The economic pact based on the constitutional model of dialogue, alliance and consensus between the Ortega/Murillo government and the businessmen, resulted in a very serious humanitarian and human rights crisis; and deepened the levels of extreme inequality and violence that cross us day by day. We write this article from a concrete ideological position: to fight for our dignities, there is no possible unity with exploiters or opportunists, enemies of our rights, who enrich themselves at the expense of our misery. Only the people save the people.
By Alternativa Anticapitalista
In the article “The role of the private sector in the change of correlation of forces to get out of the dictatorship”, the political scientist Guillermo Incer (1) affirms that, at present, the private sector, specifically the large economic groups such as those ascribed to COSEP and other business chambers, are the decisive factor in their role as large contributors. More than two years after the installation of the de facto police state, he calls on the private sector to declare tax disobedience and stop paying taxes to the State. According to Incer, these are “low risk”, “high impact” actions that require “low organization”, in the struggle to weaken the dictatorship. In the end, he atatess:
…” to the citizenship, to demand together for the private sector of Nicaragua to define itself once and for all and to get out of this suffering”.
The social demand to the business sector to declare an indefinite strike, or finally to declare tax disobedience and stop paying taxes to the dictatorship, has been a popular demand since the first months of the social outbreak of 2018. The call is not new, and the large business chambers attached to COSEP, as well as the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, and all the platforms through which they have passed, are aware of this demand, which will soon be 3 years old.
In spite of this, not only have they ignored this demand, but they have also renewed agreements and economic treaties with the dictatorship, to mention a few:
In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, the “tripartite” agreement between the government and the employers legalized mass layoffs. Thousands of workers (mainly in the maquila industry) were left unemployed without any support, in the midst of the greatest health crisis of humanity.
Another recent example is that of Michael Hayley, president of COSEP, declaring his rejection of an insignificant increase in the minimum wage, proposed by the Sandinista Workers Central (2); and calling for a new dialogue with the dictatorship, to reactivate the investment climate and the economy at the macro level (3), not the popular economy.
The destruction of the environment are not natural accidents, but the result of an extractivist model as economic policy exercised by capitalism in our regions. This was demonstrated with the Indio Maíz fire in 2018. And since then, extractive activity has intensified in the territories of indigenous and Afro-descendant nations, where the agricultural frontier advances at the hands of settlers, the army, logging companies, agribusiness, etc. . Other examples are detailed in the Connectas investigation, indicating that “Despite the economic crisis in Nicaragua, mining recorded exports of 408 million dollars in gold up to August 2020” and that this sector is “the one with the least formal jobs of all sectors registered in the Central Bank of Nicaragua” (4). Transnationals such as Condor Gold, are currently in the process of building the second largest mining plant in the country, to increase its gold extraction to more than 1,500 tons per day, in Mina La India, department of Leon.
…the struggle continues!
If we, “the people”, were to make a choice, in 2018 the struggle marked the route of justice against repression, social-economic justice and for the exit of the dictatorship without impunity; for the bosses (COSEP, AMCHAM and other “chambers”; ACJD) the objective was always, and continues to be, to maintain the margin of profitability and private profit. That is to say, for “the private sector” the first priority is to maintain the subsidies and exonerations of the State for national and international corporations, to guarantee “governability” and thus assure “the business climate” from which they benefit so much.
This voracious accumulation of wealth by this economic minority is sustained by the precariousness of life, unlimited exploitation of the working class, women, sexual dissidence, and indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples; and the irreparable destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity; and the rich know it.
The directions of Blue and White progressivism are turning to the right. The skepticism of these sectors about the role of workers organization and the methods of struggle of the social majorities is confirmed; it’s no coincidence that the Blue-White strategy to “overthrow the dictatorship” is to call for UNITY (conciliation) with the collaborators of ORMU; and wait until November 2021 to go to “elections” without conditions or guarantees. This is how this skepticism has been transformed into electoral opportunism, and into a possibilism of “up to here we can do”, “wait for the leaderships to resolve and vote as you should”.
From #AnticapitalistasNic we will not call for conciliation with those who benefit from a regime sustained by systemic violence, even less when the cost of living continues to increase, repression and terror continues to be used against the real front line of struggle against the dictatorship. The fundamental transformations will not come from the hand of the strategy raised by the businessmen and the elites, quite the contrary: we bet on self-organization from below and with the methods of worker’s struggle and prepare the conditions to turn everything around.
Organization and struggle against the dictatorship and the exploiters
If something has become clear is that, in 2018 we had more than enough strength to throw out the dictatorship and dismantle its entire regime. All the actions of popular power and massive demonstrations, self-convened, spontaneous or organized, were the maximum expression of how the population put themselves in line pursuing the longing for radical changes. In spite of everything, and in order to preserve their privileges, the exploiting caste quickly accommodated itself, infiltrated the popular movement and usurped spaces in decision-making and imposed artificial “leaderships” with the blessing of the ecclesiastical leadership; to the point of displacing the political actors who really resisted the regime, and who bore the brunt of State Terrorism: bullets, repression, imprisonment and exile.
History shows that grassroots organization, from below, which calls for massive mobilizations, has the strength to conquer rights and even to overthrow governments and question all institutions. In countries like Nicaragua, only the organized popular massiveness can make a material, representative and forceful counterweight to systemic violence. Violence that is sustained by the armed forces and shock groups that defend the bourgeois state from dictators, millionaires and corporations. April marked that perspective.
This mobilized massiveness, requires a revolutionary leadership that is willing to go for everything in its function of not yielding anything to power, but on the contrary, to propitiate that it is society as a whole who loves forward with base organization, and through its own class methods such as assemblies, marches or strikes of different types. That is to say that it is the working class, the youth, women, sexual dissidence and the indigenous and Afro-descendant nations who fight for a government of those that have never governed. With this perspective and independence we are building Alternativa Anticapitalista and the International Socialist League. Join us.
1- Member of Construimos, Articulación de Movimiento Sociales y Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil, Unidad Nacional Azul y Blanco, Coalición Nacional.
2- https://nicaraguainvestiga.com/economia/44191-cuestionan-aumento-salario-minimo-nicaragua-2021-empresa-privada/
3 – https://confidencial.com.ni/economia/cosep-dialogo-con-ortega-si-cumple-acuerdos-de-2019-y-reforma-electoral/
4- https://www.connectas.org/especiales/nicaragua-no-calla/el-idilio-de-daniel-ortega-con-el-gran-capital/