Sandinistas and the World

For the FSLN, it was obvious that Nicaragua's foreign policy after 1979 would have to be radically different from the past, when Somoza had implemented what Sandinistas described as a “policy of submission to Yankee imperialism.”Footnote ¹⁵ Alejandro Bendaña, the general secretary of Nicaragua's Ministerio del Exterior (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MINEX), reflected in 1989 that Somoza had been the “most faithful ally” of the United States, and described his foreign policy as a “colonial” policy, dictated by North American economic interests and ideological preferences, rather than by the needs of the Nicaraguan people.Footnote ¹⁶ Throughout most of the twentieth century, former revolutionary junta member (1979–84) and Nicaraguan vice president (1985–90) Sergio Ramírez writes in his memoirs, the nation was “held hostage” by the Somoza dynasty, which allowed the US to plunder Nicaragua's “national resources.”Footnote ¹⁷

Anti-imperialism was thus at the heart of the FSLN's struggle for national liberation, and this fight did not end with the dictator's overthrow. On the contrary, Sandinista revolutionaries understood their triumph in the context of a global struggle, in which the “peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America” were up against a neocolonial system that unfairly benefited capitalist countries.Footnote ¹⁸ And to Sandinista revolutionaries, imbued with the hubris of having just won power at the end of the 1970s, the efforts of the Third World to challenge this “system of dependency” seemed to be going remarkably well.Footnote ¹⁹ With a Marxist revolution in Ethiopia, the defeat of US forces in Vietnam, the rise to power of Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement in Grenada, and the decision of several African governments, such as Angola, to adopt Marxist-Leninism as an official state ideology, the FSLN leadership operated under the assumption—overly optimistic—that they were on the winning side of the global anti-imperialist struggle. Adding to this impression, the Sandinistas also predicted that the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN) would soon install a revolutionary regime in El Salvador. Hoping for another revolutionary triumph in Central America, the FSLN backed the FMLN. Throughout most of the 1980s, weapons from Vietnam, Ethiopia, Angola, and the Eastern bloc were shipped clandestinely via Cuba and Nicaragua to Salvadoran insurgents.Footnote ²⁰

With regard to the Cold War competition, Sandinista leaders certainly sympathized more with the socialist bloc than with the West. Indeed, Sandinista leader Bayardo Arce argued that the Soviet Union was not an “imperialist” country, because “imperialism” and “capitalism” were two intertwined processes.Footnote ²¹ The FSLN's closest ally was undoubtedly Fidel Castro. While we still know too little about Cuba's relations with the FSLN during Nicaragua's revolutionary decade, it is clear, as Emily Snyder's work has shown, that the two countries carefully coordinated their foreign policies and that Cuban officials advised the Sandinista government on a range of topics, including diplomacy, military affairs, and government organization.Footnote ²²

Yet, the Cubans advised the FSLN to move cautiously. The Cuban ambassador to Sweden, Quintín Pino Machado, urged the Sandinistas on July 20, 1979, to be careful with implementing their revolutionary plans, stressing the need to prevent foreign intervention and isolation, pointing to what had happened to Cuba.Footnote ²³ Indeed, Cuba's deputy foreign minister Pelegrín Torras told Bayardo Arce on February 6, 1980, that Cubans wanted to prevent the FSLN from making “the same mistakes” they had made in the first years after Fidel Castro's triumph.Footnote ²⁴ The Sandinista leadership, confronted with the reality of having inherited a small country that was almost entirely dependent on aid and trade with the United States, shared this view, vowing to implement an “extremely careful” foreign policy.Footnote ²⁵

In this vein, in the years leading up to the revolution's triumph, Sandinistas had already established friendly relations with mainstream political forces in Western Europe and the Americas, such as the Socialist International and the governments of Panama, Venezuela, and Mexico. The FSLN had done so by presenting the war against Somoza as a nationalist struggle for social justice, democracy, and nonalignment in the global Cold War.Footnote ²⁶ The FSLN understood that if it suddenly adopted a confrontational attitude toward the capitalist world it would be making a counterproductive move, which could ruin Nicaragua's changes of obtaining desperately needed financial assistance.

Therefore, the FSLN opted to present the RPS in a nonthreatening way to potential enemies, both at home and abroad. Critically, to assuage fears about the radical nature of the revolution, Sandinista officials downplayed the extent of their power. The official face of the revolution was not the FSLN leadership, but the Junta de Gobierno de Reconstrucción Nacional. The junta had five members, all of whom had actively contributed to the fall of Somoza. Violeta Chamorro, widow of the murdered La Prensa journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, represented the Union Democrática de Liberación (Democratic Liberation Union), an opposition coalition that had opposed Somoza since 1974. Alfonso Robelo was a businessman who founded the Movimiento Democrático Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Democratic Movement), another anti-Somoza opposition party. Moisés Hassan, a former guerrilla, represented the Movimiento del Pueblo Unido (United People's Movement), a grassroots organization closely aligned to the FSLN. Sergio Ramírez represented a group of 12 prominent anti-Somoza intellectuals, known as the Grupo de los Doce (Group of Twelve). The fifth member was Daniel Ortega, the only known Sandinista on the junta and one of the nine FSLN comandantes.

