******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 04:09:35PM -0400, Richard Fidler via Marxism wrote: > > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > >[...] > > See the recent report by Nicaraguan sociologist Oscar-René Vargas, > "Perspectivas tras la masiva Huelga General," in Viento Sur. A French > translation is available in À l'Encontre. I am unaware of any English > translation. > >[...] > (My Spanish isn't so good, but hopefully better than that of the robots... caveat lector) Perspectives/views after the massive general strike 15/06/2018 | Oscar-René Vargas 1. From 18 April to 13 June, 2018, Nicaragua endured 58 days of citizen protests, in which the people demanded the immediate departure of Ortega-Murillo from power. These demonstrations have been repressed by the state, at a cost of at least 168 deaths. 2. The Police, upon orders of Daniel Ortega, have been leading an offensive against the citizen insurrection, let by mercenaries, hit men, and riot squads that have caused terror among the Nicaraguan population. This strategy is said to be justified because the number of people in the civil rebellion, in different parts of the country, exceeds the number of regular police; for that reason the official strategy is to attack a different city each day. The Police have taken to the streets together with the hit men to intimidate the population and they destroy the barricades that the citizens have raised for their safety at the entrances to their neighbourhoods or cities. 3. The political action shows that the Ortega-Murillo Government doesn’t have the capability to confront all the situation at a national level. According to the 2016 annual report of the National Police, the most recent published, the country then had 15,139 on active duty to cover 121,428 square kilometers; that is, the republic had an average of 24 policemen for each 10,000 inhabitants in 2016, a figure which has not changed in April 2018, according to the 2018 General Budget of the Republic. 4. The government repression in various cities of the country, is a “strategy of terror” before the inability that the Police and the hit men have to stop the many marches and protests that have happened all over the country. Despite the brute force utilized by these para-police groups, the strategy of terror has produced no results for Ortega. 5. Ortega-Murillo have created, in two months, a criminal organization, because upon involving these marginalized groups into gangs, organizing them, arming them, and giving them a mantle of impunity, they are converted into the future criminal organization of the country, into the future gangs of Nicaragua. 6. It is necessary to be clear that Ortega-Murillo are not of the left, as many progressives at the international level think. Ortega-ism is a broken, corrupt, and backward system that discredits the left and progressive sectors of the world. 7. The Army has had a minimally passive complicity. There are various bad signs that point to partial Army participation, lending troops and military skills. According to the Political Constitution of Nicaragua, the Army is the only institution authorized to have a monopoly of force and of arms, in such a way that, at/upon not disarming the para-police, hit men, and thugs, it is placed at the side of Daniel Ortega. [I’m not sure what is said or implied here. The Constitution appears to allow the President to use the Army for internal purposes in case of major internal disorders, but immediately above the author says that para-police etc are being used by the President, so this seems contradictory. Maybe I just don’t apprehend the meaning. -translator] 8. Wednesday, 13 June, Ortega-ist paramilitary attacked, at night, people who maintained barricades at various points in the city of León. There was an attack in Masatepe by paramilitary and riot police, leaving at least four dead. People from different neighbourhoods in Managua reported gunfire at night. Furthermore, agents of the National Police captured every citizen who moved about at night. In the city of Diriamba, some 40 police that were stationed there, left their uniforms behind and went to observe the popular insurrections. 9. On Thursday, 14 June, all Nicaragua awoke to a national shutdown/strike, completely paralyzed by stoppages, empty streets and closed businesses. The stoppages remained without giving way in various sections of the country, the streets empty and businesses closed. The streets of the neighbourhoods of the city of Managua, the capital, awoke with barricades standing. In El Carmen, the the house of Daniel Ortega is located, the security perimeter was expanded for several days. The six stoppages [barriers?] the were located in the Boaco section were kept and permitted no vehicular traffic during these 24 hours of national shutdown. In Sandino City, merchants contributed to the national shutdown. The market and businesses located in the