Nicaragua's state of emergency: A closer look

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On Oct. 15, 1985, the Sandinista government reinstated the state of emergency in Nicaragua.

This was not the first time such a measure was taken. The first emergency decree was issued soon after the overthrow of Somoza and lasted until April 28, 1980. The second time, the state of emergency lasted from March 1982 until June 1984, when the presidential election campaign was opened.

It is important to understand the context in which this emergency was declared.

On Oct. 14, Vice Minister of Defense Joaquim Cuadra announced that the Sandinista Army had pushed back a massive contra invasion in the region of Esteli, 100 miles from the capital of Managua. Over 2500 contra mercenaries had set up bases at Las Vegas and Arenales, under the protection of Honduran troops.

Acts of economic sabotage had also escalated that month. Preparations to blow up supermarkets and bus terminals in Managua-even the main airport—were discovered, and contra agents were arrested with cases of explosives.

The U.S. contra war against the Nicaraguan Revolution has led to the death of 10,000 Nicaraguans and has caused millions of dollars in material damage. Food silos, schools, hospitals, government buildings, and harbors have all been targets of the U.S.-backed contras.

The official FSLN communique of Oct. 15 explained the state of emergency in these terms:

"The state of national emergency, which had been interrupted in 1984 during the electoral campaign, has been reinstated. This restriction of civil and political rights...is being taken to protect the welfare of the Nicaraguan people and to preserve the stability of the revolutionary government and the proper functioning of its institutions; gains which have been won with much sacrfice and blood.

"The state of emergency is a response to the new wave of aggression—military, political and economic-de -veloped by a powerful nation that has not hidden its interventionist purpose, as has widely been recognized throughout the world.

"Nicaragua, which is the victim of serious physical and psychological pressures that kill and maim our citizens daily, has the legitimate right to self-defense."

What is the state of emergency?

First of all, it is important to understand the state emergency for what it really is.

The Reagan administration and the great bulk of the Western news media have portrayed the Oct. 15 decree as proof of the FSLN's "totalitarianism." An intense imperialist misinformation campaign has been unleashed by those who would like to drown the revolution in blood. This imperialist propaganda must be exposed.

The state of emergency suspends for one year a limited number of rights. These include the right to habeas corpus (protection against detention without charge), but the suspension is restricted to crimes against the security of the state.

Also suspended is the right to free circulation in the war or military zones (a government pass is required) and the right to assemble, hold public meetings, and strike without government authorization. Censorship of the press is maintained.

So as can be seen, these restrictions have nothing in common with the states of siege that have been imposed throughout Latin America with the blessing of the imperialist powers.

Nicaragua is at war, yet there is no death penalty and no court martial for prisoners of war. On the contrary, a broad amnesty exists for those contras who put down their arms. They can return to their homes and jobs and even be welcomed back with full honors, as has been the case with dozens of peasants in the Northern region.

The opposition press, despite the censorship, appears daily. Freedom of speech has not been abolished. The opposition parties in the assembly continue to meet to discuss the draft of the proposed constitution. The opposition parties can continue to meet, criticize the government, and circulate their ideas—as long as they do not advocate armed rebellion against the FSLN government.

12 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1986 A news editor of one of the opposition radio stations explained the curbs in this manner: "We are able to broadcast just about anything, even saying that the Sandinistas are terrible administrators or that there needs to be more freedom in the country." But the editor warned, "There are two important taboos. We can only report official information about the war and we can't put anyone on the air who advocates dialogue between the government and the armed rebels."

The revolution has the right and the obligation to defend itself against its enemies. The counterrevolution and the CIA have countless resources at their disposal to attempt to undermine and destroy the revolution from within.

When the Catholic hierarchy puts out its bimonthly magazine openly calling on the youth to boycott the military service—claiming it is a "sin to take up arms UAW/Solidarity Sandinistas find a victim of the contras.

against your fellow man"—the FSLN has the right to ban such propaganda.

When Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, who is the political voice of the contras in Nicaragua, organizes public rallies throughout the country to denounce the military service and to openly support the contras, again the FSLN has the right to ban such meetings.

The right to strike The FSLN government's restriction on the right strike, however, does not fit into the same category legitimate defense of the revolution.

While it is true that provocateurs or even U.S.financed agents will want to sow dissension inside the labor movement—as they did in Chile under Allende by fomenting the truckers' strike-the response by the FSLN leadership should not be a broad-sweeping measure that outlaws strikes against the capitalists.

Sixty-seven percent of industry in Nicaragua is still owned by the capitalists. Despite generous government credits and laws aimed at encouraging the Nicaraguan capitalists to invest productively to reactivate the economy [see article on the mixed economy in this section], the capitalists have demonstrated their total unwillingness to participate in the national campaign for production.

The FSLN has the authority to explain to the workers its opposition to strikes. But it is wrong to deprive the urban and rural workers from using their major weapon to defend their own interests against the internal enemies of the revolution—the capitalist class.

It is important to note that in September 1985, one Targets of the contras: Nicaragua's future.

month before the decree was enacted, the Sandinista Workers Federation (CST) had held its national congress, during which it strongly criticized the government's February 1985 economic package. The CST had solidarized with the workers who complained that their standard of living was dropping-and it was they who must make all the sacrifices-—while the speculators went unpunished.

In fact, only a few days before the emergency measures were decreed, demonstrations and strikes for wage increases had taken place in many of Managua's factories.

Three days after the state of emergency was decreed, Barricada, the official newspaper of the FSLN, published a statement signed by six major trade-union federations, including the CST, in support of the emergency measures. It stated, "We consider the state of national emergency to be extremely positive...in that it is aimed at stopping the internal and external counterrevolutionary activity of our enemies."

The FSLN had been able to use its genuine political authority to gain support from the unions for the emergency law, including the ban on the right to strike.

Defense of mixed economy The right of the revolution to defend itself against internal and external aggression is totally legitimate. But it is quite another thing to justify the emergency measures on the grounds of the defense of the "mixed economy," as Daniel Ortega did in his speech to the United Nations.

Ortega stated, "These measures are essentially aimed at defending the project of political pluralism, mixed economy, and non-alignment." Ortega also put on the same plane those who sabotage the economy and aid the contras, and those "ultra-left groups which encourage strikes and labor indiscipline that affect production and therefore the national economy and the model of the mixed economy." This equation is wrong.

There are certainly those in the Nicaraguan labor movement who do not have the best interests of the revolution in mind when they engage in workplace actions. This is the case of the Stalinist-led General Workers Federation (CGT) and of its leader, Alejandro Solorzano, who carried out a three-day hunger strike last October to demand an additional month's bonus pay for the workers.

The Stalinists in Nicaragua have urged the government to free many detained contra terrorists and to accept the new Contadora proposal, which calls for negotiations with the contras.

But workers' grievances, which are manipulated by some currents, cannot be resolved by a governmental decree that bans strikes. The material roots of this discontent—the economic crisis, due in large part to the preservation of the "mixed economy" —must be addressed and resolved.

The reactionary forces in Nicaragua are seeking to exploit the popular discontent over the economic situation in order to create a broad internal opposition front. To defeat this reactionary offensive, however, requires radical economic measures that will undermine the basis for its support. It requires the expropriation of capitalist property and its management by the workers themselves through their own democratic organizations.

It is the capitalists who, from within, are creating economic chaos through sabotage and speculation.

It is wrong to think that first the war against the contras must be won, and only then can the "social transformations" occur. Both must go hand in hand.

The war against the enemies of the revolution cannot be decisively won without breaking with the strategy of the "mixed economy" and establishing in Nicaragua a workers' state based on the collective ownership of the means of production.