When Ortega becomes Somoza and Sandino is forgotten

7/7/2010

Perhaps if Alberto Korda had photographed Augusto César Sandino, we might now be inundated with the face of a Nicaraguan mechanic as opposed to an Argentine doctor. As a practitioner of guerilla warfare, Sandino not only predated Che, but left behind a history less prone to the whims of historical revision of both the detractors and champions of the former. Were that even possible, few could have preferred Sandino’s take on Pancho Villa to Ernesto’s beret and matted locks. Aesthetically there wouldn’t have been much competition. But for those less beholden to a particular image, the Nicaraguan’s legacy is less contested than his predecessor. And on the subject of legacies, though in a modern context—the political party that still uses his name once made a significant contribution to not only Nicaragua, but to Central American stability: they lost an unfair April 1990 election to Violeta Chamorro and accepted defeat in a way no revolutionary group in Latin America had ever done—peacefully.

The FSLN waited for their turn to take another shot at establishing their vision of Nicaragua. But since Daniel Ortega’s victory in 2006, FSLN rule has begun to look more and more like the hated Somoza rule they so valiantly fought. No one has clarified this development better than Eduardo Montealegre, Ortega’s closest opponent in the 2006 Presidential election: “it’s clear he’s not a romantic revolutionary, but rather a copy of Anastasio Somoza.”

Normally the comments of an Ivy-league educated man from the traditional elite who failed to unseat a former guerilla might be seen as nothing more than the bitter ramblings of an unsuccessful dissident.

That certainly wouldn’t be accurate now.

Just this week, five Nicaraguan mayors were removed from office without justification. The most blatant case was Hugo Barquero in Boaco, a small town northeast of Managua that hasn’t traditionally supported the FLSN. The city council of hilly and quaint Boaco brought the small city to national and international attention this week when it’s Sandinista-dominated city council voted to remove Barquero from office; his offence, the story goes, is mismanagement. He’s still waiting for a report or any form of evidence for that matter.

The reason for his removal was obvious: Barquero refused to support Ortega’s re-election. And in the Orwellian context of present-day Nicaragua, that means the end of the road for those with political aspirations. Of course that didn’t mean Barquero went down without a fight; it did take police in riot gear to get him and his supporters out of city hall…

But where is all this leading?

It depends on how long the international community is willing to let the charade go on.

Hugo Chavez continues to lavish money on the Ortega machine; back in 2008, Ortega himself claimed that number was as high as $521 million, with the majority supposedly going to his “Zero Hunger” program (strangely enough the Banco Central de Nicaragua’s numbers didn’t match). And of course there’s the overruling of the 1995 amendment to the constitution that prevented re-election—an amendment that at the time was fully supported by the FSLN, but once back in control was ruled unconstitutional by Sandinista judges—an act of such egregious and preposterous judicial manipulation that all but the staunchest supporters felt compelled to condemn it.

So barring foreign intervention, an Ortega in his mid sixties appears poised to continue on as President by winning an election in 2011 almost certain—like 2008’s municipal elections—to be void of any international monitoring. And the significant achievements of the FSLN governments in the 80s—massive illiteracy reductions, the elimination of polio, reduced infant mortality—are all beginning to seem like distant memories, replaced instead by images of the Chureca garbage dump (see Geoff Bugbee’s photographs if you want a vision of hell on earth; the link is below) and real evidence of mismanagement.

Sandino, the man from whom Ortega apparently discovered his raison d’être, once said, “You always have to situate yourself on the side of honor and justice.” Never more than now have Nicaraguans and the international community wished those words might again inspire a man with whom—in his revolutionary days and the beginning of his first presidency—they might not always have agreed, but at the very least, respected.

(http://www.geoffbugbee.com)