central street did not open their doors. Nevertheless, in the area there were workers from City Hall cleaning [drains?] and streets. The neighbourhoods of León, which had lifted barricades for several weeks, awoke with passage closed. In Rivas, the national shutdown started midst the sound of pots and pans, at different points of this section, bordering with Costa Rica. Nationally, businesses such as restaurants, bars, pharmacies, and dairies remained closed. Shops, gas/petrol stations, banks, among others, did not open so as to contribute to the national shutdown. That is to day, Nicaragua clearly and strongly told Ortega-Murillo to go away. 10. In an official declaration of the United Nations on 14 June, human rights experts asked for an immediate cessation of the violence and repression in Nicaragua, to end a national crisis of social and political trouble that had already lasted two months. 11. A bi-partisan group of four senators of the Foreign Relations Commitee, presented a draft law to impose sanctions to officials of the Government of Nicaragua, shown to have been involved/participating in repressive activities, during the massacres of April, May, and June, as being in violations of human rights and in acts of corruptions. 12. The bishops of the Episcopal Conference announced that the National Dialog will [would] resume Friday 15 June at the Seminario Nacional de Fátima. They then decided that Ortega should reply to the letter that the presented 7 June as a proposal to democratize Nicaragua. The Ortega letter proposed a second scenario that we have analyzed in the earlier submission. 13. That proposal was presented to the bishops of the Conferencia Episcopal de Nicaragua (CEN) and to the Civic Alliance who participated in the month of National Dialog by the U.S. ambassador Laura Dogu and Caleb McCarry, a delegate of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who visited Nicaragua at the end of the previous month. 14. Daniel Ortega had informed the U.S. Government of his decision to go ahead with the elections in Nicaragua, for the first half of 2019, as a way to resolve the crisis that affected the country, and which had left 168 dead. That is, Ortega would remain in power until that date, against the popular outcry that sought his immediate departure from the Presidency. 15. Ortega proposed making changes in the Supreme Electoral Council, the Supreme Court, and in some state institutions. 16. The Ortega-Murillo proposal is similar to that which was put, behind the scenes, to the OAS. Progression to transparent and supervised elections, cleaning out some institutions, and Ortega remaining in power, that would permit enjoyment of money, bad credit [?], and impunity. 17. Everything indicates that big capital is in agreement with Ortega’s proposal. That is, the following actors agree: U.S., OAS, Ortega, Big Capital, the Army, and possibly a majority of the Bishops. 18. Big capital joined the national shutdown in order to legitimize itself socially, a shutdown more symbolic than real, to influence social events. The need to wash its face to forget that big capital was the principal partner/ally during the last eleven years. 19. At the least, Ortega “ceded” through a schedule in advance of elections negotiated with U.S. with the assistance of Almagro, where the OAS paper specifies from now to the date of the anticipated elections. 20. It will be sold to the people that the dialog succeeded: Ortega-Murillo will go away and will not be candidates in the next elections. The bishops, COSEP (Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada/Upper Council of Private Enterprise), Carlos Pellas (the country’s biggest millionaire), and Almagro will ride off on a white horse. 21. To the students, and to the rebellious people, it will be said that they triumphed: that Ortega will go away, the peace will return, and it will be asked that they take down the barricades. 22. Three main conundrums from this Ortega-Murillo exit scenario: (a) Will the one and a half million people who have mobilized all over the country asking for the immediate departure of Ortega accept his remaining until 2019? 23. The matter of justice for the dead. Will there remain impunity for the thugs, hit men, and assassins of at least 168 persons, more than 1500 injured, and hundreds of disappeared? 24. And will the officers who have lost all credibility and the control of the police remain unpunished? 25. The big problem with the concrete realization of this scenario is that there is a complete division/disconnect between the basic demands of the people in the street, and the arrangements the leadership wants to effect. The street, the barriers, and the mobilizations will impede the agreement which the leadership wants to impose as a solution to the present crisis. 14/06/2018 > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/marking%40tatanka.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
