Nicaragua Notebook

12/19

Nicaragua: La Lucha Sigue

Sandino stands watch

I. Notebook

During the 1980’s, as my plane neared Managua the pilot would dramatically announce “Bienvenidos a Nicaragua Libre!” And as the plane touched down on the tarmac, the passengers would burst into applause. Today the plane just lands. That’s it.

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Our original 1983 Task Force had been profoundly moved by the experiment in living liberation theology that was Sandinista Nicaragua. The Christian Base Communities were combination Bible Study/Reflection and support groups and also building blocks for revolutionary community organizing. I was anxious to see what had happened to them in the intervening years. We met with leaders of one Base Community, one of only four remaining in that neighborhood. His brief summary of classic liberation theology was certainly a theology I could agree with. But it was disappointing to hear the leader describe the voices of opposition to the Ortega regime with a predictable litany of words like trouble makers, criminals, anti-social hooligans, foreign agents, etc.…More than a little disturbing to hear his wife confide to the person sitting next to her the her husband had been responsible for the removal of Auxiliary Monsignor Silvio Baez to Rome. 

Hoping for a deeper dialogue, I described to our speaker that as his country was painfully divided, so was ours. I asked how people of faith could reach out to those who were in disagreement and create dialogue, perhaps even understanding. He responded that they knew where their opponents lived and that “…we can visit them and explain to them where they are wrong and persuade them to change…”

It was as if the Base Community had become a neighborhood enforcer for the government. Nicaraguan friends generally agree that the Base Community movement has become simply an arm of the regime.

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I had also wondered what had happened to el Consejo de Iglesias Evangélicas Pro-Alianza Denominacional (CEPAD). Originally formed as a way to organize the Evangelical community’s response to the 1979 earthquake, CEPAD had in effect become the Protestant Council of Churches in Nicaragua. It became both a connecting link with the Protestant community through a series of denominational mission partnerships (including the PCUSA) and an ecclesiastical network in solidarity with the revolution. Founder and coordinator of CEPAD, Dr. Gustavo Parajon, was a doctor, mission worker and mediator who had worked tirelessly to facilitate reconciliation with indigenous Atlantic contra groups and other parties in conflict. What was CEPAD’s role today?

After a Bible study based on Ecclesiastes, we celebrated birthdays and talked about the conflict. While more nuanced than our conversation with the Base Community leaders, it was clear that CEPAD participants were uncomfortable with criticism of the Ortega government and primarily saw their role to be in solidarity with the regime. Although still providing some important basic services, CEPAD does not appear to have any vital or creative role in the current political situation.

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The Nicaragua Commission on Truth, Justice and Peace was established to establish  the facts of the political violence in Nicaragua and create a way forward. Death totals have ranged from somewhere between 300 and 600 and over 3000 injuries. The energy of the commission as presented to us seemed to be concerned mainly with establishing an accurate number of bajas with not much being said about processes for reconciliation. The commission has been criticized for its essentially pro-government makeup. It had been hoped that highly regarded priest Father Uriel Molina might bring an objective voice to the process. But his comments have not been encouraging. In February he was quoted a saying  that people in Nicaragua “owed” the “advantages in this country” to the revolutionary ideals that “live on in Commander Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.” (Father Molina was receiving an award during our visit.)

The InterAmerican Council on Human Rights has also raised concerns about the Amnesty processionals announced earlier this year by Mr. Ortega essentially freeing any police or military personnel from charges stemming form the mani duro response to the protests. 

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Overheard in the passport line at Augusto C. Sandino airport. Two businessmen, one Canadian, the other American (US). Both own houses in Granada and businesses in Managua. And spend half of each year here. One says to the other he has just returned from six months away. ‘So..you missed the …the…” says the one. “Yes” says the other. “ I find it best not to have an opinion on such matters.” “I agree” the other responds…

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A visit with US embassy officials also raised a number of questions.  For all intents and purposes, Mr. Ortega had reached a workable place for himself. Internationally, his leftist anti-imperial rhetoric kept him in good stead with the progressive left community. (A wide thoroughfare has been renamed for Hugo Chavez and ends with a a large portrait of him surrounded by Rosario's arboles de vida. )

Hugo Chavez y los arboles

He had manipulated the constitution in such a way to virtually quarantine any efforts at democratic opposition and electoral or legislative vulnerability.  He had made peace with and was in alliance with the domestic and international business communities and the economy showed (comparatively) decent growth in a Chinese style authoritarian capitalist economy. Enough benefits were falling to the poorest of Nicaraguans so as to keep opposition to a minimum. Peace had been made with the church with his old nemesis Cardinal Obando y Bravo performing a Catholic wedding for Daniel and Rosario.  The most stringent anti-abortion laws in Latin America and been passed.   Even a modus operandi with the US had been reached. Despite its heated rhetoric (part of the “triangle of terror” for example…), the US greatest concern is stability. And that was working. Why throw all that away in responding to protests over changes in Social Security? 

