Nicaragua's Revolutionary Legacy
By Stephen Gibbs, BBC News, Managua
Thirty years on, Esperanza Cisneros is as
much a believer as ever. Her small Managua
home seems like a shrine to the Sandinista
Revolution. Its walls are adorned with
political slogans.
A bicycle in the front porch has two black
and red flags flying from the handlebars.
Patriotic music blasts from the CD player.
But her enthusiasm is balanced with pain.
Like thousands of Nicaraguan mothers she
lost a son to this country's violent
political upheaval.
"A lot of blood was spilt", she says, "but
now we have a government working hard for
the people."
In 1979, almost the entire population of
Nicaragua agreed with her.
The ouster of the dynastic dictator
Anastasio Somosa was seen as a victory of
hope over repression.
For as long as most Nicaraguans could
remember, the Somosa ruling family had held
a feudal grip on the country. The country's
police force was notorious for its liberal
use of torture.
By the time the Sandinistas, who took their
name from their murdered historical hero
Agustin Sandino, rolled into Managua, they
were feted as liberators.
Their leader, a young man called Daniel
Ortega, was seen as the new incarnation of
Sandino.
'Revolution over'
But within months the mood changed. Many
deserted Ortega, viewing his style of
government as authoritarian and
proto-communist.
A new rebellion began. It was stoked by
foreign interests.
The Soviets backed the Sandinistas. The
United States, fearing communism in its back
yard, backed the counter-revolutionaries or
"contras".
Overall, 50,000 lives were lost in the
revolution and ensuing war, before a truce
was declared in 1987.
That is more than 1% of the population. The
equivalent of three million Americans.
Now Mr Ortega is back in power again, after
winning the 2006 presidential election.
He says he has changed his colours, and that
his administration is about reconciliation.
His government includes some of his old foes
from the civil war days. An alliance has
also been formed with the Roman Catholic
Church.
As an apparent symbol of a softer, more
inclusive form of rule, propaganda posters
across the country are now pink, rather than
the traditional red and black of the
Sandinistas.
Some suggest the revolution is well and
truly over.
Erik Flakoll, an American martial arts
expert, was one of thousands of foreign
idealists who came to Nicaragua in the 1970s
and 80s to support something they believed
in.
Months after arriving in 1980 he found
himself recruited as a bodyguard to the
senior Sandinista leaders.
His photo album shows him a as a young man
in combat fatigues travelling the world with
the new heroes of the eastern bloc.
"The uniform is from East Germany" he points
out, with a smile.
Now he sees the men he once worked for as a
sordid new elite, running a new oligarchy,
in complete betrayal of their professed
ideals.
"This leadership is not revolutionary at
all," he says. "I do not know how history
will determine who is the greatest thief. Is
it Somosa...or will it be Daniel Ortega?
Grinding poverty
Such allegations are dismissed as absurd by
Eden Pastora, aka Comandante Cero, as we
talk in his office a few days before the
30th anniversary.
The room is stacked full of guns, ammunition
and revolutionary memorabilia.
The silver haired ex-commander is something
of a legend in revolutionary history. With
19 comrades he stormed the Nicaraguan
congress in 1978, in a spectacular publicity
boost for the Sandinista movement.
He has since had his differences with the
Ortega leadership, but now he appears back
on side.
"Everybody has heard the stories" he says.
"That Daniel was funded by Qaddafi, $100,000
a month…that his brother, the head of the
army was given $50,000.
"It's not true. I have been to his house.
The ceiling is falling to bits. There are
cobwebs everywhere. If it were true the
people would not have voted for him".
He points to the achievements of the Ortega
governments, from literacy campaigns to
housing projects.
But most Nicaraguans have other priorities
than judging whether the Sandinista
revolution has been a success, or a fraud.
Grinding poverty is daily life for half the
population. Unemployment in many areas is
around 80%.
La Chureca rubbish dump on the outskirts of
the city is home for hundreds of families,
who somehow survive picking through the
putrid garbage of their marginally more
fortunate neighbours.
It is a place where ideology seems
irrelevant.
I ask one man, stooped over a pile of
plastic bags, what he thinks of his
government.
"Things just seem to get worse", he says.
|
