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Like many Latin American countries, Nicaragua became independent from the colonial power Spain in 1821, which had been severely weakened as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. Nicaragua’s development, like that of almost all Central and South American countries in the 19th century, was characterised by border conflicts and state instability, the weakness of central government power, frequently changing dictatorships and the concentration of power in regional potentates (caudillos), who controlled extensive estates, in some cases entire states, as if they were private property.
Nicaragua is no exception. The Central American country between the Pacific and the Atlantic, which borders Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south, joined the United States of Central America (Central American Federation, consisting of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) in 1823, after the Kingdom of New Spain, which the Central American states had joined with Mexico, finally collapsed in 1922. At the centre of the federation’s aspirations was complete independence – not only from the old colonial power, but also from the rising powers of the Americas. [1] However, the loose union of dictator-led states broke up in 1940 due to conflicts between the opposing liberal and conservative forces in the individual states.
The conservatives favoured a monarchist form of government and were guided by Catholic-clerical educational ideals. In terms of economic policy, the conservative forces were, and still are in a modified form, protectionist, domestically orientated and advocated state interventionist regulatory measures. Overall, the conservatives favoured a nation-state orientation and were generally opposed to pan-American endeavours.
The liberals, on the other hand, were characterised by republican, anti-monarchist ideas in the tradition of the French Revolution. They were in favour of civil liberties in the spirit of the Enlightenment based on the fundamental ideas of the French Revolution – albeit for a leading class. Their liberal economic orientation is also essential; they advocated free trade and global market orientation and rejected forms of state interventionism. Almost all Latin American states in the 19th century and well into the 20th century were characterised by the dualism of these two forces, some of which established dictatorial regimes in rapid succession. The resulting internal conflicts in the individual states, which often developed into inter-state conflicts, contributed significantly to the fact that a pan-Latin federation south of the USA was not able to prevail in the long term.
It is of central importance that both conservative and liberal positions were supported by a relatively thin economic and social ruling class, which was prepared to use violence to fend off social reforms and the political and social participation of the majority of the population.
This also applies to Nicaragua. Nicaragua’s dominant economic factor since the 19th century has been the export of coffee. After a liberal government was overthrown in 1909 and a civil war flared up, the USA intervened in 1912. Nicaragua was under US occupation almost continuously until 1933, against which a guerrilla movement led by Augusto Cesar Sandino developed from the end of the 1920s. As early as 1926, the reference figure of the later Sandinistas built up an armed force, initially consisting of miners, from which the ‚Defence Army of National Sovereignty‘ emerged in 1927. Sandino wanted to avoid the structure of a caudillo allegiance and relied on the political motivation of the troops made up of farmers and workers, who were able to achieve military successes against the occupying power [2] ; Nicaragua was of geostrategic importance to the latter, not least against the backdrop of the Panama Canal, which was completed in 1914. The USA also established the Nicaraguan National Guard in 1927, which fought alongside the US armed forces under its commander-in-chief Anastasio Somoza Garcia. When the occupying forces withdrew in 1933, Sandino disarmed his troops in accordance with agreements with Somoza. In breach of these agreements, however, he had the now unarmed former guerrillas persecuted from 1934 onwards. Sandino was murdered by members of the National Guard in the same year [3] .
With Sandino, the guerrilla struggle became an important element in the history of Latin American social movements, which often focussed primarily on warfare without a well-founded concept for the period after the armed conflict.
The National Guard also formed the central power base for Somoza when he seized power in 1936 and laid the foundations for a clan dictatorship that lasted until the Sandinista revolution in 1979.
Anastasio Somoza Garcia was ‚elected‘ president in 1937. After he fell victim to an assassination attempt in 1956, his sons Luis Somoza Debayle (until 1963) and Anastasio Somoza Debayle (until 1979) continued the rule of the Somoza clan. [4] In addition to the National Guard, the connection to the USA in the ‚Cold War‘ and the establishment of a family business were two other key pillars of the power base of the Somoza dynasty’s 43-year rule. The ‚Sandinista National Liberation Front‘ (Frente Sandinista de Liberación – FSLN ) was founded in 1962 and took up the fight against the Somoza regime. FONSEC
An economic upturn at the beginning of the 1960s, based on Nicaragua’s accession to the Central American Free Trade Zone (Mercado Común Centroamericano -MCCA ) and the promotion of agricultural exports and industrialisation, did not lead to a reduction in the extreme social differences. Instead, an urban industrial proletariat established itself, which became increasingly radicalised [5] , although a homogeneous opposition did not initially emerge. However, an earthquake in 1972, in which the capital Managua was largely destroyed and around 10,000 people lost their lives, marked a turning point: after the Somoza clan embezzled around half a billion US dollars in international aid money for the earthquake victims, resistance grew and spread to different political and social spectrums. Opposition forces began to join forces; the Nicaraguan business elite also increasingly distanced themselves from the regime; this distancing also manifested itself in the bourgeois opposition movement Unión Democrática de Liberación (UDEL), supported by the newspaper publisher Pedro Chamorro, from whose family the future president was to emerge.
