Crackdown

Sandinistas jail businessmen

After the Sandinista regime took power in Nicaragua 27 months ago, two symbols showed that pluralism and democracy could somehow coexist with a leftist revolution. One was the fiercely independent newspaper La Prensa, which has become an increasingly vocal critic of the nine-man Sandinista directorate. The other was the Superior Council of Private Enterprise, known by its Spanish acronym COSEP, a politically powerful association representing the country's embattled private business sector. Earlier this month the Sandinista government threatened to close down La Prensa. Last week the Sandinistas moved against COSEP. After publicly accusing the government of egregious economic mismanagement and "an undeniable Marxist-Leninist line," four leaders of COSEP were summarily arrested and jailed by Sandinista security forces. So were 22 members of the Communist Party for criticizing government economic policy. Said former Junta Member Alfonso Robelo: "The detention is one more example of the climate of horror that my country has begun to experience."

The four business leaders were COSEP Directors Enrique Dreyfus, Benjamin Lanzas, Gilberto Cuadra and Enrique Bolanos. All had strongly supported the overthrow of Dictator Anastasio Somoza. They had also advocated a mixed economy of socialism and free enterprise to rebuild Nicaragua's war-torn economy. But from the beginning, according to a Sandinista document, the government had planned to give the capitalists free rein only until it was able to take over the economy. COSEP members saw their control whittled away by nationalizations of banks, some industry and agricultural holdings. The economy became dependent upon an estimated $450 million in foreign aid and loans, $60 million of it from the U.S. last year.

Last November, Jorge Salazar, a respected business leader, was gunned down by government security forces for allegedly supplying arms to counterrevolutionaries. Salazar's death united COSEP against the Sandinistas. Last February COSEP's Dreyfus criticized the Sandinistas for allowing manufacturing to drop 35% below government projections. Said he: "All this is the consequence of financial indiscipline in a government which is in the process of reconstructing the country."

Stung by mounting criticism and concerned about a declining economy, the ruling directorate declared a state of economic emergency in September, banning strikes, profiteering and the distribution of news or information deemed to be injurious to the economy. The regime was also worried about a possible counterinsurgency led by supporters of the deposed Somoza and other anti-Sandinista groups. Meanwhile, the government increased its attacks on COSEP. Junta Member Sergio Ramirez charged that the organization espoused "a systematic defense of the most primitive type of capitalism, which tries to paralyze the revolution, to resuscitate forces which hinder the revolutionary process."

When Defense Minister Humberto Ortega warned that the government's enemies "will be hanging along the roads and highways of the country," COSEP circulated copies of his speech to foreign journalists, then decided the time had come to act. In an open letter to the government, business leaders charged that "the national economy shows no signs of recuperation, social peace has not been found, the country finds itself in spiraling debt, with no foreseeable end."

Last week the Sandinistas defended the arrests of the COSEP leaders. Daniel Ortega, a junta member, went on television to claim that the revolution was under grave attack and that the government would first defend the country's workers, farmers and the poor. Said Ortega: "We are at the door of destruction in Nicaragua. We are arriving at a point of no return from which the government of national reconstruction will have difficulty regaining its legitimacy in the eyes of the people."

In Washington, the State Department immediately said that it "deplored" the arrests, and asked the Sandinista government to "reassess the contributions these leaders have made and release them immediately." The four Nicaraguan businessmen, said a U.S. spokesmen, were part of "a longstanding tradition of opposing oppression in their country." The arrest of the COSEP leaders may raise questions about a measure, passed by the Senate but not by the House, to send $33.3 million in aid to Nicaragua. -

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.