Similarly, the new government was not dominated by ex-guerrillas. The FSLN appointed several popular religious figures to the revolutionary cabinet, such as foreign minister Miguel d'Escoto—who Raúl Castro described as one of the few “red priests” in Latin America—and minister of culture Ernesto Cardenal, a liberation theologian. Moreover, on the advice of Fidel Castro, the FSLN appointed Bernardino Larios Montiel, a former officer in Somoza's National Guard, as the country's new defense minister.Footnote ²⁷

Despite appearances and claims to the contrary, however, power in Nicaragua lay with the Sandinista movement and, more specifically, with the nine comandantes of the FSLN's Dirección Nacional (National Directorate).Footnote ²⁸ As Raúl Castro explained to the Soviet ambassador in Cuba, Vitaly Vorotnikov, on September 1, 1979, Montiel's role as Nicaragua's defense minister was “mostly for show” since “all real power in this area” belonged to Sandinista comandante Humberto Ortega; he also revealed that the new Ejército Popular Sandinista (Sandinista People's Army, EPS) was “being built without [Montiel's] knowledge.”Footnote ²⁹ Furthermore, in addition to Daniel Ortega, Ramírez and Hassan were also Sandinista militants, which meant that three of the five junta members voted in favor of FSLN proposals. Ramírez's membership was previously kept “secret” because his role “as the head of the Group of Twelve demanded an illusion of independence.”Footnote ³⁰ Nicaragua's foreign policy was also determined by a small committee of Sandinistas, which consisted of three FSLN comandantes, namely, Arce, who supervised the FSLN's Departamento de Relaciones Internacionales (Department of International Relations, DRI), Daniel Ortega, and when necessary his brother Humberto Ortega, who presided over the EPS. The other three members were Miguel d'Escoto, MINEX vice minister Victor Hugo Tinoco, and the head of the DRI, a position held by ex-guerrilla Doris Tijerino until Julio López Campos replaced her in September 1980.Footnote ³¹

In Western Europe, Nicaraguan diplomats used the pluralistic composition of the junta to the revolution's advantage. As they spoke with curious officials, representatives praised the moderate nature of the RPS while at the same time making clear that the country's future trajectory and nonaligned position in the Cold War depended on the arrival of sufficient economic aid from the capitalist world. The unique ideology of sandinismo, Miguel d'Escoto told Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the foreign minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, on August 28, 1980, was not for sale on “the international market of ideologies.”Footnote ³² Eduardo Kühl, too, during his European tour in 1979, explained several times that “all political orientations were represented in the junta.”Footnote ³³

Sandinistas also smartly played into Western European concerns about Nicaragua's position in the Cold War. During a visit to Paris in July 1982, Daniel Ortega argued that “true non-alignment depended on the aid and support nonaligned countries could get from the West.”Footnote ³⁴ And on May 13, 1982, labor minister Virgilio Godoy Reyes told Genscher that Western Europe could “drive Nicaragua into the arms of communism” if it did not provide the Nicaraguan government with sufficient financial support. When Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was unable to meet with Sergio Ramírez in April 1982, Godoy warned, it “immediately rained invitations from the East.”Footnote ³⁵ This was an important point to drive home in Western Europe, where many politicians believed that Cuba's alignment with the Soviet bloc could have been avoided if the West had been more forthcoming with financial aid and political assistance in the early 1960s.

Since European officials did not understand the inner workings of the Nicaraguan state, this was a successful strategy. British diplomat Stephen Wall, for example, convinced Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher—a staunch anticommunist—that the junta was “a generally moderate, broad-based team with, so far, only one Sandinista member.”Footnote ³⁶ The argument that Western European aid could keep revolutionary Nicaragua nonaligned in the Cold War, in particular, struck a chord. The primary reason for EC foreign ministers to send aid to revolutionary Nicaragua government was to “foster a political development as pluralist as possible and, in particular, less closely linked to Cuba and the Soviet Union.”Footnote ³⁷ On July 25, 1979, therefore, Wilhelm Haferkampf, vice president of the European Commission, told Kühl that the EC supported “the economic and democratic reconstruction” of Nicaragua and informed him of the commission's decision to grant Nicaragua emergency aid of $270,000.Footnote ³⁸

This was only the first of many Western European donations to the revolutionaries, as the commission transferred around $9 million in reconstruction aid to Nicaragua in 1979—almost half of its total budget for Latin America.Footnote ³⁹ West Germany was the biggest European donor, providing the junta with around $17 million in economic aid.Footnote ⁴⁰ The Netherlands and Sweden, too, made significant contributions, donating respectively $6.4 and $8.1 million. Thus, for the year 1979, as British diplomat Alan Payne proudly concluded on February 7, 1980, the aid of “Western donors [to Nicaragua was] greater than that provided by the Eastern bloc.”Footnote ⁴¹

