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model for Latin America." To those who believe that the Marxism of
the Sandinistas is purely native, Christian's reporting must be an
eye-opener. Indeed, her work suggests that part of the Sandinistas'
problem is that their politics came from two isolated sources - the
guerrilla struggle in the hills and in exile, and the sectarian pro-Soviet
Marxism of the Cuban Communists and the Soviets.
There were, of course, non-communists among the guerrilla
fighters. Today, they are in exile or, in some cases, supporting the
contras.
One of the shockers in her book is her account of how the
most prominent and famous S'tndinista hero, Eden Pastora Gomez
(who carried out the 1978 raid on the National Palace), was treated
after he made the difficult decision to leave his country because of
political differences. Pastora had gone to Panama to consult his friend
General Omar Torrijos, precisely at the time the General died in a
plane crash. Pastora was supposed to have accompanied him on that
fatal trip, and Pastora suspected foul play that was aimed at him.
Immediately after, Pastora was tricked into a meeting in Panama
with the Sandinista Interior Minister Tomas Borge - who quickly
captured Pastora and took him to Cuba, where he was put under
house arrest for months . Pastora had not attempted to take up arms
when he first quit - but any public role by him was seen by the San–
dinistas as a threat they could not tolerate.
The Sandinistas like to portray the coalition of which they were
a part as made up of different tendencies, some Marxist, but others
Catholic and some even moderate democratically-oriented socialists .
What Christian shows is that whatever differences and factions de–
veloped had to do with the question of how to reach power, not that
of how to govern. Indeed, one is struck by how many noncommunists
could be recruited to join the FSLN as combatants, and how many
even fought in more battles than those who currently run the coun–
try. Thus we learn about the young banker Alfredo Cesar, who be–
came an FSLN combatant, later President of the Central Bank, who
eventually joined other democrats in exile in 1983. And Pastora, it
turns out, did more actual fighting than other major Sandinistas,
some of whom led the movement from a somewhat comfortable exile
in Costa Rica.
There were non-Marxists allied with the Sandinistas. But as
former Ambassador to the United States Arturo Cruz put it, moder–
ates were of use to the FSLN, since they allowed their presence to
give the appearance of a pluralist society. After polarization set in,
Cruz pointed out, opponents of the FSLN saw the moderates as a
