PENNY LERNOUX is a journalist who has written for many newspapers and magazines about the various struggles in Latin America, where she has lived for 25 years. Lemoux has authored In Banks We Trust (Doubleday, 1984) and The Cry of the People (Doubleday, 1980) and is widely known for her commitment to poor people in that region.
Not long ago, we invited Lernoux to visit with us and share her experiences and reflections from her work as a journalist in this troubled region, particularly concerning her understanding of the political and social life of Nicaragua after the fall of dictator Anastasio Somoza. The following interview is the record of that conversation.
- The Editors
SOJOURNERS: It is often hard in this country to get accurate information about what is really happening in Nicaragua. From your experience of the situation there now, can you share with us your understanding of issues such as human rights, divisions within the church, and the treatment of the Miskito Indians?
PENNY LERNOUX: It is very difficult to establish the facts in such controversial issues, both in Nicaragua itself, where many of those involved are so polarized that theyrefuse to consider another point of view, and in the United States, where people are confused by conflicting accounts and opinions.
To give an example, there are two different human rights commissions in Nicaragua, one supportive of the government, the other opposed to the Sandinistas. The pro-Sandinista commission claims that there are hardly any human rights abuses in Nicaragua, which differs from reports by Amnesty International and Americas Watch. The anti-Sandinista commission, which receives funding from Washington, says there are up to 7,000 political prisoners in Nicaragua, an allegation that is also at variance with reports by Amnesty International and Americas Watch, the latter stating that such numbers are grossly exaggerated. How does one check these claims? I spent a whole week just on one case, and I know it's physically impossible to verify all the conflicting allegations, particularly in a war situation.
I mention this case as an example of the complexities of reporting on Nicaragua and the rest of Latin America as well. Contrary to what the U.S. public is led to believe by the media, the situation in Latin America is not black-and-white, but gray.
Nicaragua is a particularly difficult case, because we are not looking at a revolution that stands or falls on its own merits. Everything has been complicated by the U.S.-sponsored contra war, which has cost the lives of thousands of innocent Nicaraguan civilians, devastated the economy, and led the Sandinista leadership to take an increasingly tough line against internal dissent. I don't believe that all the problems in Nicaragua are due to the war, but obviously it has to be the major consideration in government policy, whether regarding the economy, the Miskito Indians, or the Catholic Church.
One can look at this situation from an ideological viewpoint or a religious one. I've never considered myself ideological. I've always written from a Christian perspective: This is wrong; this is right. A Christian perspective is concerned with the need to seek out the truth, which is part of our religious heritage. In contrast, the ideological position is more concerned with political goals and strategies, even if it means ignoring or denying the truth for political reasons.
The religious perspective makes it necessary to seek out the truth about what is happening within Nicaragua. My friends on the Left disagree with this viewpoint. While admitting the Sandinistas have committed numerous errors, many people on the Left believe that any public discussion of these mistakes plays into the hands of the Reagan administration. I think this view is too simplistic; we do ourselves and the Nicaraguans a disservice in failing to admit that the situation isn't black-and-white.
To give an example of how reality is deliberately ignored in this country, the publisher of a progressive Catholic newspaper here in the United States was recently taken to task by a reader because he had described the Sandinista government as Marxist. Such a label, said the reader, automatically leads the American people to think the worst of the Nicaraguan government. But in Nicaragua, government officials and Sandinista supporters are quite open about the Marxist-Leninist nature of the government. The fact that a Third World government is Marxist-Leninist doesn't automatically make it good or bad; much depends on the country's culture and history and those in charge of the government.
The problem is in the United States, where people have been taught a knee-jerk reaction to the word "Marxism." Instead of exploring the complex relationship in Nicaragua between Christians and Marxists, some on the Left are taking the easy way out by saying, "Don't talk about it at all." I can't buy that argument because it goes against my religious perception of the importance of truth.
