Heralds of human dignity

Nicaragua: after "Mitch", the pact between the FSLN and the government

HERALDS OF HUMAN DIGNITY 

As the war ended and the peace was signed, not a few thought that human rights had lost relevance in El Salvador, perhaps thinking that it served as a tool of the left manipulated at whim or perhaps because respect for human rights was or had become a reality. In any case, in El Salvador, human rights have been and continue to be considered as a left ideology, alien to democracy. In the best of cases, human rights are tolerated as a necessary evil in today’s world. In his message to the world crusade for peace this year, Pope John Paul II reminded humanity that such rights are intrinsic to every person and, therefore, should not only be tolerated but should be accepted fully and should not be associated only with the left, but ought to be assumed by everyone —and especially those in power. This is a very opportune reminder for a society such as ours which does not hold in as high regard as it ought these rights, but which, nevertheless professes to be profoundly Christian.

No one would disagree with John Paul II when he declares that "the encouragement of the dignity of persons is the guiding principle" which ought to inspire our actions (1), but it cannot be said that there the same unanimous agreement would obtain as to what this dignity implies. It is easy to subscribe to declarations of principles, but it is another thing entirely to determine and adhere to the practical consequences of these principles. To promote and encourage the dignity of persons implies elevating the search for the common good to the level of priority in direct opposition to private and particular interests; for the prevalence of the latter over the former is a seedbed in which are cultivated "the seeds of instability, rebellion and violence " (2).

This message is a reminder of the tragic number of victims left by twentieth-century ideologies, which today are things of the past, but point to —without mentioning it by name, while describing it in such a way that there is no doubt as to the ideology referred to: that of present-day capitalism. The exaltation of the individual and the egocentric satisfaction of personal aspirations must not become the final objective of human life (2). The rapid globalization of the economic and financial systems and the devastating effects that these crises are having on so many people, reduced to extreme poverty, "make clear the urgency of establishing who ought to guarantee the common and global good and the realization of economic and social rights. The free market in and of itself cannot do it" (9). The "pressing problem" of the international debt ought to be resolved in a satisfactory and definitive way in as short a time as possible (9). "It is urgent and necessary for all, especially for those who hold the reins of political and economic power, to do all possible to remedy such a painful situation" as that of the unemployed (8). The discussion of economic problems cannot be limited to closed circles, alleging that these are problems of a technical nature because "the search for the national and international common good demands the putting into practice in the economic field as well, the right of all to participate in decisions which concern them" (6). Legal measures are insufficient to preserve the environment, as "a profound change in the typical style of life of modern consumer society" is necessary "(10).

Pope John Paul II’s warning to the nations and the armed groups of each of these nations concerning the failure of violence as a measure for resolving political and social problems ought to be taken very much into account by all of those who have recourse to violence in the spheres of personal, family and group relations —and this is applicable directly to El Salvador. "Relationships of force" must be substituted for "relations of collaboration for the common good" (11).

As a consequence, the right to life must be inviolate "from conception until its natural end" (4). The culture of life does not exclude anyone, rejects all forms of violence and affirms fully the right to life of those not yet born, of the recently born, and of girl babies in particular; it assures to the handicapped the development of their possibilities and pays due attention to the sick and to the old (4). The culture of life does not exclude anyone, rejects all forms of violence and affirms the full right of life in all its phases. "No offense to human dignity can be ignored, whatever might be its origin, modality or the place in which it occurs" (2). To opt for life means to reject all forms of violence; that is to say, "the violence of poverty and hunger", armed conflicts, drugs, arms trafficking, the environment, etc.

Nor can religion can be imposed by force. Every person enjoys the freedom to change religion, according to his or her conscience. No one can be obliged to accept a specific religion and the state cannot by special statute impose a specific religion to the detriment of other religions. The recourse to violence in the name of a religious creed is a deformation of the teachings of religious principles. The message reiterates, doubtless thinking of religious wars led and promoted by fundamentalism, that "the use of violence can never have a well-founded religious justification" (5).

The historic experience of death —by hunger, sickness, misery and by diverse forms of violence— demonstrates the enormous necessity and the value of material life for which there is no substitute as the primary and fundamental gift, upon which all other rights are based. These ought to be a development or outgrowth of that primary gift of life. A life which ought to multiply and be extended, seeking ever more and better life. It is not evident what this plenitude of life consists of, and even less of how it is to be achieved; what is evident is what it does not consist of and how not to achieve such life. And this is not so much by means of logical deductions based on universal principles, but by historic verification.

