NY forum takes up crisis facing workers, farmers in Nicaragua – The Militant

NY forum takes up crisis facing workers, farmers in Nicaragua – The Militant


Excerpt:

....Today’s FSLN government is a capitalist government, “a Bonapartist regime,” Calero said. “It pretends to rule above classes and serve as an arbiter between workers and bosses” but in reality it is subordinate to the capitalist class.

“The policies implemented since 2006 were not the whim of Ortega and Murillo, his wife and vice president,” Calero noted. “They were policies supported by the main capitalist associations and families” and were considered acceptable by Washington and capitalist investors. By focusing on “Ortega” as the problem, or the “presidential couple,” capitalist sections who are part of the opposition — including those who had been in alliance with Ortega and switched sides when the protests exploded — and other political parties try to hide the fact that the problems facing working people in Nicaragua are the result of capitalism.

“There are different class forces involved — workers and farmers who are fighting for rights and better conditions, and capitalists who want to keep their system of exploitation intact, but without the baggage of Ortega, whose growing unpopularity has made him a liability for them.”

Some on the left who defend the government claim that Washington is behind the protests. “While there is no question that U.S. agencies have funneled funds to opposition groups,” Calero said, “that’s not the reason for the massive protests.”

Countless programs organized and financed by Washington to overthrow the Cuban Revolution since its triumph in 1959 have failed, Calero said, because workers and farmers have confidence in what they see as their own revolution and leadership. “The FSLN government has dug its own hole with its anti-working-class policies and course.”

Many of the protesters, Calero said, are workers who were part of the 1979 revolution and their sons and daughters who have heard the stories about the transformation their parents went through. “They reject what the FSLN has become,” Calero said, “but have not drawn the lessons of why the revolution was lost.” There is no party or organization in Nicaragua today that is fighting to get back to the working-class course laid out by Fonseca.