"We have made a very important treaty
with a people totally unrepresented, a people dominated by our military
power...I have never considered the treaty with Nicaragua as a treaty
agreed with the Nicaraguan people. We made a treaty with ourselves. We
made a treaty with a government that represented us even on the other
side of the negotiating table. We made a treaty with a government that
was our instrument. It is one of the most indefensible transactions I
have ever known in international life."
US Senator William Borah (1)
Nothing much changes even after nearly a hundred years. Corporate
war-criminal Robert Zoellick, on his day-job for the US State
Department, breezed into Nicaragua last week. He got the kind of
slavish welcome he fails to get even from the servile Washington press
corps. His visit followed immediately on from an editorial by the State
Department Daily (also known as the Washington Post) condemning
"undemocratic" sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. On the contrary, Ortega
has promoted and defended electoral democracy in Nicaragua since 1984.
Zoellick's visit was trivial in terms of what he had to say. The usual
imperial blarney about promoting democracy accompanied by a typical
threat to withhold US$175m in aid if Nicaraguans don't do what the US
government says. The discourse has not changed since 1910. "Do what we
want - or else...." One expects such diplomatic speaking-clock
declarations from career workhorses like US ambassador to Nicaragua
Paul Trivelli. But maybe machiavellian corporate Prince-lings like
"call-me-Bob" Zoellick should try a little harder.
Zoellick's curriculum vitae includes stints as consultant to the
corrupt Enron Corporation, adviser to privatisation predator
Viventures/Vivendi International(2), associate of the exclusive
Precursor Group of investment advisors(3) and as an executive for
financial services buccaneering giant Goldman Sachs. The idea that
while in government people like Zoellick set aside their corporate ties
is absurd. Like all leading functionaries of the US imperial
plutocracy, Robert Zoellick contributes to global corruption through
the constant osmosis between his public duties and his personal
corporate loyalties. Then he has the outright nerve to accuse other
people of corruption.
During his visit to Nicaragua, Zoellick met with President
Bolaños and his ministers, as well as possible presidential
candidates Jose Antonio Alvarado, Eduardo Montealegre and Herty
Lewites, members of the business sector and, as individuals, some
members of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) of disgraced
ex-president Arnoldo Aleman. Among the group meeting Zoellick with
Lewites were Luis Carrion and Victor Hugo Tinoco. All three are former
leading members of the FSLN Sandinista revolutionary government. The
main task for them all was to prostrate themselves metaphorically
before the imperial prince in order to convince him they are
"democrats" cut, stitched and finished to the taste of the Bush regime.
Herty Lewites : currying imperial favour
Herty Lewites put this spin on it, "It was made clear that the United
States can't come insisting that we sandinistas are not working and
struggling for a democratic government. It was precisely for that that
they expelled us from the party, for seeking primarily from the party
ranks, the democratization of the party."(4) Lewites has consistently
obfuscated the reasons for his expulsion from the FSLN, causing much
confusion among FSLN supporters. In fact, he was expelled from
the FSLN for failing to meet his obligations as a member and as a
militante. He broke the rules. he was expelled.(5)
Herty Lewites' meeting with Zoellick confirms the worst interpretations
of his split with the FSLN. All the time he talks about "rescuing
sandinismo", what Lewites - a very talented and successful businessman
- very clearly means is to embrace US-style "free market" capitalism,
and the abandonment of national sovereignty that move entails. Nothing
could be further from Augusto Cesar Sandino's vision of a free,
sovereign Nicaragua.
Herty Lewites has never spoken out clearly against the Central American
Free Trade Agreement or water privatization. He is perhaps the first
politician in Central America to adopt wholesale the utterly cynical
modern public relations style of sinister spin-merchants like Tony
Blair. Lewites and his supporters are Tony Blair's neo-liberal New
Labour translated to Nicaragua.
What might someone with Sandino's vision have said to Robert Zoellick?
Several obvious matters of concern leap to mind. They might have
expressed dismay and condemnation of US government protection for
super-terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, wanted for mass-murder by the
Venezuelan government. They might have interceded vigorously on behalf
of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes languishing unjustly in maximum
security US prisons after having been exonerated by an Appeals Court.
They might have urged the US immediately to honour its commitments
under the Geneva Conventions by restoring a humane regime to detainees
in Guantanamo and bringing them swiftly to a fair trial. Or they might
have pressed the US government to respond promptly to an Italian
court's warrant for the arrest on kidnapping charges of US
gangster-diplomat Betnie Medero-Navedo, currently First Secretary at
the US embassy in Mexico.(6) They might even have questioned US
intervention in Haiti.
