Two NACLA members, Judy
Butler and Janet Shenk, had the
privilege of leading the first group
of political tourists from the United
States to Nicaragua this past
December. The 10-day tour, jointly
sponsored by NACLA and Monthly
Review Associates, attracted 37 of
our readers ranging in age from 17
to 87, and coming from all parts of
the United States and Canada. The
group travelled to a number of
cities including Managua, Le6n,
Esteli, Matagalpa, Masaya,
Monimb6 and Granada, and half
continued on for an additional four
days, visiting Bluefields on the
country’s Atlantic coast.
The tour was so successful, and
we were so impressed with the im-
portance of combatting the grow-
ing distortions about Nicaragua
which appear in the mainstream
media, that we are planning
another tour for July 1981, the
second anniversary of
Nicaragua’s revolution.
A Nicaraguan government
representative who joined us at
our first post-tour reunion-yes,
there has already been a re-
union!-noted that the Reagan
Administration has been so hostile
to Nicaragua because, “it has
been a shining example of how a
revolutionary people can begin to
build a more just society.” Our first
visit to that country proved that
touring Nicaragua is the best way
to evaluate that example.
There is no way we can share
with our readers the full impact of
our trip, nor in these few lines
deepen the analysis presented in
the May-June 1980 issue of the
NACLA Report. But since all of us,
tour leaders and participants alike,
found it a wonderfully memorable
experience, we would like to share
a little of its content and flavor.
JanlFeb 1981
NACLA’s Janet Shenk translates talk on counterrevolutionary attacks by Nicaraguan Junta member Moises Hassan.
Janet was a bit apprehensive
about the trip, never having been
a tour guide before. But, at
NACLA, one learns to do a lot of
new things, so she packed her
bags and gamely practiced her
“tour-guide smile.” I, being far
too idealistic to contemplate
such possibilities as personality
conflicts or bouts of “turista,”
busied myself with last-minute
hassles: how do we make
sure that everyone knows the
flight from Miami leaves 4 hours
ahead of schedule?
With only a few near-disasters,
we arrived safe and sound in
Managua – a city surrounded
by smoking volcanos and still
showing the devastation of the
1972 earthquake. There we met
the people from Viajes Universo
who would be our hard-working
companions for the next 10 days.
Viajes Universo is a private
Nicaraguan tour agency; the
government tourist board, In-
turismo, acts in a liason capaci-
ty.
This trip was to be Viajes
Universo’s initiation into political
tourism as well. There are
American tourists that don’t
want to lunch at the fanciest
hotel in town?, they questioned.
Americans that make a political
decision not to exchange their
dollars on the parallel market at
nearly twice the official rate?
Americans who will skip an after-
noon at the beach if there’s
another cooperative, day care
43update update * update update
center or hospital to see?
But our guides rallied almost
immediately. At our request they
quickly found some compafieros
to stencil a banner for our bus,
proclaiming us, “North
Americans – Friends of the
Revolution.” Thus identified, we
were met with warmth, generosi-
ty and openness wherever we
travelled. Workers on a state cof-
fee plantation shared their food
with us, guards in one of the
regional prisons permitted us to
tour the facility, and people in the
streets patiently slowed their
Spanish to a crawl to be sure we
all could communicate.
The importance of solidarity be-
tween the U.S. and Nicaraguan
people became each day more
critical as the U.S. government
escalated its support for the
repressive junta in neighboring El
Salvador. Personally invited by
Comandante of the Revolution and
Minister of the Interior Tomds
Borge, we attended a presentation
of military promotions to exem-
plary fighters in the insurrection.
As we marched toward the crowd
of 500 with our banner aloft, we
were greeted with loud, spon-
taneous applause.
The importance of this visit by
North Americans was clear also to
the Nicaraguan leaders who gave
unstintingly of their time to meet
with us. Moises Hassan, a
member of the Junta of National
Reconstruction, spoke to us for
two hours and stayed for a
Christmas Day buffet at our hotel,
even though he had used this holi-
day respite to get married only
three days before. We also met
with Comandante William
Ramirez, who was recovering
from an illness in Niquinomo, San-
dino’s birthplace. Ramirez, a
44
member of the FSLN Secretariat,
also heads the ministry in charge
of what is called the Atlantic
Coast – actually a region con-
taining more than half of
Nicaragua’s total territory. After a
lengthy presentation on U.S.
strategy in the region, he apolo-
gized for possibly reiterating things
we already knew. “But,” he ex-
plained, “I wanted to be thorough
because I know that in your coun-
try you don’t have this kind of ac-
cess to your own leaders.”
Finally, on the eighth day, by
popular demand and unanimous
exhaustion, we did spend an after-
noon on a deserted Pacific beach.
There, in a relaxed conversation
with our bus driver, Miguel, we
learned that he was an ex-guerrilla
fighter and had spent time in
Somoza’s prisons.
Those of us who took the boat
ride to Bluefields along the lush
Rio Escondido got a glimpse of
Nicaragua’s other reality. The
blufileios share a history very dif-
ferent from their brothers and
sisters on the other side of this
vast, rich and relatively un-
populated country (see “Atlantic
Coast Unrest,” NACLA Report,
Vol. XIV, No. 6). While for this
reason some do not perceive the
Sandinista revolution as their own,
we found that they share at least
two important characteristics
which should help the difficult pro-
cess of integration: warmth and
candor.
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