The open veins of Nicaragua | Opinion

I belong to the generation of those who, in the 1980s, were vibrating with the Sandinista revolution and actively supporting it. The gradual impetus resumed by the Cuban Revolution of 1959 was largely stagnated by imperialist intervention of the United States. The imposition of the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1964 and in Argentina in 1976, the death of Che Guevara in 1967 in Bolivia and the coup of Augusto Pinochet in Chile against Salvador Allende in 1973 are the most striking signs of the conviction of the American subcontinent. be the backyard of the United States, subject to the dominance of large multinational corporations and national elites connivent with them. In short, it has not been considered as a set of inclusive societies centered on the interests of impoverished majorities.

The Sandinista revolution meant the emergence of a favorable countercurrent. Its significance is not only due to the concrete transformations that it has achieved (unprecedented popular participation, agrarian reform, literacy campaign that won the UNESCO prize, cultural revolution, creation of a public health service, etc.), but also to the fact that all this was done under difficult conditions because of Ronald Reagan's extremely aggressive American siege, which implied the economic embargo and the the infamous financing of the Nicaraguan "contras" (the counterrevolutionary guerrillas) and the fomentation of the civil war. Equally significant was the fact that the Sandinista government maintained the democratic regime, which in 1990 dictated the end of the revolution with the victory of the opposition bloc, which was also part of the Communist Party of Nicaragua.

In the following years, the Sandinista Front, still headed by Daniel Ortega, lost three elections, until in 2006 he regained power, holding him until today. 39; hui. However, Nicaragua, as well as all of Central America, was outside of international public opinion and the Latin American left. Until last April, social protests and violent repression attracted worldwide attention. Dozens of deaths may already be caused by police forces and militia followers of the government party. The protests, which were initially led by university students, have highlighted the government's dissatisfaction with the ecological disaster in the Indio-Maíz Biological Reserve caused by fire and deforestation and the lorries. illegal invasion. Then came protests against the reform of the social security system, which imposed drastic cuts in pensions and additional taxes on workers and employers. Students join unions and other civil society organizations.

In the face of protests, the government withdraws the proposal, but the country is already inflamed by the indignation against violence and repression and by the repulsion caused by many people. other dark facets of the Sandinista government, which meanwhile were beginning to be better known and openly criticized. The Catholic Church, which since 2003 has "reconciled" with Sandinism, has again distanced itself and agreed to negotiate social and political conflicts under conditions. The same distortion occurred with the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, to which Ortega offered substantial business and privileged terms of action in exchange for political loyalty. The future is uncertain and can not exclude the possibility that this country, if mbadacred by violence, will undergo a bloodbath again. The opposition to the Ortegaisme covers the entire political spectrum and, as it has occurred in other countries (Venezuela and Brazil), only shows the point of view. unity to overthrow the regime, but not to create a democratic alternative. Everything suggests that there will be no peaceful solution without the resignation of the Ortega-Murillo presidential couple and the call for free and transparent early elections.

Democrats, in general, and left-wing political forces, in particular, have reason to be perplexed. But they have a special duty to re-examine the recent options of governments considered left-wing in many countries of the continent and to postpone in question their silence in the face of so much indignation of political ideals for so long. For this reason, this text does not cease to be, in part, a self-criticism. What lessons can we learn from what is happening in Nicaragua? Considering the hard lessons I will list below will be the best way to show solidarity with the Nicaraguan people and show respect for their dignity.

