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Facing The People In Nicaragua

By Chuck Winant

The "Cara del Pueblo" is a weekly event in Nicaragua and a completely alien custom to North Americans. The idea of these events is that the responsible people of government, from the local librarian to the president of the republic make themselves available to the people for questions, criticism, and suggestions. Though usually these are private affairs for the Nicaraguan people, occasionally they are open to the foreign press and public; and the fact that this custom is never written about in the U.S. press shows how little we North Americans understand democracy when we see it.

Recently, I went to one of these events, held in the town of Somoto, ten miles or so from "democratic" Honduras where our death squads and contra roam. The meeting was held outside in the primary school courtyard, under the trees.

On the official side of the event was Daniel Ortega, Dora Maria Tellez, Murillo Ortega, the entire junta municipal of Somoto, and the responsibles for agriculture, transportation, housing, finance, the Sandinista Party, statisticians, etc., for the Zone and the Region. There must have been 30 people on the two-foot-high stage.

On the popular side were the people of Somoto and a few other towns: campesinos in ragged clothes, old vets in patched fatigues, wizened and dignified dones, cowboys in landed gentry garb, barefoot kids, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, and other professionals. In a word, Nicaragua.

Some of the people came in organized groups behind banners like the numerous Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs and the Sandinista Youth. Folks came on horseback, foot, crutch, vehicle, bike and wheelchair, the last no mean feat given the nature of Somoto's streets. I came in a comfy press bus after a free breakfast at the press-center, getting from Managua to Somoto in comfort in three hours, rather than in two hot, dusty days.

Folks waited around and gather chatting. The newspaper was hotly discussed, as there was major fighting going on east of Somoto along the border, and the mighty President of the World's Greatest Democracy was tangled up in yet another web of murder and lies, only this time the press was choosing to write about it.

Ortega being Enemy Number One in the eyes of the World's largest terrorist state, certain means of defense were deployed to assure that the people could have this day with their elected President without having it interrupted by the forces of "democracy and freedom." The main defense was two graceful M124b helicopter gunships which made two passes around Somoto's bordering mountains and disappeared. Everybody looked disappointed, but smiles were everywhere, including on the face of your correspondent, when they burst over the roof of the school at about 50 feet and flared out to land in the baseball field.

Everybody gathered around them, stopping, unasked, 50 feet from the birds. The big canopies opened, and the pilots and gunners climbed out. I noticed in particular the way that a lot of older people looked at those lads. They were very proud of them; it was palpable, the grinning, combative joy that swept through the crowd. "Come on, Yankee, visit our mountains" Big crowd pleaser.

Ten out of ten people I interviewed saw the gunships as a concrete example of the support of the Soviet people and government in the fact of brutal U.S. aggression against Nicaragua. I guess the fact that the U.S. is "promoting liberty" in the region is an idea over these peoples' heads.

After that, a caravan of jeeps arrived, carrying government wheels. I noticed low ratios of both bodyguards and "aides," compared to the drones who buzz around North America's numerous "leaders." Comandante Dora Maria drove herself. A three-star general looked at my Vietnam Vets Against the War t-shirt, looked and me, and bid me"good day."

Ortega started the Cara del Pueblo with a ten-minute monologue. The first thing he spoke about was the pain that the mothers of the war dead carry with them, pain that will never be erased even if the war were to end tomorrow. He was very solemn as he said this. Having seen enough politicians in my day—from Nixonic war criminals to consumer socialists—my bullshit alarm is pretty sensitive, but it didn't go off.

He went on to say that the reason there is no fighting in Managua, Masaya or Leon is because people like them live along the border. The youth of the cities, however, are in the military and contribute to the national defense, and also the youth from the cities, as professionals, work in the border regions as technicians, medicos, and teachers, so that while much of the fighting occurs near the frontier, citizens from all regions (and classes, thanks to the draft) share the danger. This wasn't always so, and that is why the draft was instituted.

He went on to speak of the economic situation, the Peace Front (diplomatic efforts to get the U.S. off their necks), the fighting to the east (I remembered a triple funeral I attended here in 1984, three songs of Somoto who were in a platoon ambushed on the Jalapa road—more can be expected), health care, food prices. He spoke well and had obviously done his homework.

There was a delegation of upper-class yanks there from Seattle wearing suits and up-scale dresses. Ortega again defined the difference between the U.S. government and the North American people (some of them anyhow) and said, "If the U.S. can spare $100 million plus for the contra, it's crazy that they can't spare the people of Nicaragua the same $100 million plus" to help alleviate some of the shortcomings he'd just spoken about.