In sum, the Sandinistas’ revolutionary diplomacy mixed optimism about a new global order with a pragmatic assessment of the international system as they found it. As the FSLN comandantes held out hopes for more Third World revolutions, Western Europe was not yet as central to Nicaragua's international strategy as it would become in later years. True, it was important for the Sandinistas to maintain good relationships with EC leaders, as this strengthened their argument that Nicaragua—unlike Castro's Cuba—was not hostile to the West and wanted to remain nonaligned. Moreover, to follow through with ambitious plans for social transformation, Sandinistas were in need of money, which Western European countries were willing to provide because they believed that doing so could prevent Nicaragua from turning to the Eastern bloc. Despite the drastic increase in EC aid to Nicaragua following Somoza's fall, however, financial assistance from Latin American donors was greater than Western Europe's contribution.Footnote ⁴² The region was not yet at the heart of the revolutionaries’ diplomatic campaign. This would change, as the next section demonstrates, when developments in the international environment convinced the FSLN that Western European involvement was crucial to ensure the revolution's survival.

Western Europe and the Threat of Military Intervention

In the early 1980s, Sandinistas grew concerned about the future. In the Americas, Reagan's rise to power emboldened Latin America's anticommunist regimes and weakened the position of revolutionary movements in Central America, most notably the FMLN.Footnote ⁴³ Moreover, when the Mexican government defaulted on its external debt obligations, Latin America descended into a decade-long financial crisis. The “present political conjuncture” was “unfavorable,” Nicaraguan diplomats concluded in November 1980.Footnote ⁴⁴ Meanwhile, the situation on the ground deteriorated. In 1981, conflict erupted between the FSLN and a number of indigenous communities living on the Atlantic Coast who rejected government programs that threatened indigenous land claims and languages, such as the literacy campaign mentioned above, which initially focused only on Spanish.Footnote ⁴⁵ And with the backing of Argentina, Honduras, and the United States, Nicaraguan exiles based in Honduras and Miami launched another armed campaign against the FSLN. In the spring of 1982, these contra insurgents launched their first major attack on Nicaraguan soil, blowing up bridges near the Honduran border.Footnote ⁴⁶

In this context, the Nicaraguan government grew concerned about the possibility of a US intervention. Reagan's anti-Sandinista rhetoric and support for the counterinsurgents, FSLN officials believed, were part of a larger imperialist plan to create the necessary conditions and “prepare” domestic and international audiences for an upcoming “military intervention.” Specifically, MINEX officials calculated, Reagan was waiting for a border incident between the Sandinista People's Army and the Honduran army, as this would provide the administration with a powerful justification for an intervention.Footnote ⁴⁷ The impending invasion, Julio López predicted to a group of Dutch activists on July 19, 1983, would almost certainly be launched from Honduras, where more than 14,000 Latin American “mercenaries” and former members of Somoza's national guard were stationed.Footnote ⁴⁸ Nicaraguan fears rose to unprecedented heights after the US invaded Grenada on October 25, 1983. The overthrow of Maurice Bishop's left-wing government in Grenada, the editors of the Nicaraguan journal Revista Envío warned, created a “precedent and may also have created political momentum inside the White House for another invasion.”Footnote ⁴⁹

Concerns about a US intervention, combined with an unfriendly international environment and escalating civil war, propelled the FSLN to adopt a more defensive foreign policy than it had envisaged when it came to power. Realizing that Nicaragua could not win a major military conflict with the United States, the Sandinistas implemented a range of measures to deter Reagan from launching such an attack, targeting both state and non-state actors. Crucially, as recent scholarship on the RPS demonstrates, the FSLN successfully coordinated a transnational network of solidarity activists in Europe and the Americas, mobilizing public opinion—and in the United States, Congressional opinion—against Reagan's foreign policy objectives in Central America.Footnote ⁵⁰ The FSLN's outreach was highly successful in Europe during the first half of the 1980s.Footnote ⁵¹ “Every time Mr. Reagan went to Western Europe,” Bendaña recalled, “someone reminded him of Nicaragua. And if it wasn't in the streets with FSLN flags, it was in government offices.”Footnote ⁵² Reagan was frustrated. European journalists were not giving “fair coverage” to “our true goals” in Central America, the president lamented to Thatcher, who agreed he was “losing the propaganda battle in Europe.”Footnote ⁵³

Yet, Sandinistas realized, popular support alone was not enough to weaken Reagan's resolve. To prevent a military escalation, it was also necessary to obtain the support of European governments or, at the very least, to prevent EC member states from taking the Reagan administration's side in the Central American conflicts. Therefore, Nicaraguan diplomats actively encouraged EC governments to pursue a foreign policy toward Central America that neutralized Reagan's anticommunist offensive. Western Europe, as Ramírez remembers, represented “a crucial counterweight to Reagan's politics during the war of aggression that spanned the decade of the eighties, even in the case of governments that were far from the Left, such as those of Giulio Andreotti in Italy or Wilfried Martens in Belgium.”Footnote ⁵⁴

