Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 9/5/2018 11:23 AM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote: I think socialists really need to reflect on the direction the colonial revolution has taken over the years, because Ortega is not some lone exception How has the colonial revolution degenerated so much? Isn't what we're seeing visible proof of the theory of permanent revolution? After all, the leadership of none of these revolutions linked the colonial revolution with the overthrow of capitalism itself. I don't think the Nicaraguan revolution "degenerated" at all. It was defeated, destroyed. Crushed. Drowned in blood and I believe that had been consummated before the election of Mrs Chamorro. In the year 2000 I wrote a very long post on this list going over my experiences in Nicaragua where I lived for several years. About a year ago I put it on my blog and it is here: http://hatueysashes.blogspot.com/2017/01/from-archives-how-1980s-sandinista.html Rereading it now, there are a couple of things I remember saying in other posts from that time. Mainly that there simply was no basis in Nicaragua for what they were trying to do economically and socially, though I'm not sure I put it that baldly. The policy of pressured collectivization ("forced" would be an exaggeration) was a conscious choice with the idea that this would smooth their transition to a planned economy, and that the social programs and economic benefits would help them sell it. Wheelock seemed to be totally committed to it. This affected not just the worker-peasant alliance but the "worker-worker alliance." A lot of workers viewed themselves as displaced small farmers and what they wanted was land and to be left alone on their little homestead. I'll repeat what I said in my post from 18 years ago: in four years I was in Nicaragua I never met a single peasant who had gotten land to work on his own account from the revolution. On the contrary, I saw the FSLN oppose movements by agricultural workers to break up cotton estates and distribute them for their families to work individually. And I was on the lookout because Mike Baumann and Jane Harris, who preceded me and my companion as Militant correspondents there, made a point of telling me that had been their experience. In 1986 or 1987 the government did make a show of handing out land titles but to people who had long worked their parcels on the agricultural frontier and to people on state farms (technically turning them into cooperatives, a distinction without a difference). It did not change things internally, it was mostly paper. Although I do think it is true that it showed the FSLN leadership had realized the problem with the agrarian reform, and was beginning to change course. As for the rest of their economic and social programs, they required a lot of resources from abroad that was increasingly withheld. The one resource they did have was Cuba, but it could offer mostly personnel, and Nicaragua had decided to forgo the aid of Cuban civilians (like teachers and doctors) after the Grenada invasion. In part the reason was that they could not be armed, but with the war spreading, they were sitting ducks. But of course that hit programs in the countryside especially hard because the Cubans were willing to go places the government had a very hard time recruiting Nicas for. So Nicaragua in a lot of ways got ahead of itself, and then was left twisting in the wind by the Soviets for the Americans to use as a punching bag. And I mean that quite literally. The Nicas had sent people to Eastern Europe to train as fighter pilots and helicopter pilots. They even built a military airport. Only a handful of helicopters had made it before the Soviets cut them off. In the CNN documentary series Cold War produced in the 90s there are interviews with former Soviet foreign ministry officials that confirmed this is exactly what took place. Could the revolution have survived if they'd gotten timely military resources to defeat the contra war? Looking back at the 1990s, I doubt it. The United States would have strangled them economically. And there was a very grave economic problem: they had already embarked on the road outlined in the Communist Manifesto: * * * We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * You are right about the Trotskyist parties' dogmatic adherence to a literal understanding of the Russian revolution experience. An exception: the US Socialist Workers Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s began to rethink these questions around their analysis of what they considered a transitional phase of "workers and peasants/farmers government." They were influenced in this by a re-examination of the Cuban experience and of course what they were following in Nicaragua, to which they gave close attention. However, they still saw the transition from the intermediary w and p government to a proletarian dictatorship (workers state) as occurring quite rapidly, which led them in the latter years of the Sandinista revolution to impose an analysis on Nicaragua that bore a curious resemblance to the permanent revolution template they claimed to have rejected. See their Central Committee's balance sheet of the Nicaraguan experience, which in my opinion is based on a set of hypothetical possibilities for deepening the revolution after the peace accord with the Contras that was quite unrealistic -- based in part on my own observations during an extended stay in Nicaragua in 1987. (The Militant, September 7, 1990 - it's online at http://themilitant.com/, Click on Search and follow the leads.) But by 1990 the SWP as a whole was a mess and incapable of serious theoretical debate and understanding, for reasons that have been amply explored on this list in the past. For a more balanced assessment, see the final chapter (epilogue) in Matilde Zimmermann's excellent book, Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution, published in 2000. Zimmermann, a former vice-presidential candidate of the SWP in the 1970s, worked in the Managua bureau of The Militant during the 1980s. She long ago left the SWP and now pursues an academic career, I believe. Richard -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:l...