The unrestrained enrichment of the National Guard and family clan through humanitarian aid for the victims of the earthquake and property speculation in the course of reconstruction, as well as an economic crisis that began in the mid-1970s, increasingly isolated the regime. At the end of a 15-year economic boom, a growing army of impoverished city dwellers and landless peasants faced a concentration of wealth and land ownership in the hands of a few, which was remarkable even by Latin American standards. The Sandinista Liberation Front found increasing support in the deepening social polarisation, to which the regime responded with increased repression. [6] The transition to civil war was fluid as a result. Key stages on the path from individual actions by the armed opposition to the 18-month armed conflict and Somoza’s escape in 1979, in which around 20,000 people lost their lives [7] , are marked by the assassination of the conservative opposition politician Pedro Chamorro at the instigation of the Somoza family (10 January 1978) and the occupation of the National Palace by the FSLN (22 August 1978). In the course of the attack on the National Palace, the Sandinistas took several ministers, family members of the Somoza clan and numerous members of parliament hostage, gained international media attention for the first time and gained national and international sympathy through the good treatment of the hostages, but also through the rhetorically skilful presentation of their political programme. In exchange for hostages, 60 prisoners were also released, including the Sandinista leader and later president Daniel Ortega. [8] The murder of Chamorro broadened the fundamental opposition base deep into the conservative middle class around the liberation-theology-oriented part of the Catholic Church and human rights organisations. [9] The Somoza dictatorship moved to intensify repression and came under increasing international pressure and isolation.
Already in the early 1970s, the FSLN had increasingly turned away from Che Guevara’s guerrilla theory, according to which the focus of a guerrilla war should be on the forces of the people, in Latin America also on the rural areas, while the insurgents could bring about revolutionary conditions themselves. [10] The Sandinistas did not choose such a focus. It was probably also the internal heterogeneity of the Sandinistas – they had split into three groups with different ideological and methodological orientations – that forced them to compromise and led to the decision to work together with a broad spectrum of opposition groups. [11] This cooperation formed the organisational basis for a nationwide indefinite general strike from spring 1979. The breadth of this spectrum was certainly one of the reasons for the success of the revolution. In addition, Mexico and subsequently Brazil, Costa Rica, Grenada and Panama had broken off diplomatic relations with the Somoza regime. In mid-July, the FSLN succeeded in taking Managua. Somoza fled to the USA on 17 July 1979. In September 1980, he fell victim to an assassination attempt in Paraguay.
After the fall of the Somoza regime, a transitional government was initially formed that reflected the various opposition groups. The revolution was supported by numerous intellectuals and artists, including the liberation theologian and writer Ernesto Cardenal, who took over as Minister of Culture after the fall of Somoza and held this position until 1987. [12] Alongside Daniel Ortega, Violetta Barrios de Chamorro, the widow of the conservative, opposition publisher Pedro Camorra, who was murdered on behalf of the Somoza clan in 1978, was also a member of the government.
However, after the victory over their common opponent, the heterogeneous alliance, which reached deep into the bourgeois camp, quickly disintegrated. The Sandinistas dominated the alliance; due to their – albeit not uncritical – orientation towards Cuba and thus the socialist orientation of the planned reforms, the common ground was exhausted with the fall of the regime. Chamorro left the transitional government as early as August 1979, and other former opposition groups also withdrew.
After the ‚Sandinista Liberation Front‘ under the leadership of Daniel Ortega took sole control of the government, some American companies and the properties of the Somoza family – the clan ultimately owned around 25 per cent of the country – were nationalised. However, the expropriations were essentially limited to this. However, there was no radical break with the market economy system. In contrast to Cuba and the Soviet Union, the Sandinistas pursued the model of a mixed economy, the state’s share of gross domestic product remained limited to 45 per cent, the means of production remained largely in private hands and the expropriations primarily affected the property of the Somoza clan. The 1980s, when Ortega was confirmed by a large majority in the 1984 elections, were characterised by a spirit of optimism and the restructuring of the military and state administration. From a Sandinista perspective, the revolution did not end with the fall of the Somoza regime, but rather began with the victory over the dictatorship and describes the political and social reorganisation that followed. The numerous human rights violations committed by the Somoza regime [13] were hardly the subject of a social and legal debate in the context of this policy of transformation. Violetta Chamorro surprisingly won the 1990 elections, while Daniel Ortega was able to win a Sandinista majority again in 2006 and was re-elected for a further five years in 2016.
