Western Labor in Solidarity with Nicaragua, or Creepy Somoza’s

The first day I was in the archive I found some creepy drawings of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in a small book entitled Ein vereintes Volk wird nie besiegt werden: was in Nicaragua geschah is kein Marchen (A People United will never be defeated: What happened in Nicaragua is not a Fairy Tale). This little book was created by the youth division of IG Metall (Industrial Union of Metalworkers) in order to raise awareness of the atrocities committed by the Somoza regime.

This is not the first union I have found engaged in solidarity, especially prior to 1979. Canadian unions pressured their government to take a firm stand against Somoza and send aid to the people of Nicaragua. Labor unions in the North Atlantic, with the exception of those in the United States, tended to support the revolution and looked favorably on the Sandinistas once they came to power, due in large part to a shared ideological background. There was also a practical side to supporting the Sandinistas. In 1985 western labor unions opposed the U.S. embargo of Nicaragua, pressuring their governments to challenge the U.S. policy. Although ideological solidarity and moral outrage largely motivated union resistance, many union leaders feared the loss of Nicaraguan raw materials and the closing of a market for their manufactured goods. However the fears of losing exports or imports to the embargo were minimal considering Nicaragua’s negligible economic relations with Western Europe and Canada. However, the impact on Nicaragua was devastating due to the fact that the United States was the small nation’s largest trading partner.

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Newsletters and Protests

Six hours at the archive flew by today. I’m learning so many new and exciting German words like Todesschwadron (death squad) – insert sarcasm. The language barrier makes researching quite slow and there are tons of sources in the archive, which makes for long days, but they’re pretty fascinating at the same time.

The picture above is of a newsletter published by a German socialist group, whose name escapes me at the moment. The title of the newsletter is in Spanish, and translates as “Free Nicaragua” while the smaller text immediately below it is in German and translates as “for the new Nicaragua,” and also in German the red text with the exclamation point translates as “The Revolution continues!” I would really like to makes this headline my banner. I’m actually not even supposed to have it since I can’t digitize and documents myself and have to ask an assistant to make copies, but I couldn’t help myself with this one. It’s going to be really hard not stealing tons of pictures later this week when I look at the poster collection.

I found at least four newsletters like this one in the collections of Gabriele Gottwald, which were sent to her by solidarity groups. I was primarily interested in the newsletters because they mentioned a large rally protesting the Nicaraguan war being held in Bonn on November 3, 1984. The protest was largely organized by socialists, but the greens also participated. One of the newsletters mentioned that its organizers were formerly involved in protesting the Vietnam War. It is impressive to study these groups and understand that there scope was vast not only geographically but temporally as well. Many of these groups in North America and Western Europe influenced relations between their home countries and the “Third World” for decades.

Pledge of Resistance, German Style

My first full day in the archive proved fruitful. The staff at the Archiv Grünes Gedächtnis (Green Memory Archive) were so helpful and very sympathetic to my lack of German. My best finds so far are petitions and packets of newspaper clippings sent to Green Party member of parliament Gabby Gottwald. These documents were from solidarity groups in Germany and the United States reaching out to their representatives in government, and in the case of the U.S. organizations, those of another country.

The above document is a German translation and modification of the Pledge of Resistance. After the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 many in the solidarity movement in the United States feared that the Reagan administration would soon invade Nicaragua. In response, a group, which came to be known simply as Pledge of Resistance, created a pledge promising to resist a U.S. invasion and stand in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua. The pledge soon became the rallying cry for those opposed to the Reagan administration’s aggression towards Nicaragua. The fact that the document made it to Germany, and eventually into the hands of a German member of parliament, demonstrates the transnational dimensions of revolutionary solidarity.

Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign

“Lawyer Henry Spooner and actors Alfred Molina and Maggie Steed taking part in a protest outside the US embassy in London demanding US recognition of the World Court verdict in London in 1987″

In the 1980s Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign (NSC) created a broad coalition that condemned U.S. military and economic aggression against Nicaragua. NSC became the nexus of Nicaraguan Solidarity in Great Britain, organizing protests, work brigades, and study tours. NSC also sent thousands of pounds to Nicaragua for the creation of hospitals and schools. According to their website the NSC “played a key role in counteracting the intense media campaign that in the Thatcher – Reagan cold war era depicted Nicaragua as a communist totalitarian dungeon with troops poised to storm the Texan border.”

Through my contacts in Newcastle I was able to reach out to NSC and I’m in the process of setting up a Skype interview with them. If time permits I may try to go to London while I’m in Europe and visit the NSC’s archives.

“Pas de missiles chez nous. Bas les pattes du Nicaragua!”

I recently started searching Europeana, which is something of a nexus for various European cultural institutions. Today I discovered some really neat posters, stickers and other paraphernalia from across Western Europe demonstrating solidarity with Nicaragua. The above sticker is from the Juene Garde Socialiste (Young Socialist Guard) located in Belgium (I believe Brussels to be exact). I’m not sure what exactly “pas de missiles chez nous” means (something like “no missiles with us” or “at us”), but I know that “bas les pattes du Nicaragua!” roughly translates as “hands off Nicaragua!”  The first saying may be related to nuclear nonproliferation since many European groups in solidarity with the revolution also protested against the expansion of U.S. nuclear capabilities in Europe.  Unfortunately, one of the pitfalls of international history is finding really interesting documents in a language you are not familiar with.

 

Socialist International Congress 1978, Vancouver

At the Congress of the Socialist International in Vancouver in 1978, leaders of the world’s social democratic parties voiced their solidarity with the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN). Ernesto Cardenal (priest, writer, and leader of the FSLN) represented the Sandinistas and spoke out on the plight of the Nicaraguan people and their abuse at the hands of Anastasio Somoza. As a member of the “Group of 12,” Cardenal (pictured center-right) traveled the globe speaking out against the Somoza regime and garnering international attention for the revolution. Until the late 1980s, the Sandinistas enjoyed the strong support of the Socialist International and socialist parties from around the globe. The Socialist International proved a bastion of international support for the Sandinistas, promoting solidarity and generating aid for the revolution and the people of Nicaragua.

“Socialist International Congress 1978, Vancouver,” Socialist Affairs, January/February 1979, Socialist Internatinal Information, No. 1/79

English Food Cooperatives and Nicaraguan Solidarity

Today as I was reading David Feathersone’s Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of Internationalism I came across a reference to two cookbooks detailing the relationship between a food cooperative in Newcastle, England and the Nicaraguan Revolution. Food Out of Chile: Recipes and Stories from Maria Figueroa  and Cordon Rouge: Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes from the Red Herring detail the history and cuisine of the Red Herring Worker’s Cooperative which ran “a cafe and shop in Newcastle upon Tyne that sold wonderful vegan and Vegetarian food.”  The cooperative was also a nexus for political action, due in part to Maria and Victor FIgueroa.  In 1976 the Figueroas fled to Newcastle after the U.S. backed coup in Chile, which ousted democratically elected president Salvador Allende and installed authoritarian general Augusto Pinochet. In Newcastle, Maria and Victor joined the Red Herring cooperative and became active members of the Central American Solidarity movement. They spoke out in solidarity with and advocated for the revolution, handing out leaflets and participating in demonstrations at the nearby university. In the end, the example of Chilean exiles living in northern England, working at a food cooperative, and demonstrating in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua is an excellent example of the revolution’s truly international character