Adiós Muchachos: A Memoir of the Sandinista Revolution

Preface To The Spanish Edition Published in 2007: The Shadow of the Caudillo

PREFACE TO THE SPANISH EDITION PUBLISHED IN 2007 The Shadow of the Caudillo When this memoir was originally published, twenty years had passed since the 1979 triumph of the Sandinista Revolution , one of Latin America’s major twentieth-century events. With the publication of this new edition, I believe that the book deserves some opening remarks, given that the Sandinista Front again came to power following Daniel Ortega’s electoral victory in the November 2006 elections. The revolution lasted for a decade of illusions and confrontations , culminating in a defeat at the polls for that same Daniel Ortega in 1990. I stood beside him then as his vice-presidential candidate. Violeta Chamorro won that election in the midst of a war that was nearing its end. Ever since then, Daniel has continued to run repeatedly as a presidential candidate. He was defeated in 1996 by the Liberal Party’s caudillo, Arnoldo Alemán, and then in 2001 by Enrique Bolaños, also from the Liberal Party. That was until his fourth opportunity, when he finally managed to secure a victory. From an international perspective, this triumph could easily be perceived as part of the new Left that has risen to power in several Latin American countries. This shift marks the failure of the neoliberal economic model imposed at the end of the cold war, which also coincided with the end of the Sandinista Revolution. However, Nicaragua’s case is really quite different, even though it would also be impossible to assert any homogeneous model for the experiences being lived in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, or Ecuador. xii | PREFACE TO 2007 EDITION Daniel Ortega survived the series of defeats hiding behind an unwavering vow to fight for the poor and most marginalized. He never ceded in his rhetoric except when his electoral campaign strategists advised him to lower his tone or keep quiet. At the same time, he knew how to communicate with the Sandinista Front members around him by appealing more to personal loyalties than to ideological loyalties from years past. Meanwhile , he eliminated his adversaries, especially those who threatened his leadership, through periodic purges. None of that would have been sufficient in itself, though, if not for his political pact with Arnoldo Alemán, the Liberal caudillo sentenced to twenty years in prison for money laundering in 2003 due to illegal undertakings during his presidency. This pact involved deep reforms to the Political Constitution, introduced in 2000 and then again in 2005. It was devised to implement a redistribution of power and to facilitate complete control of state entities. It left control of the courts, the electoral system, and the Comptroller’s Office up to the personal will of both signatories, which facilitated appointments for political supporters. This was clear enough from the sole example of the Supreme Court, whose membership increased to seventeen , a scandalous number for a poor country of barely 5 million inhabitants . The only objective was to distribute appointments among unconditional supporters. Political pacts between caudillos are not new in Nicaraguan history. For similar reasons, General Anastasio Somoza García, founder of the Somoza dynasty, signed a ‘‘pact of generals’’ on behalf of the Liberal Party in 1950 with General Emiliano Chamorro, who signed on behalf of the Conservative Party. Besides the distribution of appointments and parliamentary seats, that pact protected a constitutional reform that allowed Somoza to run as a candidate for reelection in 1956, when he was fatally shot by a young poet by the name of Rigoberto López Pérez. With the Ortega-Alemán pact in 2000, and through a constitutional reform, Daniel managed to have the number of votes needed to win an election in the first round reduced to 35 percent. Then he won the 2006 election with 38 percent of the vote against a fragmented opposition. In return, he allowed the courts to release Alemán from prison by declaring him valetudinarian, in other words, disabled due to mental decrepitude. This was an unusual measure that can only be explained by the judges’ subservience. With this verdict, Alemán was first placed under house arrest, then restricted to Managua, and finally confined within Nicara- THE SHADOW OF THE CAUDILLO | xiii gua’s borders, which allows him to travel everywhere in the country on a proselytizing campaign. Meanwhile, Daniel won the unconditional support of Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, longtime enemy of...