Parts three and four of the the Afterparty interview with former Sandinista and now democracy activist Benjamin Lugo. You can read the first parts here: http://thevisionproject.com/2015/01/05/benjamin-lugo-on-the-betrayal-of-the-sandinista-revolution-and-the-tenuous-hope-for-nicaraguan-democracy/ Thanks to Afterparty project intern Anaka Allen for transcribing the interview.

PART 3

Dictatorship

Brian: What was the decision-making process for (Nicaragua President and former Sandinista guerrilla leader) Ortega to finally say, they were defeating the contras militarily, “No, let’s do this election and let’s do it fairly.” What was underneath the decision?

Lugo: They felt they could win.

B: They thought they could win.

L: And then by legitimizing themselves through an election process, then they could ask European people, the United States, for money.

Hand rolled cigar shop in Granada, Nicaragua

B: They had been turning people off for a while, European social democratic countries that might be willing to support them, and did they see this as a way to say, “We know we’re going to win because we are going to manipulate public opinion and the election and divide all the potential opposition?”

L: After the war, it would take some pressure off from them because they could say to the world, “What’s wrong with all of you? People are supporting Nicaragua, people are supporting us and our policies. You have to show respect for our policies.” So in a sense they allowed international observers by the hundreds: the Organization of American States, United Nations, European Union, Canada; groups of observers with a lot of resources, vehicles, communication equipment. But, they thought that they could win. And the polls were favorable to them. Because even now, you go and ask people, they say we always support Ortega. It’s not true, but they say it. The same thing happened back in 1990, because they thought they could win it and people would be saying that in the polls. And the international observers are the ones that did not let the Sandinistas get away with the denial of the victory of Violeta Chamorro. They couldn’t do it. Carter was the one that told [Ortega], “You have to admit this. We already have all the figures with us. You lost.” So he said, “Okay.” So he gave a press conference at 6 o’clock in the morning the following day. He was crying, and most of his people, too. Because they never thought…After that lesson they learned, from 2008 to this day, they have never allowed international observers for the elections. And that is something that brings us to today.

We, in Nicaragua, are living under a dictatorship. Ortegista in this case.

B: A dictatorship, which is a strong term, is characterized by what?

L: Two things. The origin is not legitimate because it is coming from a fraud, and then an unconstitutional candidacy, he cannot be a candidate again. He had already been president twice, and it is not allowed, the continuous reelection, in this country. So he disregarded that through a supreme court ruling and then he committed fraud in 2011. [Laughs] And besides not being [of] a democratic origin in the sense that he won the election, in practice, he does not act democratically.

B: Is there some parallel between his style and Hugo Chavez’s style, where Chavez had a lot of populist sympathy and then gradually controlled the supreme court, controlled the legislature, changed the law and had more and more intimidating power? Is that a model for him?

Campesino statue in Managua, Nicaragua

L: [Mockingly] A periodista asked me what did I think about the socialismo del siglo XXI, now that Chavez was passing away. I said to him, “What socialismo del siglo XXI? Somocismo del siglo XXI is what we have here.” That’s what we have. Time’s changed. They say that we’re not in 1979, there’s a different story now. But these attitudes of staying in power, just for staying in power, is bad news in a sense that no matter what, to stay in power is the goal. You don’t care whether you have the support of the people or not.

Socialismo del siglo XXI is a set of socialist principles put forward by the late Hugo Chávez among others, ostensibly promoting democratic election rather than violent revolution.  Critics challenge Chavez’ electoral practices.  Somocismo refers to the dictatorial system of the Somoza family. 

B: When I asked Carlos Chamorro, while he was editor of Barricada, why the Sandinista government restricted or shut down the opposition press, he answered, “We are under aggression and we have to do whatever it takes to succeed.”  At the time, the attitude was, ‘elections, sure, that sounds fine’, but above elections is social justice.

L: The happiness of the people. So that people can be happy. Yes, but that’s a degradation, a betrayal of what was proposed in ’78. Because it was through freedom, it was through democracy, and it was through the free enterprise regulated by the strong government, but we thought we were going to be able to make changes in Nicaragua. Then the rest is like Stalinist, especially now, we control everything because we are the guardians—

B: So why did the Nicaraguan people put up with it, why do they allow it?

L: We never allowed it. Who allowed it

B: Well Ortega is in power so, it’s allowed.

L: No, it’s not allowed.

—————-

Walking through Managua my first day in Nicaragua, I wandered onto a rally celebrating the 35th anniversary of the revolution and the establishment of the Managua police department. Daniel Ortega spoke in the rain. He and his wife drove past me at one point.

B: My first full day in Managua, I walked down Bolivar Avenue, and I saw the huge Hugo Chavez tribute in the roundabout. Now, it’s one thing to pay some tribute, “the guy’s giving us cheap oil and he’s been a friend to our country,” but this statue is like sainthood.

