6 letter to broadcast on Novam transmission),
Daniel Ortega part and parcel alike of that struggle. And it is out of our feelings of solidarity with the oppressed that, on the occasion of this regrettable action against Radio Catolico, we wish to express our grave concern over developments in Nicaragua in the field of human rights and regarding the future of democracy in your country.
The recent declaration of a state of emergency, as a result of which numerous personal liberties and rights, including the right to strike, have been abolished or curtailed, cannot be justified in our view solely in terms of the military incursion by anti-Sandinista units operating from Honduras and Costa Rica. The counter-revolutionary onslaught will either be defeated by the free supporters of the revolution or the revolution will perish. In such a case it does not seem to matter too much if its defeat will be caused by outside intervention or an internal development which negates all the revolution's ideals and which, with the so-called aim of "saving the revolution", gradually sets up a bureaucratic dictatorship, a new system of repression and manipulation with empty slogans and full jails. There are many who are able to find something positive even in such a development. In Latin America, for instance, there are those who point to the "positive" side of just such a development in Cuba.
However, we live on a different part of the planet, and our purpose here is to convey to you the historical experience of Europe and particularly of its Eastern half, whose lamentable situation (and not only in the field of human rights and political democracy, but in economic terms too!) is especially glaring in comparison with Western Europe. It is paradoxical that in countries that have carried out national democratic and social revolutions in the name of the rights of working people, of the proletariat, and of the free development of every member of society these rights are fewer (that is if they exist at all) than in countries where those revolutions have not occurred.
These are the questions which strike us when we contemplate the future of the Sandinista revolution. We protested against American support for the military attacks on your revolution because we consider that US policy on Nicaragua is detrimental to the cause of human emancipation. But now that we feel that this cause is being seriously jeopardized from within, it is to you that we address our sincere concern. Jiri Dienstbier, Zuzana Dienstbierova, Ladislav Hejdanek, Eva Kanturkova, Lubos Kohout, Vaclau Maly, Milos Rejehrt, Jaroslav Sabata, Anna Sabatova Jr., Petr Uhl.
21 the Nicaraguan government ordered a two-day suspension of broadcasting by the independent radio station Radio Catolico so as to punish the station for having transmitted a recent sermon by the bishop of Managua which included two sentences which Voice of America claimed were the cause of the government's ban. The first sentence states that freedom is a great gift from God to mankind, while the second maintains that it is wrong and against the will of God to take away one's neighbour's freedom.
We are signatories of the appeal by European intellectuals "Nicaragua has the right to peace" , the text of which has been sent, along with a list of Czechoslovak citizens who appended their signatures to it last May, to the signaagies oF a declaration signed jointy of pes ple in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Prague. Some of us are also USA and Eastern Europe [which was published in the New York Times on December 1, 1985].
Both of these texts call for non-interference in the affairs of Nicaragua and specifically for a halt to the sending of material assistance to the anti-Sandinista armed resistance. In varying degrees the texts express support for the courageous people of your country; they also refer to national independence and the right of nations to decide their fate in all independence. With the knowledge we have of the situation in Latin America, including Nicaragua, we can well appreciate that the question of human rights can and must assume a different aspect in a country suffering from material poverty which is furthermore the victim of an economic embargo and military incursions, in contrast to a country like Czechoslovakia, for instance, whose superficially wellfunctioning economy ensures its citizens a general level of prosperity and a fair consumption of material and cultural commodities - at least, from the point of view of people in the Third World.
The fact that activists from different citizens campaigns here insist so strongly on the implementation of political, civil and cultural rights, and that they fight for a more democratically run society as well as their society's greater independence from the Soviet Union, might viewed in this way seem strangely eccentric. We could of course understand such a misconstruction of our demands, but there is no way we can reconcile ourselves to it, since the fight for human dignity and freedom, the fight for social justice, and the fight for equal rights of peoples and nations are one and the same struggle: the emancipatory battles in Eastern Europe and Latin America are
International Viewpoint 16 June 1986
though it is used only as a threat against the supporters of the counterrevolution. All the reports that we have seen confirm that so far this is how it has been used. But from the vantage point of external support, the Sandinista government has provided sticks with which to be beaten, making defence of their regime more difficult in the countries where the struggle for human rights is an essential precondition for gaining support. Defence through mobilization
The Nicaraguan revolution does not seem to us to be threatened at present by a bureaucratic dictatorial course. And it needs to defend itself, including with arms. It can find its best defence in the mobilization of the social layers that suffered misery 22 under the Somozaist dictatorship. And we should not hide the fact that this mobilization is ever more difficult due to the growing difficulties of daily life. This involves choices and therefore conflicts, not only with the segment of the population that ardently hopes for a social and political order that would perpetuate their privileges and that finds hypocritical support in the "free world" but also with layers of the common people who are weary of so many privations.
For its very defence, the revolution will have to deepen, not repress, democratic rights. It is true that the measures recently taken provide the legal possibility for such repression. But to judge the Sandinista regime on the basis of that possibility is as dangerous as judging the regime of the late Stalin by the constitution that he bestowed on the people and which, as everyone knows, was "the most democratic in the world".
US strategy in Nicaragua is clear: to maintain an economic blockade and military harassment, so that the population's material gains are reduced to nothing; and then to brandish the weapon of democracy while praying that a segment of the population grows tired and awaits the aid of "the American big brother".
There it is. All this means that on the basis of a common philosophy the signers of the open letter, starting from their experience in Eastern Europe, shine another light on what is happening in Nicaragua.
We feel that their light is useful for ours, because history teaches that in the name of the struggle against immediate dangers, the risk is great of mortgaging the future. Even so, you must fight for there to be a future. We are convinced that this is the thrust of the present struggle of the Sandinistas, even if they have made errors and may make more of them in the future. International Viewpoint 16 June 1986