July/August 1984 RAIN Page 9 Corinto. This prompted Exxon to announce that it would no longer use its own ships to bring petroleum into Nicaragua for safety reasons. Under these severe circumstances, shifting to a base of domestic energy resources has become a practical necessity. —LR "Revolution Provides Lessons for Urban Activists," by Michael McConnell, The Neighborhood Works, February 1984, $2 from: Center for Neighborhood Technology 570 West Randolph Street Chicago, IL 60606 Discusses the institutions for local parHci- patory democracy that are developing in Nicaragua. The Sandinista view of democracy clearly goes beyond merely voting in national elections every few years. —LR rate involvement in Central America with lots of statistics, lists, charts, and footnotes, Part One includes analyses of agricultural trade, international financing, military alliances, and the real beneficiaries of foreign aid. Part Two gives a political, economic, and historical profile of each of the seven Central American countries, along with a complete listing of the U.S. corporations operating in each country. —LR Central America Bulletin, monthly, $15/ year from: Central America Research Institute PO Box 4797 Berkeley, CA 94704-4797 Formerly the El Salvador Bulletin, this 8- page monthly features three or four well- researched articles about the latest political developments in Central America in each issue. —LR The Nicaraguan Reader: Documents of a Revolution underfire, edited by Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer, 1983, 359 pp., $8.95. El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War, edited by M. E. Gettleman et al., 1981, 397 pp.,$7.95. Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History, edited by Jonathan Fried et al., 1983, 342 pp., $7.95. All from: Grove Press 196 West Houston Street New York, NY 10014 Each of these readers covers all aspects of the conflict in each country. Each is organized in thematic sections with editors' introductions and a variety of readings from the p>olitical right (usually U.S. government documents) and left. These books are probably the best introductions for those wishing to gain a broad and balanced understanding of the problems and prospects of these three countries. —LR Dollars and Dictators: A Guide to Central America, by Tom Barry, Beth Wood, and Deb Preusch, second edition, 1983, 282 pp., $6.95 from: Grove Press 196 West Houston Street New York, NY 10014 Have you suspected that corporate interests might be involved in the U.S. government's concern about Central America, but not had the data available to substantiate your suspicions? You'll find it all here in this book. The authors document U.S. government and corpoCommittee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) 19 West 21st Street, 2nd Floor NewYork, NY 10010 With more than 300 local organizations nation-wide, CISPES is the largest Central American solidarity organization in the U.S. Dealing with the problems of the region as well as El Salvador, CISPES' activities include letter-writing and petition campaigns, door-to-door canvassing, film and slide presentations, local and national demonstrations, and medical aid to El Salvador. CISPES publishes a monthly newspaper, El Salvador Alert! ($10/year), covering both developments in Central America and anti-intervention activities in the U.S. —LR CPF New El Salvador Today NEST Foundation POBox4762-A Berkeley, CA 94704 We know what the rebels in El Salvador are fighting against, but do we know what they are fighting/or? To get a glimpse of the new society they seek to create, we can look to those areas currently under control of the rebel forces, known as the "zones of control." NEST was founded to bring information about the zones of control to the American people. Through NEST we learn about the local Popular Governments—newly developed insHtutions for community participation in decisions regarding the areas of Production and Distribution, Education, Health, Civil and Local Affairs, Public Works, and Security and Self-Defense. NEST not only provides information about life in the zones of control, but also raises funds for the Local Popular Governments, and promotes sister-city and sister-committee projects. (Berkeley has become a sister-city to the rebel town of San Antonio Los Ranchos.) To learn more about life in the zones of control, read NEST's 32-page booklet, A View of Life in the New El Salvador, available for $1.50 from Solidarity Publications, PO Box 40874, San Francisco, CA 94140. —LR Nicaragua Seed Project Tilth 4649 Sunnyside North Seattle, WA 98103 This project was born at the Chinook economics conference in May. We collected over $700 at the conference to buy seeds for Nicaraguan farmers. The project was inspired by an article by James Donaldson in the spring issue of ' Tilth. Donaldson had just returned from Nicaragua with two messages to the American people from the farmers of the Sandinista Sustainable Agricultural Movement: "Please vote" and "please send us seeds." Nicaraguan farmers are engaged in a program to transform agricultural practices during 1984 and 1985 comparable to the massive literacy campaign conducted in the year after the revolution. Their goal is food self-sufficiency for virtually every Nicaraguan family by 1986. If you wish to help them reach their goal, you can send a tax- deductible contribution to Tilth, which will buy seeds in this country and send them with the next delegation that visits Nicaragua. —LR
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