Nicaragua - A US Colony Again?

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Fri, 14 Oct 2005 18:03:45 -0400

Nicaragua - A US Colony Again?

 

 

 

 

 

Solo: Nicaragua - A US Colony Again?Friday, 14 October 2005, 11:26 am

Opinion: Toni Solo

 

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00175.htm#a

 

 

 

Nicaragua - A US Colony Again?

 

by Toni Solo

 

" We have made a very important treaty with a people totally

unrepresented, a people dominated by our military power...I have never

considered the treaty with Nicaragua as a treaty agreed with the

Nicaraguan people. We made a treaty with ourselves. We made a treaty

with a government that represented us even on the other side of the

negotiating table. We made a treaty with a government that was our

instrument. It is one of the most indefensible transactions I have

ever known in international life. "

- US Senator William Borah[1]

 

Nothing much changes even after nearly a hundred years. Corporate

war-criminal Robert Zoellick, on his day-job for the US State

Department, breezed into Nicaragua last week. He got the kind of

slavish welcome he fails to get even from the servile Washington press

corps. His visit followed immediately on from an editorial by the

State Department Daily (also known as the Washington Post) condemning

" undemocratic " sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. On the contrary,

Ortega has promoted and defended electoral democracy in Nicaragua

since 1984.

 

Zoellick's visit was trivial in terms of what he had to say. The usual

imperial blarney about promoting democracy accompanied by a typical

threat to withhold US$175m in aid if Nicaraguans don't do what the US

government says. The discourse has not changed since 1910. " Do what we

want - or else.... " One expects such diplomatic speaking-clock

declarations from career workhorses like US ambassador to Nicaragua

Paul Trivelli. But maybe machiavellian corporate Prince-lings like

" call-me-Bob " Zoellick should try a little harder.

 

Zoellick's curriculum vitae includes stints as consultant to the

corrupt Enron Corporation, adviser to privatisation predator

Viventures/Vivendi International[2], associate of the exclusive

Precursor Group of investment advisors[3] and as an executive for

financial services buccaneering giant Goldman Sachs. The idea that

while in government people like Zoellick set aside their corporate

ties is absurd. Like all leading functionaries of the US imperial

plutocracy, Robert Zoellick contributes to global corruption through

the constant osmosis between his public duties and his personal

corporate loyalties. Then he has the outright nerve to accuse other

people of corruption.

 

 

During his visit to Nicaragua, Zoellick met with President Bolaños and

his ministers, as well as possible presidential candidates Jose

Antonio Alvarado, Eduardo Montealegre and Herty Lewites, members of

the business sector and, as individuals, some members of the

Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) of disgraced ex-president Arnoldo

Aleman. Among the group meeting Zoellick with Lewites were Luis

Carrion and Victor Hugo Tinoco. All three are former leading members

of the FSLN Sandinista revolutionary government. The main task for

them all was to prostrate themselves metaphorically before the

imperial prince in order to convince him they are " democrats " cut,

stitched and finished to the taste of the Bush regime.

 

Herty Lewites : currying imperial favour

 

Herty Lewites put this spin on it, " It was made clear that the United

States can't come insisting that we sandinistas are not working and

struggling for a democratic government. It was precisely for that that

they expelled us from the party, for seeking primarily from the party

ranks, the democratization of the party. " [4] Lewites has consistently

obfuscated the reasons for his expulsion from the FSLN, causing much

confusion among FSLN supporters. In fact, he was expelled from the

FSLN for failing to abide by its statutes, among which chapter II

section 15 of the rights and duties of members of the FSLN states that

members of the FSLN are bound to " Conform strictly to party

disicpline, obeying all the directives, rules, norms and agreements of

the FSLN. " [5] Lewites failed to obey the rules. He was expelled.

 

Herty Lewites' meeting with Zoellick confirms the worst

interpretations of his split with the FSLN. All the time he talks

about " rescuing sandinismo " , what Lewites - a very talented and

successful businessman - very clearly means is to embrace US-style

" free market " capitalism, and the abandonment of national sovereignty

that move entails. Nothing could be further from Augusto Cesar

Sandino's vision of a free, sovereign Nicaragua.

