French Feminist Solidarity

Last week I received a package in the mail from Toulouse, France, which contained a booklet from a feminist Nicaraguan-solidarity organization in Paris. I had originally found a copy of this booklet in the Gabi Guttwald collection at the Archiv Grünes Gedächtnis, but while looking into the organization I found a copy online. I have not found many sources from French solidarity groups, this booklet being my only piece so far.

“Nicaragua Women”

Printed shortly after the fall of Somoza in July 1979, this booklet contains accounts of events in Nicaragua and Nicaraguan women’s efforts in helping to oust the Somoza regime. Early in its history the FSLN adopted a policy of gender equality within its ranks, allowing women the same rights and opportunities within the organization as its male members. During the revolution women served in support as well as front line positions. After the revolution women remained in significant roles in the organization and by the mid-1980s one quarter to one third of the leadership positions in the FSLN government and party were held by women.

I was not able to track down this Sandino quote and I do not know French well enough to give it a proper translation, or at least one that makes sense.

“Women and Armed Struggle”

“The Women’s Struggle After Victory”

Karen Kampwirth, Women and Guerrilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003)

Victoria Gonzalez and Karen Kampwirth, Radical Women in Latin America: Left and Right (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001)

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Green Aid to the FSLN

The image to the left is of an article from La Prensa Grafica, a Salvadoran newspaper, dated October 27, 1989. The article discusses the efforts of the German Greens to raise funds for the FSLN. The article states that the Greens raised 300,000 marks for Daniel Ortega‘s presidential campaign against Violeta Chamorro. By the late 1980s European support for the FSLN had significantly dwindled in the face of U.S. political and economic pressure as well as growing relations between the Sandinistas and the Soviet Union. Although state support was on the decline, grassroots solidarity groups on the far-left of European politics continued to support the FSLN. A number of the factions that made up the Greens espoused solidarity with Nicaragua in its struggle with U.S. aggression, providing material and moral support. These groups channeled some aid, such as that mentioned in the article, through umbrella organizations like the Greens, while others used their own organizational apparatus to support the FSLN. This resulted in extremely complicated transnational networks with grassroots groups in Germany pursuing an individual program of support while simultaneously coordinating with other groups under the aegis of broad coalitions.

Solon Lovett Barraclough, Aid That Counts: The Western Contribution to Development and Survival in Nicaragua (Washington D.C.: Transnational Institute, 1988).

Eusebio Mujal-León. “European Socialism and the Crisis in Central America.” Rift and Revolution: The Central American Imbroglio (Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1984).

Back from Break and there are Russkies Everywhere!

The above is another cartoon from Roger Sanchez published by the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign. In it Sanchez’s Uncle Sam calls out an imagined Soviet invasion while opening the door for U.S. intervention. The United States justified its war against Nicaragua by arguing that the Sandinistas were a puppet of the Soviets. Interestingly, the Soviets and the FSLN wanted nothing to do with each other. The expensive experience of aiding the Cuban Revolution combined with the catastrophic decline of the Soviet economy ensured that the Soviets had neither the will nor the resources to turn Nicaragua into a hemispheric beachhead. Also, by the mid 1980s Cold War tensions between the Soviets and United States had thawed and Soviet leaders feared that supporting the Sandinistas would undermine these more congenial relations. The depiction of an invasion of the United States by Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union in the film Red Dawn was never even close to reality (however that movie is an awesome 80s action flick and should be watched). However, this is not to say that the Soviets did not aid the Sandinistas. As the U.S. embargo of Nicaragua slowly strangled the small nation and as Latin American and European states cut aid in the face of U.S. pressure, Nicaragua turned to the Soviets and Cuba for assistance. Ironically U.S. actions pushed the FSLN into a closer relationship with the Soviets. However, this aid was limited and short lived. By the late 1980s the Soviets drastically cut much of their assistance to Nicaragua.

For their part the Sandinistas followed the advice of the Fidel Castro and pursued policies that would not agitate the United States, this included not cultivating a relationship with the Soviets. Highlighting their own experience of attacks at the hands of the United States, Castro and the Cubans advised the Sandinistas not turn to the Soviets, giving the United States a reason for aggression, but instead turn to Western Europe and the Nonaligned nations for aid. The Sandinistas followed this path until the U.S. embargo forced them to turn to the Soviet Union.

Danuta Paszyn, The Soviet Attitude to Political and Social Change in Central America, 1979-90 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).

Killer Cartoons

Between the spring of 1986 and the fall of 1987, the presidents of five Central American states came together in Esquipulas, Guatemala in order to find a solution to the region’s military conflicts. The cartoon above shows the five presidents who signed the Esquipulas Peace Agreement, or Esquipulas II. From left to right, the signers of the peace agreement were: Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala, José Napoleón Duarte of El Salvador, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, José Azcona Hoyo of Honduras, and Óscar Arias Sánchez of Costa Rica. The cartoonist apparently believed that Cerezo, Duarte, and Azcona were using the peace process as a means of hiding their misdeeds, while Arias organized the meeting out of his own vanity and desire for a peace prize. The cartoonist’s bias is quite evident considering Ortega stands with nothing to hide. However, the indigenous peoples of the Miskito coast might have disagreed with this portrayal. After the Sandinistas came to power they sought to incorporate the Miskito people of Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, who had historically enjoyed a large amount of autonomy. This led to a Miskito revolution against the Sandinistas, which culminated in the return of Miskito sovereignty in 1987. Ironically many who supported the Sandinistas in their struggle against the United States, such as Gabi Gottwald, also supported the Miskito Indians in their struggle against the FSLN, revealing that for many connected to the solidarity movement a conviction to supporting human rights often trumped political considerations.

Merry Christmas from Nicaragua via Deutscheland

Nicaragua‘s resistance of U.S. imperialism in Central America, as well as its call for international solidarity, took many forms. In the 1980s Roger Sanchez‘s political cartoons challenged the United States, drawing international attention to the increasingly bloody situation in Nicaragua. Sanchez was the official cartoonist of Barricada, the daily newspaper of the Sanidinistas. He satirized the United States, often depicting the U.S. as a meddling and ill-willed Uncle Sam intent on killing Nicaraguans and overthrowing the FSLN. Solidarity organizations from Europe and North America published collections of Sanchez’s cartoons to raise funds for those affected by the U.S. embargo and the war against the Contras. The cartoon above is from a collection published by the German solidarity group Informationsburo Nicaragua, which published many documents about the plight of Nicaragua. Solidarity groups in the United States and Great Britain also published similar collections.

Although he worked at the official Sandinista newspaper, Sanchez called attention to the failures of the FSLN government. For example, Sanchez highlighted the overwhelming political influence of the Sandinistas in a cartoon featuring an enormous runner with FSLN on his jersey preparing to run against three much smaller runners representing the nation’s opposition parties. Sanchez also commented on Nicaraguan social inequality, represented in the cartoon above. Whether he spoke out against the United States, the FSLN, or poverty in Nicaragua, Sanchez proved to be one of the most influential voices to come out of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

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.