NICARAGUA NETWORK NICARAGUA MONITOR September - October 2008 #151 North and South Join: Close Down the School of the Americas! By Lisa Sullivan, SOAW Latin America I have been privileged to experience In 2004 I was asked to help arrange a Coordinator (Visit: www.soaw.org) these sweeping changes taking place in visit by Fr. Roy Bourgeois to Venezuela. On Nov. 21-23, many of us will gather the South. Thirty years ago I took a long His goal was to meet with President at the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia train ride to Mexico as a young college Hugo Chavez to ask him to withdraw to remember those whose lives were student, little realizing that the return ride Venezuelan troops from the SOA. I was stolen by graduates of the School of the would bring me back to the U.S. only as a delighted to help this fellow member Americas. Immersed in this crisis of visitor. Embracing the call of the Catholic of Maryknoll visit my adopted country, gigantic proportions: fi nancial disasters, Church to make a “preferential option but had no clue how to get him to the wars, disillusionment in our government, president. The problem was it would seem like no one has the energy solved when the president to think or move beyond our four walls. actually invited us to visit him, Yet, it looks like more people than ever after seeing us speak on TV. will gather this year in Georgia. Why? When we met with President Perhaps because this school is such a clear Chavez, he admitted that even symbol of wrong directions taken by our he was not aware that Venezuela country. And the sound of ten thousand was still sending soldiers to the voices singing “PRESENTE!” a call to SOA until we brought this to remember what is important: life, peace, his attention. This was rather just relationships. surprising, given the fact that The vigil to close the SOA is also a two of the leaders of the 2002 time when North and South look one coup were SOA graduates. We another squarely in the eye. Fifteen President Evo Morales, seen here with Fr. Roy Bourgeois learned from Chavez that the years ago many of us in the North began and Lisa Sullivan, wrote directly to the head of the SOA. SOA often sends invitations to to learn how our tax dollars were being for the poor,” I lived in hillside slums in their courses directly to soldiers of their directed towards our neighbors in the Bogota, Cochabamba and Barquisimeto choice. Until 2002, the U.S. Army even South through this school. Here, young for the next 20 years. I raised my three had a small offi ce right at the headquarters soldiers from Latin America were trained children where there was a shortage of of Venezuela’s military command. by the U.S. Army in torture techniques good plumbing, paved roads, and indoor While President Chavez was well aware and counter insurgency tactics. Hundreds bathrooms, but an abundance of hugs, of the atrocities linked to the SOA, he was returned home to rape, torture, and blessings, songs, shared pots of black not aware of the massive movement in the massacre their fellow citizens. beans and arepas. U.S. to close the SOA. He was moved to A dozen people began to gather at See SOA, p. 5. the gates of the SOA to say “Not in our name,” later a hundred, later a thousand, There is still time to sign up! later ten thousand. From the North we Two Years of Sandinista Government: What Does It Mean? looked to the South with compassion Delegation to Nicaragua and solidarity. A sea of dictatorships January 10-18, 2009 and repressive regimes dotted Latin Join Nicaragua scholar and Nicanet Co-Coordinator Katherine Hoyt, Ph.D. (who America’s map. Fifteen years later, the lived in Nicaragua for 16 years), as part of a delegation on the second anniversary SOA remains open, but a massive sea of Daniel Ortega’s return to offi ce. Meet Nicaraguan educators, community change has occurred in the South. Dignity leaders, government and opposition offi cials, labor leaders, farmers, workers, health and sovereignty are beginning to raise professionals, and members of the Councils of Citizen Power to answer questions their heads. Today, a New South fi lled such as: 1) Are the Sandinista poverty reduction policies making a difference? with fascinating new initiatives is offering 2) What are the criticisms of Daniel Ortega’s leadership from the left and from the the North a new light. Today we must also right? 3) Why have the politics on the left become so virulent? come to Georgia to fi ll ourselves with the For application and itinerary, send an email to: [email protected]. hope arising from the South. 