A FOLK PUB by one-third, beans by 40 percent and rice by 30 percent since 1978, the last year before the war. One important indication of improved diet and health services is the reduction in infant mortality, which has been cut by one-third. In addition, the incidence of malaria has been reduced by 50 percent, and over one million Nicaraguans have been vaccinated against polio, measles and tetanus, diseases which continue to take the lives of millions throughout the third world. Finally, illiteracy has been cut from over half the population to less than one-seventh. Currently, over one million Nicaraguans, or 40 percent, are involved in some type of formal education. Since July 1979, over 1,200 new schools have been built, 95 percent of which are in the countryside. Amanda Espinoza is one of the more than 62,000 rural Nicaraguans who has opted to participate in a farming cooperative which raises basic food crops for local consumption. Her children are healthier now, she says, because they eat better. They also are no longer dying from disease. If they do get sick, she can the future. Collins says “ the vision of many Sandinista leaders is that of a mixed economy, in which eventually 50 percent of the farmland will be in independent cooperatives; 30 percent in private, individually owned farms of various sizes; and 20 percent in government-run farms.” ^ 4 7 ; TheThreat X to r ie s about Nicaragua focusing kJ on press censorship, church repression and arms shipments to Salvadoran guerillas are commonplace in the U.S. press. Yet, reports on the experiences of Amanda Espinoza and other formerly landless peasants are strangely absent. “ Nicaragua is one of the few places that gives us hope that there can be something different,” explains Collins, “ where people aren’t going hungry. Our government wants to destroy that. Washington wants to transform the revolution, making it a revolution that becomes inward turning, suspicious, authoritarian and militaristic, where it has to become dependent on the Soviet Union. “ Nicaragua has sought to keep good relations with the U.S. They are still pleading for talks with the U.S. But Washington ignores that. It wants to have this government on the ropes. “ Nicaragua is no threat to the United States,” he adds. “ They need things that are manufactured in the U.S. They don’t plan to go it alone. They also don’t want to be squeezed into the arms of the Russian bear. They’re not a military threat to the U.S. or their neighbors. They don’t have the economic capability to engage in a large-scale war. The only threat is a spiritual threat, and it is a very spiritual thing that is going on there.” “ Nicaragua es una escuela,” said many Sandinistas to Collins and Moore LappS, meaning that this small Central American country is a testing ground for the building of a socialist society, based on justice and equality. This is weapon which threatens the new true the U.S. 2110 N 4 5 th SI. now take them to a health clinic recently built in a nearby town. Espinoza’s gains have not been at the expense of better-off Nicaraguans. The land that has been expropriated for peasants’ use has either been abandoned or underutilized. Land ownership in Nicaragua now carries with it a responsibility to produce. While the government guarantees the right to private property and has not set a ceiling on the amount of acreage one individual can own, land that has not been worked productively for more than two years can be given to others who will put it to use. It’s all part of an ongoing plan for government and fuels the escalation of U.S. destabilization efforts. “ Of course no one can predict the future for Nicaragua,” writes Collins, “ But I have been grateful for the opportunity to take this intimate look at a country attempting to put ‘food first.’ My perspective has always been critical, analyzing the high hopes and good intentions along with the mixed reality. But what has struck me over the last three years is the consistent and staggering discrepancy between my perspective, based on close contacts with Nicaraguans from all walks of life, and the one presented by the Reagan administration and the mass media in the United States.” “Whatever happens in Nicaragua, Nicaragua is a school. Even if Nicaragua’s leadership should become a new unaccountable elite, we would still have much to learn. We would have to learn why the country moved in this direction. We would have to ask what role the United States played in forcing Nicaragua to reduce political and economic pluralism.” ■ Material for this article came from What Difference Could a Revolution Make?, by Joseph Collins and Frances Moore LappS, with Nick Allen, and Now We Can Speak: A Journey Through the New Nicaragua, by Frances Moore Lappe, with Joseph Collins, both published by and available from the Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1885 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103. Patty Somlo is a Seattle writer now travelling in Mexico Serving a proper pint of Guiness and eight other local & imported ales, lagers & stoats. LIVE TRADITIONAL MUSIC 7 NIGHTS A WEEK 634-2110 EXPERIENCED QUALITY CARE FOR YOUR FINE GARMENTS Mon. thru Fri. 7 am-6 pm Sat. 9 am-5 pm 415 15th Ave. E. 322-4665 • Solar Energy • Wood Energy • Alternative Housing • Food Buying, Storage • Tools &Technology TACOMA DOME Jun e 3 -5 , 1983 Clinton St. Quarterly 19
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz