By Allen Jennings
MANAGUA — "They've taken Doris Tijerino", was the first news in a frightening chain of events which brought Nicaragua, once again, to the verge of civil war.
Although Nicaragua's political polarisation is renowned, the double kidnapping last week exacerbated the differences between the country's left and right political forces and had activists from both sides preparing for battle. It also highlighted the political impotence of Violeta Chamorro's government.
Doris Tijerino, the popular Sandinista member of parliament and former police minister in the Sandinista government, was only one of the 38member government peace commission which flew to the remote northern town of Quilalà on August 19, in an effort to convince the 3-80 Northern Front, a group of recontras, to accept a recently approved amnesty law.
After reading the agenda at around midday, in a classic betrayal of good will, reminiscent of Somoza's betrayal of Sandino in the '30s, Chacal (the Jackal), the rebels' leader, and 150 of his men took the entire group captive.
Included in the kidnapped government delegation were two Sandinista parliamentary deputies, Tijerino and Carlos Gallo, one conservative parliamentarian, AnÃbal Martinez (who was released almost immediately), two vice ministers, the head of the special disarmament brigade (BED) and his deputy, along with other government officials and more than 20 BED officers.
Chacal's troops took the prisoners to the town of El Zúngano, some 16 kilometres from QuilalÃ.
Later, Chacal, dressed in his US-made uniform and carrying a 45 Magnum pistol, told the press, "The government thinks we are blackmailers, but we aren't asking for money or land or anything ... We want the democratisation of the country and the removal of Humberto Ortega and Antonio Lacayo from their positions."
What rightists wanted
These demands, repeated by one of Chacal's lieutenants with uncanny precision, are precisely those espoused by right-wing politicians, both here and in the United States.
Antonio Lacayo, who is the minister of the presidency as well as President Chamorro's son-in-law, is Nicaragua's de facto president. Humberto Ortega, brother of the former president, Daniel Ortega, is head of the army. The right wants these two positions.
Nicaraguan right-wing forces agree with the government's "neoliberal" economic program — cuts in public spending, nd exporters at the expense of campesinos, abolition of import taxes, etc. However, they also call for political changes which, according to their logic, must be implemented along with these economic policies.
Nicaragua's rich, many of whom spent 10 years in the US, want their confiscated land and companies back, they want to run their companies without headaches from unions and they want their property protected from the increasing number of hungry and frustrated unemployed, which is now over 60% of the economically active population. To achieve these goals, a repressive police force and army is a logical necessity. The return of Nicaragua's resources to the hands of a few demands the return to Somocismo.
For all their faults, Violeta Chamorro and Antonio Lacayo, with only a handful of supporters in the 96-member Assembly and rapidly diminishing support throughout the country, are not Somocistas. This is their "crime". Chacal's demands were neither new nor surprising; and they did not originate in QuilalÃ. Numerous right-wing delegations to the US pleading for the suspension of US aid and a recent visit by the vice president, Vigilio Godoy, and parliamentary deputy, Humberto Castilla, to talk with members of the 3-80 Northern Front add support to this view.
Left-wing rebels respond
The day after the Quilalà kidnapping, leftist forces struck back. At 7.30 pm on August 20, some 30 members of the previously unknown "National Sovereignty and Dignity Command" entered the headquarters of the National Opposition Union (UNO) in the Managua suburb of Bolonia. They occupied the building and took the cream of Nicaragua's right-wing politicians as hostage. Among the 33 hostages were the vice president, Vigilio Godoy, and two former National Assembly presidents, Alfredo César and Miriam Argüello.
Their predictable demand was the unconditional release of the hostages in El Zúngano.
If the government's crime from the point of view of the right is that it is not sufficiently repressive, the view from the left is that its "neo-liberal" policies are descimating the poor and that the government lacks dignity, that it is a vendepatria, selling the country's sovereignty to the highest bidder. Thus the name "National Sovereignty and Dignity Command."
In addition to the government's servile attitude towards international lending institutions, this lack of dignity was clearly shown in May, when the government, working with the Spanish secret police, illegally deported three Nicaraguan citizens of Basque descent, who were handed over to the Spanish government because of their supposed past links with the Basque separatist organisation ETA.
Furthermore, the government is not seen as even-handed. While it treated the right-wing rebels who took over the Nicaraguan embassy in Costa Rica earlier this year with kid gloves, it came down with an iron fist on the left-wing rebels who took over Estelà last month,
Perhaps even more than the initial kidnapping in remote QuilalÃ, the holding of some of the country's most influential politicians in suburban Managua shook the nation — and drew the battle lines.