1 Nicaragua Network 1247 “E” Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003 (202) 544-9355 [email protected] The Ortega Government and Opposition from within Sandinismo By Chuck Kaufman operations and increased access to struggle for national liberation from the [Kaufman is National Co-Coordinator health care for fi ve million Nicaraguans, Somoza dictatorship, we need to consider of the Nicaragua Network. The opinions and reactivated the moribund peasant recent history. [Nicaraguans would begin expressed here are his own.] agriculture sector, always Nicaragua’s this account in 1492 or before, but we in The fi rst two acts in January 2007 of the most productive sector, through loans the US are accustomed to taking the short new Sandinista government of President and other inputs to small and medium view of history!] Daniel Ortega were to end school fees, Beginning in 1994, the Sandinista which restored free public education for Front for National Liberation the fi rst time since Nicaragua fell under (FSLN), which led the long struggle the sway of the International Monetary to overthrow the US-backed Fund and World Bank’s savage capitalism Somoza dictatorship, began to split prescriptions in 1990, and to sign on based on class issues and Ortega’s as the fourth member of the Bolivarian authoritarian style of leadership. Alternatives for Our Americas (ALBA) Social Democrats left the party that alternative trade framework. year and formed the Sandinista The schools were promptly Renovation Movement under the overwhelmed. There weren’t enough leadership of former FSLN Vice classrooms and there weren’t enough President Sergio Ramirez and teachers to handle all the kids whose historic combatant and former parents had not been able to afford to Health Minister Dora Maria Tellez. send them to school under the neoliberal Another faction, the Movement regimes that had run the government since to Rescue Sandinismo, confusingly the Sandinista electoral defeat of 1990. also called the MRS, broke from Indeed, some of those parents had seen the FSLN at the beginning of the their own education cut short when the 2006 electoral season after their IMF and World Bank mandated an end to years of effort to democratize the party failed once and for all with government support for human needs. The The Nicaraguan government’s Zero Hunger Program the expulsion of former Managua new Ortega government was criticized, has helped small farmers. Photo: www.mdgmonitor.org even by Sandinista dissidents, because Mayor Herty Lewites and National the school system couldn’t immediately farmers which had been eliminated under Directorate member Victor Hugo Tinoco. absorb those who had previously had no the previous three governments. Criticism Lewites’ crime was to challenge Ortega education option at all. from dissident Sandinistas for the Ortega for the FSLN presidential nomination Signing onto ALBA, which bases trade government’s reliance on Venezuelan aid and Tinoco was his campaign manager. on cooperation rather than competition, was immediate and continuous. The “Rescue” MRS is comprised of what opened the door for trade and aid with To understand the bitter, and are called the ortodoxos, the socialist Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, which increasingly violent, fi ghts within revolutionaries who were also the faction resulted in a solution to Nicaragua’s “Sandinismo,” the term now used to of the party most committed to democratic chronic electricity shortages, free eye identify all groups, inside and outside the process. Its leadership includes Henry FSLN, whose origins are rooted in the Ruiz, the legendary “Modesto” who led The Nicaragua Monitor is published by the Nicaragua Network (a project the guerillas in the mountains, Monica of the Alliance for Global Justice) to educate US citizens about the effects of Baltodano, one of several women who led columns of troops in the war, and Tinoco, US policy on the people of Nicaragua and to build ties of peace and friend- a diplomat who represented Nicaragua ship between our two peoples. during the Esquipulus peace talks of the Subscription information: Electronic version is free; paper copies $30 for late 1980s. one year (individuals), or $60 yearly (committees for 5-10 copies). This pub- The socialist revolutionary MRS lication may be reproduced in whole or in part to educate US citizens about and the social democratic MRS allied Nicaragua and US policy. Credit the Nicaragua Network. for the 2006 election behind Lewites, a businessman who had run guns to National Offi ce Staff: Katherine Hoyt and Chuck Kaufman the guerillas and served as Minister of Nicaragua Network * 1247 “E” St., SE • Washington, DC 20003 Tourism in the revolutionary government. Phone: (202) 544-9355 Fax: (202) 544-9359 Their common ground was opposition to Ortega’s “caudillo” (strong man) [email protected] leadership and what they called the Web site: www.nicanet.org 2 See Ortega Gov’t., p. 6 Genesis: The Beginning of a Better Life By Becca Mohally Renk work in Nueva Vida, a Hurricane Mitch there was a women’s cooperative being [Becca Mohally Renk is a member of the resettlement camp in Ciudad Sandino, the formed…and it would be dedicated to Jubilee House Community-Center for JHC-CDCA worked with the community processing organic cotton and the only Development in Central America (JHC- to set up the women’s sewing cooperative thing we had to give was our work, which CDCA).