Nicaragua: the limits of Sandinist

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A review of "'Nicaragua-Free Country or Death '.

Sandinista guerrillas on the rooftops of Matagalpa This film, made in close collaboration with the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and released this year, gives an account of the history, training and present activity of the Sandinistas.

A brief historical section shows that the FSLN trace their history to the armed struggle led by the peasant Augusto Sandino between 1927 and 1933 against the direct interventionist forces of the US Marine Corps.

When the Marines left in 1933 they had assured the victory of Somoza Senior (father of the present dictator) over the peasant-based struggle.

Until the time of writing Nicaragua has suffered the consequence of that defeat, which was followed by Sandino's death at the hands of the regime.

The sections of the film dealing with the training of the guerrillas shows why the Somoza regime, despite having a highly-trained USequipped army, including an eilte guard of 4,000, has been unable to defeat the latest offensive.

Armed with an assortment of western arms, the guerrillas are shown undergoing rigorous and realistic training.

The fact that the film does not try to disguise the rawness' of the recruits reinforces the seriousness and dedication of the guerrilla training However, the part of the film dealing with ideological and theoretical work of the Sandinistas is not reassuring.

Moral terms

The struggle against Somoza is presented largely in moral terms.

Somoza is compared to Hitler several times. The impression is given of a crusade against an evil alien force.

This perspective is reinforced by the lack of any political programme. The only concrete policy mentioned is land reform.

The clear impression conveyed by the film is that the Sandinistas have not developed any political programme and practice beyond that of their inspiration Sandino fifty years

"Nicaragua-Free

ago.

This programme is limited to that of national revolution and independence carried through by peasant revolt. The film itself provides evidence of the practical consequences of this political bankruptcy.

In footage shot in the cities during and after the offensive of September last year the absence of any teenage youth is striking. The commentary explains that they have all been killed.

The September offensive brought a huge response from urban youth. But when this military push from the countryside was repulsed, the Sandinistas were forced to withdrawleaving the youth, unorganised and unprotected, to the mercy of • the National Guard, who wiped them out.

Clearly, in any fight against regime such as Somoza's, where his power rests exclusively on the army, the question of the armed struggle is central.

The Sandinistas are driven to learn the lessons of the anti-imperialist struggle empirically.

Their political programme is that of the peasantry. Their personnel as shown in the film are either peasants from the country or petit-bourgeois from the towns.

Generalise

They have had to develop the struggle-to generalise the struggle into a civil war-the hard way.

It is usual when reviewing a film like this to end with a call for the building of a Trotskyist party, part of a world revolutionary Only such an organisation is capable of carrying the struggle so heroically started by the Sandinistas, through to a victorious conclusion.

Watching these brave men and women standing around discussing the "revolutionary content" of the New Testament with two Catholic priests brings

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guerrillaism Somoza's National Guard on the streets of Managua Close cooperation between police and army in 'anti-terrorist' operations PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report The meat of the book comes out in the open political statements (of which there are many, even though Mark spends a lot of his time asserting that the police are 'non-political").

He clearly regards the Labour Party as being dangerously radical, though he spells out in detail the kind of collaboration that went on with Wilson, Jenkins and Rees.

Those fighting for Irish liberation are according to Mark "intellectually subnormal... common criminals ..kor Sw.thte:

home that need in an extremely forceful image. Revolutionary will is at present tragically combined with political bankruptcy.

This film confirms the belief that Somoza can be overthrown. But it does nothing to reassure the •.. seedy, cowardly degenerates"

He describes how the police can be used more efficiently and consistently to break up strikes.

At the same time Mark rejects a Tribunite's vain call for the police to assist pickets in exercising their legal right to stop vehicles in order to talk to drivers as:

"an inexcusable requirement for the police to abandon the impartiality in industrial disputes to which they have always been dedicated".(!) viewer that what replaces that barbaric regime will be in the interests of the peasantry and urban poor whose sacrifices and struggles have been responsible for that revolutionary act.

It was Robert Mark who revamped and redirected the SPG, which had been set up in 1965 by Chief Superintendant John Gerrard.

Mark visited Northern Ireland and was thrilled by the activities of various "special tactical squads"

Killing

From February 1973 when Mark approved the SPG killing of two unarmed Pakistanis occupying the Indian High Commission, the Special Patrol Group has become an increasingly important strike force for the state.

Its most public activities have included Grunwicks, anti-fascist demonstrations, the smashing of the Huntley Stict squat, the Notting Hill Carnivals and (most recently) the murder of Blair Peach and the maiming and beating of countless people in Southall.

In the last seven •years the SPG has made nearly 400,000 "stops and searches"

Out of this number only 6% have been arrested. And only a tiny proportion of that 6% have ever been convicted.

Sinister

Not is this only a London: phenomenon. Other forces are rapidly developing their own squads, the most sinister of which is Anderton's paramilitary TAG (Tactical Aid Group).

It is not difficult to predict the continued escalation of political intervention by police chiefs.

The election campaign was carried on against a backdrop of fascist provocation and the militant response by youth, Asians and blacks.

In this atmosphere the 'law and order' rhetoric of James Jardine (Chairman of the Police Federation) was included almost verbatim in the Tory manifesto.

Robert Mark thundered out his anti-socialist propaganda almost daily, demanding more legislation to curb the unions and comparing the relationship between the unions and the government as "not unlike the way the Nazi Party seized power"

Meanwhile Allan Goodson, Chief Constable of Leicester, was defending his brutal deployment of 5,000 police to protect a Nazi march with the argument that "we fought two world wars to preserve the right of free speech"

Faced with this rising tide of reaction and shrewd construction of • power bases, the labour movement's leadership has again 1: Chris Davies, Report revealed its weakness.

Reformists of all shades in the Labour Party and the unions have proposed whole packages of measures designed to "democratise' the police and change such minor aspects as complaints procedures.

A new law, here and there, is presented as the cure-all. Labour 'lefts' now popularly call for the disbanding of the SPG and for "public' enquiries.

Dangers But revolutionaries must spell out to the working class that no reforms will change the police or reduce the dangers posed by the McNees, the Marks and the Andertons.

Independent

inquiries must investigate the the police at all Aer Lingus/ EI Al Air India Japan Airlines Alitalia critical workers' be built to activities of levels.

aros PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL As well as fighting for the disbanding of all groups like the SPG, the revolutionary programme must include the disbanding of the entire police force.

The police have always been and, bourgeois society, will always continue to be the agents of workers, Physical oppression.

Workers defence .

Only by building workers defence guards can the threat from fascists and the capitalist state be smashed. As Trotsky wrote in The Transitional Programme _'The bourgeoisie nowhere satisfied with the official police and army"

The bourgeoisie needs a fascist card to play in the last resort, and in Britain today that card is hidden up the sleeve of the top echelons of the police.

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NETES on men's leader Sid Weighell to duck out of fighting for a £65 minimum wage in next year's pay review.

Paignton last week, Weighell laid Thatcher government.

language, declared proletarian Sid.

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