L: Yea they want to make him appear like a god. For them, he was like a god because he gave them the money they never thought they could have, and tried to come back to power through elections. But he’s got control of every single branch of government: the judicial power, the electoral one, legislative branch and the executive branch. He’s got it all, you know; a monopoly of power. And he uses the resources of the country in a discretionary way and also he closed down a couple of political parties in 24 hours. All these political parties that exist right now, they exist today, but tomorrow, they may not exist..

B: In the United States, we keep going to war, sometimes you wonder, is there something in the national psyche that drives certain kinds of behaviors? You look at Russia, you have the czars, and then you have the Bolshevik Revolution, and then you have Stalin acting like a czar. So is there something in the Nicaraguan psyche that draws that kind of behavior because it’s been around so long?

L: No. The Nicaraguan people are people that deserve better. We have fought, we have sacrificed, and we deserve to change the way the country has been, is governed. So we have been out of luck, I think. In that sense, I have no regrets for my people. We have fought every step of the way against dictatorships. And we still haven’t finished, that’s all. We haven’t finished.

PART 4 

Where we went wrong

B: Are there people in Nicaragua, strong, articulate public figures, in opposition, saying we gotta change this? Or are people giving up because they are exhausted and well, just allow [Ortega] to do what he is doing?

L: No we’re not exhausted, we’re tired and uncomfortable with this, but we’re not exhausted. I’m part of this citizen’s movement called Movimento por Nicaragua. It’s a movement [whose] role is to restore democracy, liberty, freedom in Nicaragua, and then on that basis, create a more developed country with social justice. That’s what we want and we don’t want to be a political party. But in 2008, which were the municipal elections, and then 2011 which were the presidential elections, these political parties that were supposed to defend the vote of the people, didn’t do it. So all of a sudden here we were in the streets calling it, “un robo a la luz del día” [a theft in the light of day], the 2011 elections.  Everybody knows, here in Nicaragua, you can ask anybody what happened in 2011.

At this point, he stops to speak to the waitress in Spanish, asking her opinion on the aforementioned elections.

B: Translation?

L: Everybody in Nicaragua knows it was fraud. She says that [Ortega] gives the order to commit fraud, and it happens because it is a dictatorship. He orders his magistrados to do this or that, and they do that.

B: Magistrados? Magistrates? Judges?

L: Judges, yes.

B: It’s perplexing to me, because I read the books; Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, all the history. As an American, I read all the history of what the United States has done in Nicaragua and, the Sandinistas, their language is a little Marxist for my taste, that’s fine, it’s motivating and they overthrow Somoza—

Revered Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario, Managua Airport.

L: Up to July 19, the struggle was a just cause. What happened after that, then you can debate.

B: It seems surprising to me, because I’m naive, but it seems stupid to me. It seems like you have an opportunity after all of this horror for so many years to have the United States supporting, providing aid. [It’s the] end of Somoza, end of the National Guard—you might even do something like Costa Rica; no army. You have the Chamorros, and business people, and the Catholic Church. It’s an opportunity, a moment in time of tremendous opportunity.

L: Everybody was supporting this revolution. The whole world. Because we gave up our lives, and then the world, people, recognized that.

B: And didn’t people, I’m speculating, have some sympathy that [there was the] Spanish conquest, a fucking mass slaughter of indigenous people; military dictatorship supported by European colonial powers and the United States; and now [there’s] a chance to move forward. A little bit of guilt, a little bit of inspiration, and a great moment in history.

L: We moved backwards because coming from a right-wing dictatorship, we came into a left-wing dictatorship in the 1980s, with tremendous repression. And now, I have to be honest. Maybe they thought that was the best thing they could do. They were wrong. Some of these people in government in the 1980s thought that this was the best way to do it, but we only have to review a bit what was happening with Cuba, with the Soviet Union to understand that it was not——

B: It sounds like, by that time, they were too much in the pocket of——

L: Ideology.

B: That’s right, ideologically and organizationally too committed, too controlled, too influenced. Because your brothers and sisters are being killed, you’re being given weapons by the Soviet bloc, support by Cuba, you’re living in Cuba for a while, so it’s pretty hard to say you know——

L: But lately, because everything was helping a lot by lending [to] us, [to] the country, to be at [the same] pace. Venezuela sent some arms and weapons, too. Panama helped with money, so Cuba was not the only support.

B: Especially in the later years.

L: There were [other] democratic governments.

Hope for the future

L: The situation now is that we have this government that has lost, as of today, probably more than 2 billion dollars in aid, 2 thousand million dollars, from the United States, Canada, [and the] European Union. And then from individual countries [including] Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland. They used to help this effort for rebuilding roads, or for schools, or for the health system. So they have retired all this aid because of these two electoral frauds; the municipal elections in 2008 and the presidential election in 2011. They were supported by Venezuela, this regime, at the tune of about 500 million dollars a year.