To encourage Europeans to play a more active role in Central American affairs, Nicaraguan officials used the argument that Europe, as a result of its “considerable influence” on the Reagan administration, could prevent the region from being swept up into Cold War dynamics.Footnote ⁵⁵ In particular, they pushed the EC member states to back the efforts of the four Contadora countries (Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, and Colombia) to facilitate a regional dialogue between the Central American governments of Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras. Officially launched after a summit on the Panamanian island of Contadora on January 9, 1983, the purpose of this Contadora initiative was to find “Latin American solutions to Latin American problems.”Footnote ⁵⁶ Contadora thus presented an “obstruction” to the US administration's militaristic approach to Central American affairs, prompting the Sandinistas to use it as an “instrument” to prevent an armed intervention.Footnote ⁵⁷

At a time when Western European governments were already frustrated with Reagan's tendency to understand international affairs solely through a Cold War lens, the FSLN's efforts to grow an opposition fell on fertile ground.Footnote ⁵⁸ The EC member states shared the Sandinistas’ concern about the possibility of further escalation in Central America and supported the Contadora initiative, hoping this would bring about a settlement in the region. Furthermore, the Sandinistas were not alone in pushing Europeans to become more actively involved in Central American affairs. Latin American leaders, concerned about the possibility of a regional war, called on European states to throw their political weight behind a diplomatic solution.Footnote ⁵⁹ On September 29, 1983, Mexican foreign minister Bernardo Sepúlveda Amor told his Greek, French, and German colleagues that the EC member states should use their “political influence” to convince “all the parties . . . of the inadvisability of military solutions and to press them to seek a political settlement through diplomatic processes.”Footnote ⁶⁰ Costa Rican president Luis Alberto Monge, too, despite his antipathy toward the Sandinista government, encouraged the EC countries to be more present “on the troubled Central American scene.”Footnote ⁶¹ Monge, who visited several European countries to encourage EC involvement in the region, told West German chancellor Helmut Kohl on June 4, 1984, that to “prevent a war with international consequences, . . . Germany must play its role in Central America.”Footnote ⁶²

Encouraged by the Latin Americans, an intra-European consensus on a regional foreign policy emerged. In May 1984, Genscher successfully proposed a regional cooperation agreement between the EC and the Central American countries, which was designed to give new momentum to Contadora, as well as provide Central American states with increased (but still rather limited) financial aid and a forum to discuss their grievances.Footnote ⁶³ Genscher's proposal, which was coordinated with Monge, culminated in a summit between Latin American officials (including Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel d'Escoto) and their Western European counterparts, which took place in the Costa Rican capital of San José on September 28 and 29, 1984.Footnote ⁶⁴ The historic and political significance of the summit was clear to all involved: this was the first time that EC foreign ministers had come together in an official capacity outside of Western Europe, and they had chosen to do so in Central America, a region traditionally seen as part of the United States’ informal empire.Footnote ⁶⁵ The fact that European leaders found it necessary to become collectively involved in Central American affairs at all—despite the absence of traditional ties and without the lubricant of extensive trade links—highlights the remarkable importance of Central America in the international system in the mid 1980s.

The San José summit—and particularly the fact that US Secretary of State George Shultz was not allowed to participate—offered Sandinistas an excellent opportunity to strengthen Nicaragua's position, while at the same time making clear that Reagan stood alone. In declarations and private meetings, Sandinista officials contrasted Nicaragua's commitment to “dialogue and reason” with the aggressive attitude of Reagan and his anticommunist friends.Footnote ⁶⁶ By gathering in the traditional “backyard” of the United States, the editors of Revista Envío concluded, Europe “challenged the Monroe Doctrine” that was at the heart of Reagan's approach to Central American affairs. Triumphantly, the authors cited French foreign minister Claude Cheysson, who responded to a question about US efforts to influence the proceedings by asking rhetorically: “What does Reagan have to do with this? As far as I understand, he is not part of the EC, the Contadora group, or the Central American group.”Footnote ⁶⁷

On September 21, 1984, the Sandinista government capitalized on the upcoming conference in San José by announcing that Nicaragua was willing to sign the revised Contadora Act. In agreeing to sign the act, the FSLN made several concessions, such as limiting the number of Eastern bloc advisors in Nicaragua, reducing the size of its army, committing to a democratic process, and ending Nicaragua's support for the FMLN. In return, Nicaragua demanded that the United States sign an “additional protocol” to the revised act, promising to “cease immediately all the acts of aggression against Nicaragua.”Footnote ⁶⁸

The Sandinistas’ decision, made public just one week before the San José conference, was a cleverly timed move, challenging a key argument of the US administration. In the weeks leading up to the summit, the US had accused Nicaragua of obstructing Contadora. On September 7, 1984, Shultz sent a letter to the EC foreign ministers, demanding that the summit “not lead to increased economic aid or any political assistance to the Sandinistas.” While the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala considered the revised act an “important step forward,” Shultz told his European colleagues, the FSLN leadership had “rejected key elements of the draft”, including a reduction “in arms and troop levels.”Footnote ⁶⁹ By suddenly agreeing to cooperate, then, the Sandinistas turned the tables on Reagan at a time when Central America stood in the international spotlight. Indeed, as American journalist Stephen Kinzer wrote in the New York Times on September 30, 1984, the Sandinistas’ offer was “a propaganda victory for Nicaragua and it caught the United States by surprise.”Footnote ⁷⁰