I also feel that if the U.S. churches are going to hold on to the "moral high ground," they have to distinguish between what is morally wrong and right. It is easy to say the contra war is wrong because it's so obvious; but it's not so easy to say that the Sandinistas are wrong--as well as politically unwise--to harass their opponents in the Catholic Church or to persecute the Indian minorities.
You have written quite a bit recently on the relationship between the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua and the Sandinistas. Could you summarize what you have found, what you see as the situation now, and how the perspective that you just articulated relates to this issue?
For most of the 25 years I've lived in Latin America, I have been primarily concerned with the injustices suffered by the poor majorities. Over the years I have written numerous articles on the Indians, who usually are the poorest of the poor. For example, I've written stories on the repression of the Indians in Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and Colombia. In all these cases, the Indians were persecuted by right-wing governments. In 1985, however, I was confronted with allegations by representatives of the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua that they too were suffering persecution.
The politic thing to do would have been to ignore the story, since it obviously would result in criticism that I was "playing into the hands of the Reagan administration." But it seemed to me that there was an ethical question: How could I write about Indian problems in Gen. Augusto Pinochet's Chile but ignore them in revolutionary Nicaragua?
The story was clearly a minefield, which is why I spent nearly half a year documenting the allegations. In the beginning I was suspicious of the claims of the leadership of the Miskito group, Misurasata, which originally worked with the Sandinistas but later joined the Costa Rica-based contra opposition. More recently Misurasata has tried to distance itself from the CIA-run contras in Honduras, while remaining in opposition to the Sandinistas.
Nevertheless, I was impressed by the depth of commitment of the Misurasata leadership to the Indian cause and, because I had done stories on Indians in other Latin American countries, I could sympathize with their specifically Indian grievances. Latin American governments--left or right--have always tried to integrate Indians into national development plans without understanding the importance of the preservation of the Indians'cultural heritage and communal land rights to their survival. The Indians' relationship to the land is the basis of their culture and religion. Take it away, and you kill the soul--you kill the Indian.
As in other Latin American nations, the Spanish-speaking mestizos in Nicaragua have historically distrusted the Indians and been distrusted by them. Moreover, the Spanish-speaking western portion of Nicaragua has few communications, even today, with the eastern half, where the Indians live. I can see how that traditional distrust might have been exacerbated by the Sandinistas' national development plans to integrate the Miskitos into the revolution.
Whether the cause was cultural blindness, racial prejudice, or a genuine belief that the Sandinistas knew what was best for the Indians, the Nicaraguan government did not adequately respond to Miskito complaints that their land and cultural rights were being ignored. The tensions led to sporadic clashes between Sandinista soldiers and Indians and subsequently to an exodus of Indians across the border to Honduras, where many joined the contras. In the process, serious human rights abuses were committed against the Indians by both the Sandinistas and the contras.
When I first heard about such Sandinista abuses, I was highly dubious. But after reading extensive documentation on the subject by Americas Watch, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, the Denmark-based International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, and other human rights organizations that I had always relied on in the past for impartial information, I had to admit that abuses had occurred.
Obviously the Indian situation has to be dealt with in the framework of the larger contra war, and in my articles I have pointed out that Washington was trying to manipulate the Indians for its own purposes and that Misurasata knew it. The difficulty arose, and still arises, in trying to explain to a U.S. audience which is ignorant of its own Indian problem that the Miskitos were prepared to enter into a tactical alliance with people they hated--the contras--in order to achieve their own Indian goals of Sandinista recognition of land and cultural rights.
The fact that the majority of the Indians did not and do not share the contras' goal of toppling the Nicaraguan government is clear from negotiations between the Miskitos and the Sandinistas, as well as from declarations by the diverse factions within the Miskitos, particularly community elders. The logic of their fighting with--but not for--the contras is understandable if you see the situation from the Indian viewpoint and examine the multiple incidents of harassment by the Sandinistas.
It is not logical, however, if you ignore the complexities by accepting the black-and-white story that all critics of the Sandinistas are CIA stooges. The ideologues, on the Right as well as on the Left, do not want to go into the complex details.