@panix.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2018 1:25 PM To: Richard Fidler; 'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition' Subject: Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions On 9/5/18 1:07 PM, Richard Fidler wrote: > Actually, Trotsky did generalize his theory in the late 1920s in the book > Permanent Revolution. Trotsky wrote: "Does this at least mean that every country, including the most backward colonial country, is ripe, if not for socialism, then for the dictatorship of the proletariat ? No, this is not what it means." My statement is based on what Trotsky wrote: "Does this at least mean that every country, including the most backward colonial country, is ripe, if not for socialism, then for the dictatorship of the proletariat ? No, this is not what it means." My experience is that just about every Trotskyist party did not grasp what Trotsky wrote here and particularly when it comes to Nicaragua. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 9/5/18 1:07 PM, Richard Fidler wrote: Actually, Trotsky did generalize his theory in the late 1920s in the book Permanent Revolution. Trotsky wrote: "Does this at least mean that every country, including the most backward colonial country, is ripe, if not for socialism, then for the dictatorship of the proletariat ? No, this is not what it means." My statement is based on what Trotsky wrote: "Does this at least mean that every country, including the most backward colonial country, is ripe, if not for socialism, then for the dictatorship of the proletariat ? No, this is not what it means." My experience is that just about every Trotskyist party did not grasp what Trotsky wrote here and particularly when it comes to Nicaragua. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Actually, Trotsky did generalize his theory in the late 1920s in the book Permanent Revolution. The problem is that the general thesis -- that "only the workers and peasants will go all the way," as Sandino and Carlos Fonseca, the Sandinistas' founder, put it, tells us nothing about immediate tasks upon the seizure of power, or the tempo of the revolutionary process. That depends entirely on many factors, both domestic and international, and above all the development of mass consciousness in the given state. The Sandinista leaders were influenced by the Cubans, above all. But the context of their revolution was very different. Nicaragua lacked the profound historic anti-imperialist traditions of Cuba. Its workers movement was smaller and had no Marxist traditions. The Soviet bloc (with the exception of Cuba) was not interested in providing anything like the material support and solidarity Cuba enjoyed in the early 1960s, crucial to Cuba's survival and radicalization in the conflict with the USA. Nicaragua was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, while in Cuba the clergy was foreign-dominated (Spanish and Canadian origin) and widely discredited by its integration with the landlord-bourgeois oligarchy. And so on and on... The Sandinistas can hardly be compared in any significant way with Mugabe or Assad or many other nationalist leaders. The FSLN had a socialist project, but in the given conditions (especially the contra war) had to make many retreats and concessions. And of course they made many errors, some of which (e.g. Atlantic Coast) they corrected, although perhaps too late. And they did not even have a real party, or a party congress, until 1991 after their electoral defeat. By then the cadre had been worn down, the masses were demoralized and simply wanted peace. Ortega built his personal domination on the ruins of the FSLN strategy and program of the 1980s. It's just that many of us (Lou included, apparently) failed to pay much attention to Nicaragua after 1990 until we were rudely awakened by the state repression of mass democratic opposition this year. BTW, it is worth consulting the UN Human Rights inventory on the Nicaragua repression, as it stood in mid-August: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/08/1017992. The full report is hyperlinked in the first sentence. Richard -Original Message- From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect via Marxism Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2018 11:32 AM To: rfid...@ncf.ca Subject: Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 9/5/18 11:23 AM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote: > How has the colonial revolution degenerated so much? Isn't what we're > seeing visible proof of the theory of permanent revolution? After all, the > leadership of none of these revolutions linked the colonial revolution with > the overthrow of capitalism itself. Permanent revolution? Nicaragua? Trotsky's theory is a product of his study of the Russian class-struggle. He did not develop it as a general methodology for accomplishing bourgeois-democratic tasks in a semi-colonial or dependent country. He was instead seeking to address the needs of the class-struggle in Russia. In this respect, he was identical to Lenin. They were both revolutionaries who sought to establish socialism in Russia as rapidly as possible. Their difference centered on how closely connected socialist and bourgeois- democratic tasks would be at the outset. Lenin tended to approach things more from Plekhanov's "stagist" perspective, while Trotsky had a concept more similar to the one outlined by Marx and Engels in their comments on the German revolution. Trotsky sharpened his insights as a participant and leader of the uprising of 1905, which in many ways was a dress-rehearsal for the 1917 revolution. He wrote "Results and Prospects" to draw the lessons of 1905. Virtually alone among leading Russian socialists, he rejected the idea that workers holding state power would protect private property: "The political domination of the proletariat is incompatible with its economic enslavement. No matter under what political flag the proletariat has come to power, it is obliged to take the path of socialist policy. It would be the greatest utopianism to think th