Indifference or the turning of a deaf ear to the violation of any of these rights contributes to the dehumanization of society and of those who are maintained at the margin of that society. Parting from the evangelical gospels, Pope John Paul II invites all Christians to become "heralds" of human dignity and to express a preference for the poorest and most marginal (13), although no right or person should be ignored or not taken into account. This taking of sides and expressing of preferences is owning to a simple and well-known explanation: God himself is at their side.

NICARAGUA: AFTER "MITCH", THE PACT BETWEEN THE FSLN AND THE GOVERNMENT 

The first emergency caused by the passing of the hurricane "Mitch" having passed, the government of Arnoldo Alemán now seeks consensus-building. He proclaims that now is "the hour of the country" and proposes to reconstruct the country "together". Everyone united.

That it is certainly a praiseworthy justification of "national unity for reconstruction" could serve as an excuse for consolidating, among other things, the pact between the government and the FSLN, to remove the Comptroller, to weaken the accounting controls system, to continue undermining institutionality, to change the electoral calendar and put off, to the point to wearing down by fatigue, those who decided to conduct ethical struggles against impunity. The same and ever-present opportunists —and some few more— seem to be willing to make of this pain and suffering "their" opportunity.

After the point at which a liberal sector of the government and a sector of the FSLN spent the first three weeks of the emergency hurling mutual accusations for using the disaster caused by the hurricane in order to obtain political advantage, Arnold Alemán and Daniel Ortega renewed their bilateral dialogue, which had been in effect even before "Mitch", at an accelerated pace to achieve a pact between the two parties. On November 20 they held a long interview and on November 23, Ortega announced that the FSLN would support the government in its gestures to the international community in order to obtain extra funds with which to support the reconstruction of the country and in order to accelerate the entry of Nicaragua into the Initiative for the Poor Countries with Large Debts (HIPC, for its initials in English), where Nicaragua would have part of its foreign debt pardoned.

It was the international community itself, and very especially the high-level representatives of the multilateral financial organisms —to wit, Michel Camdessus, of the IMF ad Enrique Iglesias of the International Development Bank, both of whom visited the country after the disaster— who applied intense pressure on both political leaders to achieve a situation in which Nicaragua would guarantee "governability" —an objective given high priority by these institutions— to present their plans in Washington in December and in Stockholm in April to the Consultative Group on Central America.

It was a result of international pressures, as well, that the government created a commission of a consultative character for the formulation of this plan and to include in these commissions the business sector and representatives of civil society. The government —as it has done on other occasions— incorporated these sectors, but in a biased way and in such a way that there was poor representation. It made a special call to the businessmen of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) and certain other personalities linked to NGOs, but only as individuals and not in any representative capacity. Moreover, the government called all of them in order to present an already drawn up plan, which was practically closed with respect to new proposals.

"Mitch" obliged Arnoldo Alemán and Daniel Ortega to take a new stance in their permanent spectacle of confrontation-consensus-building. This new stance is also owing to the need that both strongmen have to slow down the deterioration of their popularity. The last public opinion polls, held after "Mitch", showed that the rejection and indifference of the population had been growing and that the majority of public opinion does not recognize their leadership,

The unexpected emergency situation offered now to Alemán and Ortega a painful and "muddy" occasion to justify, in the name of unity, the bipartisan political agreements they had been working on and which had been, if not impossible, at least more difficult, or more controversial as they dealt with the tragedy.

The FSLN-government pact had been adjusting the contents according to partisan or personal ups and downs of those who control this agreement, which was made public, last August. More or less extensive, and more or less polemical constitutional reforms; electoral and legal reforms; state ministries; impurities which are tolerated; appointments and removals: all of this is part of the pact.

Hurricane "Mitch" and the change of scene which it has provoked has contributed to the changing or altering the calendar of some of these provisions. But, at bottom, the pact continues in effect and, in essence, it is the same as before "Mitch" It is a question of an accord which seeks to consolidate bipartisanism and reorder the institutionality of the country for this reason in favor of the interests of the leaderships of these two parties. The pact is founded upon the still fragile institutions already existing in the country —of professionalism, autonomy and functionalism. The culture of the strongman will sink into the population because what is sought is to consolidate only two leadership figures.

"Mitch" seems to have complicated temporarily —or perhaps definitively— the calendar for introducing the constitutional reforms planned between the PCL and the FSLN in the legislature. But it offers a single opportunity for an electoral modification that interests the PLC as well as the sector controlled by the FSLN. Noel Vidaurre, leader of the Conservative Party, declared that, at the beginning of December, both parties wanted to postpone the municipal elections that were to be held in 2000 in order to combine them —as was the case in 1996— with the presidential elections of 2001.