Although the basic ideological orientation of the FSLN was strongly Marxist-Leninist, there are also strong liberation theological impulses as well as social and agrarian reform approaches. However, comprehensive agrarian reform was to fall far short of plans and expectations [14] .
The criticism of the Soviet and Cuban models was not only expressed at an economic level, but also at a state and socio-political level through the establishment of a (at least pro forma) democratic presidential system. However, the democratic-socialist orientation remained a façade, as the Sandinista party and its affiliated organisations increasingly penetrated the state apparatus and sought to dominate key areas of public life (not all too successfully in the long term).
A comprehensive, ambitious reform concept is essential for the first phase of the Sandinista government. This included a renewal of the health system, which had previously been virtually non-existent for broad sections of society, an actual redistribution of fertile land, costly development programmes to create social equality, which admittedly fell short of the targets set, the establishment of artistic forums to promote creativity and investment in education – initially primarily in comprehensive literacy. Planned in a generalised manner, teaching materials were developed, teachers trained, who in turn instructed other teachers: the system was designed to multiply. Almost every community was gradually covered. The illiteracy rate of 50 per cent at the end of the Somoza dictatorship, which was high even by Latin American standards at the time, was reduced to 12 per cent during the first Sandinista period of government (1979-1990). [15] The initiative did not, of course, have an exclusively value-free educational character; it certainly carried the impetus of popular education, of collective consciousness-raising. Thus, in the course of designing the textbooks, it could only be desirable that the word ‚la Revolución‘ – including the article – contained all vowels; „the whole country“ had „turned into a school in those months“ [16] , the formation of class consciousness was just as much a subject of the curriculum as literacy training based on selected, relevant texts. The education system was largely privatised during the 16 years (1990-2006) of Violetta Chamorro’s (neo-) liberal-conservative government, probably also in the sense of de-ideologisation. As a result, the illiteracy rate gradually rose again to 23 per cent of the population under the age of 15 in 2006. Estimates by the German Development Service put the rate at 33 per cent among adult Nicaraguans at this time. The neglect of the education sector by the conservative government can also be seen in public investment. While countries such as Bolivia and Honduras, whose national budgets have similar chronically disastrous figures, invested seven per cent of their gross national product in education, the Chamorro government only invested 4.7 per cent of national income. [17] After the Sandinistas returned to power, spending on education was increased again. However, due to the high level of poverty, lack of infrastructure and shortage of qualified teachers, literacy is only progressing slowly. For 2016, a literacy rate of 82.8 per cent of the adult population can now be assumed, meaning that the illiteracy rate has fallen to 17.2 per cent [18] .
A close connection to Cuba and the Eastern Bloc also resulted from the hostile attitude of the Reagan administration, which regarded Nicaragua as a ’second Cuba‘ and initially reacted to the Sandinista victory with a trade embargo that brought the country’s already weakened economy to the brink of ruin. Around 75 per cent of the population lived in poverty. The USA officially supported resistance groups of the Contra movement, which was mainly made up of Somoza supporters, but also of disappointed Sandinistas and marginalised indigenous people, economically and militarily from 1984, although the Sandinista government had gained legitimacy through elections in the same year. Through the CIA, the USA had already begun to support armed opponents of the Sandinista government in December 1981. [19] The Contras, who carried out military operations and attacks from Honduras and Costa Rica, were responsible for numerous human rights violations to a far greater extent than the Sandinista side. [20] These included attacks on hospitals, the taking of hostages and torture of civilians, the kidnapping of women and the execution of civilians, including children. [21] The CIA apparently did not oppose such methods: In an affidavit for The Hague Tribunal, former Contra fighter Edgar Chamorro stated, „The CIA did not discourage such tactics. To the contrary, the Agency severely criticised me when I admitted to the press that the FDN (die) had regurlarly kidnapped and executed agrarian reform workers and civilians. We were told that the only way to defeat the Sandinistas was […] to kill, kidnap, rob and torture […].“ [22]
These human rights violations prompted the US Congress in 1985 not to authorise any further financial aid for the Contras. However, with the proceeds from the sale of embargoed weapons to Iran, with the intention of freeing US hostages held captive in Lebanon, the Reagan administration continued to illegally finance the Contras – the most extensive scandal of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. [23] However, the continued support could not prevent the anti-Sandinista guerrillas from falling into a hopeless military position from 1986 onwards. A ceasefire was agreed between the government and the Contra leadership in 1988 and a peace treaty was signed in 1989. At no time was there a judicial, social reappraisal of the crimes of humanity committed during the war. The International Court of Justice in The Hague sentenced the USA to pay billions in damages for the enormous economic damage caused by the Contra war, which was never paid [24] .
