Orphans of the Wall

Orphans of the Wall / 14ymedio, Bernard de la Grange
Posted on November 12, 2014

14ymedio, Bertrand de la Grange, Madrid/November 8, 2014 — Prensa Latina
devoted only ten lines to news that stunned the world. Below a detached
title – "The GDR Announces the Opening of its Borders" – the Cuban
agency related on November 9, 1989, that the German Democratic Republic
had just made an administrative "ruling" by which "citizens will be able
to take private trips without the need to explain their reasons." The
word "wall" did not appear in the teletype. Such moderation reflected
the prevailing confusion in Havana.

The transcendental event that western media celebrated was a catastrophe
for the allies of the Soviet Union in the Americas. Cuba and Sandinista
Nicaragua were in mourning. The guerillas still active in the region,
above all the Salvadoran FMLN, the Guatemalan URNG, and to a lesser
extent the Colombian FARC, saw their logistical and diplomatic space
reduced with the weakening of the communist bloc.

Mikhail Gorbachev's trip to Cuba, some months before, had made evident
the gulf that separated the Soviet president from the then Maximum
Leader who held tight to ideological orthodoxy as a detractor of the
Perestroika economic reforms, which were seen by Havana as an imitation
of capitalism. "We have seen sad things in other socialist countries,
very sad things," Fidel Castro would later say in reference to the
changes that took place two years after the collapse of the USSR, with
its devastating consequences for the Cuban economy, totally dependent on
subsidies from Moscow.

The events of November 9 also alarmed the Sandinista leaders in
Nicaragua. They did not expect it, in spite of – or perhaps because of –
their close relationship with the Stasi, the intelligence apparatus of
the GDR, which along with Cubans managed the security of the nine
leaders of the revolution. A year before, the Stasi had played a key
role in Operation Berta in order to change by force of arms the
Nicaraguan currency in a desperate effort to stop an inflation of
36,000%, which the government managed to reduce to 2,000% in 1989.

When the news arrived from Berlin, Nicaragua was immersed in a very
tense electoral campaign. At the request of the White House, Gorbachev
had convinced the Sandinista government to advance the elections
scheduled for the end of the year to February 25, 1990. This was about
looking for a political exit to the war between the Sandinista forces,
supported by Havana, and an essentially peasant rebellion, the Contras,
sustained by Washington. Managua was then an important piece on the
regional geo-political board, and the US feared that El Salvador would
be the next chip to fall.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) hoped to achieve with
those elections democratic legitimacy to convince the international
community of the need to disarm the Contras under the supervision of the
United Nations. Opposing, the National Opposition Union (UNO) a
coalition of 14 parties from the whole political spectrum, seemed to
have not the least chance of winning. Its candidate, Violeta Barrios,
widow of Joaquin Chamorro, assassinated during the Somoza dictatorship,
was a housewife without political experience. Instead, the FSLN counted
on the overwhelming machinery of the State to impose its candidate,
Daniel Ortega, who had spent a decade in power.

La Prensa, property of the Chamorro family, dedicated extensive coverage
to the Berlin event, including an editorial entitled, "Fall of the Wall,
a Miracle of History." Antonio Lacayo, son-in-law and close adviser to
the UNO candidate, saw the opportunity that was presented to them. "We
knew immediately that that historic event would have very favorable
repercussions for us in the campaign against the Sandinistas," he says
in a book, The Difficult Nicaraguan Transition, published in 2005. "We
said that if the Germans were capable of throwing off forty years of
dictatorship, we could throw off ours of ten years…"

He was not wrong. Contrary to the surveys, the international press and
the diplomats, who predicted a comfortable victory for Daniel Ortega,
Violeta de Chamorro won with almost 55% of the vote.

"The electoral defeat of the Sandinistas was our Berlin Wall, we were
convinced we were going to win," Joaquin Villalobos would later say.
Villalobos was one of the leaders of the Salvadoran guerrilla group, the
Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation, which had its rearguard
in Managua. Instead, the events of November 1989 in Germany did not
affect them "morally," and they decided to continue with their plans to
launch an unprecedented military offensive against the capital, San
Salvador, and the country's principal cities.

The political times of Central America did not match up with those of
Eastern Europe. The Salvadoran guerrillas saw their survival endangered
in the face of pressures from the United States on Gorbachev to stop the
deliveries of Soviet arms through Cuba and Nicaragua. The FMLN dreamed
of winning power by means of weapons, although their more realistic
commanders settled for achieving a greater control of terrain in
preparation for a negotiation.

While the Cold War was dying out and the citizens of East Germany were
celebrating their new freedom, the leaders of the FMLN hurried the final
details of "Operation To the Top" in safe houses placed at their
disposal by the Sandinista government. November 11, a little before
eight at night, Radio Venceremos, the emissary of the Salvadoran
guerrillas, received the message from Joaquin Villalobos: "We are on the
march. From here to there, there is no retreat," he said from Managua.
The offensive was beginning.

The Soviets were furious at feeling tricked by their Sandinista allies
who had committed to cutting off logistical help to the FMLN. The
minister of Foreign Affairs, Eduard Shevardnadze, one of Gorbachev's
closest associates, had traveled to Nicaragua the month before to
announce Moscow's decision to collaborate with the peace plan for
Central America, launched two years before with international support.

Close to 4,000 Salvadorans died in the two weeks of combat, between
guerrilla fighters, soldiers and the civil population. Was anything
achieved? According to writer David Escobar Galindo, ex-negotiator for
the government, "The offensive of November 11, 1989, opened the
possibility for peace by demonstrating that war could not be decided
militarily." Terror had reached an equilibrium. Both sides would sign
the peace in 1992 and, a distant consequence of the fall of the Wall,
the FMLN would come to power by the ballot box in 2009.

Editor's note: This text has been previously published in the daily El
Pais. We reproduce it with permission of the author.

Bertrand de la Grange was a correspondent for Le Monde in Central
America when the Wall fell.

Translated by MLK

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