Quoting St. Francis of Assisi Margaret Thatcher heralded her landslide election victory with the words "Where there is discord let us bring harmony, where there is despair let us bring hope". She then entered upon a preplanned, premeditated attack on the most vulnerable members of society using legislation, the judiciary such as the anti-union Lord Denning, the police, powerful media moguls, sinister national and international right wing organisations and most of all her own intractable iron will to destroy the rights and ultimately the will of the working class. The country was polarised into the go-getting haves of the city and big business to the growing politically created unemployed have nots. She created a north-south divide by destroying industrialised areas in the Midlands and the North. Within a short space of time Toxteth in Liverpool was in flames, and other inner-city areas were rioting.
I was involved with her first serious attack on the unions although with her trusted hit-man Norman "Count Dracula" Tebbit also described as an untrained pole cat by Dennis Healey had prepared for battle by creating draconian anti-union legislation. In 1983 they set out to smash the print unions. Yours truly was involved in the battle of Wapping, and volunteered as flying picket receiving secret calls in the early hours to be collected at secret destination then driven at breakneck speed to some place in Somerset or Gloucester to prevent trucks with newsprint exiting or entering premises. There were many demos in London and Cheltenham GCHQ where unions had been banned by Thatcher. Of course the following year was the historic twelve month miner´s strike orchestrated by Thatcher and which still divides communities and families to this day.
Political opposition was in disarray and union leaders for the most part were running scared. But there was a little oasis in this desert of despair,.. Saturday Night Live. Harry Enfield exposed the shallowness of Thatcher's go-getting society with his Loadsofmoney character but it was the besequined Ben Elton's weekly and brilliantly funny rants against all things "Thatch" that helped us unleash our pent-up frustrations by hooting and roaring him on. After a long, loud, word perfect delivery of wonderful comic timing he always finished with "A little bit of politics there, Ladies and Gentlemen". Then we would wake up Monday morning ready for a good right wing kicking. However the reason I regularly found myself incandescent with rage, pounding my fists on tables and screaming abuse at the TV had little to with the events taking place in Britain rather the abuses of power and the scandalous injustices taking place here in Nicaragua.
The Somoza family much like the Duvalier's in Haiti had for decades and generations used their military dictatorship to terrorise the population into poverty and subjugation to bleed the country dry. The response to opposition was torture, imprisonment, and death. Such military dictatorships were either ignored by the West for Cold War expediency or supported financially and militarily by the USA in particular. In 1972 there was a massive earthquake in the capital Managua leaving 5,000 dead 20,000 injured and 250,000 homeless. 80% of the buildings were damaged. A huge amount of international financial aid was sent. Somoza diverted most of it into his own coffers causing further deaths and suffering. This galvanised a lot of support for the burgeoning Sandinista guerrilla movement. By 1979 after a series of military victories against the US backed Somoza's National Guard the Sandinistas were marching on the capital Managua when Somoza fled to Paraguay.
The new revolutionary government despite the fact that Somoza had left the economy and infrastructure in tatters set about the most radical programme of social and economic reform. Not only did the leader Daniel Ortega receive financial aid from the USSR but Jimmy Carter sent $US75 million to help this ambitious program. Within a short space of time the infant mortality rate was reduced dramatically, and an education programme which saw teachers sent into the countryside to reach and educated all members of society resulted in the literacy rate increased many fold in an effort to achieve the aim of a fully educated population. Wealth and land distribution was also embarked upon. Gender equality on a scale still being sought in the West was also attained. Although based on a socialist ideology the constitution stated a policy of non alignment. Nicaragua was and still is a strongly independent Catholic country. It would seem that the promised land had been reached and all of the sacrifices and the deaths of so many young Sandinistas were worth the pain and suffering.
However following Thatcher's election she was joined by right wing bible punching simpleton Ronald Reagan having his strings pulled by far more sinister characters behind the scenes. A popular effective egalitarian socialist government could be a template for other Latin American countries wishing to rid themselves of US backed military dictatorships, so it had to be nipped in the bud. Using the members of Somoza's hated National Guard and with heavy CIA involvement the Reagan administration financed a counter-revolutionary force (The Contras) to overthrow the new popular Sandinista government. The US even attempted to sabotage Nicaraguan ships in their own docks and was severely reprimanded by The International Court of Justice. Apart from financing a potential Invasion force of Contras from inside Honduras the USA set up a blockaded in an effort to bankrupt the country. All this was enthusiastically supported by the Thatcher government. In 1985 the US government refused Reagan further aid to the Contras. The Sandinistas had been democratically re-elected again a year earlier. However Reagan ignored his own government and organised by Oliver North another evangelical bigot syphoned funds illegally from arms sold to Iran. Known as the Iran-Contra affair it should have meant Reagan going the same way as Nixon and North doing time in a penitentiary. Of course neither happened.
The Catholic Church played a significant role in these dramatic events. On the ground Nicaraguan Catholic priests not only supported the Sandinistas but in some cases held government positions. However the hierarchy and the establishment were highly critical of the involvement priests in politics. Pope John Paul II made an infamous visit to Nicaragua during the height of the Contra onslaught in 1983. At the airport in Managua he was presented to a long row of priests who knelt and kissed his ring in turn. When he came to Fr. Ernesto Cardenal a Sandinista minister he publicly berated and humiliated him in front of the watching world. The irony and barefaced hypocrisy was that the Pope at the time was commuting to Poland about three times a week to effect regime change there and secretly funding Lech Walesa Solidarity.