After 11 years, the Nicaraguans voted out the Sandinista revolution. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the widow of the conservative publisher Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, who was murdered by henchmen of the Somoza dictatorship in 1978, succeeded Daniel Ortega as president in 1990 after free elections. [25] Ortega accepted the defeat and the change of government took place without violence. Chamorro, who had successfully led the opposition alliance UNO (Unión Nacional Opositora) [26] through the elections, was elected the first female president of an American country. The victory, which came as a surprise to many observers, was probably also due to the fact that many Nicaraguans expected a more stable peace process from the basic orientation of a conservative-led alliance government than from a continuation of the revolutionary restructuring by a still polarising FSLN government. In addition, economic improvements had not materialised to the extent hoped for, and the agrarian reform in particular, a central project of the revolutionary government, had fallen short of its objectives.[ 27] Although some notable successes were achieved in the education sector, health care, the economic situation of many small farmers, the restructuring of the army and democratisation (after all, the party alliance around Violetta Chamorro was able to win free elections), the opposition considered the Sandinista revolution, the ‚third way between capitalism and socialism‘, to have failed. [28] However, the contra war and trade embargo had contributed in no small measure to the economic problems during the Sandinista government.
The revolution was unwound in the following years. Companies were reprivatised, elements of state economic control were scaled back, social and educational programmes were liquidated, and the Sandinista literacy project was also discontinued as part of a neo-liberal austerity and privatisation policy, although it should be noted that Soviet payments failed to materialise following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
Establishing a peace order, reducing state interventionism and reorganising the state and administration are the three core areas of her time in office. Conservative Catholic clergy opposed to liberation theology regained influence. [29 ] The Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) Liberal Party, which brought together national, economic and constitutional liberal splinter groups based on the tradition of Enlightenment liberalism, became an influential force and provided Arnoldo Alemán (1996-2002) and Enrique Bolaños (2002-2007), the presidents who succeeded Violeta Chamorro.
The Sandinistas had taken over the government of a state bled dry by the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, and Chamorro had inherited „a country destroyed by war and worn down by material hardship“ [31] . The demobilisation of the army, the establishment of international creditworthiness and the end of rampant inflation are the successes of her time in office. She also contributed to the reconciliation of the divided country by including some Sandinistas in her cabinet. Her government also abolished the censorship that existed during Sandinista rule. What is remarkable, however, is the speed of the reforms carried out during her time in office, which can also be attributed to the intention to liquidate the Sandinista legacy.
The integration of the Contras and dismissed soldiers, mass redundancies and the simultaneous dismantling of social networks, which in principle had the ’stigma‘ of being Sandinista, rising prices with stagnating wages and rampant corruption (especially in the course of privatisation) led to an enormous increase in poverty. Mass strikes were the result. Moreover, as a result of the opening up to the world market, numerous small farmers were no longer able to compete against the backdrop of falling coffee, cotton and banana prices. Many of them had only found a modest livelihood a few years ago thanks to the Sandinista agrarian reform and were now adding to the army of the unemployed in a small country that was extremely weakened by war, the trade embargo, but also due to fundamental economic deficits.
Financial support from the Bush administration was largely tied to the adoption of its political and economic neoliberal prerogatives [32] , which the Chamorro government largely followed, but not without restrictions. On the one hand, it could not ignore the continuing Sandinista power base, especially against the background of the massive socio-economic cuts. On the other hand, a cross-ideological awareness of national dignity stood in the way of overly far-reaching restrictions on sovereignty. The proportion of poor people in the population rose from 50 to 53 per cent during Chamorro’s term of office and remained at a very high level even under the liberal successor governments, despite the successful fight against inflation and moderate economic growth [33] .
Although the Chamorro government always referred to the ‚Sandinista legacy‘, it did not have to wage war or impose a trade embargo. On the contrary, US aid flowed, even though its scope after the end of the East-West polarisation was much smaller than the support money for the Contras before. The precarious living conditions were also the focus of subsequent governments.
In the 1996 presidential elections, Arnoldo Alemán Lacoyo, leader of the national liberal party alliance ‚Alianza Liberal‘ (AL), prevailed against the former Sandinista president Daniel Ortega. When he came to power in 1997, he therefore described the fight against poverty as a priority goal of his government, which stood for a continuation of the neoliberal course he had embarked upon. The devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch, which caused severe damage throughout Central America at the end of October 1998, was an additional economic catastrophe for those primarily affected by increasing poverty. International aid money seeped away through disorganisation, but above all through corruption.
Daniel Ortega failed once again in the 2001 presidential elections, losing to the candidate of the „Partido Liberal Constitucionalista“ (PLC), Enrique Bolaños Geyer, who declared strengthening democratic structures and fighting corruption to be the priorities of his government. Like his predecessor and Violeta Chamorro, he endeavoured to maintain good relations with the USA.
