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Nicaragua Growth of Opposition, 1981-83
Domestic support for the new Sandinista government was
not
universal, however. The ethnic minorities from the
Caribbean
coast, neglected by national governments since colonial
times,
rejected Sandinista efforts to incorporate them into the
national
mainstream and demanded autonomy. Government forces
responded by
forcibly relocating many of these ethnic groups, leading
many
indigenous groups during the early 1980s to join groups
opposing
the government.
From late 1979 through 1980, the Carter administration
made
efforts to work with FSLN policies. However, when
President
Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the United
States
government launched a campaign to isolate the Sandinista
government. Claiming that Nicaragua, with assistance from
Cuba
and the Soviet Union, was supplying arms to the guerrillas
in El
Salvador, the Reagan administration suspended all United
States
aid to Nicaragua on January 23, 1981. The Nicaraguan
government
denied all United States allegations and charged the
United
States with leading an international campaign against it.
Later
that year, the Reagan administration authorized support
for
groups trying to overthrow the Sandinistas.
Using an initial budget of US$19 million and camps in
southern Honduras as a staging area, the United States
supported
groups of disgruntled former members of the National
Guards.
These groups became known as the Contras (short for
contrarevolucionarios--see Glossary).
The Contras
initially consisted of former members of the National
Guards who
had fled to Honduras after the fall of President Somoza.
By the
end of 1981, however, the group's membership had
multiplied
because peasants from the north and ethnic groups from the
Caribbean coast had joined in the counterrevolutionary
war.
Nevertheless, early Contra leadership was represented
mostly by
former members of the National Guard; this fact made the
movement
highly unpopular among most Nicaraguans.
The Contras established operational bases in Honduras
from
which they launched hit-and-run raids throughout northern
Nicaragua. The charismatic Edén Pastora abandoned the
Sandinista
revolution in July 1981 and formed his own guerrilla
group, which
operated in the southern part of Nicaragua from bases in
Costa
Rica
(see
fig. 3). The United Nicaraguan Opposition
operated in
the northwest, the Opposition Block of the South operated
in the
southeast, and the Nicaraguan Coast Indian Unity operated
in the
northwest. Although the Sandinista army was larger and
better
equipped than the Contras, the antigovernment campaign
became a
serious threat to the FSLN government, largely through
damage to
the economy
(see The Nicaraguan Resistance
, ch. 5).
As the Contra war intensified, the Sandinistas'
tolerance of
political pluralism waned. The Sandinistas imposed
emergency laws
to ban criticism and organization of political opposition.
Most
social programs suffered as a result of the war because
the
Sandinista regime was forced to increase military spending
until
half of its budget went for defense
(see Social Conditions
, ch.
2). Agricultural production also declined sharply as
refugees
fled areas of conflict.
The bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, although
supportive
of the anti-Somoza movement during the late 1970s, later
opposed
the Sandinista regime in the 1980s. The church's hierarchy
was
hurt during the first years of the revolution by the
active role
of its radical branch, known as the Popular Church of
Liberation
Theology, whose philosophy became heavily influence by
Liberation Theology (see Glossary),
as well as by radical priests in
the
Sandinista government. Ernesto Cardenal Martínez, a Jesuit
priest
who had joined the Sandinista Revolution, became the
minister of
culture for the FSLN government. Father Miguel D'Escoto
Brockman
(also known as Jerónimo) was appointed minister of foreign
relations, and Father Edgardo Parrales Castillo was named
minister of social welfare. However, Cardinal Miguel
Obando y
Bravo (the former archbishop of Managua) soon became as
critical
of the FSLN as he had been of the Somoza dictatorship. The
cardinal's opposition brought internal divisions within
the Roman
Catholic Church, with one side, the hierarchy, rejecting
the
Marxist philosophy of the Sandinista leadership, and the
other,
the Popular Church, participating in the civic struggle
of the
people. The bishops distrusted the Sandinista
revolutionary
ideology and its base of support. The Popular Church,
however,
wanted to play a part in the revolutionary changes
affecting the
masses.
Conflict within the Roman Catholic Church broke into
the open
when Pope John Paul II visited Nicaragua in March 1983.
Discussions over details of the pontiff's visit had been
tense.
The government provided free transportation for an
estimated half
million Nicaraguans to witness the highlight of the visit,
an
outdoor mass in Managua. At the mass, the Pope refused to
offer a
prayer for the souls of deceased soldiers. Antigovernment
demonstrators began chanting, "We love the Pope." Their
calls
were soon drowned out by progovernment members of the
crowd
chanting, "We want peace." The entire mass was disrupted,
and the
pope angrily asked the crowd for silence several times.
The
entire spectacle was broadcast to the world and was
portrayed as
a deliberate attempt by the Sandinistas to disrupt the
mass. The
event proved to be a tremendous public relations debacle
for the
Sandinistas and a coup for the Nicaraguan church
hierarchy.
By 1981 the country's most influential papers, La
Prensa, joined the growing chorus of dissent against
the
Sandinista government. Under the state of emergency
declared in
1982, the paper was subject to prior censorship. Despite
several
instances of suspended publication, some mandated by the
Ministry
of Interior, and some in protest by the paper's editor
over cut
copy, the paper continued to operate. In anticipation of
upcoming
elections, the government eased censorship. Increased
latitude in
what it could publish only increased La Prensa's
bitter
criticism of the government.
Data as of December 1993
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