SandinistaIntroductory Comments by Aduku Addea and Lil Joe Sandinista's win local elections
The Reuters LA TIMES article, below categorizes the Sandinistas as a "left" organization. This is a misleading appellation. In the American press, the term "Left" and "leftist" is a vague reference to a broad spectrum including anyone from the Democratic Leadership Council of the Democratic Party (Clinton, Gore, Lieberman) and the Democrat's Blacks and "progressives" (the CBC, Jesse Jackson, Michael Moore) here in the USA; to Blaire, Jospan, Schroeder &C ("third way") of Europe and Chavez and Lulu in Latin America. The political and social history of the Sandistinas in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front in El Salvador are in the same mold as Cuban guerillas that fought in the company of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were. They are socialists and communists. They engaged in an intense political struggle, which culminated in armed struggle against the Samosa regime. After the victory over the Samosa regime they were embroiled in a protracted struggle against US military intervention, and were subsequently defeated and forced to call elections that brought the Quislings of US imperialism to power, in a situation reminiscent of Latortue in Haiti and Allawi in Iraq in the present context. The experience of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada is also one of socialists coming to power in the same Caribbean/Meso-American region who were similarly overthrown by US military forces. The return of the Sandinistas to ascendancy in participatory politics is a direct consequence of the comprehensive failure of the liberalization and free market policies instituted by the regimes that succeeded the Sandinistas. It is an indication of the deepening social and economic crisis, which has gripped Latin America and the Caribbean. If the Sandinistas are going to attempt the route to power via electoral politics they have to pay close attention to the lessons from Grenada and begin from the outset to build organizational structures for sustained struggle against the backlash from the bourgeois and military elements. Electoral victory is merely the prelude to the real struggle. A picture of what is to come in Nicaragua bears a direct resemblance to the class wars that is taking place in Haiti. What is taking place in socio-political struggles in Nicaragua is in a significant manner connected to and influenced by the struggles of the Palestinians and Iraqis whose brave resistance is causing US and Israeli forces to become bogged down in unwanted trench warfare. The military conflict in Iraq is having seismic consequences on the world scale. The downtrodden workers and peasants are reawakening. We dispense with all the rubbish about "the left", as presented in the American media. It is in fact a Socialist workers and peasants movement directed at class power, the creation of a workers and peasants state! This is most important. From the position of political power, whether won on the battlefields in civil war or by elections (that may in fact lead to civil war engendered by a capitalist class rebellion) are issues of strategy rather than of principle. The economic emancipation of the working class is the task of the working classes themselves; this economic emancipation is the objective, to which every political movement is subordinate as means. Just as guerrilla warfare in civil wars is class politics with bloodshed so electoral politics is class warfare without bloodshed. The workers and peasants that voted for Sandinistas know they are voting in their class interests in class war insomuch as in the 70s and 80s the Sandinistas were identified as a Marxist lead Socialist party. In this important distinction, the Sandinistas history is that of a revolutionary, socialist workers movement as distinct from the present bourgeois nationalist, Bonapartist regimes of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Brazil's Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. This is only to establish the history of the movement in Nicaragua. It is not to say, however, that the Sandinistas are the same in this their second regime as in the first – keeping in mind the differences in the first and second Manley governments (in Jamaica) in response to changed conditions. It can be said definitively, though, that the Sandinistas are not of the ilk of the leftist in the USA. latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nica9nov09,1,7431212.sto ry?coll=la-headlines-world >From Reuters November 9, 2004 MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Nicaragua's leftist opposition Sandinista party, which fought a civil war with U.S.- backed rebels when it ruled in the 1980s, made strong gains in weekend elections, taking control of almost all major cities. Results released Monday showed the Sandinistas handing a heavy defeat to the ruling party, which has been weakened by internal feuding and a drive to remove President Enrique Bolanos amid campaign finance and corruption allegations. "Most Nicaraguans are convinced that the only force that can save this country, the rich and the poor, is the FSLN," or Sandinista National Liberation Front, former President Daniel Ortega, the party leader, told thousands of supporters in Managua's central plaza. The capital, Managua, held by the Sandinistas since 2000, was the main battleground for 152 municipalities that were up for grabs Sunday. With 73% of the vote counted in the race for Managua mayor, Sandinista candidate Dionisio Marenco had 45%, compared with 36% for Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, son of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. The Sandinistas also appeared to be headed for victory in at least 15 of Nicaragua's 17 provincial capitals and in 91 towns, election officials said. The party held 11 of those provincial capitals going into Sunday's elections. If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. TMS Reprints Article licensing and reprint options Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Yahoo! Groups Links a.. To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blackantiwar/ b.. 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