B: Was that in oil subsidies or in direct support?

L: We have a bill of about 10 million barrels of oil a year, times one hundred dollars is 1 billion dollars. Out of that bill, the Nicaraguan government sends in to Venezuela 50% of the bill and the other 50% stays here. Then they have some discretionary power of how to spend it. Some of that money, to be honest, is being used for subsidizing transportation in Managua. You only pay…about 10 cents of a dollar for any ride, which is too cheap for the cost of it. And they also have a bonus for public employees. If they make under 200 dollars a month, then they give them a subsidy of 80 dollars or so a month. So all of that amounts to a lot of money, but not to 500 million dollars a year.

So the problem right now is that we have elections coming, and we have the same electoral power magistrados, that have been re-elected by the dictatorship to keep the status quo. Because if you let them go away, fire them, everybody will say, “How come we are firing people that are supposed to be doing their jobs right?” It would be like assuming they are at fault, accepting they are at fault.

So in a sense with these new elections that are coming up in 2016, we need to have an electoral process that is clean and that respects each Nicaraguan vote. We need to have for that, observados electorales internacionales and nacionales. Because international review may bring in one thousand [or] two thousand…but you have to add to that some 20 thousand national observers. Then you have a good team to protect the vote of the people. So what the Sandinistas did in 1990, was to learn that they should never allow international observation here. They have never allowed it again

B: So was Somoza right? That if he’s thrown out there’s going to be a communist dictatorship? [laughs] It’s a silly question.

L: You want me to accept that shit that Somoza was right? Well, in a sense he was right because the revolution was betrayed. He is right because the revolution was betrayed, but he was not right because…

B: I only ask that, not to be sarcastic or disrespectful, but in my research I’m looking at Guatemala, Arbenz overthrow, 1954 and then the civil war and Reagan supporting Rios Montt and all of the things the United States has done worldwide. There’s this claim that there’s an international communist conspiracy, and the Soviet bloc, and——

Famed guerrilla Eden Pastora, who electrified Nicaraguans by tearing off his hood after taking over the National Assembly as Comandante Cero (“Commander Zero”). He became disillusioned with the Sandinista government and took up arms against it.

L: Unfortunately we lost that moment in 1979, when we could have had a different kind of relationship with the United States, even though they did what they did with supporting the Somoza regime, because we already were in power—the revolution was in power. So it could have been a different type of dialogue with the United States, and all of that was lost because of this obsession with the Soviet regime and the Cuban socialist regime.

B: The irony to me, is that they overthrow Arbenz, and he wasn’t communist at all, he had some communist advisers, but here’s a situation where they turned out to actually want to create a left-wing dictatorship, which was the paranoid prediction of the Reagan administration and of Somoza.

L: No, it’s not that Carter or the U.S. government was willing to allow a left-wing dictatorship here. They thought that a different kind of a revolution was going to take place in Nicaragua, and that we would be unaligned, and that we would be democratic.

B: But the Sandinistas were not going to allow that.

L: This radical group of people [made] the decision to forget about the 1978 proposal and go back to the 1968 one. And that was a terrible, terrible mistake, and as I said, it was a historical opportunity to have a new kind of relationship with the United States. and I think that even the United States would have learned if that process had gone through. It’s a waste.

B: In effect, you are almost screwing other countries in the future who wanted to say, “We want to do things our own way” and the United States would say, “No, we saw already how that worked out.”

L: Like what happened in El Salvador.

B: That’s right.

L: What we need in Nicaragua, and we’re going to fight for it, is to have these free elections in 2016. We want the will of the people to be respected, each vote to be respected. For that we know we have to struggle, we have to be in the streets demanding observacion electoral, a year before the election.

B: Well I’ll come down to be an observer [laughs]. Tell me Benjamin, how would you like to be known?

L: A Nicaraguan citizen that wants to see a democratic and free Nicaragua, and that has lived through dictatorship, back with the Somoza regime and then with the Sandinista regime. We had a 6-year period where we started getting things back into place with this Violeta Chamorro government. I worked with the Violeta Chamorro government because in 1989, I came and started supporting the campaign, and then in 1990 Violeta won the government, so I came to work with the Ministerio de la Paciencia with Antonio Lacayo. We saw what a country could do.

B: So that period was successful

L: Successful. A tremendously successful period in Nicaragua. Reconciliation. We were not a government that would go after the Sandinistas trying to find them or imprison them. We were more open than that. I think it worked out because the country started to recuperate from all of the terrible things that happened during both wars. The first war against the Somoza dictatorship, and then the other war against the Sandinista dictatorship. But, the point now is that we have lost millions of dollars in aid, and millions of dollars in confidence from investors. That’s why you see all this country with no development compared to Costa Rica or Panama. There is no confidence in people here to invest where his own government cut off aid.

