Nicaragua's new president is the rightist candidate. Arnoldo Aleman. He preaches tolerance and national unity to rebuild the country, but he is effectively the prisoner of those who made possible his victory. In particular, Miami-based business circles dominated by former supports of the Somoza dictatorship, and virulent opponents of the Cuban Communist leadership.
This is the 'hard' right which the Sandinista's tried to outflank with their overtures to the Chamorro government, and by Ortega's conciliatory electoral campaign. He even chose a representative of the COSEP Entrepreneurs Organisation as Vice-
Despite its drift to the centre, the FLN still won the votes of all those who understood that the best way to struggle against the contnuation of the austerity programme was to prevent the election of Amoldo Aleman. But this is unlikely to provoke a change in the policies of a party in which Ortega has effectively neutralised and marginalised op position. Looks like time to go back to the source of revolutionary Sandinismo. *
December 1996 #283 15