Despite the victory, Nicaragua's willingness to sign the revised act did not push the US administration toward a less militaristic foreign policy, nor did it end the contra war. US diplomats immediately contacted their colleagues in Europe and Central America to argue that the FSLN was trying to use the peace process to its own advantage by pushing through an agreement that was unacceptable to the United States and its regional allies, as it lacked adequate control and verification mechanisms. Salvadoran president José Napoleón Duarte, too, urged EC foreign ministers to refrain from supporting the revised act at the summit, warning that the Sandinistas would not keep their promises.Footnote ⁷¹

Less than a month after the Nicaraguan declaration, it was clear that the offensive against Contadora had succeeded. “Following intensive US consultations with El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica,” US Central Intelligence Agency officers concluded on October 30, 1984, “we have effectively blocked Contadora Group effort to impose the second draft of a Revised Contadora Act.”Footnote ⁷² As a result, EC leaders, unwilling to favor Nicaragua over the other Central American countries, refrained from publicly backing the act in San José, deciding to declare support for the Contadora process instead.

In addition to participating in Contadora, the FSLN took another crucial step to appease its critics: it made a commitment to organize elections, which took place on November 4, 1984. The FSLN, with Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramírez on the ballot, won the elections with a landslide. Yet, a crucial part of the electoral campaign was fought out internationally. The elections, Ramírez writes in his memoirs, were “part of the war strategy.”Footnote ⁷³ By holding an election, FSLN officials speculated, Nicaragua would demonstrate that it was not a “totalitarian state,” which would lead to less support for Reagan's “policy of aggression.”Footnote ⁷⁴ Moreover, the elections would “boost and deepen the economic cooperation between Western Europe and Nicaragua,” as well as lead to a renewed influx of expressions of solidarity from European politicians. The Sandinistas particularly hoped to repair their relationship with the Socialist International, which had pressured the FSLN about democracy, political pluralism, and elections for years. While the aspiration of the SI to “put its own stamp on the Sandinista People's Revolution” irritated Sandinista officials, they recognized it was crucial for the RPS to maintain the support of social democrats.Footnote ⁷⁵

To be sure, the FSLN had a very different understanding of democracy than did most European politicians. The purpose of the electoral process in Nicaragua, according to Sandinista officials, was the international legitimization of a revolutionary process that benefited the Nicaraguan people as a whole. This process was under threat from forces outside of the country, most notably the “imperialism” of the US administration.Footnote ⁷⁶ Democratic elections in capitalist countries were different, Sandinistas argued, because capitalist elections exist to “strengthen the interests of one particular group, while the Nicaraguan electoral process aims to improve the society as a whole.Footnote ⁷⁷ In other words, Nicaragua's electoral process was up against foreign opposition, while democracy in the West was designed to neutralize domestic opposition.

With international legitimacy as the ultimate prize, public opinion once again became a powerful weapon. Before and after the elections, Sandinistas aimed to convince Europeans that the elections were a democratic success.Footnote ⁷⁸ Solidarity committees in Europe in embarked on a campaign to publicize the positive aspects of Nicaragua's transition toward democracy.Footnote ⁷⁹ Recognizing that statements from social democrats would carry a lot of weight in the international debate, the FSLN specifically targeted members of the SI, encouraging them to disseminate positive information about the openness of the Nicaraguan electoral process.Footnote ⁸⁰ Meanwhile, the US embassy in Bonn asked the West Germany social democrat Willy Brandt to put out a negative statement about Sandinista harassment against opposition parties, which he refused to do.Footnote ⁸¹

Yet, despite the FSLN's victory in the polls, the electoral process failed to achieve its goals. Ramírez acknowledges that the FSLN only “partially” gained the legitimacy it sought by organizing elections.Footnote ⁸² Bendaña, too, notes that the 1984 elections “were called Soviet sham elections, even though by historical standards, or Central American standards, they weren't that bad.”Footnote ⁸³ Not all reports were negative, but an international consensus about the nature of the elections was not reached. The Netherlands, the only EC country to send an official observer team to the Nicaraguan elections, produced a generally positive report about the elections, which concluded that there were no irregularities during them and conceded that the FSLN had won the elections with a clear majority. Dutch foreign minister Hans van den Broek, however, explained at a European Political Cooperation meeting that this did not mean the Sandinista government was “representative” of the Nicaraguan people.Footnote ⁸⁴ The British government, too, dismissed positive reports about the elections. On November 9, 1984, Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe declared that there had been “no possibility of a genuinely free and fair contest” in Sandinista Nicaragua.Footnote ⁸⁵

How then, from the Sandinistas’ perspective, can we assess the heightened levels of European involvement in Central America in the mid 1980s? On the positive side, the support of European governments for the Contadora process and Nicaragua's participation in the San José summit functioned as a crucial deterrent to a US intervention. After all, by aligning themselves with Contadora, the EC countries made clear that Reagan's approach did not have the backing of his transatlantic allies. Confronted with a multilateral diplomatic initiative in favor of a negotiated solution, Reagan was limited in his ability to pursue a hostile foreign policy. While US support for the contra insurgents continued, an armed invasion or military strike did not occur.