The difficulties of the "crossed vote" and the facilities because of the voting procedure as well as because of the weight of the ideology favorable to "strongmen" that captures the "casket or running vote" —which is marked in the same way on all ballots—would favor the PCL and the FSLN. The voters polarized in a bipartisan way by the presidential elections and by the powerful echoes of the national campaigns would scarcely rationalize their vote in the municipal elections, marginalizing local necessities and interests in this way and closing ranks to new leaderships as well.

This is not to say that there are no contradictions in the Alemán-Ortega pact. A considerable sector of the Sandinista base continues to support this agreement and has obliged Ortega, since the month of August, to maintain a more and more confusing discourse in which he is forced to mix conciliatory expressions of relations with regard to the government and the president himself, with rhetoric of an agitational and threatening nature. For a leadership which has already suffered from a loss on ethical counts, this is a difficult exercise which grows more and more difficult to sustain, given its political costs.

A few days after Ortega offered open support to the government in its gestures to the international community, the left wing of the FSLN forced him to lead a demonstration against the government’s economic policies to oppose the layoffs and firings of dozens of employees —some of them trade unionists— which the government began to implement among the public service entities. The demonstration, which took place on December 3, brought out no more than 2,000 people. For a few hours, Ortega’s conciliatory discourse when he appeared on the television announcing the participation of the FSLN, together with Alemán, in the Washington meeting, gave way to sharp threats to fill Managua with barricades if the government did not change the direction of its economic policy.

Trying somewhat to neutralize the ambiguity of his declarations and attitudes, this time Daniel Ortega made a move which was as unexpected as it was burdened with new confusions: he invited Cardenal Obando y Bravo to participate with him in a street demonstration called by the FSLN....

The majority of the Nicaraguan population rejects the current economic policies of the government, although this does not mean that the people will raise barricades to support Daniel Ortega or that it understands and supports the legal and institutional content at play in the pact between Ortega and Alemán. There is a predominance of confusion, which the growing poverty only deepens.

The deterioration of the income of the majority of the population as a result of the effects of the application of a program of structural adjustment which has sharpened the rise in prices for basic products is a result of the hurricane. Official figures demonstrate that the accumulated inflation rose to 15%. The government’s goal was to finalize 1998 with an annual accumulated inflation of 8%. A study conducted before the hurricane by the International Foundation for the Global Economic Challenge (FIDEG, for its initials in Spanish) notes that, between 1993 and this bitter year’s end, the population which had only been able to cover half of the basic food basket had moved from 40.8% to 63.5% in the major cities of the country where there has also been a heavy increase in underemployment.

The broad opposition wit which one sector of the Sandinistas will receive the Ortega-Alemán pact is justified: The agreement will be read as a tacit approval by the Sandinistas of the current economic policies which have impoverished more and more people —the majority, in fact— and especially the sectors with the most solid Sandinista tradition: the employees of the public sector and the urban dwellers.

The tragedy caused by "Mitch" includes potentialities for being a once in a lifetime opportunity —the last?— to transform Nicaragua and make it viable, introducing into its social fabric, into its political class, into its economic model, components of greater solidarity, greater realism, honesty, creative forms of austerity and of shared responsibility.

It is clear that "Mitch" hurt the poorest people of Nicaragua. And that their needs in terms of credit, technical assistance, to the land and leadership in the direction to be given in its development are today more imperious than they were before the hurricane. The unexpected arrivals of foreign aid may be an opportunity to satisfy these necessities. But in order to change such serious problems into opportunities, much consensus building which is not biased by political interests and which really represents the interests of those affected will be necessary.

The key to evaluating any reconstruction project —be it large, medium or small—will be to calibrate up to what point the people, their organizations, the communities affected, are in charge of their own reconstruction. And to evaluate up to what point the mediation of external resources —of the NGOs, religious groups and of the state itself— are or are not encouraging the people to organize.. This would be the best measure, within a few months, perhaps years, if "Mitch", in addition to being a tragedy and of opening up room for so many opportunities, could also be an opportunity for many Nicaraguans.

"Mitch" can, then, give rise to a knot in the plans in which many will decide to begin to fly right. Nevertheless, as has now been seen, in the real spheres of power nothing seems to indicate that this will be the case. Worse yet, the indicators which are beginning to appear at these higher levels, after the first emergency and the first shock, demonstrate that the mountains of mud that the hurricane left us could be used to bury all of the just and rightful struggles which, when faced with polemics, were being planned already in the state of affairs before "Mitch" hit.

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This article is a presentation of "Equipo Envío" of Nicaragua.