Very clearly, none of these points were put to Robert Zoellick by Herty
Lewites or Luis Carrion or Victor Hugo Tinoco. Instead former
revolutionaries Lewites, Carrion and Tinoco pleaded their case for
benediction from the war-criminal US government as "democrats". They
did so knowing perfectly well they were dealing with one of the
principal State-terrorists responsible for sustaining the colonial
occupation of Afghanistan, the fascist occupation of Iraq, the
genocidal occupation of Palestine and the rape of Haiti (leaving aside
US terrorism against Nicaragua throughout the 1980s). Anyway, they came
out of the meeting apparently expecting still to be taken seriously
when they talk about "rescuing Sandinismo". Seldom can public relations
rhetoric and actual political behaviour have been so flagrantly
self-contradictory.
CAFTA - US protection racket collects its dues
In contrast to Lewites, even the representative of the US-dominated
Organization of American States, genial and avuncular Dante Caputo,
agreed that Zoellick's threats on aid were interventionist. When asked
about Zoellick's threat to hold back US$175m from the US Millenium
Account aid program, Caputo opined, "Whenever any international
financial organization imposes conditionalities, de facto there is
intervention."(7) Few global corporate functionaries like Caputo are
ever that candid in public. El Nuevo Diario reported Liberal judge
Guillermo Selva lamenting that by welcoming Zoellick, President
Bolaños was fixing US$175m as Nicaragua's price. Selva was
reported as saying, "Zoellick didn't come as a diplomat, but rather as
a proconsul giving orders, it oughtn't to be like that."(8)
Probably the main purpose of Zoellick's visit was to slap around the
Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) to push through ratification of the
Central American Free Trade Agreement. Despite complaints by leading
Liberal figures like Guillermo Selva, the PLC leadership knows who
calls the shots. They quickly pressed the Sandinista FSLN to agree
moving a vote on the ratification of CAFTA to the top of the
legislative agenda in the National Assembly. On the night of Monday
October 10th 2005 the infamous deed was done and Nicaragua became
formally in the words of Sandinista deputy Alba Palacios, a United
States annex "on totally disadvantageous terms".(9)
Within a few hours of the vote, Daniel Ortega leader of the FSLN and
President Enrique Bolaños announced an agreement aimed at ending
the almost year long cat-fight between the President and the country's
legislators. So Nicaragua is back to where it was in 2003 when the
fatuous Colin Powell visited Nicaragua and ordered Bolaños not
to have anything to do with the FSLN. From that point on hapless
President Bolaños was doomed to impotence.
At the time, the FSLN struck a deal with the PLC and tried to work out
a legislative agenda on that basis, since they had little practical
alternative. Among recent agreements was the decision to postpone
ratification of CAFTA pending approval of a packet of laws designed to
provide greater protection to employees, small farmers and small and
medium-sized businesses. When the PLC leadership caved in to imperial
pressure in the shape of "put-the-boot-in-harder-Bob" Zoellick, the
rationale for the FSLN deal with the PLC vanished.
The voting arithmetic in Nicaragua's National Assembly is not
difficult. The FSLN has 37 seats. President Bolaños can count on
10, The PLC have 42 and there are three or four deputies from smaller
parties. Since the PLC loathes Bolaños with the internecine
passion generally reserved for traitors, the FSLN and its allies can
flirt with either side depending on where its best advantage lies on
any given piece of legislation.
From Sandinistas to Montewitistas
So the end result of nearly three years of US diplomacy and heavy
handed intervention from the European Union, the Organization of
American States, the United Nations and the international financial
institutions is circular. Nicaragua is back where it was in 2002 before
the bullying visit of clueless US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The
main significant domestic variation is the appearance on the scene of
the Montewitistas.
Montewitistas are many-faced creatures who have had some difficulty
deciding if they are coming or going. Like the goddess Athena from the
temple of Zeus, they all sprang fully-formed from the furrowed brows of
presidential hopefuls Herty Lewites and Eduardo Montealegre. Former
FSLN member Lewites and former PLC member Montealegre have agreed
various matters relating to their respective attempts to run for the
Nicaraguan presidency. It is their own squalid version of the FSLN-PLC
"pacto" which they have enjoyed lampooning for months.