„Corruption, the perverse utilisation of power, the culture of the strong man. […] We must break with this history and these traditions. I promise you that I will break with this past“ [ 34] ,
was Geyer’s lofty announcement on 10 January 2002 on the occasion of his swearing-in, which was to be followed by action. Although he distanced himself from the deeply corrupt government of his predecessor Alemán Lacoyo, whose vice president he was, he was hardly able to provide any economic impetus to improve living conditions in the country, which 12 years after the Contra War and neoliberal economic policies was still one of the poorest countries in Latin America. The problem of poverty stagnating at a high level is primarily due to the low economic growth, the one-sided reliance on a so-called „trickle-down“ effect (the assumption that the growing prosperity of the rich will also bring more income to the poor as a result), the low government spending on poverty reduction, which also barely reaches those in need, the misappropriation of international aid funds and the extremely unequal distribution of income and wealth. [35] These factors are undoubtedly partly responsible for Daniel Ortega’s re-election in 2006.
In the 2006 elections, Daniel Ortega prevailed against the incumbent President Bolaños Geyer and has been the country’s head of state and head of government again since January 2007. He also won the 2016 elections as a result of a change in electoral law that allowed him to run for another term and by eliminating the opposition in advance. The country is increasingly in the hands of the Ortega clan.
In fact, between 2005 and 2009, there was an initial reduction in the proportion of poor and extremely poor people in Nicaragua. According to politically independent figures, the proportion of people living in poverty fell from 48.3 to 44.7 per cent during this period, while the percentage of those affected by extreme poverty fell from 17.2 to 9.7 per cent. This trend subsequently continued; in 2015, the proportion of poor people in the total population, now just under 6.8 million inhabitants [36] , was 39.0 per cent [37] , while the proportion of extremely poor people was reduced to 7.6 per cent. [38] These are overall figures. In rural areas, an indicator of the failure of various attempts at land reform, the figures continue to look different: in 2015, 58.8 out of every 100 people in rural areas were poor and 14.4 were extremely poor. According to the Human Development Index [39] of the United Nations, Nicaragua ranked 125th in 2015 and is still the second poorest country in Latin America according to UN parameters. Progress has also been made in terms of educational endeavours. In 2015, the illiteracy rate for the over-15 age group was 17.2 per cent [40] .
Thanks to cooperation between the second Ortega government and the country’s economic elites, the proportion of the population affected by extreme poverty was reduced from fourteen to eight per cent between 2009 and 2013; Nicaragua’s economy has overcome the low point of the 1990s and has even achieved growth rates of 4 to 5 per cent since 2010. Growth of 4.5 per cent is forecast for 2017 [41] .
These successes cannot hide the fact that Nicaragua is still the second poorest country in Latin America after Haiti; a sham democratic façade can only painstakingly conceal a clan and clientele structure in which Daniel Ortega has now also integrated his wife as vice president. Ortega’s electoral successes since 2006 can be attributed on the one hand to the continuing Sandinista recruitment potential, and on the other to links with originally anti-Sandinista forces – such as the conservative clergy and business elites – but also to alliances with political figures with a high profile and favourable changes to electoral law .
The human rights situation is also ambivalent after ten years of ‚Orteguismo‘. Women’s rights continue to be little respected. Abortions are prohibited under all circumstances, even if the woman’s life is in danger. Gender-based violence is rarely penalised, especially when it affects women from poor backgrounds. Nicaragua still has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Latin America.
The government’s plans to build the interoceanic canal continue to cause controversy. According to its opponents, the realisation of this major project would lead to the displacement of thousands of people and the destruction of their livelihoods. The majority of those affected are indigenous territories. Representatives of environmental and human rights organisations have complained of death threats and intimidation attempts. The government hopes that the project will provide a lasting solution to the problem of poverty. The construction of the canal is expected to create 50,000 jobs, half of which will be reserved for Nicaraguans who will be specially trained for their tasks. Corresponding training centres and study programmes have already been set up since 2014. [43] The rights of the autonomous Miskito Indians affected by the project are often not respected and their representatives are frequently subjected to threats and harassment. [44]
The Trappist monk, mystic and poet Ernesto Cardenal, a representative of liberation theology, was a prominent supporter of the Sandinista revolution and Minister of Culture in the 1980s. He is not only an opponent of the canal project and the associated mass resettlement and environmental destruction. The now 92-year-old uncomfortable poet, who was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wuppertal on 4 March 2017, now faces numerous legal harassments from his former Sandinista comrades-in-arms and considers himself to be politically persecuted by the Ortega couple – the writer, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, accuses Ortega of running an arbitrary regime. He is considering applying for asylum in Germany [45]
Giaconda Belli, born in Managua in 1948, is probably one of the best-known living authors in Latin America. At the end of the 1960s, she joined the Sandinistas out of outrage at the poverty in the country and the repressive policies of the Somoza regime and was soon forced to emigrate. Sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison for subversive activities, she returned to Nicaragua after the fall of the Somoza dictatorship and took on various tasks in the field of cultural policy until 1986. In the early 1990s, disappointed by political inadequacy, ideological narrowness and the machismo of the functionaries, she distanced herself from Sandinism [46] and felt that her commitment to human rights, especially women’s rights, was no longer compatible with Sandinism. The counter-revolution and war had reinforced existing authoritarian tendencies and ideological hardening and spoilt the revolution. The separation from the FSLN was like the painful separation from a long-standing relationship. [47] Nicaragua’s left-wing intellectual elite has long distanced itself from the former revolutionaries. The songwriter Carlos Mejía Godoy, whose revolutionary hymns accompanied the fall of Somoza, saw a new Ortega family dictatorship looming as early as 2008 and banned the FSLN from using his songs. Gioconda sees Daniel Ortega as an unscrupulous opportunist, without principles, without ideology, who has distorted Sandinismo and is only interested in securing his power [48] .
After 16 years of neo-liberal policies, the 2006 election, which Ortega was only able to win thanks to a change in electoral law and a split in the Liberals [49] , was associated with fears, hopes and, above all, a leap of faith. The starting point for Ortega’s presidency after the ‚long march‘ back to government power was initially a broad consensus basis on which a Sandinista ‚counter-reformation‘ adapted to the global conditions of the 21st century, a political project of social equalisation on a democratic, constitutional basis would have been possible – without the burden of contra-war and trade embargo, without instrumentalisation in a bloc polarisation. Ortega, however, cultivated his authoritarian leadership style, familiar from his revolutionary days, from the very beginning and left no doubt that the perpetuation of his rule was his top priority. The constitutional and democratic institutions established after 1990, as well as a fragmented opposition that often represented particular interests, proved too unstable in the long term to counter Ortega’s claim to remain in power in the long term. Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, the architect of the 2006 election success and an influential figure in the background, left the neo-liberal economy untouched and built up their own private sector network in the shadow of power with money from Venezuela [50] , among other sources.
According to Nicaraguan sociologist and political scientist Ricardo Gómez Pomeri, they are abusing and dismantling the core institutions of democracy, establishing an authoritarian regime behind the democratic façade, placing the will of Ortega, who occasionally sees himself as the „chosen one“, above the law, instrumentalising the judiciary in order to „protect the particular interests of the Ortega-Murillo family and the FSLN nomenklatura or to eliminate and intimidate their political opponents […]. [51]
After a decade of Orteguismo rule, the result is worrying – a return to caudillo rule under left-wing populist auspices. The opportunity to significantly improve the living conditions of Nicaraguans has been wasted once again. A social, political or judicial reappraisal of the Somoza dictatorship, Sandinismo and the Contra War never took place [52] .
[ 1] On 1 July 1823, representatives of the Central American states signed a corresponding agreement in Guatemala City in which they proclaimed the complete independence of the „United Provinces of Central America“ and declared themselves to be its constitutive general assembly. The federation was „sovereign, free and independent of old Spain, of Mexico, and all other powers whether of the Old or the New World.“ A good overview of the development can still be found in Héctor Pérez Brignoli, A brief history of Central America. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000, p. 67f.
[ 2] Cf. the compilation by Martina Kaller-Dietrich and David Mayer, (Institute of History at the University of Vienna) History of Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries, in: http://www.lateinamerika-studien.at/content/geschichtepolitik/geschichte/geschichte-titel.html (accessed on 25 August 2017).
[ 3] Ibid.
[ 4] See Knut Walter, The Regime of Anastasio Somoza, 1936-1956 . The University of North Carolina Press 1993, Eduardo Crawley , Dictators Never Die: A Portrait of Nicaragua and the Somoza Dynasty . London 1979, Michael D. Gambone, Eisenhower, Somoza and the Cold War in Nicaragua (1953-1961). Westport CT, et al. 1997.
[ 5] Kaller et al, Latin American Studies: http://www.lateinamerika-studien.at/content/geschichtepolitik/geschichte/geschichte-254.html
[ 6] Ibid.
[ 7] It is estimated that up to 50,000 people were killed during the entire period of the Somoza dictatorship: Cf. the list at Amerika21: https://amerika21.de/analyse/123974/terroropfer-lateinamerika#footnote15_aq1p5gz
[ 8] El Nuevo Diario 16 August 2008, www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/24321-recuerdan-asalto-palacio-nacional
[ 9] Antonio Esgueva Gómez, „Conflictos y paz en la historia de Nicaragua“ in: Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (ed.), Talleres de Historia. Cuadernos de apoyo para la docencia. Managua 1999, p. 90.
[ 10] Che Guevara, Guerrilla. Theory and Method. Complete writings on the guerrilla method, revolutionary strategy and the figure of the guerrilla. Edited by Horst Kurnitzky. Berlin 1968.