B: It’s a sad story, but there may be an opportunity in 2016 to change it.

L: For change with pacific means, nonviolent means. But if you want to recuperate democracy and freedom, we have to fight for it, nonviolent forms of struggle. We feel that it’s basic, we recuperate the electoral process as a means for the people to decide on which proposal they want to take. Because when you have these proposals made to the people and then you manipulate the votes [on] that night, then [the results make no sense] to the people.

—————-

Special thanks to new editorial intern Anaka Allen for transcribing my three hour encounter with Ben Lugo in Granada, Nicaragua, and for offering these additional resources for more information on the subject. Photos will be added after approval by Ben.

For a quick rundown of the history of Nicaragua and its relationship with the United States, check out the “History of Nicaragua” page on Wikipedia. For more in depth information, check out Stephen Kinzer’s Blood Brothers and Pierre LaRamee and Erica Polakoff’s Undermining of the Sandinista Revolution (1999).

For a short but sweet timeline of Nicaragua history check out: http://web.stanford.edu/group/arts/nicaragua/discovery_eng/timeline/

Another timeline more focused on the Iran-Contra Affair:

https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/timeline-nicaragua.php

For more information on the relationship of the contras and Iran:

https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understaning_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/iran-contra-affairs.php

Background on Sandinistas: https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-sandinistas.php

For a not entirely objective review of the Reagan administration’s foreign policy, mostly in regards to the Miskito Indians, check out:

http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/3245

For a slightly ragey and more critical view of the Sandinista revolution (and liberal America) read:

http://www.davekopel.com/Misc/Nicaragua.htm

I had a flight to Panama in the morning, and was finishing my work in Managua. But there was an opportunity to meet with Ben Lugo in Granada. So I  finished my interview with broadcasting icon Carlos Chamorro and boarded a ‘chicken bus’ for my dinner with Benjamin. After a rollicking bus ride, I sat in the vernanda of a grand old hotel overlooking the Parque Central, the same spot where Tenneseean mercenary William Walker once roamed, burning the city to the ground after his dreams of being emperor of Central America was dashed. Ben was late but I didn’t mind as I sipped a beer on beautiful, sultry evening. A scantily-clad prostitute periodically approached, each time lowering her price ($20!). Finally, Ben arrived and we went to a deserted outdoor restaurant for an unhealthy dinner of nachos, beer and vodka. Below are parts one and two of our three hour chat. The transcription is the work of new Afterparty intern Anaka Allen. 

PART 1

Contrarrevolución

Benjamin Lugo is a democracy activist, a former Sandinista who has seen Nicaragua struggle through a quarter century of political growing pains.  The United States has been involved  in Nicaraguan politics for more than a century.  With support from Cuba and the Soviet Union, Sandinista revolutionaries launched a guerrilla war against US-backed president Anastasio Somoza Debayle, overthrowing him in 1979. President Jimmy Carter cut off long-standing economic and military aid to Somoza in 1977 because of his widely-condemned human rights record. 

Ben begins his analysis of American intervention and its effects in Nicaragua by introducing how the relationship of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas with the FMLN of El Salvador. 

Lugo: In 1979 there was a historical opportunity to have a different relationship with the United States. And then I think that because of all that was happening here in the Sandinista regime against private enterprise, against all these people that were not part of the Somoza dictatorship, I think that worked against El Salvador (so) people would not help or support the FMLN.

The FMLN, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, was a left-wing political party in El Salvador, comprised of multiple leftist guerrilla groups.

Lugo: Because the private sector in El Salvador and the United States said, “This is happening in Nicaragua.” So that actually was a catalyst against the FMLN in El Salvador; what was happening here back in 1980. And then what happened was terrible because all of this started to decrease efficiency and production, and then more and more resources were committed to war efforts against the contras, which was a small group in Honduras but then—

BG: So are you suggesting that the Sandinistas used the contras as a way to create a paranoid justification for more radicalization?

Lugo: To be more radical. They like to be warriors, you know. I think there is even this syndrome of greatness.

BG: Going from a bitter, brutal, bloody guerrilla life in the mountains, with that kind of camaraderie and success, [to] then suddenly [having] to govern; that’s pretty boring. You have to compromise and fix potholes, you have to do all the boring administrative stuff. These twenty-year old kids who have been the commanders of some large area, they’re neither trained nor interested in doing that. So to say, now we’re back, we have this common enemy…

Lugo: It was more exciting to say that, but it was terrible for the country. Because then you started getting into the Cold War with two big players, with the United States. Then this Nicaragua, instead of learning from the Cuban failures — there are good things in Cuba, education and health care for the kids, that we should take.

