Nicaragua votes in e the midst of war

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high school students who volunteered for one year of militia duty against CIA-supported contras in the northern icaragua. Scene from David Bradbury's new documentary film, "Nicaragua: No Pasaran. " See film review page 9.

SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1984 7 have cost Nicaragua more than $200 million and the loss of more than 7000 civilian and military lives. The contras specifically target health-care workers and other technicians on the theory that such a policy can bleed the country of its precious human resources.

Despite these difficulties, the Sandinista government committed itself to organizing elections this year. Voters will elect a president, vice president, and a 90-member national assembly. One of the assembly's chief responsibilities will be the drafting of a new constitution.

The government has spent several months in preparing the legislation under which truly free voting can occur. A number of important amendments were incorporated into the electoral law after the debate in the Council of State.

An infrastructure capable of efficiently organizing the voter registration and election process has been constructed. Thirty million dollars have been earmarked for financing the elections, a sum equal to approximately 40 percent of the country's annual health budget. While U.S. officials flippantly call the elections "phoney,' the fact that these material resources have been mobilized for the elections indicates the seriousness with which the Sandinistas have undertaken this project.

In 1979 the Sandinista government guaranteed that free elections would be held as soon as conditions permitted. The implementation of the alphabetization campaign-through which illiteracy was reduced from 50 percent to 12 percent-had been seen as one of the preconditions for democratic elections. Viewed in the same way was the process of building the mass organizations, including the women's federation, the trade unions, the Sandinista youth, and the block associations.

By learning how to make decisions, carrying out campaigns and then evaluating them, many Nicaraguans obtained the practical experience they needed to begin to take control over their own lives. Today Nicaragua is alive with political discussion.

The four-day voter registration drive, conducted last summer, was the government's first test of organizing the electoral process. Nearly 1.6 million Nicaraguans, or an estimated 93.7 percent of the eligible population, turned out, surpassing the anticipated goal.

Abstention and postponement

The right-wing opposition coalition, however, laid down a series of demands last Dec. 23 where it outlined the basis upon which it would participate in the electoral process. These have been Three part of N endorsed returned from Washington, D.C., in July.

Cruz, a former member of the Sandinista junta, is the presidential candidate for the Nicaraguan Coordinating Committee (CDN), which is composed of the Social Christian Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Constitutional Liberal Party, and a dissident faction of the Conservative Party. The nine demands constitute a political platform for derailing the Sandinista revolution, for a return to Somocismo without Somoza.

Point no. 9 calls for a "national dialogue" with all political parties and movements, including the "armed rebels."

In April, the Catholic Bishops Conference issued its pastoral letter, which echoed a demand for a dialogue with the contras. Although it was issued right at the height of the U.S. mining of the harbors, it did not mention the mining or other acts of aggression. Nor did it note the government's amnesty decree.

In evaluating the demand of the CDN in their monthly bulletin, Envio, the Historical Institute of Central America concluded:

"The Democratic Coordinating Committee's decision to take on what is considered an unpopular cause in Nicaragua-the reintegration of Somoza's ex-National Guard-is widely interpreted as a result of that sector's absolute dependency on U.S. strategies, the foremost of which is the strategy of military aggression.

"Considering that the National Guard represented the very backbone of the Somoza dictatorship, it is absurd to suggest that a 'return to democracy' implies a return to the essence of the dictatorship. On laying down their conditions for taking part in the elections, the right-wing political parties did little more than repeat the message of former U.S. Special Envoy Richard Stone, that the participation of the counterrevolutionaries in the elections is necessary. Henry Kissinger expressed this position in Mexico two weeks before COSEP [Higher Council of Private Enterprise] and the Democratic Coordinating Committee published their statement."

Manufactured preconditions

The other CDN preconditions include: (1) separation of party and state; (2) abrogation of laws violating human rights; (3) suspension of the State of Emergency; (4) enactment of an amnesty law; (5) respect for freedom of religion; (6) freedom to unionize; (7) autonomy of the judicial system; and (8) legal guarantee of civil rights.

Several of these points were manufactured for international consumption and have little to do with the reality of life in Nicaragua today. Nicaragua has an excellent human rights record, respects freedom of religion and the right to organize into unions of one's choice, and guarantees civil rights. However, the right wing characterizes the Nicaraguan draft law and laws confiscating the property of private owners who decapitalize and allow their lands to lie idle as "violations" of human rights!

Nicaragua's judicial system, although barely five years old, is independent. In (continued on page 8)

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= Nicaragua votes Daniel Ortega announces elections for Nov, 4. Ortega is FSLN "The electoral law provides each party with (continued from page 7) fact, a case against the government in Nicaragua's highest court has a greater chance of winning than a similar one brought in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since its original passage in March 1982, the State of Emergency Law has been denounced by the right wing as proof of political repression. Yet the demand to repeal seems hollow from parties like the Social Christians and Social Democrats, who observed with admiration the March and May 1984 elections in El Salvador. There the state of siege was lifted for only 24 hours.

On July 19, 1984, the Sandinista government lifted most of the restrictions imposed under the State of Emergency legislation. This included freedom of travel, freedom to hold demonstrations and rallies, the right to strike, and freedom of the press—with the exception of information affecting national security.

Most observers expected that there would be a partial lifting of the law in the non-combat areas of the country, but instead the government lifted most of its restrictions. Still in effect is the suspension of rights of a citizen under arrest, but only in regard to crimes against public security, treason, espionage and terrorism-hardly unreasonable for a country that must fight a war on its borders.

It is important to note that before the nine points were published, the Nicaraguan government had already declared total amnesty for the more than 300 Miskitos imprisoned for counterrevolutionary activity. They offered amnesty with guarantees for the repatriation of all Nicaraguans who left the country after July 1979—even if they had joined the ranks of the counterrevolution.

