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
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Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
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