BG: Even take some of their doctors.

Lugo: See if they can help us. But to go and ally yourself with that terrible, state-owned, state-directed economy, is terrible. So the country started failing economically and then the war effort made it worse. It’s not only the war that created all this chaos. It was the attitude of confiscating everything, everything becomes state-owned. We don’t need a new war to ruin the country, that made it worse, of course. But [there were] already a lot of problems back in ’83-’84, before the war.

In 1981, President Reagan withdrew aid to Nicaragua when the Sandinistas would not end their support of the rebel forces in El Salvador. The Reagan administration viewed the Sandinistas as a dangerous political enemy because of their interaction with communist Cuba under Fidel Castro and the Soviet bloc. The Reagan administration, led by the CIA, began covertly assisting anti-Sandinista fighters, the contras, claiming that their intention was to disrupt the flow of arms to revolutionaries in El Salvador. By late 1982, the United States was funding and managing operations of the contras. President Reagan claimed that America’s goal was to ensure that Nicaragua did not spread violence and rebellion to its Latin American neighbors, specifically El Salvador.

BG: So you’re talking about ’83-’84. It’s my general understanding, that in the beginning, the contras were created out of whole cloth by the United States CIA. They supported the soldiers in Honduras, gave them money, gave them ideological talking points, gave them direction, told them what to do, brought them together in Miami to create a committee.

L: I have to be honest with you, no matter what Reagan or the United States did, if there were no people willing to fight, there was nothing they could do. There were a lot of people willing to fight against the Sandinistas.

B: The Guardia Nacional.

L: No! That was only a small nucleus of maybe two to three thousand people at the most. It’s just an educated guess. I didn’t count them, [laughs] I didn’t like them either. But then from there to eighteen thousand? Something happened there. There were no more National Guardsmen. That was it.

B: So would you say that if the United States did not make that effort—and I wasn’t meaning to demean the broad base of support based on all the issues you talked about that caused people to want to join the contras or one of the contra factions—but would you say that if the United States did nothing, the contras, the counter-revolution would have still happened?

L: Oh yeah, maybe not the way it happened, but a lot of disaffected people, people that were kicked out of their own small plots of land—

B: And then you have the Miskito Indians. Reagan went on television and said, “I am a Miskito Indian.”

L: Yeah. “Yo soy un freedom fighter,” but that was later. Those Miskito Indians did not even know who the CIA was.

B: And my understanding is that the Miskitos had a lot of autonomy under Somoza, so they really didn’t have a lot of problems with him.

L: No, they did. They were taking down the forest, were cutting up trees, this and that.

The Miskito Indians are a tribe that inhabits the northeastern coast of Nicaragua near Puerto Cabezas.  During the Sandinista revolution, many of the tribe sided with the contras.

PART 2

Betrayed Revolution

Lugo claims that the Nicaraguan people suffered great disappointment during the Sandinista regime because they betrayed their original intentions of dismantling the practices of the Somoza dictatorship, ushering in a new government focused on unifying Nicaragua through Marxist-Leninist ideology. 

L: [There was a] change in the direction of the revolution [that] was catastrophic to the country. It led us to a war because, without us knowing, they were trying to confiscate areas, in the rural areas to make [room for] enormous foreign projects, for sugar cane, etc. They were displacing all these small peasants from the land, so these people started fleeing to Honduras and that’s where the contras got bigger and bigger. It’s not like they were imported from Afghanistan. They were Nicaraguans that were displaced from the Sandinista repression.

And then the Miskito Indians, los Miskitos in Puerto Cabeza, they started organizing themselves because they said things were going to be very different with the new revolution, but they started being persecuted too, all of a sudden in like 1981/1982. By that time, the economy was coming down. No political parties were allowed.

Some things were done in a short period of time, including the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, that was not denounced by the Sandinista regime. I said, “This is not what we fought for, this is not what we wanted, this is not what all my friends died for.”

Another terrible [betrayal] was that the former Somoza regime, the leaders, lived in these big houses, and then the Sandinistas came to live in those same houses, with the same swimming pools and sometimes they even kept maids and drivers. So that was terrible because if you are preaching to be humble and to be for the people, and that you are going to save money so that people can live better, and then all of a sudden you go out and live in the same houses…It was a continuous degradation from the original 1978 proposition.

B: And in your personal evolution, what official, unofficial or active role did you have with the Sandinistas in ’79, and how did you gradually change and decide to actively oppose the regime?

L: This revolution was so much my revolution that I never fought against it afterwards. So I was never part of the contras. For one thing, I resented the fact that some of the leaders were part of the Somoza National Guard. We have nothing to do with them, you know. And then the United States being so openly supporting it with Reagan, you know.