Moreover, the Nicaraguan government benefited from Europe's aid package for Central America. Seeking to back up political declarations that the violence in Central America was the result of social injustice and economic inequalities—rather than Soviet and Cuban interference—the European Commission increased its aid levels to Nicaragua from $6.9 million in 1983 to $14.7 million in 1984. At a time when aid from Latin American countries decreased from $220 in 1983 to $120 million in 1984, this economic support was absolutely vital.Footnote ⁸⁶ Naturally, the rising levels of EC aid did not make up for the drastic decrease in Latin American assistance but, considering that the only other possible source of money was the Eastern bloc, the FSLN welcomed—in addition to the financial boost—any opportunity to avoid complete financial dependency on the Soviet Union and demonstrate Nicaragua's continuing nonalignment.

Even so, the growing importance of Western Europe in the struggle for Nicaragua's future also meant that Sandinistas needed to collaborate with governments that were ideologically different from the FSLN, and in some cases highly critical of the RPS. European governments, while supportive of Contadora, were skeptical of the Sandinistas’ insistence that all of Nicaragua's troubles were the result of US hostility. They accused the FSLN of censorship, human rights violations, and totalitarian tendencies. Citing these concerns, the conservative governments of Britain and West Germany postponed or reduced the levels of bilateral aid to Nicaragua.Footnote ⁸⁷ So, as regional tensions heightened and the threat of a US intervention loomed large, EC involvement in Central American affairs—like Nicaragua's participation in Contadora negotiations—became a necessary inconvenience for the Sandinista leadership. To survive in an increasingly hostile international environment, the revolutionaries needed to demonstrate that European states and politicians, who were perceived as moderate and relatively neutral parties in the Central American conflict, did not share Reagan's preference for a military solution. To do so, the FSLN agreed to concessions it otherwise might not have approved.

The Revolution and the End of the Cold War

Even though the Contadora process and EC involvement in Central American affairs challenged the hegemony of the United States, Sandinistas came under increasing pressure in the years following the San José summit. On June 25, 1986, the US Congress approved a $100 million aid package for the contra forces, and as a result the conflict between the EPS and the counterinsurgents intensified rapidly in 1987. After years of struggle, it was clear that the war could not be brought to an end through military means. As long as the United States provided funding, Central American states allowed counterrevolutionaries to operate from within their territories, and disillusioned Nicaraguans were willing to take up arms against the Sandinista government, the conflict would most likely continue. Aside from having a devastating impact on everyday life in Nicaragua, the civil war used up most of the country's resources. In 1988, according to CIA sources, the Nicaraguan government spent more than 60 percent of its budget on the military.Footnote ⁸⁸

The deteriorating economic situation in Nicaragua in the late 1980s was thus not unrelated to the US-funded civil war. Changes in the international context, such as the economic embargo imposed by the Reagan administration on May 1, 1985, and the declining levels of Latin American aid, did little to help the situation. Furthermore, from April 1985 onward, Nicaragua's petrol supply was no longer guaranteed, as Mexican president Miguel de la Madrid informed Comandante Henry Ruiz that Nicaragua would no longer be able to import oil “on the favorable terms that had been in place up to now.”Footnote ⁸⁹

In 1985–86, the Nicaraguan revolutionaries could still rely on the Soviet Union for the financial, military, and material support necessary to keep the economy afloat and the army in shape.Footnote ⁹⁰ For example, on April 24, 1985, less than ten days after Ruiz's conversation with Miguel de la Madrid in Mexico City, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) announced that newly elected Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega would travel to the Soviet Union “within a week.”Footnote ⁹¹ In Moscow, as the Sandinista newspaper Barricada Internacional reported, the Soviet leadership told Ortega that they were willing to provide 80 percent of Nicaragua's petrol needs on “favorable” terms, while the remaining 20 percent would be supplied by Libya, Iran, and Algeria.Footnote ⁹²

Despite efforts to obtain support from outside the Soviet Union, Nicaragua grew increasingly dependent on aid and trade with Cuba and the Eastern bloc. Tellingly, the contribution of the socialist countries to Nicaragua was around $582 million in 1986, which stood in sharp contrast to the $45 million offered in 1980. Meanwhile, bilateral aid from Western European countries, who were frustrated with the Sandinistas’ growing ties to the Soviet bloc, continued to decline. Economic assistance from the Netherlands went down from $24 million in 1983 to $15 million in 1986, and the West German government, which sent $17 million in 1983, scaled down to only $3 million in bilateral assistance in 1986. Financial support from multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, also decreased, from $121 million in 1981 to $35 million in 1986.Footnote ⁹³

Yet, as Sergio Ramírez found out during a visit to the Eastern bloc in June 1987, Nicaragua's reliance on the Soviet Union also could not continue indefinitely. As tensions between the superpowers declined in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union showed itself unwilling to protect the Nicaraguan Revolution at any cost. In the summer of 1987, the socialist leaders agreed to provide Nicaragua with assistance, but they also told Ramírez that the FSLN should work harder to improve its relations with other Central American governments. The new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to pursue a “policy of détente,” Ramírez reported back to Ortega, and therefore pushed its ideological allies in the Global South to search for “quick negotiated solutions” to costly Cold War conflicts. Moreover, as socialist regimes struggled to raise the “standard of living” in their own countries, they were reluctant to provide the FSLN with further support. It was the wish of the Soviet Union, Ramírez concluded, that Nicaragua seek financial aid and political backing in Western Europe and Latin America, rather than in the East.Footnote ⁹⁴