For example, there is no diphtheria/typhus vaccine in Nicaragua. The contra blow up bridges, while the people of Nicaragua need more bridges, not less. He said nice things about U.S. cooperants in general and reminded people not to confuse the U.S. government with the U.S. people who live in the "prerevolutionary" situation and have no control over their government.

"These people are the heart of North America," he said. "Reagan and his people have no hearts. These people have come to a war zone to attend this Cara del Pueblo—for them peace is more than words, it is concrete practice."

The Somoto party responsible's job was to run around with the microphone to make sure the people had their voices heard—an interesting symbolic move. Anyone could have been the mike gopher, but the party chief did it. He was about 25 years old.

The first citizen spoke up, an older woman in a clean but threadbare dress. She has a son in prison for being part of a contra band. She wanted him out. Ortega focused his complete attention on the woman, listening intently.

"Have you visited you son in Prison? Is he in good health?"

"Yes," she said, "he's all right but has no idea when he'll get out." (Unless you're a Yankee mercenary like Hasenfus, the Popular Tribunals are back-logged about nine months to a year).

"This war is a terrible thing," Ortega said. "It divides families." He mentioned the Chamorro family which runs the political gamut from the editor of Barricada to a retired FDN honcho. "Those who want no part o the revolutionary process are free to leave Nicaragua," he said. "Those who take up arms against it will get killed or imprisoned."

He consulted with someone from the Ministry of the Interior which is responsible for the prisons, then turned around again and directed his attention to the campesino woman to tell her that in no more than a week she would receive a complete report on the crimes with which her son is charged, where exactly in the judicial process his case is, who is responsible for defending him, and a statement from the lawyer as to what has been done so far in her son's defense. There is an office of 30 people who do nothing buy follow up on Cara del Pueblos.

I think that no matter what this guy did, he will be out of jail decades before Leonard Peltier or any of the Ohio 7, and no matter what, the state will not take his life. Obviously, there's a lack of "law and order" here.

The next person was really pissed and it showed. He was an angry man and with good reason. His very small village has defended itself against contra attacks on numerous occasions. Also it grows a lot more food than it consumes. Much more. They have no drinking water plant, no health center, no school (a crime, he said, since there are 80 children there), no visits from the agrarian reform technicians about new farming techniques, nada. The people feel abandoned by the government which is very glad to buy its surplus produce.

"But the people, who, Senor Presidente, are, according to the precepts of our revolutionary comandante Carlos Fonseca Amador, to be the recipients of revolutionary progress, are waiting, patiently, for some sign that they too are a part of revolutionary Nicaragua." He was pissed.

Ortega turned to the zonal responsible of the FSLN. "Well?"

The responsible blew it. While it is true (and obvious) that the war launched by the U.S. cases a lot of problems, not to mention deaths and amputees, the party official tried to foist off all of these shortcomings on the war. He spoke for a long time about the "impotency" of his office to do anything about these problems.

When he was through, Ortega conferred with Dora Maria (the Minister of Health and zonal officials responsible for health care), then with those responsible for construction and education.

Result: errors of the Frente recognized. There will be a 1) medical team visiting the village every week. 2) A school will be built within a month. A teacher will be found. 3) "Boil your water, compa, we just can't provide a water plant at this time." Same with electricity. 4) Agrarian reform will visit regularly and assist. 5) The army will give more rifles and training and include the village defense concerns in its planning. Sandinista totalitarianism strikes again.

The session went on: a farmer complained that he could neither get his milk to the market nor get a truck to come pick it up. The next person castigated the high cost of higher education. Social security is too low for retired people to live on decently, a retired teacher said. (I think, well, that's a least understandable in a poor country like Nicaragua: it's incomprehensible and reprehensible in the richest nation on earth, and what's even more incomprehensible is why people stand for it.)

One fellow told the following story: I have a family of 10 children. We are campesinos, and for five years we have lived on a piece of land, which we have improved and cultivated. Two weeks ago, my family and I were forcibly removed from this land. We have been offered another land, but a man wants the land he has worked, the land that is his own. I don't want the land that I'm offered. I want my land back.

This was spoken in a certain style of country speech used in story telling, with grand statements and sweeping gestures, as well as most of the people on the stage.

Ortega, as he did with every single person speaking, turned his entire body to face the man directly, gave him his undivided attention, and didn't even smile at the man's story. "well," he asked the junta municipal, "are things as this campanero says?"