In the case of my articles, I was told by friends on the Left that I should withhold publication, not because the information was not true, but because it was politically expedient to ignore it. But two wrongs do not make a right. If I am opposed to the contra war on the grounds that it is immoral, how can I ignore the Indians' cry for justice? If we're not consistent in our religious convictions, what right do we have to the "moral high ground"?
I know that the Sandinistas have admitted they made many errors in regard to the Miskito Indians, but after five years the admission of error is no longer enough. They need to hold serious discussions with the Indian leadership in order to reach a compromise that would end the stalemate. I don't think we're helping the Nicaraguan people by ignoring a problem that could be resolved and that is used as propaganda ammunition by the Reagan administration. The Sandinistas would be far better served by a loyal Indian population on its northern borders than by the sullen, distrustful survivors of constant clashes between soldiers and Indians.
You've just come back from Nicaragua, where you were working on an article about the divisions within the church. What were you able to learn?
It was a story primarily about the divisions in the Catholic Church, although I observed similar divisions in the Protestant churches, such as the Moravian Church, which is split because of the Miskito question.
What impressed me most was the extraordinary polarization of the church. Of the some 100 people I interviewed, perhaps two could be described as impartial observers who could see wrongs and rights on both sides. While all said they wanted a dialogue, it seemed to me to be mostly a dialogue of the deaf: "So long as you agree with me, I'm prepared to dialogue."
The result of the infighting in the Catholic Church is, for all practical purposes, a schism between a pro-government church and an anti-government church. Both sides admitted to me that they spent so much time fighting each other that there was little time left for spiritual matters. The people are now so confused that they don't know whom to believe. That's a real tragedy for the people, particularly in a war situation where spiritual support is necessary to withstand the terrible problems--food rationing, lack of water, the deaths of so many young people. An exception is the northern war zone, where people face death daily and consequently are more united.
In contrast, a power struggle is being played out in Managua. For example, priests and nuns constantly talked to me about how many people went to public religious events to see Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo or his opposite, Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto, a Maryknoll priest. The religious orders in Nicaragua--the Capuchins and Jesuits, for instance--are so divided that some priests will not share a meal with fellow members.
What are some of the issues that are polarizing the people? What do you think the role of the church is, or should be, in that kind of circumstance?
There is a need first for dialogue between the two wings of the church. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a national figure capable of bringing the two sides to the table. Catholic leaders in the United States with whom I've spoken seem to think the only solution may be to bring in an internationally known outsider who is acceptable to both sides.
While it's unfair to compare the situation in two quite different countries such as Brazil and Nicaragua, I had hoped that the Nicaraguan church might have evolved in a manner similar to that of the Brazilian church. In Brazil the church has eschewed any identification with a political party or ideology, preferring to encourage the members of Christian base communities to learn their rights and responsibilities as free citizens, to forge their own revolutionary convictions.
Had the Nicaraguan church devoted more time to developing the Christian base communities instead of infighting, the communities might have emerged as the guardians of Sandinista ideals. They would have been able to say to the government and to the opposition: "Here are the ideals. We challenge you to live up to them." The churches could have maintained their original goal, which was clear throughout the revolutionary struggle against Somoza, to serve and be faithful to the poor majority.
We are talking about committed Christians who are able to act independently of the government in a supportive way by constantly reasserting the revolution's option for the poor. Nicaragua needs such people to counteract the logic of the contra war. Whatever the ideology, and regardless of the country, the logic of a war is that the longer it continues, the more likely it will produce a militaristic mentality. The same thing happened in our own country during both World Wars.
Half the Nicaraguan budget goes to defense spending because of the war. Most of the young people must pass through the war machine because there's a war. A hierarchy has emerged in order to command the army, the nature of which is to obey. "Pass down the orders" has become a common phrase, not only in military but in civilian life. High-ranking Sandinista officials told me they see a danger in such a situation--the formation of a pyramid, with an elite at the top that runs the war machine and discourages free debate. We faced the same danger in our country--look how we put our Japanese citizens in concentration camps during World War II.