Although the prisoners in Managua were well treated, they were sternly "scolded" by the masked "Commando 31," who led the operation. Commando 31 — who was later identified as Donald Mendoza, former army major, former military attaché in the Nicaraguan embassy in Washington and founder of the War Veterans Association, which includes former soldiers from both the Sandinista army and the contras — sat the politicians down and gave them an unforgettable "lesson," which was televised live to the nation.
"You people", he began, "are committed to an anti-nationalist campaign; sending delegation after delegation to the United States so that they cut off the economic aid to Nicaragua causing the poor to die of hunger. And many campesinos are dying of hunger because of unscrupulous politicians like Arnoldo Alemán, Vigilio Godoy..."
He continued by pointing out the value of the weapons used by Chacal and the financial backing required to sustain such an arsenal. He also highlighted the undeniable links between his prisoners and the rightwing rebels in the north. These links were later verified by Esteben, Chacal's brother and spokesperson, when he explained that the forces of the 3-80 Northern Front "receive support from COSEP [the big business association], which is representative of the majority of Nicaraguans" and that "after direct discussions with people from the US Senate and Congress, we are receiving medicines and the like from them."
It was a memorable lesson, but it was only the first of the lessons in humility given to the usually haughty group.
Parliamentary deputy Humberto Castilla, who has been taped inciting recontras to take up arms against the government and photographed along side right-wing rebels with a "Red-Eye" ground-to-air missile launcher, was found some hours after the takeover in the women's toilets, which he was later asked to clean.
Tension mounts
Throughout the weekend, tensions rose and fell. Many people stayed indoors, knowing that a death on either side could mean war.
After a relatively calm day on August 21, when the rebels in Managua agreed to release 12 hostages, August 22 was extremely tense.
Mendoza, the leader of the Managua operation, received a call, supposedly from a right-wing Cuban group called Grupo Alfa 66, saying, "We've got you surrounded and we're going to pay you back" and threatening to kill his family. The rebels were tense and also angry with the media for publishing their leader's identity. They responded by taking the eight journalists inside the building at the time as hostages.
Early in the afternoon, Mendoza claimed to have seen two sharp shooters in a tree, some one hundred metres from the UNO headquarters. Simultaneously, a group of foreign journalists broke through the police cordon and were cautiously approaching the scene. For fifteen or twenty minutes, several of the rebels came out of the building and fired at their supposed aggressors. Three of the politicians inside were forced to act as human shields at the building's front window, in their underwear.
Throughout last week, both rebel groups gradually released their captives, 12 in El Zúngano for 14 in Managua, two here for three there, tit for tat, while holding on to the "big fish" for last. By August 25, they were down to five in each camp.
At 6 p.m. that day leaders of the 3-80 Northern Front, still clinging to their original demands and adding a few more regarding their immediate security, released their last five hostages, including Doris Tijerino and Carlos Gallo, who returned to a rousing welcome in Managua just after midnight.
Keeping to their word, the National Sovereignty and Dignity Command released the last of their hostages at 11 p.m. the same evening.
After almost a week on the precipice, the tension and anxiety, seen and felt by all of us, abated. Nicaragua returned to "normal".
Who won?
Leftist forces definitely won a victory because they showed that they will not stand by and watch the right-wing groups take the country's reigns by force. The right will think twice before trying a similar tactic.
Nevertheless, the right has possibly won an even greater victory,
going beyond its original aspirations. Who will invest in Nicaragua now? Who will send aid? The strategy of the right is to destabilise the country and make the government look incapable of controlling the situation. With this hostage crisis, it received a bonus.
Furthermore, the right will also try to gain political mileage by blaming the Sandinistas for the crisis, and will receive the backing of the capitalist press around the world. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.
There is abundent evidence to show that representatives of big business and their political allies in the US, taking advantage of the country's desperate situation, incited others to do their dirty work for them, just as they did in the '80s.
Chacal and other pawns in the game have admitted as much. Even the New York Times, in its editorial of August 25, pointed out the illegality of financial asistance sent from rich Nicaraguans and Cubans in Florida directly to Chacal's troops.
Neither Mendoza nor Chacal wanted to negotiate with government alled for either Daniel Ortega or the conservative Catholic archbishop, Miguel Obando y Bravo, or both. Violeta Chamorro hardly said a word throughout the crisis (she even flew to Mexico before the final release); Antonio Lacayo, as usual, was her spokesperson. The government looked impotent.
In recent weeks there have been several pleas for the arrival of UN forces, most notably from the Catholic church, which took up the claim of right-wing political parties, calling for "the UN's Blue Berets to come to Nicaragua to impose law and order".
After this kidnapping crisis, pleas for foreign intervention and the suspension of foreign aid will grow. The right wing will play the "ungovernable" card and the majority of Nicaraguans will be the big losers.