B: More of the same.

L: During these years in 1980/81, Doña Violeta [spoke against] the regime; Alfonso Robelo too. Another experience that I lived, was in Nandaime. Robelo called for a citizens movement in Nandaime against what we were seeing: the overtaking of the revolution by these radical people. So he said we are going to march in Nandaime. It was on a Sunday. That was the first time I saw the Sandinista army with guns opposing the people. That was marked in my mind. I saw this and thought, “It’s almost the National Guard, again.” It was terrible what happened to me that Sunday morning.

B: So talk about the 80s, you said you didn’t join the contras, tell me more about your personal evolution from 1979 to 1989. I mean, you’ve already talked about how you were seeing certain things that were troubling to you.

L: In 1982, a little brother of mine had this terrible accident in Atlanta. He suffered a stroke at 16 years old. So I had to go urgently to the hospital in Atlanta. When I left the country, they said that I had fled the country, and they knew it was because of this reason, because of my brother. So they decided to confiscate our properties: my family’s, mine, whatever we had. It was kind of ironic, having been part of this revolution, you know.

B: Were they targeting you for any reason?

L: [It was to counter] the bourgeoisie. Because of this decision, they wanted everything to be state-owned. So, they said I had fled so they took over the company, houses—bite by bite, ruining the country, the economy. It was a no-win situation because you are degrading your productive system, inside the country, and then you have a war that was financed by the United States, by Reagan. But there were no mercenaries, in the sense that, they were all Nicaraguan people that were disaffected by this regime. So you could have all the money in the world, but if you have no people willing to fight, the money sits there. Period. So it was this combination of factors. Then by becoming pro-Cuba, you were actually confronting the United States.

After the Sandinistas took control of the Nicaraguan government, they became more radical in the eyes of both the opposition and supporters. New economic policies included confiscating, occupying and redistributing properties, businesses and finances.  At one point, they began to restrict the press. Parts three and four of the conversation will be posted shortly.

Day One in Managua. I didn’t believe New York Times journalist Stephen Kinzer’s claim that there are literally no addresses for most places here. But sure enough, my hotel has no address in the Expedia confirmation. I made it here from the bus station after midnight last night by having the cab driver call the office. Today’s strategy is to walk out the front door, turn right and explore the city, getting back by simply retracing my steps. I have the hotel phone number and the cross streets in my iPhone.

The hotel receptionist suggests that the lake is far off and I might want a taxi, but I need the exercise so I grab my day backpack and head off. My goals are to find a place to write and post, see the city, and ask people how Daniel Ortega 2.0 is doing since his extraordinary resurgence as president. That and find some cheap but colorful places to eat and drink.

Some things about Managua from street level: There are no crosswalks. There are no street signs. As in Guatemala, people mostly do not speak English. And it’s very hot, though today’s heat is tempered by some clouds and, soon, a light rain.

I make it to the Crowne Plaza hotel after an unsuccessful attempt to find wifi and an AC outlet at the shopping mall. The Tender Mercies of travel: air conditioning, water, electricity, good wifi, a clean bathroom, a cheap but good meal. More water. This first leg of the global walkabout is about experimentation, process, testing early assumptions. And developing a routine for low cost, high efficiency travel writing.

I pay the bill and walk out the hotel front door, only to be accosted by a loud middle-aged gentleman speaking heavily-accented English. Was I being sold something, gently mugged, befriended? Three hotel employees in branded beige polo shirts approach us.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE NICARAGUA? DO YOU LIKE OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY MANAGUA? ARE YOU AMERICAN?”

“I love your country. I love your city. Thanks for asking.” I smile and check him out. He is in jeans, worn tennis shoes, a threadbare blue T-shirt, and has an exuberant look on his face.

“WHAT’S YOUR NAME? WHERE YOU FROM? HOW LONG ARE YOU STAYING?”

He doesn’t seem drunk. Or hostile. So, I think, in my first encounter with the people of Managua after two centuries of U.S. invasions, overthrows, Marine assaults, and installed dictators, I should set the record straight. Especially as an audience was gathering. I’m not sure if this is Brooklyn training, or personal style (sorry, LiAnne), but I find that a successful strategy in threatening or uncertain situations while traveling is to speak loudly, and act aggressively, to change the dynamic of the moment. So, I raise my voice, spread my arms wide and address the small group.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Brian Gruber, this is my first day in Managua and I am here to say that I LOVE your country and one more thing, on behalf of the people of the United States, we are SO SORRY for William Walker, for the Somoza family, for the contras, for all of our interventions in your beautiful country. Now, let’s start a new era of peace and love and prosperity! Thank you for welcoming me to your country!”

The not drunk but possibly insane fellow begins cheering as the the hotel security guys laugh. One, a short, muscular young man in a freshly pressed uniform, smiles and shouts,”We love America. Except Obama.”

