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Nicaraguan Woman Speaks Out: Exclusive Interview With VVAW

By VVAW

Perhaps it's my vet mentality, but one of the images the Central America conjures up is a contingent in a demonstration of CAVAW Central American Vets Against the War. Well, this is an interview with two of the Nicaraguan women that our hypothetical comrades may have to fight, I think that after reading this you will agree that we should all rededicate ourselves to preventing any US intervention.

I shared both tears and smiles with a weary Ivon Siu and Zulema Baltondano, as they passed thru on a speaking tour with their translator/guide, Sally Hanlen. I interviewed them at Chicago's 8th Day Center, one of their sponsors. They wanted me to add that they think American vets may prove to be a crucial link in the movement to stop a war in Central America. Let's hope that we can be true to this trust.

VVAW is particularly interested in experiences during the revolution that portrayed the differences between the two armies. Ivon Siu: "They were radically different. When one of the National Guard members fell into our hands we respected his life and called out to his people to put down their arms and to stop killing their own people. The guard would kill people without having any proof that they were involved with an enemy force. Just because you were a young person, that was proof enough. They would kill you. We have discovered that during the war we have deepened our moral and spiritual values. Our leaders particularly. They have taught us to see the National Guard members as victims of a bloody dictatorship and a corrupt system.

Zulema Baltodona: "As a member of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Commission I visit the prisons regularly. And, because my daughters were imprisoned I know the previous prisons. They are totally different. If someone was taken prisoner, instead of being shot, they would become victims of the worst possible tortures. Now, on the contrary prisoners are treated as human beings. They have visits from their families, and can provide for them by working in the factories we have added to the prisons. Our high school students, who had just been freed from the repression of these same people, conducted reading classes for the prisoners.

Do combat veterans of the revolution have any problems readjusting to peacetime? Siu: "No. There is a difference here between a US war veteran and another one from Nicaragua. We were not soldiers, we were civilians who had to go to war in order to defend ourselves. We were armed with a deep conviction that we were making was in order to win peace. That enables us to transcend all possible traumas. A veteran who has gone to war to which he was forced to by his government (and which he really didn't understand why it was going in the first place) finds it difficult because of the psychological scars. Like Sandino said, "We are not military, we are pueblo. Armed civilians defending our people. I was wondering what specific experiences either of you have had in combat, we sometimes call them "war stories." Things that stay with you for one reason or another.

Baltondano: "What you call veterans, we call leaders. These were men and women who were born oppressed. So those people began to show the way. After they had begun my children came along, because that was a twenty-year war. I had nine children, seven girls and two boys. The third of my daughters decided to go into the struggle when she began participating in the Christian community groups, which we used to call something like "vanguard." Those groups worked on helping the most needy.

In that way she began getting involved bit by bit in the struggle. At the beginning I really opposed her. Little by little I began to realize that the young people were right. As the repression grew, the involvement of the young people grew, so several of my children go involved in the struggle. Three of my daughters were imprisoned and one month before the victory they killed one of them. The youngest of my daughters lost both hands. Monica, the first of my daughters to get involved, was a guerilla commander, and is now the highest-ranking woman in the Nicaraguan government. Siu: "I joined the struggle at the same time Monica did, in 1971. In our country there were many fronts in the struggle. At one time we were providing logistical support for the takeover of the home of one of Somoza's ministers. That was the action, in 1972, that announced to the public that the Sandinistas were in open confrontation to the government.

What answers would you like to hear from a presidential candidate about what their policies would be towards Nicaragua? Siu: "We feel that the North American people should demand that a president and his administration should respect other countries. Mutual respect is one of the basic principles of truly democratic governments. We feels that the U.S. government has never really respected the countries of Latin America, especially our own. Since 1912 successive US governments have intervened in our country. From 1924 until 1979 they were the ones who did and undid everything. Calling all the shots. But, within the Reagan administration the interventionist and militaristic policies have grown. We feel that what Reagan thinks is: since we don't permit him to continue intervening, he feels that we have given him a political slap in the face. And he sees that for the first time the US empire has been slowed down by a little tiny country. And that goes over like a lead balloon. That's why he has begun this whole campaign to discredit us, brining up the worn-out slogan that we are communists. We have done an original, a Nicaraguan revolution. We're rebuilding our country and the only thing we do know is that we want peace. We want our children to have health care, hospitals, shoes to wear, education and food to eat. That's all we're asking for.

We don't know, maybe that's communism. We have to run our own show and administer our own resources. Reagan doesn't like that. We can't let them come in and loot us again? What we really mind is that our people are still being killed and they continue funding ex-National Guard, the Somozistas, in Honduras. Pretend that you are able to speak to one of the Americans going to Honduras to be a Military trainer. You have the opportunity to try and talk him into disobeying his orders, and refuse to go. SIE: "It's a little tough. First of all the troops arriving in El Salvador and Honduras could not be thought of as average American citizens. These people know ahead of time what they are going down there to do. And they're really mercenaries. They know that they are going down there to kill, and that they are going to be making money at the cost of other people's lives. Nevertheless, the barbarity is such that many of the repent later, as happened with Vietnam. Many went because they had to follow orders. That's why there are organizations like yours, people who have seen the fruits of an unjust war I think that your organization can do a lot.