When not grazing on the lush, golden slopes inhabited by the upper
echelons of Nicaragua's business and "non-governmental" classes
Montewitistas spend most of the time name-calling and
complaining. They cry no one will let them take part in Nicaraguan
elections, though the electoral process has not even begun. They cry
the Liberal PLC and the Sandinista FSLN are cruel, at the same time as
they themselves hurl hearty abuse and threats at both. They cry that
only they are clean and good and honest, and run to seek approval from
corporate gangsters like Robert Zoellick.
Leading figures among the Montewitistas include former revolutionary
comandantes Henry Ruiz, Monica Baltodano and FSLN founder member Victor
Tirado. Ruiz and Baltodano have both expounded at length in
Rebelión.org on their reasons for supporting Herty Lewites.
People with an addiction to long-winded Mexican novelas may well find
their expositions engrossing. But all are very coy about explaining
their role as Montewitistas. Nor have they or Victor Tirado or Luis
Carrion or Victor Hugo Tinoco explained much about their rapprochement
with the gangster regime of George W.Bush.
CAFTA - how big a deal?
CAFTA may have been ratified by the Nicaraguan legislature but its
irrelevance to Nicaragua's underlying problems are clear. It will not
provide more net employment. It will accelerate rural depopulation,
increasing the social problems in both deserted rural areas and ever
more overcrowded cities. Innumerable small and medium-sized business
will shut down, unable to compete with giant US rivals. Medicines will
likely double in price or worse. Domestic taxes will have to increase
anything between 10% and 15% in order to compensate for lost revenue
from import taxes.
Nicaragua will lose its food sovereignty. Terms and conditions for
workers will deteriorate. Short-term investment cowboys will finish
stripping out Nicaragua's already minimal public sector. The people who
will do well out of it all will be the business classes represented by
politicians like Enrique Bolaños, the leadership of the PLC,
Herty Lewites and Eduardo Montealegre. Another important set of
beneficiaries will be leading representatives of the Nicaraguan
non-governmental sector picking up lucrative contracts from
multilateral and bi-lateral "aid" donors to engage in the charade of
assisting victims of policies that should never have been implemented
in the first place.
For the FSLN and its political allies the challenge will now be to
define strategies of defence and resistance to protect Nicaraguan
workers and campesinos from the catastrophic effects for them of
deepening enslavement under foreign intervention. CAFTA and the
intimately linked Plan Puebla Panama were designed to run on cheap
energy in a stable natural environment. Neither of those
conditions are likely to apply now or for the foreseeable future.
Natural disasters like those that have regularly destroyed thousands of
lives and billions of dollars worth of property will become more
frequent as climate change accelerates. The recent horrific flooding in
much of Central America and Mexico emphatically reinforces that fact.
Venezuela's role in guaranteeing affordable oil-derived energy will
counteract US regional influence in ways that are still hard to work
out. CAFTA only contributes negatively to this context. As the majority
of people's standard of living steadily declines resentment and protest
will grow. Winning on CAFTA may yet turn out to have been a pyrrhic
victory for the US government and its local allies.
NOTES
1. Reference from Gregorio Selser "Sandino. General de Hombres
Libres"(Managua. Aldilá editor. 2004. ISDN 99920-0-309-8)
Congressional Record of Proceedings and Debates of the 2nd Session of
the 67th Congress. Vol LXII, part. 9a, pp. 8941/8942, Washington D.C.
2. www.viventures.com and
http://lannuairedesfonds.journaldunet.com/fiche/63/viventures/
3. Precursor Group does not name its board members on its web site. In
2003 Zoellick was named on their web site as one of their advisers.
They are at www.precursorgroup.com
4. "Lewites y Montealegre asumen “pacto de caballeros”. Si inhiben a
uno, el otro se retira de contienda." El Nuevo Diario October 6th
2005.
5. Tercer Congreso del FSLN, Quinta Sesión Extraordinaria.
Resolución 5 -
http://www.fsln-nicaragua.com/congresos/2005/2005_index.htm.
6. "La justicia italiana emite una orden de arresto por secuestro
contra una funcionaria de la embajada de EEUU en México"
Crónica. www.rebelion.org 04-10-2005
7. "Caputo: “Opinar no significa injerencia”" Edgard Barbarena, Nuevo
Diario October 8th 2005
8. "Clase política indignada con subsecretario Zoellick. Rita
Fletes: “Alemán es ladrón, pero es nuestro
ladrón”, Nuevo Diario October 6th 2005.
9. Personal interview by phone, October 7th 2005.