The amnesty only excluded those in leadership positions, although even here the Sandinistas extended an invitation to Brooklyn Rivera, a leader of the Miskitos, to return. The amnesty has since been extended until the Nov. 4 elections. (Rivera has returned to Nicaragua for a two-week trip, which includes talks with Sandinista leaders, according to the Oct. 21 New York Times.)

Strategy of right wing The demand for the separation of party and state is primarily aimed at crippling the mass organizations. For instance, the right wing objects to the fact that the CDS's, the neighborhood committees, have the power to issue ration cards and ensure that stores do not hoard or sell the rationed goods at higher prices.

That is, the right wing does not want the mass organizations to have such power. Rather they want to reserve that power for use by the state and its agencies. Yet this goes in exactly the opposite direction from the one dictated by the needs of ordinary people, who need to administer their own lives.

These demands constitute a political program on which the right wing might construct an election platform. However the CDN has chosen to abstain from the elections, using these preconditions as a fig leaf to cover their motives.

To most Nicaraguans, Arturo Cruz is not the "peacemaker" he is made out to be in the international press, but a close ally of the contras. In fact, both Robelo (ARDE) and Calero (FDN) have publicly stated their support for Cruz's candidacy.

The failure of the CDN to register before the Aug. 6 deadline makes it clear that these nine demands and the campaign being waged around them is designed to undermine Nicaragua's entire electoral process. And it is within this context that one can understand the angry reception Cruz receives when he shows up to speak.

During the latter part of September, Cruz met with supporters in Masaya, Leon, and Boaco. Thousands protested outside these meetings and in all three presidential candidate.

instances the police had to be called in to protect the CDN supporters. La Prensa denounced the protesters as "turbulent ones," a name by which many young Nicaraguans identify themselves at demonstrations.

When the parties that comprise the CDN failed to register their candidate, they lost their legal standing as political parties, reverting, under the law, to being political organizations. In the National Council of Political Parties on Sept. 21, the FSLN representatives proposed that these parties have their status 19, the government was willing to postpone the elections if Cruz could arrange a ceasefire with the contras. This was worked out at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in September, but then Cruz did not meet the conditions of the agreement.

The campaign to delegitimize the Nov. 4 elections has not succeeded in derailing them. As Dora Maria Tellez, FSLN candidate for the National Assembly from Managua, noted, the right wing is "trying to buy time to accumulate a strength they have been unable to attain throughout the course of history."

The right-wing parties are unwilling to contest with the FSLN for political leadership of the government. Since the opening of the discussion on the electoral process, they have opposed the right of those in the militia to vote and opposed setting the voting age at 16.

The youth of the country played a decisive role in the literacy campaign and are today defending the country against aggression. For the right wing, this is proof that the youth should not be franchised. By taking these positions, the right wing has demonstrated its hostility to the profoundly democratic processes of the revolution.

On the other hand, the FSLN has fought to utilize the elections as a weapon to defend the gains of the revolution, to consolidate those gains by engaging in a debate that will clarify the direction in which the revolution is proceeding, and to place the revolution in the most defensible position possible as the U.S. war drive continues unabated.

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Roberta Lichtman/Vision Fotos While the right-wing elements demand a dialogue with the contras, claiming that the war is a "civil war,' the FSLN explains that U.S. imperialism is financing the war. To defeat aggression it is therefore necessary to confront the U.S. government with a whole people determined to resist, and to do so by purchasing the best arms possible. They therefore explain and defend the need for a draft law.

FSLN candidates explain how the The FSLN campaign is mobilizing more than 50,000 supporters to cover every house during the election campaign. They will listen to the complaints and suggestions of voters, explain the FSLN program and urge people to vote for the Sandinistas.

They will place the elections within the context of defending the country against aggression, and explain the importance of casting a ballot against the attempts to abstain. And during the last days of the campaign, most observers anticipate another pastoral letter may be issued by the Catholic hierarchy, calling on the faithful to abstain in the Election preparations Although there are seven parties that will be participating in the Nov. 4 elections, most of the international attention has been focused on the abstentionist tactics of the CDN. The Supreme Electoral Council has organized training workshops in which more than 30,000 people have been trained in the mechanics of voter registration, voter counting, and reporting.

Two representatives from the Swedish Electoral Association, Jan Hult and Bert Carisson, visited Nicaragua twice, attending some of the regional training workshops and reviewing all the election materials that will be used in the voting. Hult stated, after visiting a training session, "in the area of training and education, a great deal can be learned from Nicaragua."

Sweden is providing $450,000 in paper supplies for the election, while Norway has promised $800,000, and Finland is donating $450,000 in paper, ink, and electric calculators.

International representatives will be present in Nicaragua to observe the electoral process. The electoral law has provided each political party with 9 million cordobas (28 cordobas equals $1 U.S.) and the right to seek donations, as well as equal-time provisions on the state and privately owned radio and TV stations. Public rallies and debates and political billboards as well as painted political slogans indicate that the coun try is engaged in a vast political discussion over which way forward for the revolution.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the Sandinistas will capture between 70 and 80 percent of the vote. The big questions are the following: How many voters will abstain; will the Catholic bishops intervene in the elections calling for abstention, and what impact will that have on the elections; and will the U.S. government respect the will of the Nicaraguan people?

For its part, the FSLN points to the role the United States has played in overturning revolutionary possibilities in Latin America. This includes the 1926-34 period in Nicaragua, which led to the Somoza family's dictatorship over the next 40 years. It also includes Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Chile in 1973.

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"Today Nicaragua is alive with political discussion."