• First lesson: spontaneity and organization. For a long time, social protests and violent repression took place in rural areas without public and national public opinion. When the protests erupted in Managua, the surprise was general. The movement was spontaneous and used social networks promoted by the government with free Internet access in the country's parks. The young university students, grandchildren of the Sandinista revolution, who until recently seemed alienated and politically apathetic, mobilized to demand justice and democracy. The alliance between the countryside and the city, hitherto unthinkable, occurred almost naturally and the civic revolution took to the streets on the basis of peaceful marches and barricades that reached 70% of the roads. from the country. How is it that social tensions accumulate without being noticed and that its sudden explosion takes everyone by surprise? Certainly not for the same reasons that volcanoes do not prevent. Can we expect national and international conservative forces not to profit from the mistakes of left-wing governments? What will be the point of explosion of social tensions in other countries of the continent caused by right-wing governments, for example in Brazil and Argentina?
• Second lesson: the limits of political pragmatism and alliances with law. The Sandinista Front lost three elections after being defeated in 1990. A faction of the Front, led by Ortega, understood that the only way to return to power was to make alliances with his opponents, even with those who had visibly harbaded the Sandinism, like the Catholic Church and the great businessmen. With regard to the Catholic Church, the approach began in the early 2000s. Cardinal Obando y Bravo was during most of the revolutionary period an aggressive opponent of the Sandinista government and an active ally of the Contras, nicknamed Ortega as a "dying viper". Despite this, Ortega was not ashamed to approach the cardinal to the point of asking him in 2005 to officiate the marriage with his longtime companion, Rosario Murillo, current vice president of the country. Among many other concessions to the Church, one of the first laws of the new Sandinista government, still in 2006, was to approve the law of total prohibition of abortion, even in case of rape or danger to women's lives. This, in a country with a high incidence of violence against women and children. On the other hand, the approach of the economic elites was produced by the submission of the Sandinista program to neoliberalism, with the deregulation of the economy, the signing of free trade agreements and the creation of public-private partnerships guaranteeing a lucrative business to the private sector. capitalist at the expense of the public treasury. There was also an agreement with former president Arnoldo Alemán, considered one of the most corrupt state leaders in the world. These alliances guarantee a certain social peace. And it should also be noted that in 2006, the country was on the verge of bankruptcy and the policies adopted by Ortega have allowed economic growth. This was, however, the typical growth of the neoliberal recipe: high concentration of wealth, total dependence on international prices for export products (especially coffee and meat), increasing authoritarianism in the face of social conflict provoked by the Extension of agricultural frontier and megaprojects (eg, the large interoceanic channel, with Chinese funding), disorderly increase in corruption, starting with the government's political elite. The social crisis has only been mitigated thanks to Venezuela's generous aid (grants and investments) which has become an important part of the state budget and has enabled some compensatory social policies. The situation should explode when international prices fall, there will be a change of economic policy in the main export destination (United States) or Venezuela's support will evaporate. All that has happened in the last two years. Meanwhile, after the orgy of favors ended, economic elites took their distance and Ortega was increasingly isolated. Can a government continue to be leftist (and even revolutionary) in spite of the ideology of neoliberal capitalism with the conditions it imposes and the consequences it generates? To what extent do tactical alliances with "the enemy" become the second nature of the protagonist? Why do alliances with different leftist forces always seem more difficult than alliances between the left hegemonic and the right?
• Third lesson: political authoritarianism, corruption and democratization. The policies adopted by Daniel Ortega and his faction created major divisions within the Sandinista Front, as well as rejection in other political forces and civil society organizations that had found in Sandinismo in the 1980s their ideological and social matrix and your will to resist Women's organizations have played a special role. We know that neoliberalism, by aggravating social inequalities and generating unjust privileges, can only be maintained by authoritarian and repressive means. That's what Ortega did. By all means, including co-optation, the suppression of internal and external opposition, the monopolization of the media, constitutional reforms that guarantee indefinite re-election, the instrumentalization of the judicial system and the creation of paramilitary forces repressive. The elections of 2016 were the clear picture of all this, and the victory of the slogan "a Christian, socialist and solidarity Nicaragua" hid badly the deep fractures in the society. In a way almost pathetic, but perhaps predictable, political authoritarianism is accompanied by a growing heritage of the state. The Ortega family has accumulated wealth and has shown its desire to perpetuate itself in power. Are authoritarian temptation and corruption a deviation or are they constitutive of the governments of the neoliberal economic matrix? What imperial interests account for the OAS's ambiguity against the Ortegaism, as opposed to its radical opposition to Chavezism? Why has a large part of the Latin American and world left maintained (and continues to do so) the same complicit silence? For how long does the memory of revolutionary conquests obscure the ability to denounce the perversions that follow them to the point that denunciation almost always comes too late?

* Director of the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Translation by Antoni Aguiló and José Luis Exeni Rodríguez.