[ 11] The most important groups: The human rights organisation Organismos de los Derechos Humanos, the women’s association Asociación de Mujeres ante la Problemática Nacional (AMPRONAC). For more details, see Gómez, Conflictos y paz , p. 90.
[ 12] Cf. Erick Aguirre Aragón, „Ernesto Cardenal, Prophet in his own country?“, in: Sabine Kurtenbach et al. (eds.), Central America today. Politics, Economy, Culture. Frankfurt/M. 2009, pp. 563-582.
[ 13] On these in detail: Morris H. Morley, Washington, Somoza and the Sandinistas: Stage and Regime in US Policy Toward Nicaragua 1969-1981. Cambridge 2002, especially pp. 54ff.
[ 14] Thus David Nolan, The ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution . Miami 1984 in an early analysis that is largely limited to analysing the theoretical writings of the FSLN leadership before the fall of the Somoza regime and largely dispenses with an analysis of political practice after 1979. The perspective of the study is also characterised by a US-American view of the country in the „backyard“ and only marginally considers liberation theology and nationalist impulses. Cf. also the review Sollis, P. (1985). David Nolan. The Ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaragua Revolution (Coral Gables, Florida: Institute of Interamerican Studies, Graduate Revolution of International Studies, University of Miami, 1984, n.p.s.). Pp. v 203. Journal of Latin American Studies, 17 (2), 481-482. doi:10.1017/S0022216X00008117.
[ 15] The figures from the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the German Development Service at http://www.bpb.de/internationales/amerika/lateinamerika/44824/bildungspolitik?p=all
[ 16] Cf. Carlos Tünnermann Bernheim, „Die nationale Alphabetisierungskampagne Nicaraguas (1980)“, in: Sabine Kurtenbach et al. (eds.), Zentralamerika heute. Politics, Economy, Culture . Frankfurt/M. 2009, pp. 751-764, p. 761.
[ 17] Cf. Federal Agency for Civic Education, http://www.bpb.de/internationales/amerika/lateinamerika/44824/bildungspolitik?p=all
[ 18] According to the United Nations Human Development Report 2016: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2016_statistical_annex.pdf
[ 19] See the report of the US Congress on the Iran-Contra affair: Lee H. Hamilton, Daniel K. Inouye (Senate Select Committee), Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair . Washington 1987, p. 3
[ 20] Cf. Andreas E. Feldmann, Perälä Maiju, „Reassessing the Causes of Nongovernmental Terrorism in Latin America“, in: Latin American Politics and Society 46, (2004), H. 2, pp. 101-132 and Greg Grandin, Gilbert M. Joseph (2010). A Century of Revolution . Durham, North Carolina : Duke University Press 2010, especially p. 89.
[ 21] According to research by the US human rights organisation ‚Americas Watch‘ The Americas Watch Committee (February 1987). „Human Rights in Nicaragua 1986, pp. 19-24.
[ 22] Case Concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua V. United States of America): Affidavit of Edgar Chamarro“ International Court of Justice, 5 September 1985.
[ 23] On the Iran-Contra affair see. Malcolm Byrne, Iran-Contra, Reagan’s Scandal and the Unchecked Abuse of Presidential Power . University Press of Kansas 2014, profound earlier works: Lawrence E. Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up. New York et al. 1997, Theodore Draper, A very thin line: The Iran-Contra affairs. New York 1991 with further reading.
[ 24] The judgement of 27 June 1986: Militarv and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America). Merits, Judgment. I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14: http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/70/070-19860627-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf. The USA did not recognise the judgment.
[ 25] Cf. Wilhelm Kempf, „Wahlentscheidung oder Kapitulation? An attempt at a political-psychological analysis of the Nicaraguan elections of February 1990“, in: Das Argument (1990), No. 180, pp. 243-247.
[ 26] The UN, a 14-party coalition, covered a heterogeneous spectrum of conservative, economic-liberal and communist groups, which were held together above all by their rejection of the Sandinista revolution and their support for a long-term end to the civil war. On this point: Orlando J. Pérez, Civil-Military Relations in Post-Conflict Societies. Reansforming the Role of Military in Central America . New York 2015, Thomas P. Anderson, Politics in Central America. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, Westport (Connect.), London 1988, p. 212 f.
[ 27] Nevertheless, according to Sandinista figures, 3.5 million ha. Distributed to 60,000 people. On agrarian reform: Laura J. Enríquez , Agrarian Reform and Class Consciousness in Nicaragua, University Press of Florida, 1997 with further reading.
[ 28] Cf. Michael Krennerich, Elections and Anti-regime Wars in Central America. A comparative study . Wiesbaden 1996, see also DIE ZEIT, 21 July 1989 on the 10th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, „Ronald Reagan didn’t beat us“: http://www.zeit.de/1989/30/ronald-reagan-hat-uns-nicht-geschlagen.