The door hasn't closed in Nicaragua, but the contra war is a force pounding against it. That is another reason I am so opposed to the war. I agree with a Sandinista official who said that, down the road, the churches would pay for the sin of omission; by spending so much time fighting each other, they neglected the formation of Christian base communities that could have been an antidote to militarism.
Unfortunately, I don't see Cardinal Obando taking any real initiative in the direction of constructive dialogue. Frankly, he seems to me to be Reagan's man in Managua. He is very hard-line, and most of the hierarchy shares his position. Nevertheless, he does represent the institutional church, and it would be politic of the Sandinistas to persuade Obando to negotiate, in order to avoid problems with the Vatican as well as churches in the United States that have supported the revolution.
The Sandinistas claim they want to dialogue with Obando but that he will not do so until he's convinced that the revolution is irreversible. Obando appears to believe--and perhaps hopes--that the United States will invade. So we have this tragic stalemate in which it is impossible to have meaningful negotiations.
What impressions and concerns do you have about Nicaragua at this time?
Despite the war many good things have happened in Nicaragua, such as the agrarian reform, the literacy campaign, the concern with health. Many poor Nicaraguans have a greater sense of personal dignity and national identification. And despite the propaganda, the economy is still mixed; at least 50 percent of the economy is still in private hands, according to the anti-Sandinista businessmen's association, COSEP, which is unlikely to give the Sandinistas any kudos.
The main problem in Nicaragua now is the lack of political pluralism, which is not surprising given Nicaragua's long history of dictatorship and lack of any tradition of dialogue. Most of the political parties, with the possible exception of the Social Christian Party, aren't really parties but businessmen's associations and mouthpieces for the Reagan administration. The labor unions are mixed. The press, since the closure of the opposition newspaper La Prensa, is totally pro-government. Freedom of the press does not exist. On the other hand, every country in the world establishes censorship during a war.
People can be highly critical of the Sandinistas as long as they remain within the Sandinista political space. But those who challenge the Sandinista monopoly on power are likely to have a hard time of it. Thus the pro-Sandinista church is strongly supported by the government, whereas Obando's church suffers constant harassment. The Sandinista political space is not monolithic, however. The average peasant or slum dweller is able to get his or her point of view heard, as, for example, in the discussion of a new constitution, which had a lot of input from the grassroots.
Maybe the political spectrum would have been broader had the Sandinistas not felt threatened by a war. The tragedy is that we will never know what might have been.
How much of the internal restriction by the government is due to outside pressures?
I don't know. No one can say with certainty how many problems are due to the war or to other causes. But my intuition tells me that Nicaragua would be a more open country had there been no war, because the Sandinistas would not have been under the same pressures. World attention would have been focused on them to see if they lived up to their ideals, and the situation would not have been clouded by the contra war.
Take the Miskito question. Nicaragua is a pivotal case because millions of Indians in Latin America are watching the drama. If the Sandinistas can't arrange a modus vivendi with the Miskitos, Indians in other countries will be reluctant to join forces with leftist groups. On the other hand, if an arrangement can be reached, it could serve as a model for all of Latin America, even the United States.
Had there been no war, it's possible that the Sandinistas would have been less distrustful of the Miskito Indians, and the climate for negotiations would have been better. The Sandinistas might not have made the same mistakes. Or maybe they would have. But at least we would have had a clearer idea of who stood where, and our responses would probably have been clearer.
It's often very difficult to talk about Nicaragua in this country, as you have said, because of the extreme polarization of views here. There is the view of the Reagan administration, which says that the Nicaraguan government is totalitarian, suppressing the church, denying human rights, repressing freedom of the press, and so on. On the other side, many people who oppose the contra war are often hesitant to raise issues, ask questions, or challenge the Sandinista government at all. There is the feeling that anyone who criticizes the revolution is somehow breaking faith or solidarity. The question comes up: "What right do we North Americans have to give any advice or even raise questions with the Nicaraguans, given tf history of the United States in their country?" Do you have an comments about that?