Confronted with a deteriorating economy, festering civil war, and limited room for maneuver in the international arena, Sandinistas calculated that further concessions regarding Nicaragua's internal and external affairs were the only way out of the dangerous status quo. Consequently, the government altered its attitude toward peace proposals made by the Costa Rican president Oscar Arias. Initially, the Sandinistas—who had not even been invited to the presidential summit where Arias first presented his peace plan on February 15, 1987—had been critical, calling the proposals “US-inspired” and announcing that it was “totally unacceptable” for other countries to “draw up recipes” for Nicaragua's domestic affairs.Footnote ⁹⁵ In particular, due to Arias's claim that “democracy” was a necessary precondition for an end to hostilities, his plan appeared specifically designed to isolate the revolutionaries, reject the FSLN's claims to democratic rule, and pressure the Sandinistas into implementing reforms.Footnote ⁹⁶ Nevertheless, on August 7, 1987, the Nicaraguan government signed a historic peace treaty, known as the Esquipulas II Peace Accords. This document included promises to implement amnesty decrees, allow for greater press freedom, embark on processes of national reconciliation, and organize a second democratic election. Crucially, it also called for the termination of any “military, logistical, financial, or propaganda support” to “irregular forces or insurrectionist movements.”Footnote ⁹⁷ By signing the treaty, the Nicaraguan government thus hoped to bring an end to the war.

What is more, the FSLN sought to use involvement in the Esquipulas process to improve its relations with Europe, hoping this would result in heightened levels of economic assistance. Arguably, an increase in financial support was even more important for the revolution's survival than the termination of the war. The economy was Nicaragua's “Achilles heel,” Ortega told East German leader Erick Honecker in Moscow, on November 3, 1987, that food shortages, hyperinflation, and growing unemployment had significantly weakened the Sandinistas’ support base. The growing discontent among the population as a result of the economic crisis, Ortega disclosed, was particularly worrying now that he had been forced to open up “political space” at home, which could be used by the opposition to undermine the FSLN. Ortega expressed hope that the Europeans would be more forthcoming with aid now that Nicaragua was implementing the Esquipulas treaty.Footnote ⁹⁸

Counting on Europe's support for Esquipulas, FSLN officials linked the promise of peace to the necessity of economic assistance. Ramírez, before travelling to Europe in August 1987, urged that “a country without relative economic normality cannot fully commit to the peace process.”Footnote ⁹⁹ Solidarity activists and left-wing politicians in Europe, too, felt that Nicaragua should be awarded with increased aid for its contribution to the Esquipulas process. The leader of the West German Social Democratic Party, Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, to give one example, argued in a parliamentary debate in September 1987 that the FSLN had taken positive steps to implement the Esquipulas II requirements and that, in response, the Federal Republic of Germany's bilateral aid program to Nicaragua should be resumed immediately.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

Unfortunately for the Sandinista leadership, however, Western European governments refused to provide the Nicaraguan government with more aid until it had “fulfilled all the requirements” of the Esquipulas treaty. Nicaraguan officials such as vice-minister Pedro Antonio Blandón, who visited the FRG on December 16, 1987, tried to counter these European demands by pointing out that it was unfair to push Nicaragua toward compliance while the other Central American countries and the United States experienced much less pressure, even though they were less forthcoming than Nicaragua with implementing the peace treaty. The government of Honduras, Sandinista officials pointed out, had made no effort to close down the contra bases. And in El Salvador, the government was unable to prevent left-wing activists and politicians from being murdered by extreme right-wing forces.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Yet, the EC leaders, no longer concerned that Nicaragua would otherwise become too dependent on the Soviet bloc, did not change their minds. Behind the scenes, British diplomats felt free to admit that “the West” was clearly “demanding of Nicaragua a level of immediate democratization that [it did] not demand simultaneously from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.”Footnote ¹⁰²

In this context, the FSLN had little alternative other than to implement further domestic reforms. On February 14, 1989, after a Central American presidential summit in El Salvador, Ortega announced that, for the second time since the revolution's triumph, Nicaragua would have a democratic election. By organizing these elections, the FSLN leaders hoped to “secure and strengthen” the legitimacy of the RPS in the face of a hostile international environment.Footnote ¹⁰³ In the run-up to the vote, Ortega guaranteed, there would be freedom of expression, international observers, equal access to state television and radio for all political parties, and a process of “national reconciliation.” Other Central American leaders made no such pledges, even though they were also required to organize elections in the framework of the Esquipulas process. In exchange for Nicaragua's concessions, however, they did agree to draw up a “joint plan for the voluntary demobilization, repatriation or relocation . . . of members of the Nicaraguan resistance and their families.” In addition, they called on the international community, and particularly the Western Europeans, to “support the social and economic recovery process of the Central American nations.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴