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 9/5/18 11:23 AM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote: How has the colonial revolution degenerated so much? Isn't what we're seeing visible proof of the theory of permanent revolution? After all, the leadership of none of these revolutions linked the colonial revolution with the overthrow of capitalism itself. Permanent revolution? Nicaragua? Trotsky's theory is a product of his study of the Russian class-struggle. He did not develop it as a general methodology for accomplishing bourgeois-democratic tasks in a semi-colonial or dependent country. He was instead seeking to address the needs of the class-struggle in Russia. In this respect, he was identical to Lenin. They were both revolutionaries who sought to establish socialism in Russia as rapidly as possible. Their difference centered on how closely connected socialist and bourgeois- democratic tasks would be at the outset. Lenin tended to approach things more from Plekhanov's "stagist" perspective, while Trotsky had a concept more similar to the one outlined by Marx and Engels in their comments on the German revolution. Trotsky sharpened his insights as a participant and leader of the uprising of 1905, which in many ways was a dress-rehearsal for the 1917 revolution. He wrote "Results and Prospects" to draw the lessons of 1905. Virtually alone among leading Russian socialists, he rejected the idea that workers holding state power would protect private property: "The political domination of the proletariat is incompatible with its economic enslavement. No matter under what political flag the proletariat has come to power, it is obliged to take the path of socialist policy. It would be the greatest utopianism to think that the proletariat, having been raised to political domination by the internal mechanism of a bourgeois revolution, can, even if it so desires, limit its mission to the creation of republican-democratic conditions for the social domination of the bourgeoisie." Does not this accurately describe the events following the Bolshevik revolution in October, 1917? The workers took the socialist path almost immediately. If this alone defined the shape of revolutions to come, then Trotsky would appear as a prophet of the first magnitude. Before leaping to this conclusion, we should consider Trotsky's entire argument. Not only would the workers adopt socialist policies once in power, their ability to maintain these policies depended on the class-struggle outside of Russia, not within it. He is emphatic: "But how far can the socialist policy of the working class be applied in the economic conditions of Russia? We can say one thing with certainty--that it will come up against obstacles much sooner than it will stumble over the technical backwardness of the country. Without the direct State support of the European proletariat the working class of Russia cannot remain in power and convert its temporary domination into a lasting socialistic dictatorship." While there is disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky on the exact character of the Russian revolution, there is none over the grim prospects for socialism in an isolated Russia. We must keep this uppermost in our mind when we consider the case of Nicaragua. Well-meaning Trotskyist comrades who castigate the Sandinistas for not carrying out permanent revolution should remind themselves of the full dimensions of Trotsky's theory. According to this theory, Russia was a beachhead for future socialist advances. If these advances did not occur, Russia would perish. Was Nicaragua a beachhead also? If socialism could not survive in a vast nation as Russia endowed with immense resources, what were Nicaragua's prospects, a nation smaller than Brooklyn, New York? Our Trotskyist comrades are very picky and choosy. If a revolution is not up to their exacting standards, they will give it thumbs down. While they are unanimously in support of the Russian revolution, there is divided opinion over the Cuban revolution. Cuba tends to get some thumbs up and some thumbs down. Let us consider Russia first within the paradigm of permanent revolution. In a very real sense, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its allied Eastern European states is a very real negative confirmation of the theory of permanent revolution. Let us leave aside the question of whether or not an alternative course was possible. Trotsky's best, if often misguided, efforts, failed to lead to revolutionary victories in China, Spain, France, Germany or elsewhere. The isolation of the Soviet Union led to horrible economic and social distortions that eventually led to
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I think socialists really need to reflect on the direction the colonial revolution has taken over the years, because Ortega is not some lone exception. In Zimbabwe, Mugabe led a left wing guerrilla struggle against colonialism and racism for years, and look at where he ended up. We have the ANC in South Africa, which is in a similar situation. Even Assad: Yes, he inherited the throne from his right wing father, but consider the longer term history. It all comes from the Ba'ath Party which had a left wing anti-colonialist element to it. How has the colonial revolution degenerated so much? Isn't what we're seeing visible proof of the theory of permanent revolution? After all, the leadership of none of these revolutions linked the colonial revolution with the overthrow of capitalism itself. As for the confusion of the protesters: In Iran a wing of the protesters there today is monarchists, calling for a return to the old Pahlevi dynasty. Does that mean we should reject the protests? And in Syria, "socialism" is reported to be widely discredited exactly because it's associated with Assad. With the collapse of the socialist movement, with the extreme weakening of the working class traditions all around the world, confusion is inevitable in any new movement. Just because some right wing ideas infiltrate the movement doesn't mean that we should not support protests against a repressive, pro-capitalist and corrupt regime. John Reimann -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 9/4/18 11:59 AM, Richard Fidler via Marxism wrote: The key word of course is "maintains." That is, no major difference from the record under previous governments. Whatever. I just wonder if the Scientific American article can cite one of Chamorro's fellow gangsters as an authority on Green values, what else in the article needs to be fact-checked? I am too busy with another task to do this. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The key word of course is "maintains." That is, no major difference from the record under previous governments. As to upholding a government because you can see no progressive alternative, isn't that the same argument used by "anti-imperialists" in Syria: that if Assad is overthrown, it will just mean placing ISIS, or Russia, or USA, or Turkey -- who else? -- in charge. Better to support the monkey than the organ-grinder. In Nicaragua, the reality is that Ortega has removed from contention one opposition group after another, and barred the road to the emergence of a progressive alternative. Such an alternative is more likely to emerge from a powerful grassroots opposition movement that has managed through its own efforts to overthrow an autocratic regime. Richard -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:l...@panix.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2018 11:48 AM To: Richard Fidler; 'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition' Subject: Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions On 9/4/18 11:20 AM, Richard Fidler wrote: > Earlier today, Lou posted a reply to an article in the Scientific American by > a > critic of Nicaragua's environmental abuses. It is worth reading the article > that > is the target of the author, Paul Oquist: Nicaragua's Acions Cast a Shadow > over > Its Leadership of Major Climate Group, It is also noteworthy that the Scientific American article states: Nicaragua maintains a “policy of permanent destruction of natural resources,” according to an e-mailed statement from environmental scientist Jaime Incer Barquero, who directed the country’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources during the presidency of Violeta Chamorro in the 1990s. --- Maybe most people reading the article have no clue what was happening under Violeta Chamorro but citing the head of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources is rather disingenuous. Everybody is ready to see Daniel Ortega overthrown but until the student movement puts forward a program that makes clear its opposition to him being replaced by the gang that ran Nicaragua before Ortega's reelection, count me out of the Dan La Botz brigades. From Environmental Justice: International Discourses in Political Economy, edited by Paul Thompson, 2002: Although having adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, successive former Presidents Violeta Chamorro and Arnoldo Aleman showed a willingness to sacrifice environmental quality, worker health and safety, and decent wages and social services in favor of "structural adjustment" and neo-liberal economic policy. Private investment in resource extraction is being encouraged. In 1996, the Ministry of Environmental and Natural Resources (MARENA) and President Aleman granted Solcarsa, a subsidiary of the giant Korean-based multinational corporation Kumkyung, a 30-year timber concession covering 62,000 hectares in the Autonomous North Atlantic Coast Region (RAAN)—the largest and longest ever granted in Nicaragua's history. The logging inflicted enormous damage on indigenous communities and the second largest rainforest in the Americas, and was a clear violation of Nicaragua's laws against mahogany exports and the right of the region's indigenous peoples to determine the use of local resources under the 1987 Autonomy Law (the logging concession was later declared unconstitutional in February of 1997 by the Supreme Count of Nicaragua on the grounds that it violated Article 181 of the Constitution). Although the concession was revoked in late February 1998 because of local and international protests, another concession was granted to a "new company" PRADA two months later. Government-owned industry and natural resources have been privatized, and new laws allow foreign interests 100 percent owner-ship of Nicaraguan companies. As a result, Canadian companies practicing open-pit gold and copper mining (which uses cyanide leaching to remove the precious metals from ore), are now creating severe environmental and human health problems throughout the country. Although some environmental programs will be maintained, it appears likely that the more comprehensive environmental programs initiated under the Sandinista government (and which do not receive external funding) will continue to be dismantled until there is a change in power. And in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch, there will undoubtedly be increased exploitation of natural resources to generate foreign exchange and rebuild the collapsed economy. This is very likely to fur