First of all, I think I can take a clear position as a Catholic, ; taxpayer, and an American citizen. I condemn the contra war 01 moral grounds; I condemn it on the grounds of wasting taxpayers money; I condemn it because it is a stupid foreign policy that has damaged our name even more in Latin America. I have no prob lems in condemning that war down the line.
The arguments that people give in support of the contra war just don't hold up when you study the situation pragmatically and examine all the facts and documentation. An example is President Reagan's speech last March in support of contra aid, which contained numerous factual errors and outright lies. I was in Nicaragua at the time, and, frankly, I felt embarrassed. As my Nicaraguan friends pointed out, "At least in the past you Americans did such things covertly, but now you do it publicly. You hold a public discussion in your Congress about whether you should fund the overthrow of a government with which you maintain diplomatic relations!"
European diplomats in Managua wring their hands over the situation and ask why Washington did not use trade and aid to encourage political pluralism in Nicaragua, instead of pushing the Sandinistas into the arms of the socialist bloc. An example involves U.S. farm machinery. Traditionally Central American farmers have relied on such machinery as John Deere tractors. When the United States imposed an economic embargo, Nicaraguan farmers couldn't get spare parts or replacements. In desperation the Sandinista government turned to Bulgaria for tractors. But the Nicaraguan farmers don't like these tractors, because they're difficult to drive. Moreover, Bulgaria demanded that in return the government send Nicaraguan students to study in Bulgaria.
I ask myself, why didn't we give the Nicaraguans the American-made tractors they wanted and ask for something in exchange? Why don't we try a positive approach for a change? The way I look at it, the Reagan administration is the best friend the Soviet Union has in Central America, because it has placed the Sandinista government in a situation in which it has no alternative but to depend on the socialist countries. The Soviet Union now supplies all Nicaragua's oil because the United States pressured Mexico and Venezuela to stop selling oil to the Sandinistas.
Washington's policy toward Nicaragua is not based on diplomacy but on cynicism and brute force. One of Secretary of State George Shultz's supporters told me the Reagan administration had ruled out a U.S. military invasion because the political cost in domestic repercussions would be too high. He said the idea was to continue to keep up the pressures on Nicaragua so that it would be an example to the other Central American countries of what happens to a nation that defies the United States. When I protested that the chief victims of this policy were the Nicaraguan poor, he said, "Oh well, the poor have always suffered." This came from a man who calls himself a Protestant minister.
On the other side, I don't think that we should ignore developments in Nicaragua. We're not helping the Sandinistas by sweeping problems under the rug. Only real friends care enough to risk displeasure bypointing out mistakes that jeopardize the revolution.
People inside the Nicaraguan government who really care about the revolution tell me that they're worried, because even though they warn their superiors that such-and-such a decision is a mistake, they are ignored. They say it's no longer enough to speak privately of such blunders because there is no impact.
The easy way out would be to say that everything is beautiful, but that would be to break faith with the Nicaraguan people who put so much hope in the revolution. My solidarity is with the Latin American poor, not with any particular government. The contra war is a terrible scourge against the Nicaraguan poor, so everything must be done to stop it, not only in opposing Washington's policies but in opposing Sandinista policies that play into the hands of the Reagan administration, such as the Indian question or harassment of the Catholic Church.
Because of my years in Latin America, I can put such harassment in context. For instance, I can contrast the Sandinistas' closure of the Catholic archdiocesan radio station in Managua with the earlier paramilitary bombing in El Salvador of the church's radio station in San Salvador. But most Americans don't have that perspective and can't see the difference between a relatively innocuous though regrettable action on the part of the Sandinistas and the violent reprisal of the Salvadoran military against that country's archbishop.
