Fourth Internationalist leader who was also in Nicaragua in this period.
Frede JAKOBSEN
MANAGUA - A boiling, seething, dancing sea of humanity - that is what downtown Managua was like Sunday night [November 4]. The city exploded in a frenzy of triumph. The first election results had not yet been announced. But what the hell.
No one had any doubts about who had won the elections. It was the FSLN, the Sandinistas.
From all over the city, people streamed toward the new, gigantic Carlos Fonseca Square.
From the big loudspeakers on the platform, there was a roar of popular samba tunes, varied once by Carlos
There was very little beer or drink was banned for the whole of election day. But nonetheless there was in-
People were drunk on vic-
Could anyone still say that the
Sandinistas do not have the people's
A display of festive fireworks lit up
It had started already at noon, when people started to gather at the Sandinistas' main campaign headquarters. Since then, the bangs had continued almost without letup - it was as if the war had come to Managua. The people were in no hurry to go home
Monday had been made an official holiday, with full pay.
It took time to count the votes for president and vice president and for the ninty-member national assembly. But the vote in a single election district in Managua already gave a fairly good indication.
Here the FSLN got 75%, or 150 votes.
The conservative PCDN came in second with 50 votes; the liberal PLI, third, with
15 votes. The others got 10 votes or less.
The PLI had in fact decided to withdraw from the elections, after heavy pressure from the US embassy, which had put
For one night, the intoxication of victory drove away the dark clouds. many people as there were in the streets Sunday night, there had been more a few days before. Last Thursday, the Sandinistas ended their election campaign with a giant rally in Carlos Fonseca Square.
Some 400,000 persons took part, the Sandinista daily, Barricada, wrote the day after. According to El Nuevo Diario, an independent daily that supports the Sandinistas, it was 300,000.
The CIA's mouthpiece in Nicaragua, the reactionary La Prensa, claimed that there had been nothing special. On the other hand, the paper printed a picture of two children at a bar with FSLN eyeshades and raised a hue and cry about it.
But there were a lot of people there. Thousands streamed into Managua, from the most distant neighborhoods, from the many factories along the Carretera del Norte, the road to the
The day after, the rally was broadcast
Sandinista TV station. The program ended with a panorama shot of the square, under the caption, "If this isn't the people, where are they, then?"
Se siente, se siente, Daniel es presidente ("You feel it, you feel it, Daniel is president") the crowd chanted at the FSLN leaders. Spirits were high, but the 'We are people who live from the land...' (DR)
been harassed by American warships and planes. The warships off the coasts had moved closer to Nicaragua.
Two days before, contras had attacked a peaceful rural town in the north, San Gregorio. They bombarded it with mortars. The first shell hit a house where six children were sitting and eating their breakfast. They were all killed on the spot. This ruthless attack, like so many others, brought the war home to the people in the north. But it is not always such an immediate thing for the people in Managua.
Barricada and El Nuevo Diario, of course, had full reports of the attack, with pictures of six small bodies. But La Prensa did not write a word about it.
The fact that the war is not always such an immediate thing in Managua gave Ortega's speech special force.
"We have to make sure that they don't catch us unawares. The US's criminal actions will cost them dearly. We will be able to put up the sort of resistance necessary to defeat the American invasion, no matter how much time it takes us. We will prepare to fight with bullets, with machetes, with stones, with anything we can get our hands on — to fight until we have driven them out of Nicaragua."
It was a grave speech, a speech that sobered the crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. A few days later, the FSLN won the elections. Now the vote is over, but the threat from the US is more immediate. Now the preparations are continuing for meeting an invasion.
CHERE I DEL MA SONG the heat on all three bourgeois parties.
TEL AIKE NO SOMOS PECES
But a lot of PLI members opposed the party leadership and continued the campaign over the final two weeks.
And the
CSE - the Supreme Board of Elections —
HOMERES PARA VIVIR DE LATIO decided that those candidates that did not agree with the party leadership could
A lot of them remain on the ballot.
wanted to do that. And that forced the
PLI leadership at the last minute to alter its decision and stand as a party.
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International Viewpoint 26 November 1984
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sW We
"We found out later from the comandante that these atrocious weapons have also been used further up north.
"There was a time when there was
'We don't sleep in Esteli's Frede JAKOBSEN
ESTELI - Just before we reached Esteli, we saw the first sign of stepped-up preparedness. A helicopter was flying over the city. As we drove into the city along the Pan-American Highway, the cars were checked. The reason for this alertness was clear enough. The 'Esteli Plan' has been known for some time. It is a scheme by the contras to take a large town, Esteli, to show that they are worth the pay they get from Uncle Sam. Out in the mountains around Esteli, 3,000 con-
Not only are the voluntary militia and the military ready. watch groups are also on the alert, all over the country but especially in Esteli.