 

Herty Lewites has never spoken out clearly against the Central

American Free Trade Agreement or water privatization. He is perhaps

the first politician in Central America to adopt wholesale the utterly

cynical modern public relations style of sinister spin-merchants like

Tony Blair. Lewites and his supporters are Tony Blair's neo-liberal

New Labour translated for Nicaraguans.

 

What might someone with Sandino's vision have said to Robert Zoellick?

Several obvious matters of concern leap to mind. They might have

expressed dismay and condemnation of US government protection for

super-terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, wanted for mass-murder by the

Venezuelan government. They might have interceded vigorously on behalf

of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes languishing unjustly in

maximum security US prisons after having been exonerated by an Appeals

Court.

 

They might have urged the US immediately to honour its commitments

under the Geneva Conventions by restoring a humane regime to detainees

in Guantanamo and bringing them swiftly to a fair trial. Or they might

have pressed the US government to respond promptly to an Italian

court's warrant for the arrest on kidnapping charges of US

gangster-diplomat Betnie Medero-Navedo, currently First Secretary at

the US embassy in Mexico.[6] They might even have questioned US

intervention in Haiti.

 

Very clearly, none of these points were put to Robert Zoellick by

Herty Lewites or Luis Carrion or Victor Hugo Tinoco. Instead former

revolutionaries Lewites, Carrion and Tinoco pleaded their case for

benediction from the war-criminal US government as " democrats " . They

did so knowing perfectly well they were dealing with one of the

principal State-terrorists responsible for sustaining the colonial

occupation of Afghanistan, the fascist occupation of Iraq, the

genocidal occupation of Palestine and the rape of Haiti (leaving aside

US terrorism against Nicaragua throughout the 1980s). Anyway, they

came out of the meeting apparently expecting still to be taken

seriously when they talk about " rescuing Sandinismo " . Seldom can

public relations rhetoric and actual political behaviour have been so

flagrantly self-contradictory.

 

CAFTA - US protection racket collects its dues

 

In contrast to Lewites, even the representative of the US-dominated

Organization of American States, genial and avuncular Dante Caputo,

agreed that Zoellick's threats on aid were interventionist. When asked

about Zoellick's threat to hold back US$175 from the US Millenium

Account aid program, Caputo opined, " Whenever any international

financial organization imposes conditionalities, de facto there is

intervention. " [7] Few global corporate functionaries like Caputo are

ever that candid in public. El Nuevo Diario reported Liberal judge

Guillermo Selva lamenting that by welcoming Zoellick, President

Bolaños was fixing US$175 as Nicaragua's price. Selva was reported as

saying, " Zoellick didn't come as a diplomat, but rather as a proconsul

giving orders, it oughtn't to be like that. " [8]

 

Probably the main purpose of Zoellick's visit was to slap around the

Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) to push through ratification of the

Central American Free Trade Agreement. Despite complaints by leading

Liberal figures like Guillermo Selva, the PLC leadership knows who

calls the shots. They quickly pressed the Sandinista FSLN to agree

moving a vote on the ratification of CAFTA to the top of the

legislative agenda in the National Assembly. On the night of Monday

October 10th 2005 the infamous deed was done and Nicaragua became

formally in the words of Sandinista deputy Alba Palacios, a United

States annex " on totally disadvantageous terms " .[9]

 

Within a few hours of the vote, Daniel Ortega leader of the FSLN and

President Enrique Bolaños announced an agreement aimed at ending the

almost year long cat-fight between the President and the country's

legislators. So Nicaragua is back to where it was in 2003 when the

fatuous Colin Powell visited Nicaragua and ordered Bolaños not to have

anything to do with the FSLN. From that point on the hapless Bolaños

was doomed to impotence.

 

At the time, the FSLN struck a deal with the PLC and tried to work out

a legislative agenda on that basis, since they had little practical

alternative. Among recent agreements was the decision to postpone

ratification of CAFTA pending approval of a packet of laws designed to

provide greater protection to employees, small farmers and small and

medium-sized businesses. When the PLC leadership caved in to imperial

pressure in the shape of " put-the-boot-in-harder-Bob " Zoellick, the

rationale for the FSLN deal with the PLC vanished.

