Rural workers march for land, work & justice the party, accusing the Ortega leadership of
"Stalinist" methods and calling for a renewal of Sandinismo. Ramirez and other historical
FSLN leaders (notably Dora Maria Tellez, of
/ stature) established the Movilegendary miento de Renovacion Sandinista (MRS). On March 17th the Movement of demonstrators are expected to The MRS complained of lack of internal democracy in the FSLN, and of government by pact between the elites, particularly of collusion between Ortega and Antonio Lacayo, Chamorro's Presidential Minister:2
The FSLN majority on the other hand accused the MRS of moving too far to the right in seeking further accommodation to Chamorro's neo-liberal policies, and of not supporting the 1993 transportation workers' strike.? The split began to surface in the May 1994 special FSLN Congress, which ratified the Ortega leadership and gave his Democratic Left current a majority, and placed Sergio Ramirez and his tendency in a minority. On October 25, the conflict spread to the party newspaper Barricada, whose MRS-affiliated editor was sacked. The FSLN majority described this policy as reimposing party discipline, while the MRS charged it smacked of "authoritarianism" and the "orthodox left." Ernesto Cardenal resigned from the party at this point, claiming that Ortega had kidnapped the party to further his own political ends. Pressures in a uni-polar world
Under Chamorro, the Sandinista army was reduced from 96,000 troops in 1990 to 21,000 in 1992 and 15,250 by 1993. Its budget dropped from $177 m. in 1990 to $36.5 m. in 1993. In a 1991 interview, "The Army will not be the armed wing of Sandinismo," General Humberto Ortega asserted that peace and foreign funding would not have been achieved had his brother been elected, and said he was 100% commited to Chamorro's economic plan.
In July 1993, the Sandinista Army attacked an incursion of dissident Sandinista combatants in Esteli, in a context in which General Ortega wanted to show the U.S. and UNO critics that the military was independent of the FLN and supportive of the Chamorro government. The FSLN National Directorate severly criticised General Ortega. Pressure from Senator Helms and the U.S. government pushed Chamorro to remove General Ortega and replace him with Joaquin Cuadra in February 1995. The Ejercito Popular Sandinista was renamed; it is now called the Nicaraguan National Army.
The 1994 split led to ironic twists and turns: while the FSLN majority (Izquierda Democratica) charged that the MRS was making a classical social-democratic orientation, Daniel Ortega chose Juan Manuel Caldera as his running mate for the 1996 elections. Caldera is not a member of the FSLN, but is rather a member of the Supreme Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), the main organisation of Nicaraguan capitalists and was a virulent opponent of the Sandinistas in the 1980s. Ortega's choice of running mate was interpreted by many Nicaraguans as signalling a turn to the right, further accommodation to bourgeois in-
Landless Rural Workers (MST) began a march for Agrarian Reform, Jobs and Justice. Marches from Sao Paulo, Governador Valadares (Minas Gerais state) and Rondonopolis (Mato Grosso state) will converge in the federal capital, Brasilia on April 17th, one year to the day since 19 peasants were massacred in Eldorado de Carajas (Para state), a crime for which the landowners responsible have still not been tried
About 600 landless workers joined the Sao Paulo march, which is marching at 20km/day on its 1,000 km route to Brasilia. The march is supported by the Workers Party (PT), the CUT trade union, the Catholic Church and a range of popular organisations. Wherever it stops, the march is greeted warmly. confirming that the demand for agrarian reform is supported by the vast majority of Brazil's poor. Tens of thousands of terests, a desire on the part of the Sandinistas to place themselves further in the "mainstream" in an increasingly neo-liberal, unipolar, imperialist-dominated new world order. In other words, Ortega and the FSLN were actually carrying out in 1996 what they had derisively accused the MRS of proposing during the 1994 Sandinista Congress.
In this context, the 1996 election results are not very surprising. The severe social crisis plaguing Nicaragua was associated by broad layers of the population with the Chamorro government AND with the parliamentary majority made up of 39 Sandinista legislators and 15 UNO "moderates". There is considerable concern about the corruption and enrichment of a layer of the FLN Widespread cynicism prevails on the viability of struggling against the neo-liberal agenda and IMF-World Bank dictates. There is, in addition, the omnipresent fear of a return to war. Alemán's supporters "hammered home the warning that a Sandinista victory would mean a return to the years of war and economic collapse." 2 Meanwhile, Daniel Ortega chose a capitalist as his running mate. Faced with this choice, the Nicaraguan electorate voted for the wholesome capitalist ticket of Alemán/Bolanos, who are perceived as having greater access to international funding and better prospects of obtaining foreign aid. Cynicism concerning graft among politicians and even about the corruption of the Sandinistas is reflected in the phrase, reported in the press, that "Alemán also steals, but at least he's efficient!" " Sandinista candidate Victor Hugo Tinoco said the Sandinista programme had only differences of shading from the Liberal Alliance free-market strategy of economic re-activation by encouraging foreign investments." 24 In a race in which the Liberals' message was "restoring production"
welcome the marchers at a rally in front of the National Congress building in Brasilia on April 17th.
The MST march is a protest against the impunity of those who terrorise and even murder rural workers who demand their basic rights, a protest against the government's irresponsible treatment of the land reform question, and a protest against the neo-liberal economic policies of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso
This is the first major protest against the present federal government.
According to the MST, Brazil has four million landless families, waiting in tents for the government to fulfil its various obligations and promises towards them. The movement is intensifying its occupations of unused farming land and plantations, which it sees as the only way to create real land reform. [JD] * and the Sandinistas the "search for a productive consensus," the Liberals were perceived as less linked to Chamorro's policies than the Sandinistas, and with better possibilities of obtaining credit to restore production. Who is Alemán?
Alemán receives financial support from Jorge Mas Canosa, leader of the Miami antiCastroists. His father was an official in one of Somoza's governments. In 1980 Alemán spent nine months in jail for counterrevolutionary activity. In the 1980s he was head of Managua's coffee growers' association and later of the national coffee growers association. In 1990 he ran for mayor of Managua through the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, a splinter from the National Liberal Party, Somoza's party.
As mayor of Managua, Alemán built a classic patronage machine and utilised public works projects to distribute jobs and economic favours. The Cuban-American Foundation supports Alemán through the Nicaraguan Foundation for Development and Democracy, a conduit for Miami funding. NFDD dealings in Miami are handled by Alemán's agent Byron Jimenez, who allegedly participated in Somoza's death squad, Mano Blanca. The NFDD serves as an intermediary for many Miami companies with contracts in Managua.
Alemán's backers have called for restoring properties acquired by Sandinistas in La Piñata to the pre-revolutionary owners. This threatened a return to unmitigated Somocismo. The principal stumbling blocks in the path of such outright oligarchic restoration are the Nicaraguan army and the IMF/ World Bank, which prefer stability over a flare-up of struggles over property." Before the elections, Ortega called upon Alemán to agree on a "pact of governability" with
April 1997 #287 15
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