We are touring the poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of Esteli. It is hot. But that is not why people are standing or sitting outside their homes. They are on the lookout for anything strange in the neighborhood. In the outlying neighborhoods, the vigilance network is very extensive. The committee members patrol the neighborhood at night with arms. And further outside the there are command posts with
Gloria Castillo is the leader of the vigilance committee in this district. She knows everybody, and everybody knows her. She is a vivacious and very popular 42-year-old woman. She looks older. Her life has been hard. She is blind in one eye. She has to wear glasses in order to see with the other. It was only after the Sandinista victory in 1979 that she learned to read and write.
In a house with a dirt floor, she looks hanging there of her two sons. She lost
One died in the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. other fell later in the fight against the
She still has her husband and a daughter or two. It is hard to find out who belongs to the house and who is just dropping in.
"We have war on one side and aggression on the other," she says. see yourself, we can also have a good time. Our sense of humor never fails us.
"There are contras around the town, and naturally they want to come in. But we never sleep in Esteli. Women and men, everyone is ready. That's why the neighborhood defense committees have
That's not necessary down in Managua."
"Is is easy to get people to do guard
"When there's peace and quiet, we sleep soundly at night. But when there's International Viewpoint 26 November 1984 aggression like now, we are all on the alert. People come in on their own. Of course, not all of them get weapons. We the people and who should not have weapons.
"Now, when the contras are putting on the pressure, there has been an influx of people that has surprised even me, from twelve-year-olds on up. don't give guns to twelve-year-olds or elderly people. We look after them, the same way we look after our revolution. Instead we have them look after the still younger children or the still older people, prepare food for others, and so on."
"What sort of effect does it have on people in the town that there are about 3,000 contras out there?" I asked
"Obviously, some people are nervous. That's mainly the people who are not organized in some places. We are not
"At the moment, we are facing more of a threat here than we were after the US invasion of Grenada a year ago. We feared an invasion at that time. We dug trenches around the town."
Gloria has been politically active for eight years. She has quite a clear idea of who the contras are. She hardly needs any more experience.
*The contras are mercenaries, totally run by the CIA. They kidnap men and women here in the countryside. They put some of these people in their units and call it a civil war"
She has no doubt about the fact that the Nicaraguans are facing a powerful enemy.
"The contras' weapons and all their equipment is a lot more sophisticated than ours. And in general we are short of weapons. We have a lot more men and women to defend the city than we have weapons for. On the other hand, we have something the contras don't have. We have a cause to fight for. That gives us enough courage and will to fight."
While CHoria is talking, the TV is blaring a broadcast of Nicaragua's national game, baseball. It seems unreal that the war is only a few kilometers away.
"We stop a lot of people on guard duty," Gloria says, "but we see quickly whether they are contras or peaceable
Gloria gets more excited when she starts to talk about the latest atrocities by the contras and the CIA.
started dropping toys and pencils from the air. When the children pick them up, they explode in their
They are filled with American explosive material. So far, fortunately, there have not been any too serious accidents here.
weariness, when people did not join in the activities," Gloria says. "For five years the Sandinista government has trusted the people. And the people have trusted the government. But they have not always been active. In this situation, it has been different. There has been support. Both we and the government want peace. But we are obliged to wage war in order to get peace."
Gloria tells about contras who accepted the government's offer of amnesty if they laid down their arms and came
Gloria and a lot of other mothers of soldiers killed in the fighting were very unhappy about the offer of amnesty. "Why should we forgive them? killed my two sons. We discussed this with the government. And we became convinced that we should not think just about ourselves and our feelings. We have to think about the revolution as a whole. Our revolution is a generous one."
We went down to an old store that functions as a headquarters for the armed night patrols. Most of the people there are youngsters. Some of them are so small that their guns are almost bigger than they are. They do not get weapons until they are 14 years old, but some of them look younger than that. And some of them are still younger. They do guard duty, but without weapons.
"It may be that some of the contras will come into the city, but one thing is sure, if they come in, they will not go out again."
Wilma Olivas coordinates the guards in this neighborhood of 2,500 inhabitants.
"We are all Sandinistas here," she says. "If they take this neighborhood, they'll kill us all.
"What went on in Somoza's time was dreadful. We don't want to go back to that. They'll never force us to our knees. It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
"The people here are organized on a house-by-house basis. We have a big army," she says.
We go back into the city.
Gloria reports that the defense committees in Esteli, unlike many other places, are not new. They were started during the insurrection.
"But then it was with different sorts of weapons. We used what we had at hand - sticks, machetes, stones and molotov cocktails."
"No pasaran," they say in Esteli, "They shall not pass."
The people in Esteli mean it. they know what they will face if there is a serious attack. Esteli is a heroic city. Somoza bombed it three times. That was only five years ago. member the sea of fire in the center of town. They can remember all the dead. And they want to maintain the liberty that cost them so many sacrifices.