Page 8 RAIN July/August 1984 ACCESS: Central America Wljile some of us in North America are seeking to develop lifestyles, technologies, and social institutions that enhance community control and self-reliance, the people of Central America are engaged in their own struggles for self-determination. Our efforts are related: The people of Central America (and other Third World countries) benefit from our efforts by developing ways of life that do not depend on the exploitation of their labor, resources, and markets. They also benefit from alternatives they develop themselves. Reliance on fossil-fuel imports and energy- and chemicalintensive agricultural systems hurts the balance of trade of Third World countries and decreases the long-term stability of their institutions. But development questions in Central America are complex and cannot easily be separated from political issues. For example, in countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, the development of "alternative" methods ofproduction either plays into the hands of the ruling elite or endangers the lives of those involved. In Guatemala, 80% of the land is held by 2 % of the population, and the majority ofpeople are landless; new technologies cannot offer much ofa solution in this context. Only structural changes in the economic and political systems can lead to a society where freedom, justice, and ecological wisdom prevail. Thefollowing list of resources can help North Americans better understand and assist in the crucial struggles ofour neighbors to the south. —LR What Difference Could a Revolution Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua, by Joseph Collins, with Frances Moore Lappe and Nick Allen, 1982,185 pp., $4.95 from: Institute for Food and Development Policy 1885 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103 Joseph Collins, of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, was invited to Nicaragua in August 1979 by the one- month-old Sandinista government. The Sandinistas were forming an international advisory panel of people who had experience in agrarian reform and food policy. This book documents his perspective on the first three years of Sandinista attempts to create a new agricultural base for the emerging revolutionary society. We learn of the tremendous challenges the Sandinista leadership has confronted in trying to reform an agricultural system historically noted for gross inequities and exploitation of poor laborers. The Sandinistas faced many dilemmas. How could they balance their policy of the "logic of the majority"—meaning that the interests of the poor majority would take precedence over the interests of the wealthy elite—with their policy of "national unity"—their attempt to maintain support for a program of reconstruction among both the capitalist producers and the peasants? Also, how could they balance the need to grow food crops to feed the hungry with the need to grow export crops to obtain necessary foreign exchange? Significant tradeoffs were necessary. To further complicate matters, they had to make these difficult decisions in an atmosphere of increasing counterrevolutionary aggression and an economic destabilization campaign conducted by theU.S. What emerges is a picture of the Sandinista government in stark contrast to the one painted in the U.S. media. Collins shows that the Sandinistas, rather than being doctrinaire revolutionary ideologues, are open-mined and pragmatic about confronting Nicaragua's problems, as their openness to outside advisors indicates. Rather than following in the footsteps of any other revolutionary model—Soviet, Cuban, or otherwise— the Sandinistas seek to create a genuinely Nicaraguan revolution, based on their Christian heritage and Sandino's principles of national self-determination, democratic participation, and economic justice. Collins concludes that the Nicaraguan revolution demonstrates that there are more than two models for development, 'and that it could come to serve as an example to other Third World courvtries seeking to take control of their destiny— if only given a chance. —LR Science for the People, November/ December 1983, $2.50 from: Science for the People 897 Main Street Cambridge, MA 02139 This entire issue is devoted to positive developments in Central America. Five articles are about Nicaragua, including coverage of the new health care system, integrated pest management practices, and efforts to attain energy self-sufficiency. Another article is about health care in one of the rebel-controlled zones of El Salvador. All the articles are highly informative. —LR "Revolutionary Sandinistas Back Wide Range of Renewables," by Andy Feeney, Renewable Energy News, March 1984, $2.50 from: Renewable Energy News PO Box 690 Ogdenburg, NY 13669 "One of the most ambitious renewable energy development programs in the Western hemisphere may get under way this year in revolutionary Nicaragua." Thus begins this recent article by Andy Feeney. What prompts the Sandinista government to pursue such a program is not merely concern about the eventual depletion of global fossil-fuel reserves. One major concern is that 40% of Nicaragua's export income currently goes toward petroleum imports. Additionally, last October, CIA-backed contras destroyed one of the country's main fuel storage facilities and 135 million gallons of petroleum in the Pacific coast city of
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