My assumption was that Nicaraguans were keenly aware of some of the darker stretches of our shared history. But this well presented young man with fluent English had more current concerns.

We introduce ourselves. Alex says,”Obama deports too many people. He’s deported more of us than any American president. That’s why I don’t like him.”

I ask where he picked up his impeccable English. “I lived in LA, in La Puente. I had a great life there, a good business. And then I was arrested by the INS and deported.”

I mention that I used to live in LA and worked for Charter Cable which serviced that area. I asked if I could record our conversation. “Nah. I gotta go. But now I can’t apply for a visa for ten years. And I blame Obama.”

I ask for directions to the lake. He points toward the our left, “Just walk right down Simon Bolivar and there’s a bunch of restaurants and bars on the water. You’ll like it. I’ll get you a cab. It’s gonna rain and it’s a long walk.” I shake his hand, thank him and tell him I prefer walking. Showing off my waterproof birthday gifts from LiAnne, a light blue Orvis T-shirt, green Ex Officio cargo shorts and REI daypack, I head for the lake, looking back and shouting, “It’s only water.”

I turn right on Simon Bolivar, a broad boulevard and walk through a thickening line of street vendors. Within five minutes, the rain starts. It’s not the thoroughly soaking downpour I experienced during my first weekend in Guatemala City, but a friendly, almost feathery sprinkle. It feels refreshing and cuts the heat.

Passing the Hugo Chavez tribute in the roundabout, I begin to notice a lot of police. I think, how nice, tourists must feel well protected here. But then, no, there are A LOT of police. There are loads of plastic chairs and, across the street, a hundred yards away, a reviewing stand. “Is there some kind of parade going on?” I ask a young, smartly uniformed policewoman. She knows no English and my Spanish is a sad, sad, thing, so no clear answer. Just smiles and an apologetic look.

As I get closer to the reviewing stand, the density of police per square yard intensifies as does the firepower of their weapons. I ask another police officer, and this time receive my answer. “The thirty-fifth anniversary of the Nicaraguan police.” The Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979. I am in the middle of final rehearsals for the event.

Columns of police walk past me, around me, alongside me. Police on foot, on bicycles, on motorbikes, in cars. With sidearms, automatic weapons. And right here, in the next hour, as night fell, would be the national leadership reviewing Managua’s finest.

I think, briefly, of taking a seat in one of the plastic chairs and pretending that I belong there, but my dress is way out of place. The last time I did that was at an event celebrating the new school year at daughter Andrea’s Placer High. I was mingling with teachers and administrators on the gymnasium floor when the principal asked everyone to be seated. There were seats all around me, with many more up above. I sat down and soon realized I was sitting with the teachers. The principal started by honoring those in my group and asking us to stand and wave for a round of applause. My daughter was horrified as her friends asked why her dad was standing with the teachers. One thing’s for sure. She’ll always remember that I was there.

The rain is now coming down in a steady, warm sprinkle. If it stays like this, no problem. I cross a heavily guarded street and a young guy tries to sell me a soft drink. I decline and wander through the street food vendors and begin to head toward the lake. Then, I realize, I have stumbled into an important political event: why not enjoy it? I turn around and, this time, accept the offer of a soft drink.

Williams, “like Robin Williams!”, dries off a chair and invites me to join him. “President Ortega is supposed to be here. But you can’t be sure. Security.”

I buy one drink for me and one for Williams. During my hour stay on the his corner, I will be one of only two customers. The drink, a sugary orange soda, is twenty-five cents.

“What do you think of Ortega?,” I ask. I am fascinated with Daniel Ortega’s story. Sandinista guerrilla. Captured and imprisoned. Freed during a daring Christmas party hostage taking. First president after the overthrow of the Somoza regime. A decade of increasingly repressive governing. Then a shocking electoral defeat by Violetta Chamorro, the widow of Nicaragua’s martyred newspaper publisher. Then, amazingly, a re-election after some adjusting of election rules, and the new, improved, business-friendly presidente.

Williams’ tiny nephew Luca, is now crawling over me, arranging himself on my lap.

“Ortega is great!” beams Williams. I ask why.

“The economy is doing well. He bring people together. And he really cares about the poor people.”

Mindful of Ortega’s origins as a Marxist guerrilla, I ask if Ortega is a communist, a socialist or a capitalist.

“Oh, he’s a capitalist. He used to be communist, but that was a long time ago.”

I feed him a softball question. “And what do you think of the guy he overthrew, Somoza?”

“Oh, my grandma loved him. Somoza was a great president. There was very little crime in Managua back then. If someone was making trouble, the police would take them away and kill them and you would never see them again. My grandma says the economy was the best ever when he was president.”