The mano duro response has led only to greater and more wide spread protests, the erection of barricadas and tranques, international condemnation and US sanctions. There are wide ranging speculations, many involving Ms. Murillo, Ortega’s wife and effectively co-President. But no clear answers.

Now Ortega has created a widespread opposition. He’s lost the church again, with Ortega claiming to having discipled himself and Rosario  to a Neo-pentecostal preacher. He’s lost the artists with revolutionary popular musicians  like the Cardenals and Mejias in exile and unable to return. Broad based Nicaraguan expat groups organize in the US.  A US embargo has been put into place.  In response Ortega has doubled down with house to house block to block investigations. He has reportedly promised to arm his people to defend his revolution. And one of his sons has apparently claimed to be the reincarnation of Sandino.

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For every scar on a wall

There's a hole in someone's heart

Where a loved one's memory lives

Bruce Cockburn

in the museum

On the University of Central America Managua campus, a pop up “memory” museum has been created by the Mothers of April Association (AMA), the mothers of children who were killed during the April protests.

Love and do not forget

There’s an intimacy to the exhibit, the items on display selected to portray the lives of those who were killed. Favorite t-shirts, hats, shoes. Photographs. Backpacks. Unique and personal items.

in memory

in the museum

A sense of profound sadness at what… and who...has been lost.  Mothers are present to tell their stories. Perhaps most disturbing are photos of the protests and videos showing turbas (gangs) with black and red bandanas over their faces brutally beating students. The slogan of the museum is  "AMA (Spanish word for love) and do not forget, museum of memory against impunity".

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Saying no to sexual harassment

Signs as you enter the UCA clearly define sexual harassment, and how to recognize it and that it is simply not tolerated on the campus.

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We meet with one of the internal exiles. One who has not left the country but cannot go home, Her house has been broken into and vandalized at east three times. She does not feel safe. She is a lifelong Sandinista militant. I tell her about the images at the museum. Especially those of the turbas in black and red.  She takes a deep breath. “I cry every day” she says. A sense of betrayal at the deepest possible level.

Anther former Sandinista official says, “I don’t know…maybe we could  have worked  it out. If only he didn’t kill so many of us…”

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Over a nacatamales dinner in Costa Rica, we meet with a circle of expelled…and exiled students. Not only are they expelled, but al their academic records have been erased. Disappeared. As if they had never existed. Graduate students. Medical and nursing students. Tech and science. Law.  Their records gone. They wait in Costa Rica, in a state of limbo.

Somewhere between 60 and 100000 Nicaraguans are now in Costa Rica. Though, compassionate, Costa Rica does not have the infrastructure to handle the crisis. Ticos (Costa Ricans) worry about the centralamericanizacion (Central Americanization) of Costa Rica. A thinly veiled word of anxiety about the impact of so many Nicaraguans. 

Resistance leaders among the exiles are increasingly frustrated. There is little or no ability to provide assistance for newly arriving refugees. A feeling of helplessness at such a distance  from the struggle. A feeling of it’s being time to return, in spite of the danger. Better to be doing something, engaged, and at risk than be safe and removed from the struggle.

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From high atop the Tiscapa hill we stand beneath the 18 meter tall Sandino memorial. Tiscapa is the site of the old Presidential palace where Sandino, leaving after having negotiated an agreement, was assassinated by agents of Anastacio Somoza.

Sandino

As we look into the city, directly below us we see the Interamerican Hotel and Bank of America, survivors of the earthquake. 

still standing

Beyond them we see the skeletal remains of the historic cathedral. To the left, we see the old city, still gap-toothed in what exists more than 40 years after the earthquake. Barrios where directions are still rendered as …donde fue…where was… To the right, the new city of shopping malls and commerce. And snaking through the streets the string of Rosario Murillo’s Arboles de vida, trees of life, her idiosyncratic vision of an icon for her Nicaragua. Many trees  show signs of having  been torched during the protests. 

Rosario's arboles

Looking to the Mostepe volcano, there is an empty hill side where once giant FSLN letters stood. When Arnoldo Aleman was elected President, he covered two letters so that it now spelled FIN (ie,  end) then had them removed altogether.

Beside Sandino, there are two large flags, the azul y blanco of the bandera national and the rojo y negro of the FSLN. The once ubiquitous red and black seems to be fading.

