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Sharing Experiences, Conversations Among Americans

By Bill Curmano

While traveling with the VVAW delegation in Nicaragua, I met several members of the North American community willing to share their experience with me. I found three language students studying in Estelí to be especially compelling. Victor was a Spanish Civil War and World War II vet who had driven a car from California to Managua where it was donated to Technica. He was with two young solidarity workers from Massachusetts, Christie Clark and Heather Randle. We sat down to dinner together one evening in Estelí and here are their personal stories.

Victor worked with the Peace and Freedom Party in California and had worked with a number of activist's organizations including VVAW in the early '70's. His journey through Mexico was uneventful, but upon crossing the Guatemalan frontier he underwent what was to be only the first in a long series of thorough searches. This one was by the military, followed closely by a second search by the National Police. As he continued down the Pan American Highway, he was stopped three more times by soldiers while still in Guatemala.

Crossing into El Salvador required two more of the by-now familiar searches. Victor commented on meeting friendly people in both Guatemala and El Salvador, but he found the soldiers very tough. San Salvador appeared to be an armed garrison with everyone off the streets by 8 PM.

In Honduras, the soldiers were looking for bribes during both of his searches. During the first incident, Vic came up with a flashlight that seemed to satisfy the authorities, but the second group of soldiers was looking for cigarettes. Being a nonsmoker, it took Vic a little longer to get out of this one.

He finally arrived at the Nicaraguan border about 2:30 PM, but no one was getting through. A substation had been blown up the previous night, so everyone just slept on the road or waited. The soldiers were friendly and outgoing, finally letting people through at 7 AM the next morning.

Victor delivered the car and began traveling around with a video crew. Next, he lived with a Nicaraguan family and eventually began studying at the language school in Estelí,

During this time in Nicaragua, Victor saw no signs of oppression. He attended religious service with Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses. He met two people who were open Contra supporters. The first one told of a conspiracy to deprive people of their religion, but obviously Victor had seen religious freedom with his own eyes. He felt many of the Contras were influenced by propaganda that was contrary to reality.

The second Contra was a truck driver and Seventh-Day Adventist. He was a decent guy, following his own convictions, but once again his fears were not justified by the apparent conditions.

Christie Clark had been in Nicaragua well over a year when I met her. She had flown through San Salvador in January 1985, and been held under military arrest in a harrowing experience. The authorities suspected her and all North Americans with her of being Peace Marchers. They were held at gun point on a road overnight while the troops marched around firing their weapons in the air. It was the same road that American nuns had been murdered on in an earlier incident.

After her release, she continued on to Nicaragua where she lived with a family in San Pedro. She worked as a carpenter on a school project and, before the building was even finished, classes were held for 300 morning and 300 afternoon students. Before the revolution, only the privileged class had educational opportunities; now there is a concerted effort to build new schools.

During her stay in San Pedro, she was in two Contra attacks. In the first attack, on January 25th, four militia members were killed and a thirteen-year old boy was wounded. The school was attacked and the students fled under fire. The Contras went door to door demanding food and breaking into houses. After 45 minutes of constant fire, the 50 or so Contras were driven back. The next morning the local citizens were milling about and told Christie and her friends about captured weapons and a dead Contra in the town square. The three captured rifles bore the FDN insignia of the Contras.

San Pedro is a conservative community, relatively wealthy and by no means a military target. There were only 23-armed militia present in a town of 3000. It was fairly well insulated from the Somoza regime and the revolution. The sort of community was more likely to support Contra ideology, but after incidents such as this, the citizens increased their resolve to resist Contra interference. As Christie said, "The Contras are their own worst enemies. The San Pedro farmers are not kept out of their fields by Sandinistas, but by fear of Contra attack."

The second attack came on March 13th at 3:30 AM. There were only 5 of Christie's Brigade members left, so they were all living in one house. Ironically, two reporters were interviewing them about the first attack and became witnesses to the second. During this attack, they were exposed to much heavier fire continuing until daylight. Four Contras were killed that night and 45 more the following day. Six people were kidnapped and several wounded. Four of the kidnap victims escaped later, but the other two are still missing.

Christie was able to view one of the Contra bodies. He wore American boots, a bulletproof vest and carried a Browning automatic. He had 40,000 Cordobas in his pocket, which is a considerable amount of money by Nicaraguan standards. Three different families spoke of a blond, blue-eyed man and woman who came to several homes looking for help. They spoke in English and broken Spanish and the woman had been wounded in the attack.

Heather Randle is a union activist from the Garment Workers local in Massachusetts. She had been in Nicaragua a relatively short time, but made some interesting observations because of a passport problem that made her stay in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for several days. She was able to talk to students, peasants and workers in both countries and to make some comparison s between them. The only Americans she saw in Honduras were U.S. military personnel and reporters; in Nicaragua she saw the usual reporters as well as American tourists, doctors, nurses, teachers, carpenters, workers, clergy and activists. The economic base in Honduras made essential items more expensive Political activism in Honduras was repressed, and students said they would be arrested if the demonstrated. By contrast, Nicaragua is in a state of emergency, yet seven political opposition parties are allowed to operate openly and large opposition billboards dot the landscape. The people in both countries were friendly, but she felt harassment from the authorities in Honduras.

All three of these students agreed they would be working more intently to make American aware of the conditions in Nicaragua when they returned home. They absolutely oppose U.S. intervention in Central America. Heather and Christie visited the U.S. Embassy but found Embassy personnel uninterested in their concerns. The public relations specialist they encountered made sweeping generalizations and provided no documentation when questioned as to names, sources, etc. Victor happened to be hospitalized for four days in Estelí and couldn't help but realize it was the first time the people in Nicaragua could receive adequate health care. There were eleven people on his ward with doctors, nurses and a pharmacy and it didn't cost them a dime. I can't help but wonder when we'll see adequate health care in the U.S.

—Bill Curmano
VVAW Minn.