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 9/4/18 11:20 AM, Richard Fidler wrote: Earlier today, Lou posted a reply to an article in the Scientific American by a critic of Nicaragua's environmental abuses. It is worth reading the article that is the target of the author, Paul Oquist: Nicaragua's Acions Cast a Shadow over Its Leadership of Major Climate Group, It is also noteworthy that the Scientific American article states: Nicaragua maintains a “policy of permanent destruction of natural resources,” according to an e-mailed statement from environmental scientist Jaime Incer Barquero, who directed the country’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources during the presidency of Violeta Chamorro in the 1990s. --- Maybe most people reading the article have no clue what was happening under Violeta Chamorro but citing the head of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources is rather disingenuous. Everybody is ready to see Daniel Ortega overthrown but until the student movement puts forward a program that makes clear its opposition to him being replaced by the gang that ran Nicaragua before Ortega's reelection, count me out of the Dan La Botz brigades. From Environmental Justice: International Discourses in Political Economy, edited by Paul Thompson, 2002: Although having adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, successive former Presidents Violeta Chamorro and Arnoldo Aleman showed a willingness to sacrifice environmental quality, worker health and safety, and decent wages and social services in favor of "structural adjustment" and neo-liberal economic policy. Private investment in resource extraction is being encouraged. In 1996, the Ministry of Environmental and Natural Resources (MARENA) and President Aleman granted Solcarsa, a subsidiary of the giant Korean-based multinational corporation Kumkyung, a 30-year timber concession covering 62,000 hectares in the Autonomous North Atlantic Coast Region (RAAN)—the largest and longest ever granted in Nicaragua's history. The logging inflicted enormous damage on indigenous communities and the second largest rainforest in the Americas, and was a clear violation of Nicaragua's laws against mahogany exports and the right of the region's indigenous peoples to determine the use of local resources under the 1987 Autonomy Law (the logging concession was later declared unconstitutional in February of 1997 by the Supreme Count of Nicaragua on the grounds that it violated Article 181 of the Constitution). Although the concession was revoked in late February 1998 because of local and international protests, another concession was granted to a "new company" PRADA two months later. Government-owned industry and natural resources have been privatized, and new laws allow foreign interests 100 percent owner-ship of Nicaraguan companies. As a result, Canadian companies practicing open-pit gold and copper mining (which uses cyanide leaching to remove the precious metals from ore), are now creating severe environmental and human health problems throughout the country. Although some environmental programs will be maintained, it appears likely that the more comprehensive environmental programs initiated under the Sandinista government (and which do not receive external funding) will continue to be dismantled until there is a change in power. And in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch, there will undoubtedly be increased exploitation of natural resources to generate foreign exchange and rebuild the collapsed economy. This is very likely to further deepen the vicious downward spiral of poverty and environmental deterioration which contributed to the disaster in the first place. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What has shocked so many -- especially those of us who were active in the international Sandinista solidarity movement in the 1980s -- is the wave of repression unleashed by the Ortega-Murillo regime since April 19. Never before in Latin America has a government claiming to be on "the left" turned its police (and, in Nicaragua, paramilitaries and sharpshooters) on peaceful, unarmed demonstrators in the streets -- shooting hundreds, wounding thousands, even denying them hospital care. Louis, in his rambling early attempt to figure out what was happening, cited below, simply avoids referring to the initial repression, which in subsequent weeks escalated until the Nicaraguan government itself now admits to some 230 deaths (overwhelmingly non-police), while independent human rights organizations have documented more than 400. This balance sheet itself -- and the whitewashing of it by the "oficialista" left (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc.) on the usual pretext that the US must be behind it -- calls for serious reflection about the state of the left today not only in Nicaragua but throughout the region. As Lou demonstrates in his own reactions, we are facing here some of the same conflicting reactions that we saw in the initial responses internationally to the Assad regime's violent suppression of the popular protests in Syria. Earlier today, Lou posted a reply to an article in the Scientific American by a critic of Nicaragua's environmental abuses. It is worth reading the article that is the target of the author, Paul Oquist: Nicaragua's Acions Cast a Shadow over Its Leadership of Major Climate Group, http://tinyurl.com/ybf9akgq. As a quick google search reveals, Oquist apparently hires himself out as a scientific "advisor" to poor countries in the Central American-Caribbean region. In Nicaragua, Ortega has even given him cabinet rank. At the Paris climate summit in 2016, where he represented Nicaragua in place of Ortega who couldn't be bothered attending, Oquist cast the lone vote against the final accord saying it did not go far enough. However, when Trump later pulled out of the agreement Ortega decided to sign on to it, and with Syria's recent adhesion only the United States lies outside of it. But Oquist is not just an expert on climate change and environment. He is a vocal defender of the politics of Ortega-Murillo. For example, take a look at his defence of the regime in a two-part interview on Democracy Now: Extended Conversation with Nicaraguan Government Minister Paul Oquist on Escalating Crisis http://tinyurl.com/yc7qsmjp Richard -Original Message- From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect via Marxism Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2018 10:07 AM To: rfid...@ncf.ca Subject: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/04/nicaraguan-contradictions/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/rfidler%40ncf.ca _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com