Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 08:17:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Alphabet soup


Carlos
------
> 
>     The MAS/PST had little to do both with the Nicaraguan's positions
>     of the LIT(CI) and with the formation of the Simon Bolivar          
>     International Brigade.  Main responsability with the organizational
>     aspects of the ISBB were put on the shoulders of the Colombian
>     section of the LIT(CI), the Colombian PST, the Central American
>     sections and the American group of the LIT(CI).


Louis
-----
All these initials are like alphabet soup letters spinning 
around in a bowl. Let me try to put all these obscure references into 
perspective. All these groups that Carlos is referring to are part of a 
Latin American Trotskyist current. These people, who were not Nicaraguan 
and who had loyalties to an international movement--paltry as it was-- 
based in Argentina, assembled an armed detachment to fight alongside the 
Sandinistas, apparently with their approval. Then, they decided to stick 
around and finish off the Sandinistas after Somoza had been toppled. The 
Nicaraguans regarded this as outside interference with *Nicaraguan* 
politics and kicked the foreign nationals out of the country. If these 
*facts* are not correct, I am willing to be corrected. I was wrong on the 
relationship of the armed detachment to the FSLN and I am willing to be 
corrected on the facts here.


Carlos
------

>     As I explained above, this was not the case.  But, even if it was,
>     what's wrong about it.  Did you know that three of the top FSLN
>     leaders *were not Nicaraguans*?  One was from Mexico, one from
>     Costa Rica and the other from some other country.  Did you know

Louis
-----
Yeah, I know. And Che Guevara was an Argentinian. The problem is not 
where you were born, but where your *loyalties* are based. Che was loyal 
to the July 26th Movement, a Cuban party. The problem with the Simon 
Bolivar folks is that their loyalties were to a political current based 
elsewhere. This current viewed the Sandinistas as an obstacle to a 
socialist revolution in Nicaragua, as Rodwell points out, and acted in a 
disciplined fashion on behalf of this international current. 

No wonder the Nicaraguans wanted them expelled from the country. 
Nicaragua has been the casualty of numerous interventions from the 
outside in the 20th century. William Walker, an American, was invited into 
Nicaragua to help out one of the two major Nicaraguan parties in a power 
struggle with another. He stuck around and made an attempt to become a 
caudillo himself. These types of memories have a left bitter taste with 
Nicaraguan leftists. This apparently meant nothing to the Morenoites who 
came there from other countries to wrest the leadership of the revolution 
from the Sandinistas.

Carlos
------
>     about the SWP or any other tendency.  You are being arrogant when
>     you throw around information and characterizations as the ones I'm
>     correcting you in this post and asserting those *completely wrong
>     and politically innacurate* assertions as valid truths.  
> 
> 

Louis
-----
I confess to knowing next to nothing about the details of the 
confrontation between the Simon Bolivar Brigade and the FSLN. This was 
not the sort of thing that solidarity activists in the US like myself had 
to contend with. We were too busy trying to unravel Washington's lies. I 
think at this point I have gotten to the bottom of the bigger political 
questions, and that's what's important, isn't it?

I was in the SWP from 1967 to 1978. I became involved with Central 
American Solidarity in 1981 and have remained so, with varying levels of 
time committment and intensity, until the present day. In other words, I 
have been involved with the Central American revolution for quite a few 
years longer than I was involved with the SWP.

The height of my involvement with Nicaragua was when I coordinated 
technical brigades to Nicaragua. Hundreds of volunteers spent time there 
repairing computers, power grids, hospital power generators, etc. These 
volunteers respected Nicaraguan sovereignty. We and other volunteers from 
other organizations had criticisms of the Sandinistas, but we understood 
that it was up to the Nicaraguan people to make corrections.

This was not understood by the foreign nationals who were associated with 
the Simon Bolivar brigade and apparently is still not understood by you.


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