Readers are invited to address letters
to: Comment, NACLA, 151 W. 19th
Street, 9th floor, New York, NY 10011.
Letters may be edited for length and
clarity.
Implicity Pro-Soviet
In the May/June issue of the Report
you present Sandinista foreign policy
as a struggle for non-alignment. But is
it not true that the Sandinista leader-
ship supported martial law in Poland
in December 1981 and January 1982? If
so, it would certainly be pro-Soviet,
not non-aligned. In any case, I missed
reference to Poland in your article
(while you did use the example of Af-
ghanistan to support your own argu-
ment).
In general, the tone seemed implic-
ity pro-Soviet, unlike the usual
NACLA independence. For example,
on page 16, “the Soviet Union has
generally supported [non-alignment
and the non-aligned movement].”
This implicity accepts that the words
of Soviet foreign policy are also its
substance, and not a tool of its strug-
gle with U.S. dominance.
Paul Zarembka
Editor, Research in
Political Economy
Buffalo, NY
The authors respond:
While it is true that the FSLN news-
paper Barricada supported the impos-
ition of martial law in Poland, it still
appears to us that Professor Zarembka
is guilty of the same fallacy of which
he accuses us: namely, accepting that
“the words” of Sandinista foreign
policy are also its “substance.”
Nicaragua’s efforts at non-alignment
cannot be reduced to its position on
the Polish Solidarity movement. As
Zarembka suggests, rhetoric in inter-
national forums is not usually the best
yardstick for judging a nation’s for-
eign policy.
Our analysis examined the pattern
of Sandinista rhetoric and behavior
and concluded that it did not com-
promise Nicaragua’s non-aligned
status. Peru, for example, has fol-
lowed Soviet votes in the United
Nations more closely than has
Nicaragua and it has received consid-
erably more Soviet military equip-
ment and assistance than Nicaragua,
yet nobody in Washington questions
Peru’s non-aligned status or its right
to exist. In the UN Nicaragua gener-
ally votes with the Third World
“Group of 77.” Sometimes this
means that it votes with the USSR,
but not always. Nicaragua voted for
the suspension of nuclear testing,
while the USSR abstained. It voted
with the United States for sending re-
construction relief to Chad, which the
USSR opposed. It has, as our Report
pointed out, abstained on the Af-
ghanistan issue and argued for non-in-
tervention during the relevant debates.
We stated in our supposedly pro-
Soviet article that the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan “challenges the Soviet
commitment to its founding princi-
ples” (p.16).
Our statement that the USSR has
generally supported non-alignment
was not based simply on Soviet
rhetoric, but on commonly accepted
facts with which most scholars would
agree. Since most countries which
embraced non-alignment did so to dis-
tance themselves from their former
Western colonial masters, the USSR
tended to view a country’s entry into
NAM favorably since it would be a
loss for the West. This was not, of
course, the case with Yugoslavia. In-
deed, superpower approval or disap-
proval of a country’s non-alignment
depends considerbly on that country’s
past status. While The New York
Times, for example, recently dis-
played alarm at the thought that An-
dreas Papandreou might “try to run
Greece into a non-aligned one-party
state,” it also called for “interna-
tional pressure” to induce Cambodia
“to permit a nonaligned, broadly-
based regime.”
We are baffled by Professor
Zarembka’s assertion that “in gen-
eral, the tone of our articles seemed
implicitly pro-Soviet.” While it is
clear that there are, for Nicaragua,
positive aspects of its relations with
the USSR and its allies, there are also
a number of negative aspects which
we described in our articles. These in-
clude the problems of poor quality
socialist country technology (see
pages 14, 43, 49); the socialist coun-
tries’ inability to pay hard currency
for Nicaraguan products and their lack
of flexibility in trade relations (p.43);
the limited relevance of central plan-
ning to Nicaragua’s mixed economy
and the “lack of comprehension” of
some Eastern European economic ad-
visers (p.48); and the higher interest
rates of socialist country loans (p.42).
We also noted that FSLN activists
have a history of independence from
Moscow-oriented Marxism (p.14, 20,
35). We assure Professor Zarembka
that pro-Soviet publications are loathe
to discuss these issues.
Breaking New Ground
I was extremely impressed by your
excellent article on “Nicaragua and
the Socialist Countries.” In what was
in my view the best issue of the Re-
port in a long time, Marc Edelman’s
contribution stood out because of the
major piece of original research on
which it was based and for its reada-
bility and persuasive line of analysis.
Richard Gillespie
Department of Politics,
University of Newcastle
upon Tyne, England.
Legitimizing Despots?
I would like to express strong ob-
jections to the publication of “A Talk
with Eric Gairy” (March/April). A
progressive periodical should not pro-
vide a forum for the despotic former
dictator of Grenada, regardless of how
amusing or “bizarre” you may find
his comments. The legitimizing of a
man judged by the international com-
munity as a buffoon, whose name
evoked fear in the hearts of Grenada’s
masses for more than two decades,
would be expected from a right-wing
think tank, not from NACLA.
There are many pressing topics
concerning Grenada. Dessima Wil-
liams, Grenada’s former ambassador
to the OAS and a leading spokesper-
son abroad for the Grenadian people’s
aspirations, has been harassed by
U.S. immigration authorities and
needs our support. INS has stated its
intention to appeal a recent decision
allowing her to remain in this coun-
try-the same country which gave
Gairy refuge for more than four years
while the People’s Revolutionary
Government tried to extradite him to
face criminal charges in Grenada.
Doris Kitson
New York, NY
George Black responds:
I am sorry that anyone should have
taken the publication of Sir Eric
Gairy’s lunatic ramblings as
“legitimizing” him editorially. But I
am even sorrier that the Left seems so
determined to add its own humorless-
ness to the formidable list of real ob-
stacles it already faces. As George Or-
well once remarked, socialism is cer-
tainly the answer, but its biggest prob-
lem is “the dreary tribe of high-
minded people” who flock to its
cause. The greatest irony is that the
revolutionaries in places like Gre-
nada, who actually suffer under the
likes of Gairy, invariably do so with
more humor and equanimity than their
pious supporters abroad. A quick con-
versation with almost any former PRG
official in St. George’s will prove the
point.
Of course, Gairy’s rule was corrupt
and brutish, and most Grenadians
spent it in abject poverty. Far more
useful and disturbing, however, than
invoking the “fear in the hearts of
Grenada’s masses,” is to explore the
baffling mystery of why, after four
and half years of revolution, those
same masses should have given 35%
of the vote to this buffoon, who re-
mains visibly the most popular politi-
cian on the island. It was only the fear
of Gairy’s return to power that gave
birth to Herbert Blaize’s rickety U.S.-
engineered alliance. And it is that
same fear that is primarily responsible
for keeping the alliance in one piece
today. As we go to press, in fact,
Blaize is being threatened by an all-
out strike called by Gairy.
The photograph on page five of our July/
August issue, “Mare Nostrum,” was in-
correctly credited. Our apologies to Rick
Reinhard, who took the photo in Morazin,
El Salvador.
Menu