A few days later there was a huge open-air mass in the main plaza in Managua. There was a massive congregation. Now we're all aware of the Pope's annual Easter message from Rome. He always makes a meaningless, ineffectual, generalised message for peace. He must say "Peace with you" a hundred times a day. On this particular day all the congregation of devout Catholics wanted was him to mention the word "Peace" and he refused. In this instance as the only violent aggressors were the Contras it would have meant something and would sent a powerful message to the US government. The crowd became restless and began chanting "Peace", "Peace". Also the previous day seventeen teenagers ambushed by the Contras were buried and the funeral service was on the exact spot as the Mass. The mothers were given a prominent position and cries could be heard for the Pope to acknowledge their loss and say a prayer for them. Again he refused. Sensing the disquiet in the crowd and in the increase in volume of the chanting the Pope lost his rag and angrily told them to "Shut up!" and "Be quiet!", but the opposition to his position continued. The mass ended in a shambolic manner before communion was completed. By refusing to mention the word peace the Pope endorsed the murderous Contra attackers and gave support to Reagan to violently overthrow a democratically elected government and replace it with a military dictatorship.
Of course we shouldn't be surprised as The Vatican has always defended military dictatorships including Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. Pope John Paul II admired General Pinochet and defended his position after he was arrested (and subsequently found guilty) of torture, imprisonment, and mass murder of his own people, plus murdering Allende, Chile's democratically elected leader. When you consider the disinformation the Vatican spread about AIDES and the use of condoms Pope John Paul II has a lot of blood on his hands. He also allowed the continued rape of young boys and girls by paedophile priests and then re-assigned them to continue their heinous crimes when exposed. The Vatican policy is to protect the Church no matter who suffers and how many victims. How this has got any relation to the teachings of a poor carpenter beats me. They are are currently searching for two miracles of Pope John Paul II for his canonisation. I suggest that if that tenet of the Catholic faith of everlasting damnation is true he must be sharing the fires of hell with his fellow tyrants....... A little bit of religion there ladies and gentlemen.
Now I´ve always opposed the death penalty however I´ll make an exception for members of the family Somoza. The Sandinistas were so named after Augusto C Sandino a cult figure in Nicaraguan history. During the 20's and 30´s he led a guerrilla war against the occupying US forces and although often outnumbered and outgunned he proved to be an elusive fighter and was never caught. Eventually the Americans left mainly due to financial considerations after the Wall Street crash. The head of what was unfortunately to become a Somoza dynasty Eduardo then a general invited Sandino for peace talks and to plan for the post American era. However he bushwhacked Sandino having him assassinated as he left the meeting. It took a long time but the act of treachery was avenged two decades later in 1956. A Nicaraguan poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez prophesied Somoza´s demise in one his poems before surreptitiously obtaining employment as waiter at function attended by Somoza. At an opportune moment he produced a pistol and shot Somoza dead signing his own death warrant in the process as died in a hail Somoza's henchmen's bullets. He was just twenty six. This happened across the road from where I was staying in Leon. I was aware of Somoza´s son the exiled Anastasio Somoza was avenged about a year after fled to Paraguay in 1979. I always thought that he was shot at traffic lights in the capital Asuncion. I was corrected by Lucian a young American graduate who has been volunteering for the Peace Corps in the area. Apparently Somoza was driving a bullet-proof Mercedes so what actual happened that Sandinista assassination squad appeared in front of his limo and blew the car up with a Bazooka.....even better.
Right that's the intro sorted.
As a group of us clambered off the Managua bus on the outskirts of Leon I think we all felt a good vibe as we headed towards our chosen abodes. I stayed at a lovely relaxed place aptly called Lazybones. It had a large courtyard with hammocks amongst the lush flora and comfy lounge areas. At the back was a pool and a small bar which was also used for breakfast. Leon has a beautiful main plaza with the biggest church in Central America. The church was great fun as apart from being an imposing and magnificent sight you are allowed not only to wander around at will and take photos but clamber around on the roof and in the bell towers with great vistas of the town and also the surrounding volcanoes. Leon is a strong Sandinista town and it wasn´t long before I was in the Sandinista museum. It was run by wounded ex-freedom fighters who are now middle-aged. The museum was mainly old newspaper cuttings and pictures of the fallen. I was greeted warmly by the man at reception who rose from his seat and limped as he guided me towards the entrance. I have regretted my piss-poor Spanish often but not as badly as this day. I think I managed to convey my solidarity with the men I met some of whom showed me there war wounds. There are also murals in the plaza depicting the events of 1979 and beyond. I visited the building (just across the road from Lazybones) where the young poet Perez assassinated the paternal Somoza.
I left Leon for a few days to visit Esteli three hours away over a very bad road. If you remember this is the place where that bloke Dave, who I got chatting to in a bar in Antigua, suggested I visit as it played a major role in the revolution and the defence of it. During those crucial days many internationalist support gathered in Estali and along with the fact it was close to the Honduran border was carpet bombed by Somoza's US backed National Guard and later the Contras. Here I visited the Galeria de Heroes y Martires which shows photos, little shrines and clothes of the young men and women to fought and died liberating their country. The Galaeria is run by the mothers of the martyrs and is a very emotive place, as it´s the mothers who are left who suffer the most. I also visited a Sandinista bar. It was a large place with a stage and speakers. Unfortunately there were only a handful of drinkers there as it was midweek. I was informed that live music was planned for the Saturday. The place is bedecked with Sandinista paraphernalia and much anti-American sentiments. However the group of young blokes from the USA were treated with great hospitality amongst the insults that hung from the walls. In the foyer there was a collection of weaponry just for good measure.
While checking some facts on different websites I read that Thatcher tried ban the word Sandinsta. Well this was news to me although I wouldn´t put it passed her. Another fact I was unaware of was that there was more opposition in those days than I realised. For example the The Clash brought out a triple album called Sandinidta! in their honour. Good ol' Joe Strummer who I´m sure is resting in more peace the afor-mentioned right wing zealots