Sandino and flags

on Tiscapa

Ortega has declared public carrying the azul y blanco to be illegal.  Adelante el frente sandinista is no longer the defacto national anthem as the traditional Mi Nicaraguita  has returned to popular use. 

The towering silhouette of Sandino looks our over the city, the country.   

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II. Conclusions

In the flash of a moment, you’re the best of what we are.

Don’t let then stop you now, Nicaragua.

Bruce Cockburn

1. Looking back, for many, both people of faith and political progressives, it was too easy to over romanticize the Nicaraguan revolution. It was almost as if we wanted the Nicaraguans to live out the revolutionary

vision we could never create for ourselves. Those of us from the reformed theological tradition forgot to bring along our historic hermeneutic of suspicion. The infrastructure of the revolution insulated itself from a criticism of solidarity which could have corrected more serious errors of judgment or execution. ( Liberation Christians involved in the struggle seems to grant  to the revolution an unquestioned authority like that previously afforded to the Roman Catholic Church from which so many came…). We truly wanted to believe what Canadian singer-songwriter Brice Cockburn sang: In the flash of a moment, you’re the best of what we are.

This is not to say the earlier PCUSA task force was wrong in its theological or political analysis. Certainly, traditional liberation theology provides an appropriate and biblically based lens through which to view the world around us. And we were right in critiquing US intervention in Nicaragua as well. As William Sloane Coffin, Jr. said so many times, I don’t have to believe everything the Sandinistas are doing is right to know that everything my  government is doing is wrong…

An important question moving forward in times of social change is how to bring a critical analysis within the context of solidarity and then how to know when solidarity can no longer be extended. When does it become necessary to break solidarity?

The danger of idolatry as can be applied in Nicaragua is clear. Belief in the revolution became so central, in a way with theological and spiritual dimensions, that many can not give it up. It’s especially difficult for North American veterans of the 1980’s solidarity movement to make this change. Those seeking change in Nicaragua today feel they are left on their own with no interest shown by old colleagues. 

2. Likewise, liberation theology is going through its own reassessment from the inside. Critics like Rubem Alves have pointed out the limitations of a theology that is primarily materialist based. The need for beauty imagination and creativity to sustain long term struggle is clear.  In earlier discussions, former Sandinistas spoke of pursuing a theology of transformation, both personal and societal. 

As Presbyterians, we need to recognize the gift of our own theological tradition in this context.

3. The ecclesiastical landscape has shifted significantly since the 1980’s. During those years, it was primarily a struggle between the traditional hierarchical Roman Catholic Church and the progressive, liberationist church of the people with the historic evangelical (Protestant) churches a minor sub set of that conversation. Today, the major dialectic seems to be between the traditional Roman Catholicism of the country and a rising tide of Pentecostal (especially neoPentecostal) religious expression. Of the latter, some  are based in the US but others from Latin America itself. 

4. The Ortega government retains a significant base within the population, especially among the poorest sectors of society with whom a client relationship has been established. Its benefits have been real materially although not politically.

5. Geopolitically speaking, the historic Cold War dialectic that informed the struggles of the 1980’s has been replaced by a multilectic in which Russia seeks to reestablish former Soviet relationships and China seeks to establish its own business and political influence.

6. A major change in Nicaragua since our previous visits is the emergence of climate and environment as a major issue.  Agribusiness has been devastating on the capacity for sustainable self sufficient agriculture. (And has led to broad campesino support for resistance.) The ill-conceived proposal for a new canal is an example of economic  development taking place with little regard for the continued environmental degradation taking place. 

7. Nicaragua has so far resisted the influence of gangs and drugs that has so affected other parts of Central America. Leaving aside speculative conspirational  theories a critical factor would seem to be the fact that regardless of what the governmental reality may be, the revolution has left Nicaragua with a social coherence and organizational capacity that continues to function at the barrio level. ( A similar observation could be made of the reality that the area most free from drugs and gangs in El Salvador is former FSLN stronghold Morazan province and similarly in the indigenous highlands region in Guatemala.) This capacity led to the rapid response in setting up blockades (tranques) and turn outs for manifestaciones. Clearly awareness of this capacity has led to the Ortega government’s strategy of “house to house” interventions and development of a network of informants towards the end of breaking up the solidarity of neighbors.

8. The Nicaraguan people have now been in a state of struggle for nearly a century now.

a century of struggle

a people of struggle

On the one hand, there is a sense of frustration and weariness in terms of how many times do we have to go through this?  On the other hand, this historic experience has led to a reservoir of resilience that continues to sustain the people through the ongoing struggle.  In Nicaragua, la lucha sigue. And despite all we can be confident in the hope that Nicaragua vivira. (Nicaragua will live…)

a  resilient people...Nicaragua vivira