The Sandinista comandantes set out their strategy for the electoral process in a secret document, which they shared with a number of MINEX officials and officials of the FSLN's Department of International Relations in early 1989.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ This electoral strategy was developed in collaboration with Cuba and the Soviet Union.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ At its core, the plan recognized that legitimate elections were the only way to resolve Nicaragua's conflict with the United States. To neutralize the threat of renewed military escalation and further economic hostility, the National Directorate argued, Nicaragua would have to comply with the concessions and promises made by Ortega in El Salvador. Indeed, if the government adopted a cooperative attitude toward Esquipulas, the newly inaugurated US president George H. W. Bush would no longer be able to “deny the legitimacy” of the RPS. Therefore, they concluded, the electoral process, which would naturally have to result in an “overwhelming” triumph for the FSLN, was the country's “one single priority.”

The Sandinistas’ plan combined domestic and international components, focusing on the war, the economy, and legitimacy. To ensure victory, the FSLN reasoned, the government needed to “accelerate the defeat” and “demobilization” of the contras, bringing an end to more than a decade of violence and civil war.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ It also needed to improve the economic situation. Indeed, Henry Ruiz admitted to the East Germans in 1989, the latter was more urgent than ending the war, because the counterinsurgents were on the brink of collapse.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ To “reactivate” the country's production process, the FSLN launched a readjustment program, which it combined with lobbying in Western Europe. Meanwhile, the Sandinistas shielded the population as much as possible from “the negative effects” of the austerity and anti-inflationary measures, as further deprivation could alienate voters. Finally, realizing that an electoral victory would be worthless without the international seal of approval, they launched a campaign to project “the fairness and honesty” of the elections, targeting audiences and governments in “the United States, Western Europe, and the rest of the international community.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹

The positions of Western European governments and people thus mattered greatly for the success of the Sandinistas’ strategy. By convincing Europeans of the validity of the electoral process, the FSLN calculated, diplomatic pressure on the Bush administration to demobilize the contras would increase. And by demonstrating that Nicaragua was taking meaningful steps toward democratization and economic stabilization, the FSLN hoped to attract much-needed economic aid. Therefore, the FSLN asked activists to spread positive information about the elections and the peace process.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Moreover, in April and May 1989, Daniel Ortega, accompanied by Miguel d'Escoto, went on an extensive European tour, meeting with politicians, civil servants, solidarity activists, students, and journalists in France, Belgium, Greece, Italy, West Germany, Spain, Britain, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland.Footnote ¹¹¹ Aside from propagating Nicaragua's democratization process, Ortega's journey was designed to push European governments toward participating in an upcoming donor conference in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, where the Nicaraguan government hoped to raise $250 million for its economic recovery program.Footnote ¹¹²

The results of the Sandinistas’ campaign in the run-up to the elections were mixed. On one hand, Ortega received positive press coverage and a warm welcome from his European followers. His lecture in Brussels was attended by hundreds of enthusiastic activists, who praised the revolution's accomplishments and path toward democracy.Footnote ¹¹³ In Britain, the playwright Harold Pinter threw Ortega a soirée at his London home, which was attended by artists, activists, and intellectuals, among them Graham Greene, Bianca Jagger, Ian McEwan, and Peter Gabriel.Footnote ¹¹⁴

On the other hand, EC governments generally preferred to adopt a wait-and-see attitude before making any commitments regarding long-term financial aid and contra demobilization. After all, with the Soviet Union seeking to pull out of Central America, the primary reason for EC governments to send aid to Nicaragua (keeping the country out of the Soviet camp) was no longer relevant. West German officials told Ortega that the FRG would increase its bilateral aid only “after demonstrably free and fair elections” had taken place as scheduled in February 1990.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Tellingly, at $50 million, the results of the Stockholm conference were significantly lower than the Nicaraguan government needed for an economic revival.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Meanwhile, the Bush administration also prevented the demobilization of the contras, arguing that the Sandinistas “would not go forward at all with democratization” if the army was completely disbanded.Footnote ¹¹⁷

Ultimately, the FSLN's electoral plan failed. On the morning of February 26, 1990, to the surprise and shock of the Sandinistas and their supporters, the Supreme Electoral Council announced that, with 60 percent of the vote counted, the FSLN had obtained only 41 percent of the vote, while the opposition alliance received 54 percent. After a decade of revolutionary change and hardship, the Sandinistas had lost the support of the Nicaraguan population. Ortega immediately conceded defeat, promising that the FSLN and the Nicaraguan government were going to “respect and obey the popular mandate coming out of the vote in these elections.”Footnote ¹¹⁸

Two months after the FSLN's loss, on April 25, 1990, Violeta Chamorro was inaugurated as Nicaragua's president. In power, Chamorro received support from the US administration, which lifted the embargo, offered a $300 million aid package, and assisted with the demobilization of the contras. The EC countries, like the IMF and the World Bank, also lifted their restrictions on financial aid to Nicaragua. To be sure, it took several years before some form of peace would return to the impoverished and war-torn country. Nevertheless, a new period in the country's history and relations with the outside world had begun.