A judge advocate rose and spoke. Yes, he know the man's story; he had been dealing with the man and his family for over a year. It seems that his land is part of an old Comocista latifunda, seized by the Frente at the time of the Triumph. People who worked the land know that its final disposition was undecided, and while the people had lived and worked the land for free all of this time, and improved it, it had always been clear that someday it might be used for something else.

A year ago it was decided that Madriz needed an orphanage for war victims, and because this land is accessible by road and has a year-round river next to it, the man was informed that the orphanage would be built there.

"The land to which we are giving him deed is similar to the land we are taking, according to the companeros of Agrarian Reform. For a year, he refused to move. We finally had to move him. I myself have visited both places, and while no two pieces of land are alike, they are most certainly similar. Everyone here knows the need for this orphanage."

A conference ensured, and then an official for the Ministry of Construction said, " If the compa will accept this land, we will deliver all the material necessary to build a house—roofing, cement, lumber, nails, everything."

Ortega said, "Well, is this acceptable?"

"Well, okay," the man said. Laughter.

Then a group of very poor campesinos got up en masse and said that though they are very poor, what they do have they have because of the revolution, the Frente Sandinista, its heroes and martyrs, and the Army. So the campesinos of their collective wished to present the president of the Republic of Nicaragua with a check for 50,000 cordobas to benefit the Army.

That's a lot of dough—about $17. Don't laugh—it's a lot of money for a dirt-poor rural cooperative where people work from dawn to dusk, and at night have to worry about having their houses set on fire or their stock killed or their children stolen by U.S. killers.

Ortega thanked them gravely, and from his manner you'd think they'd just laid a gunship or an anti-aircraft battery on him. He knows what that 50,000 cordobas cost these people in sweat and delayed purchases; it cost them ore to donate the equivalent of $17 than it took for our "representatives" to cough up $100 million plus for the contras.

The Cara del Pueblo went on for five solid hours on a Saturday. Ortega maintained an absolute attention, always turning his body in his chair to fully face the citizen who was speaking. He didn't intervene in every question, only about half in varying degrees, as the responsibles to whom the questions were directed would speak for themselves.

It was an outstanding event, in my book. Of course this sort of intelligence and common sense on the President's part would lead to the unemployment line, if practiced in the U.S. Here in Nicaragua there isn't any need for a whole pack of highly paid assholes to call a press conference every time the President speaks to say, "What the President meant to say was..."

So, for five hours, a few miles from the frontier, after a 70-hour week, Ortega gave his attention to Nicaragua's common citizens, as happens every week. I personally got a chuckle out of the devastated looks on the faces of the yank bourgeoisie from Seattle. I'm sure they are opposed to intervention; they probably work to aid the people of Nicaragua, but deep inside, most members of the (mostly) upper class anti-intervention movement is the feeling that U.S. really does have the best political system, the freest in the world, blah, blah. To realize so clearly and graphically that the Sandinistas have it all over our own system was a shock for them. Their minds were blown; it was plain from their faces.

Ortega mentioned the yanks again at the wrap-up and invited them to ask a question or two. I help my breath, because at the last Cara gringos went to, yankee brigadistas dominated the mike for too long (as usual), each one asking poor Eugene Hasenfus' release. Spare me. But to my relief, Hasenfus wasn't mentioned (this was before his release) and rather good messages of solidarity were conveyed.

Okay, said Ortega at the end, "We've all heard your concerns and gladly received statements of support. But look here. We have a problem here along the border, and it isn't just the war. We received 45 tons of beans and rice from Austria, a gift from the people of Austria through their government. At the same time we know that many people smuggle beans across the border to sell in Honduras. Now that's not right, and it's not good. Countries donate food and medicines to us, and it costs their own people to do this. We cannot, while we say we need these things, at the same time have the same commodities being sold outside the country for personal profit. This hurts all of us, everyone one. So stop the people doing this. It's a job for the CDS (Sandinista Defense Committee) and for every citizen."

So there it is. Accountability. A few people were shy, several angry, one very angry, and all were interested in the process and all a part of it. We in the U.S. have a long way to go.

The "Hymno Sandinista" was sung. Tears come to me easily here; the "Hymno" always moves me. A mountain of dead Abrams, Reagans, or Norths wouldn't equal the cost of that song.

—Chuck Winant

[Chuck Winant is a Vietnam veteran—Mekong Delta '68-'69—living in Nicaragua. He's a correspondent for THE VETERAN and a coordinator of Material Aid Committee—Vermont (MACV.]