By Stephen Marks
MANAGUA — Victor Hugo Tinoco is head of the International Relations Department of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). He was the Managua party secretary until the May congress, and previously served as deputy foreign minister in the Sandinista government. He spoke with Green Left Weekly on October 19 about what lies behind recent developments in the FSLN.
The FSLN has experienced a heated public debate during the past year. Among recent dramatic events is the sacking of Carlos Fernando Chamorro, editor of the FSLN's daily newspaper, Barricada. The party's national committee, the Sandinista Assembly, replaced Chamorro on October 24 because of its "disagreement with the editorial line of the newspaper".
Chamorro had pursued a policy of editorial independence for Barricada, but denied that the newspaper had favoured the minority tendency in the party's internal debates. He will be replaced in the interim by FSLN National Directorate member Lumberto Campbell.
Daniel Ortega, the general secretary of the FSLN, took the place of Sergio Ramirez in the national parliament in September. Ramirez, as parliamentary leader, along with the majority of the Sandinista caucus in the parliament, had sponsored a series of constitutional reforms which the Sandinista Assembly opposed. This prompted the Sandinista Assembly's move against Ramirez. However, the majority of the parliamentarians subsequently elected deputy leader and Ramirez ally Dora Maria Tellez as the new parliamentary leader.
Relations between the FSLN leadership and its parliamentarians have been tense since the new Sandinista Assembly was elected at the May congress, in which the "Democratic Left" won a majority over the other main tendency, called "For a Sandinism that Returns to the Majorities".
A number of supporters of the minority positions have since formed the Movement for the Renewal of Sandinism (MRS) with Ramirez and National Directorate members Tellez, Henry Ruiz, Mirna Cunningham and Luis Carrion among its leaders.
Some Sandinistas have expressed their opposition to the course taken by the FSLN since the congress by resigning from the party, the most prominent being Ernesto Cardenal on October 24. Cardenal, the renowned poet-priest, accused Ortega and what he called the "Orthodoxes" of hijacking the party and excluding Ramirez and supporters of the MRS from the leadership. Cardenal said that he would continue to be "a Sandinista, a revolutionary, a Christian as well as Marxist".
"To understand what is occurring inside the FSLN", Tinoco told Green Left, "it is more important to look at what is happening at the party's base in the regions and in the different strata of society than what is happening at the leadership level.
"At the grassroots the Sandinista Front is recovering from four difficult years after the electoral defeat in 1990. This defeat was a shock; people left the party and there was much confusion and disorientation. The electoral defeat was also a more transcendent political blow, as Sandinism wasn't just another short-term project but a profound process of social transformation."
Tinoco said this period "was characterised by much frustration, disenchantment, disorientation and individualism. A group of cadres proposed that our principal objective should be to ensure the FSLN survived this difficult period as a party with structures and political strength.
"However, various groups and organised tendencies said that our conception of party and political structure didn't make sense, so for the last four years we have had this ongoing discussion with all its differences and difficulties. It has been going on in the context of the discontinuation of some of our work because of lack of material and economic resources."
The Congress indicated a changing attitude, according to Tinoco. The grassroots are now thinking, "What do we have to do to win in 1996?" instead of, "Why did we lose?
"The ranks are not looking for scapegoats but are thinking positively of the future."
340,000 members
The new willingness to participate and become active had been demonstrated by the recent membership drive. "The FSLN issued a call for all Sandinistas to enrol in the party. We had doubts about our real level of support, since the last figures we had were from 1990. We then had about 100,000 members. So the National Directorate launched the membership drive to find out 'how we are, how many we are and who we are'.
"The result surpassed all of our expectations. Originally we thought that we were going to register a similar number to that which we had in 1990. The latest tallies show that we have inscribed 340,000 members in all of the regions of Nicaragua. 80,000 signed up just in Managua. To join at least required the commitment of going to an inscription centre and saying, 'My name is so and so, I live at such and I am a Sandinista'.
"If the FSLN was alienated from the people, as some say we have been after the congress, we wouldn't have inscribed this number of people as members. 340,000 FSLN members is the statistical demonstration that we are a strong party with the broad support of a wide variety of people willing to do something."
Tinoco believes the challenge now is for the FSLN to find "some type of more permanent linking with the grassroots of the party. We have to ensure that there is significant content to political work for a significant part of these people, so that Sandinism becomes stronger and better organised. 1990 to 1994 were difficult years, and in the period leading up to the 1996 elections we will be looking for solutions to the problems of Nicaragua and Sandinism."
Debate
On the political differences in the party, Tinoco said, "We haven't been overly worried about these, because they are natural in a broad party like ours. The FSLN isn't a party of just one, but different social classes. There are agricultural workers and rural landowners who employ agricultural workers, just as there are city workers and business people who employ city workers.
"Obviously there are real differences of interest that are going to have a political expression. These political differences are normal and cyclical and do cause irritation and disagreement within and between the different social layers. Taking into account the national reality, the party must resolve differences through discussion and debate and then vote on them so as to reach democratic majority decisions."
A special problem is created, Tinoco pointed out, by the fact that the parliamentary group of the Sandinista Front have minority positions. "The views that are a minority in the party are the majority in the parliamentary group. This has caused some difficulties, but we are working on overcoming this problem and improving our coordination and presentation."
The party had been through worse crises, he recalled. "The FSLN divided when we were all at risk of our lives during the war against the Somoza dictatorship. If we could come out of that crisis with maturity, I am positive that we will overcome this present one, because the grassroots have this positive and searching attitude.
"However, at the leadership levels there is no clarity on what to do, and defining what to do has produced the political differences and contradictions in the heart of Sandinism. The situation is a little complex because at the centre of it are important tasks such as defining our electoral platform and deciding our candidates. That there are differences in the FSLN is not a new phenomenon. They're perfectly surmountable.
"However, there are very small and more or less isolated groups that don't just have political differences but divisive attitudes. This is another issue. A divisive attitude rejects the formal mechanisms of internal democracy, rejects the procedures of voting, or tries to create parallel structures and these types of things. These are peripheral attitudes within the party, and I distinguish them clearly from genuine political differences and debates."