RIP UP THE SELLOUT! SMASH THE CONTRAS! EXPROPRIATE COSEP!
WORKERS TO POWER IN NICARAGUA!
"Contra negotiators say they were surprised by the concessions
the Sandinistas made at the talks. Alfredo Cesar, a rebel director and
negotiator, said....the Sandinistas made concessions that in effect gave the
contras their main objectivekeeping their troops armed and in the field
while at the same time allowing contra representatives to enter political talks
with the Sandinistas
"Our troops get a two-month rest with supplies while we
test the Sandinistas willingness to comply Mr. Cesar said.
`Its an agreement we couldnt turn down." New York
Times, 26 March 1988
The sixty-day ceasefire negotiated between the Nicaraguan
Sandinistas and Reagans murderous hirelings on 23 March is a good
deal for the contras but it represents an ominous setback for the Central
American revolution. In their anxiety to promote the so-called peace process
launched by the "Arias Plan," the FSLN leaders have so far capitulated to
virtually all of the demands of the contras and the pro-imperialist
"democratic" opposition. The core of the settlement boils down to the
following:
1) in exchange for two months of "peace" the FSLN has agreed to
release some 3000 jailed counterrevolutionaries and former National
Guardsmen (who Ortega repeatedly promised the masses of Nicaraguan working
people would never be released) and to let exiled contras return without
punishment;
2) the Sandinistas commit themselves to proceed with the
"democratization" of Nicaraguaguaranteeing the sanctity of private
ownership of the bulk of the economy and granting unrestricted access to the
media for the bourgeois opposition (and its CIA financiers);
3) the settlement is to be "verified" by Cardinal Obando y
Bravo, the chief clerical contra and the Secretary General of the Organization
of American States, which the Cubans used to aptly refer to as the American
"ministry of colonies." The Sandinistas have also indicated their willingness
to have Canadian and other imperialist troops monitor observance of the
accord.
This is not the first time the FSLN has attempted to "turn the
other cheek" to the murderous contra killers. Thousands of Somozas
praetorian National Guard members were freed in the first days of the
revolution--as a futile gesture of "national reconciliation." These scum, who
should have been subject to the revolutionary justice of the Nicaraguan masses,
were reorganized by the CIA and then proceeded to murder, terrorize and maim
many tens of thousands of innocent Nicaraguan citizens. Last year the FSLN
released 1000 counterrevolutionaries in another futile attempt to ingratiate
themselves with imperialist world opinion. In an interview with the New York
Times published 9 February Tomas Borge, the Sandinista Interior Minister,
admitted that most of the 1000 counterrevolutionaries amnestied in 1987 "have
reincorporated themselves into the ranks of the armed counterrevolution."
Nonetheless the regime has now committed itself to freeing another 3000
counterrevolutionaries.
The Arias plan was designed to isolate and reverse the Nicaraguan
revolution and thereby stabilize the fragile neo-colonial regimes of the
region. Costa Rican president Arias figures that if the FSLN agrees to
"democratize" (i.e., to give the bourgeoisie a free hand politically as well as
economically) then well and good. And if at some point the FSLN refuses to
cooperate in dismantling what remains of the gains won through the heroic
struggle of the Nicaraguan masses which smashed Somozas capitalist state,
then they can be branded as hypocrites, warmongers and enemies of peace. One
"senior Costa Rican official" quoted in the 16 March New York Times
proposed: "Cut off the contras, make them go back as a political party. If the
Sandinistas crack down on them, then Reagan can do whatever he wants, but give
this a chance." It is the duty of all leftists to defend the Nicaraguan
revolution against imperialist aggression. But support to this latest move by
the petty bourgeois nationalists of the FSLN is a betrayal of the
revolution.
The FSLNs 1987 constitution guaranteed the right to own
private property. But so far this has been something of a moot point because
the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, which still controls the bulk of the economy, was
deeply alienated from the FSLN regime and constituted a "fifth column" for the
contras. The line of demarcation between revolutionaries and pseudo-leftists on
Nicaragua has been the advocacy of a break with the bourgeoisie and the
expropriation of the capitalists. Such a perspective necessarily entails
spreading the revolution throughout the region--a prospect which
terrifies the other rulers of Central America. The signing of this sellout
accord puts Nicaragua on the road to ending up as another Algeria, Angola or
Zimbabwe. The Third World pseudo-socialist rhetoric of these regimes cannot
disguise the reality of their subordination and integration into the economic
system of world imperialism.
Time is running out for the Nicaraguan revolution. But it is not
too late to fight. The accord with the counterrevolution must be ripped up. The
contras must be smashed and their capitalist backers in COSEP expropriated. And
the revolution must be spread beyond the boundaries of Nicaragua to the
desperately exploited workers throughout the region. But the Nicaraguan workers
and poor peasants cannot look to the petty bourgeois Sandinistas to carry out
this perspectivethey need a Trotskyist party based on the lessons of the
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and irrevocably committed to a program
of internationalist class struggle against the nationalist class
collaborationism of Ortega et al.
28 March 1988 |