 

The voting arithmetic in Nicaragua's National Assembly is not

difficult. The FSLN has 37 seats. President Bolaños can count on 10,

The PLC have 42 and there are three or four deputies from smaller

parties. Since the PLC loathes Bolaños with the internecine passion

generally reserved for traitors, the FSLN and its allies can flirt

with either side depending on where its best advantage lies on any

given piece of legislation.

 

From Sandinistas to Montewitistas

 

So the end result of nearly three years of US diplomacy and heavy

handed intervention from the European Union, the Organization of

American States, the United Nations and the international financial

institutions is circular. Nicaragua is back where it was in 2002

before the bullying visit of clueless US Secretary of State Colin

Powell. The main significant domestic variation is the appearance on

the scene of the Montewitistas.

 

Montewitistas are many-faced creatures who have had some difficulty

deciding if they are coming or going. Like the goddess Athena from the

temple of Zeus, they all sprang fully-formed from the furrowed brows

of presidential hopefuls Herty Lewites and Eduardo Montealegre. Former

FSLN member Lewites and former PLC member Montealegre have agreed

various matters relating to their respective attempts to run for the

Nicaraguan presidency. It is their own squalid version of the FSLN-PLC

" pacto " which they have enjoyed lampooning for months.

 

When not grazing on the lush, golden slopes inhabited by the upper

echelons of Nicaragua's business and " non-governmental " classes

Montewitistas spend most of the time name-calling and complaining.

They cry no one will let them take part in Nicaraguan elections,

though the electoral process has not even begun. They cry the Liberal

PLC and the Sandinista FSLN are cruel, at the same time as they

themselves hurl hearty abuse and threats at both. They cry that only

they are clean and good and honest, and run to seek approval from

corporate gangsters like Robert Zoellick.

 

Leading figures among the Montewitistas include former revolutionary

comandantes Henry Ruiz, Monica Baltodano and FSLN founder member

Victor Tirado. Ruiz and Baltodano have both expounded at length in

Rebelión.org on their reasons for supporting Herty Lewites. People

with an addiction to long-winded Mexican novelas may well find their

expositions engrossing. But all are very coy about explaining their

role as Montewitistas. Nor have they or Victor Tirado or Luis Carrion

or Victor Hugo Tinoco explained much about their rapprochement with

the gangster regime of George W.Bush.

 

CAFTA - how big a deal?

 

CAFTA may have been ratified by the Nicaraguan legislature but its

irrelevance to Nicaragua's underlying problems are clear. It will not

provide more net employment. It will accelerate rural depopulation,

increasing the social problems in both deserted rural areas and ever

more overcrowded cities. Innumerable small and medium-sized business

will shut down, unable to compete with giant US rivals. Medicines will

likely double in price or worse. Domestic taxes will have to increase

anything between 10% and 15% in order to compensate for lost revenue

from import taxes.

 

Nicaragua will lose its food sovereignty. Terms and conditions for

workers will deteriorate. Short-term investment cowboys will finish

stripping out Nicaragua's already minimal public sector. The people

who will do well out of it all will be the business classes

represented by politicians like Enrique Bolaños, the leadership of the

PLC, Herty Lewites and Eduardo Montealegre. Another important set of

beneficiaries will be leading representatives of the Nicaraguan

non-governmental sector picking up lucrative contracts from

multilateral and bi-lateral " aid " donors to engage in the charade of

assisting victims of policies that should never have been implemented

in the first place.

 

For the FSLN and its political allies the challenge will now be to

define strategies of defence and resistance to protect Nicaraguan

workers and campesinos from the catastrophic effects for them of

deepening enslavement under foreign intervention. CAFTA and the

intimately linked Plan Puebla Panama were designed to run on cheap

energy in a stable natural environment. Neither of those conditions

are likely to apply now or for the foreseeable future.

 

Natural disasters like those that have regularly destroyed thousands

of lives and billions of dollars worth of property will become more

frequent as climate change accelerates. The recent horrific flooding

in much of Central America and Mexico emphatically reinforces that

fact. Venezuela's role in guaranteeing affordable oil-derived energy

will counteract US regional influence in ways that are still hard to

work out. CAFTA only contributes negatively to this context. As the

majority of people's standard of living steadily declines resentment

and protest will grow. Winning on CAFTA may yet turn out to have been

a pyrrhic victory for the US government and its local allies.

 

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