[ 29] Cf. the country information portal of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ): https://www.liportal.de/nicaragua/geschichte-staat/
[ 30] Ibid.
[ 31] David Close, Los años de Doña Violeta: La historia de la transición política . Managua 2005; see also Thomas W . Walker, Nicaragua without illusions: regime transition and structural adjustment in the 1990s . Lanham, Maryland 1997.
[ 32] Details „US Aid: Not even a Cheap Lunch „: http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/2843
[ 33] Eva Karnofsky, Barbara Potthast, Powerful, Courageous and Ingenious: Forty Extraordinary Women from Latin America. Berlin 2012.
[ 34] Quoted from Lateinamerikanachrichten , No. 332, Feb. 2002: http://lateinamerika-nachrichten.de/?aaartikel=neuer-wind-in-nicaragua
[ 35] There is a consensus among all studies. Cf. Ricardo Gómez Pomeri, Nicaragua: Between Absolutism and Democracy . Berlin 2012, p. 71ff.
[ 36] Cf. Amerika21 from 19/09/2016: https://amerika21.de/analyse/158299/perspektive-nicaragua
[ 37] The UN assumes a percentage of 29.6 per cent http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/DE/Aussenpolitik/Laender/Laenderinfos/Nicaragua/Wirtschaft_node.html
[ 38] The poverty statistics figures from the FIDEG Foundation .
[ 39] United Nations Development Programme: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report.pdf. The HDI is a measure of human development focussing on the three dimensions of health, education and income. The United Nations uses the life expectancy of newborns as a measure of health. Education is measured by the ratio between the expected and actual number of years of education. The income factor is determined using gross national income (GNI) per capita. Cf. encyclopaedia of sustainability: https://www.nachhaltigkeit.info/artikel/human_development_index_1867.htm.
[ 40] http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/DE/Aussenpolitik/Laender/Laenderinfos/Nicaragua/Wirtschaft_node.html
[ 41] Cf. Amerika21, news and analyses from Latin America , 19/09/2016: https://amerika21.de/analyse/158299/perspektive-nicaragua. For economic data, see also the Country Information Portal (LIP): https://www.liportal.de/nicaragua/wirtschaft-entwicklung/ (as at September 2017). GDP per capita grew by 6.2 per cent in 2015 and by 2.7 per cent in 2016, with an improvement in poverty indicators.
[ 42] Cf. Amerika21 , 06/06/2016: https://amerika21.de/2016/06/153659/kandidatenkuernicaragua
[ 43] Cf. Amerika21, 19 September 2016: https://amerika21.de/analyse/158299/perspektive-nicaragua
[ 44] Cf. Amnesty International country report for 2016: https://www.amnesty.de/jahresbericht/2017/nicaragua
[ 45] Cf. LIP: https://www.liportal.de/nicaragua/gesellschaft/; cf. also Radio Vatican, 15 February 2017: http://de.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/02/15/nicaragua_neue_verhandlung_gegen_ernesto_cardenal/1292747; see also Archdiocese of Cologne, Domradio, 17 February 2017: https://www.domradio.de/themen/weltkirche/2017-02-17/ernesto-cardenal-fuehlt-sich-politisch-verfolgt.
[ 46] The data on Gioconda Belli at FemBio, Frauen.Biographieforschung: http://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/gioconda-belli/
[ 47] Quoted from Berliner Zeitung , 15/09/2008: http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/gioconda-belli-poetin-und-politikerin-einst-gluehende-sandinistin-warnt-vor-einer-neuen-familiendiktatur-in-ihrer-heimat-nicaragua-eine-traurige-liebe-15930582
[ 48] Cf. http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/gioconda-belli-poetin-und-politikerin-einst-gluehende-sandinistin-warnt-vor-einer-neuen-familiendiktatur-in-ihrer-heimat-nicaragua-eine-traurige-liebe-15930582
[ 49] The heterogeneous alliance of conservatives and liberals had failed due to their historical divergences, and the Liberal Party had also split. A change to the electoral law only came about through an ethically questionable alliance with Arnoldo Alemán Lacoyo, the Liberal successor to Violeta Chamorro, who was involved in corruption cases. In detail: Gómez Pomeri, Nicaragua , p. 4 and 93ff.
[ 50] For more on the importance of money from Venezuela in consolidating the Ortega family’s power, see ibid. p. 107ff.
[ 51] Ibid., p. 4.
[ 52] Cf. Anika Oettler, „Zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft: Vergangenheitspolitik in Zentralamerika“, in: Sabine Kurtenbach et al. (eds.): Zentralamerika heute. Politics, Economy, Culture . Frankfurt/M. 2009, pp. 279-298, p. 290f. Astrid Bothman, Transitional justice in Nicaragua: 1990 – 2012 ; drawing a line under the past. Wiesbaden 2015.
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