So, to recap. He’s a big fan of both Ortega and the brutal dictator that Ortega overthrew. Thinking he would fit right in with the American electorate, I ask Williams if he has ever been to the United States.

“I love your country. I lived there with my grandma, in Daytona Beach, Florida. I was studying to be an accountant at FIU, Florida International University. But I was in my friend’s car when it was pulled over and the car was stolen, so I got kicked out. I can’t apply again for five years and I have someone working on the papers for me. When the papers are good, I want to go back.”

Williams has an earnest and pained look on his face as he points out his sixteen-year old niece. “I tell her. You’ve got to get an education. But she doesn’t listen to me. Without an education…” His voice trails off. “Hey, can you hook me up with a hundred dollars?”

“What? For what?”

“A hundred Nicaraguan dollars, cordobas. I need it for breakfast in the morning for me and my family.” There are twenty five cordobas to a dollar. Four dollars. Three thoughts go through my mind as I put my hand in my pocket. 1) Why in the world would I give you money? 2) Was this whole conversation a grift? 3) He needs the four bucks a whole lot more than I do.

The police are still marching and rehearsing and laughing and it’s raining and I don’t want to wait around the parade, having seen enough of it up close. I take my leave of Williams and his family and head off for the lake.

It’s only another ten minute walk to the puerto entrance. The restaurants are a mix of indoor and outdoor affairs, with the Nicaraguan version of international cuisine. Cuban. Mexican. Thai/ Asian. A steakhouse. I pick a table overlooking an exhibition area with a few hundred plastic chairs lined up in the light rain. I order a Nicaraguan Victoria Classico beer and fajitas de pollo. I have my daypack on my back and pull out my dog eared copy of “Blood of Brothers,” Stephen Kinzer’s authoritative classic on the Sandinista overthrow of Somoza and the ensuing contra war. I notice a large sign over the proceedings. It’s a drawing of deposed Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende, with a tag line loosely translated as “the president of dignity”. The restaurant enclave is called Puerto Salvador Allende. My hotel is off Salvador Allende Boulevard. I think they like this guy.

And, lo and behold, there’s a beauty pageant on stage. Each girl, draped, oddly enough in a sparkly red, white and blue outfit, comes forward when her town is called and vamps for the audience. The contestant then gives a short speech. If my Spanish was better, I would be able to tell you if the San Juan del Sur was saying, “Death to all imperialist Yankee pigs,” or “My dream is to marry a submissive, wealthy man and have a big refrigerator.”

Between segments led by a formally clad master of ceremonies, a group of percussionists in the back, right near my table, explode into a Frenzy of drumming that sounds like a cross between a Brazilian batucada troup and a New Orleans second line. I watch and read and write for an hour, then head back. The dirt road leading out of the puerto is now VERY dark and I walk briskly back to Simon Bolivar. At which point, it strikes me that my plan to retrace my steps is blocked by a heavily armed procession of one or two thousand police officers. At which point, it strikes me that the reason I was not able to get video of the batucada band was because my battery on my iPhone ran out.

Williams is delighted to see me return. I walk across and ask one of the police if there is any way I might be able to get through the phalanx of marchers and vehicles. He looks like he might shoot me, then smiles and shakes his head. I sit and watch for a while with Williams and his family. Now two little nephews and two little nieces are crawling over me, grabbing at my backpack, asking me questions. And then, a group of motorcycles and an open top official car approaches.

“That’s Daniel Ortega!” Williams exclaims. I wave along with him, though by that time the car makes a U-turn and is heading back to the reviewing stand. A woman is at his side, presumably First Lady poet and revolutionary Rosario Murillo.

Williams tries to hit me up for another hundred. Not this time. He introduces me to his aunt and boasts how he will be selling soft drinks at a heavy metal concert tomorrow. “I will make money AND hear great music! I have the best job!” I say goodbye to him and the kids, and start walking back to the puerto to catch a cab.

No one has ever heard of the Art Hotel, so I negotiate a fare and give my non English-speaking driver a jumble of directions and landmarks. We drive around, and surprisingly, get lost. We drive to the Crowne Plaza so I can at least get my bearings, and we consult with a gas station attendant (why, I’m not sure). Then, miraculously, I try to open my iPad and there is indeed three percent of power left. The Maps app shows where we are, five minutes from the hotel, whose rough location I can make out. I give the driver instructions which he repeatedly ignores, until we work out a communication system consisting of me leaning over his shoulder, jabbing my finger either straight ahead, to the left or to the right, and imploring him, “No, not that way, the other way.”

Finally, the hotel sign comes into view. I am so pleased with myself that I am offended when he tries to extort 5x the original fare. A 2x fare, amounting to $8, seems about right.

I walk in, order a beer from the receptionist cum cook cum bartender, and plug in my iPad.

There’s no place like home.