Broken Promises in Nicaragua

Like Somoza, the Sandinistas crack down on a dissenting daily

No one understands the power of a free press better than Nicaragua's Sandinistas, who overthrew Dictator Anastasio Somoza two years ago with the help of the crusading opposition newspaper, La Prensa. Under Somoza, La Prensa (circ. 75,000) had paid a steep price for its dissenting views: its reporters were beaten and jailed, its offices were bombed, and finally its unflinching editor, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was murdered by Somoza's henchmen. When the Sandinistas came to power 18 months later, they promised to create a pluralistic society in which freedom of the press would guaranteed. Now, it seems, the Sandinistas are finding those promises too troublesome to keep.

La Prensa is the only Nicaraguan newspaper not aligned with the government, which also controls 80% of the radio and TV stations. As it chronicled the revolution's mounting failures, the daily, now edited by Chamorro's son, Pedro Joaquin Jr., 30, once more found itself the principal target of a regime that does not tolerate dissent. Chamorro's widow Violeta, an original member of the revolutionary government, resigned in March 1980, offering reasons of health, to concentrate on helping her son with the paper. One month later, La Prensa was paralyzed by a Sandinista-induced labor dispute that ended only when Pedro Joaquin's uncle Xavier, a staunch supporter of the Sandinistas, started his own newspaper, Nuevo Diario (circ. 30,000). When that competition proved ineffectual in undercutting La Prensa's influence, the Sandinistas employed sterner measures.

This year two press laws have been enacted, carrying penalties that include temporary suspension of publication and jail terms of up to three years for newspaper editors who publish information the government thinks is "sensitive." Under these laws, Chamorro's newspaper has been shut down five times. Each time, the young editor has come out swinging as soon as his presses started to roll again.

He has accused the government of approving mob violence to squelch an opposition rally, unfairly confiscating private property, and packing the national legislature with Sandinistas. When the Sandinistas, having long since deferred plans for free elections in Nicaragua, called for free elections in El Salvador, Chamorro acidly asked: "If Salvadorans can vote, why not us?" After the latest shutdown earlier this month, La Prensa returned with a blistering editorial written by Violeta Chamorro.

The Sandinistas, she said, "have no respect for freedom of the press . . . My husband once said to me, without press freedom, there is no freedom."

The Sandinistas' response to this invocation of the martyred Chamorro--still a symbol of the revolution--was swift. Unless La Prensa stops criticizing the government, announced Sandinista Commandante Jaime Wheelock, the newspaper will be shut down permanently. La Prensa, said Wheelock, must "fit in with the revolution."

The closing of La Prensa would have a devastating effect on the government's image, both at home and abroad. It would be an admission that the Sandinistas had abandoned their commitment to pluralism and freedom of the press, and were drifting toward totalitarianism. But with the Nicaraguan economy in a tailspin and public restiveness on the rise, the government seems increasingly unwilling to give free rein to so outspoken a critic. If La Prensa is crushed, said Vice President George Bush last week in Rio de Janeiro, the Sandinistas will "make it strikingly clear in the eyes of the world that they fear the truth." Perhaps the most poignant statement on the fate of the troubled newspaper came from a youth in the barrios of Managua who fought against Somoza:

"Shutting down La Prensa," he said, "would be like killing Pedro Joaquin Chamorro all over again."

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