The closure of the Managua radio station was used in Washington's propaganda barrage against the Sandinistas, and I'm sure it confused many church people in the United States who oppose the contra war. If the revolution's friends don't say it was a blunder that helped the contra cause and therefore hurt the Nicaraguan poor, who is going to say so? Certainly not Washington, which is delighted with such developments.
Some will say, "We have no right to make such judgments on a sovereign nation that is fighting for its life against the juggernaut." But we make such judgments all the time--on South Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, Chile, Cuba, Poland, the Philippines, Vietnam. If we selectively denounce abuses in one country but ignore them in another, we risk playing the same hypocritical game that has become the hallmark of the Reagan administration.
Nobody is infallible--I know I'm not--but some of us believe we are. We remake our Third World brothers and sisters in our image, insisting that they live up to our political expectations, whether of the Right or Left. And when they don't--and they obviously won't, because theirs is a different culture and history--we don't want to hear about it.
Poor Nicaraguans know another truth: They hate the so-called "freedom fighters" because these contras repressed and killed them when they ran the National Guard under Somoza, and thus, no matter what the Right in the United States believes, they will never willingly accept the contras as their masters. But they also criticize the U.S. Left--the internacionalistas who arrive in Nicaragua already convinced that it is a socialist Utopia, when, as the poor can show, it is not.
Are there hopeful signs, both in Nicaragua and in this country, around these questions? And what impact do you think they can have on the situation?
Witness for Peace is obviously a hopeful sign. It's very much in the Christian tradition, and it's in a tradition of active nonviolence, which is an important counterpoint to the violence of the contra war. The Pledge of Resistance and the sanctuary movement are also prophetic and contribute to our tradition of active nonviolence.
I believe this is where the churches should be: challenging people to live up to our society's ideals; speaking out against the obvious injustices of government policy; and taking a prophetic, actively nonviolent stand, even if it means going to jail. This is the gran politica the Latin American bishops speak about when they describe their political role as a moral voice of the community. As Panama's Archbishop Marcos McGrath once said, "In that respect the church has been talking politics ever since Moses talked back to Pharaoh." But that role is clearly different from an identification with a political party or ideology. The sanctuary movement is a good example of people of different political affiliations working together for a moral vision--la gran politica--that transcends ideologies.
In Nicaragua too there is much prophecy, for example, in the witness of the suffering people in the northern border lands under contra attack. I see saints everywhere, particularly the women and young people who literally give their lives for their neighbors. On a national level, Fr. D'Escoto has led several projects that are promising examples of active nonviolence, such as the Way of the Cross, the procession through the war-torn northern region in February, which was attended by thousands of poor, suffering Nicaraguans. The real power of religion lies in such acts, not in intellectual nit-picking over how many people attend speeches by Obando or D'Escoto.
I would like to see more reaching out between our two peoples. That's why the Witness for Peace program is so important--it's a community of believers who reject militarism for Christian activism.
People may say that active nonviolence is Utopian, but it worked in India, and it was a key factor in the recognition of civil rights in our own country. I've seen it work in Brazil, and I refuse to give up hope that it could work in Nicaragua. The power of religion to rally revolutionary convictions is enormous. Unfortunately that power has been weakened by the failure of the churches in Nicaragua to engage in meaningful dialogue.
The kind of dialogue that you're calling for and hoping for, and indeed already engaging in, is really one that appeals to the best in the Nicaraguan revolution itself. And it also appeals to the best in the very important relationship that has been established now between Nicaraguans and North Americans through Witness for Peace and other programs. The converting power of Nicaragua's experience in the lives of North Americans is extraordinary.
There's a relationship now that has the capacity to bear this kind of dialogue. When people say, "We just can't talk that way; we have no right to ask questions," they're saying this relationship can't bear honesty. The relationship can bear honest dialogue, but we have to do it with discretion. We have to be careful not to let the forces of evil use our concerns to justify killing more people. But we have to be willing to talk together.
I agree. A relationship that doesn't grow is limited in the experience and insights it provides. We don't have to be afraid of that growth.
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