Two NACLA members, Judy Butler and Janet Shenk, had the privilege of leading the first group of political tourists from the United States to Nicaragua this past December. The 10-day tour, jointly sponsored by NACLA and Monthly Review Associates, attracted 37 of our readers ranging in age from 17 to 87, and coming from all parts of the United States and Canada. The group travelled to a number of cities including Managua, Le6n, Esteli, Matagalpa, Masaya, Monimb6 and Granada, and half continued on for an additional four days, visiting Bluefields on the country's Atlantic coast. The tour was so successful, and we were so impressed with the im- portance of combatting the grow- ing distortions about Nicaragua which appear in the mainstream media, that we are planning another tour for July 1981, the second anniversary of Nicaragua's revolution. A Nicaraguan government representative who joined us at our first post-tour reunion-yes, there has already been a re- union!-noted that the Reagan Administration has been so hostile to Nicaragua because, "it has been a shining example of how a revolutionary people can begin to build a more just society." Our first visit to that country proved that touring Nicaragua is the best way to evaluate that example. There is no way we can share with our readers the full impact of our trip, nor in these few lines deepen the analysis presented in the May-June 1980 issue of the NACLA Report. But since all of us, tour leaders and participants alike, found it a wonderfully memorable experience, we would like to share a little of its content and flavor. JanlFeb 1981 NACLA's Janet Shenk translates talk on counterrevolutionary attacks by Nicaraguan Junta member Moises Hassan. Janet was a bit apprehensive about the trip, never having been a tour guide before. But, at NACLA, one learns to do a lot of new things, so she packed her bags and gamely practiced her "tour-guide smile." I, being far too idealistic to contemplate such possibilities as personality conflicts or bouts of "turista," busied myself with last-minute hassles: how do we make sure that everyone knows the flight from Miami leaves 4 hours ahead of schedule? With only a few near-disasters, we arrived safe and sound in Managua - a city surrounded by smoking volcanos and still showing the devastation of the 1972 earthquake. There we met the people from Viajes Universo who would be our hard-working companions for the next 10 days. Viajes Universo is a private Nicaraguan tour agency; the government tourist board, In- turismo, acts in a liason capaci- ty. This trip was to be Viajes Universo's initiation into political tourism as well. There are American tourists that don't want to lunch at the fanciest hotel in town?, they questioned. Americans that make a political decision not to exchange their dollars on the parallel market at nearly twice the official rate? Americans who will skip an after- noon at the beach if there's another cooperative, day care 43update update * update update center or hospital to see? But our guides rallied almost immediately. At our request they quickly found some compafieros to stencil a banner for our bus, proclaiming us, "North Americans - Friends of the Revolution." Thus identified, we were met with warmth, generosi- ty and openness wherever we travelled. Workers on a state cof- fee plantation shared their food with us, guards in one of the regional prisons permitted us to tour the facility, and people in the streets patiently slowed their Spanish to a crawl to be sure we all could communicate. The importance of solidarity be- tween the U.S. and Nicaraguan people became each day more critical as the U.S. government escalated its support for the repressive junta in neighboring El Salvador. Personally invited by Comandante of the Revolution and Minister of the Interior Tomds Borge, we attended a presentation of military promotions to exem- plary fighters in the insurrection. As we marched toward the crowd of 500 with our banner aloft, we were greeted with loud, spon- taneous applause. The importance of this visit by North Americans was clear also to the Nicaraguan leaders who gave unstintingly of their time to meet with us. Moises Hassan, a member of the Junta of National Reconstruction, spoke to us for two hours and stayed for a Christmas Day buffet at our hotel, even though he had used this holi- day respite to get married only three days before. We also met with Comandante William Ramirez, who was recovering from an illness in Niquinomo, San- dino's birthplace. Ramirez, a 44 member of the FSLN Secretariat, also heads the ministry in charge of what is called the Atlantic Coast - actually a region con- taining more than half of Nicaragua's total territory. After a lengthy presentation on U.S. strategy in the region, he apolo- gized for possibly reiterating things we already knew. "But," he ex- plained, "I wanted to be thorough because I know that in your coun- try you don't have this kind of ac- cess to your own leaders." Finally, on the eighth day, by popular demand and unanimous exhaustion, we did spend an after- noon on a deserted Pacific beach. There, in a relaxed conversation with our bus driver, Miguel, we learned that he was an ex-guerrilla fighter and had spent time in Somoza's prisons. Those of us who took the boat ride to Bluefields along the lush Rio Escondido got a glimpse of Nicaragua's other reality. The blufileios share a history very dif- ferent from their brothers and sisters on the other side of this vast, rich and relatively un- populated country (see "Atlantic Coast Unrest," NACLA Report, Vol. XIV, No. 6). While for this reason some do not perceive the Sandinista revolution as their own, we found that they share at least two important characteristics which should help the difficult pro- cess of integration: warmth and candor.
