The Undermining of the Sandinista Revolution by Gary Prevost and Harry E. Vanden (eds.), Macmillan Press, 1997, 240 pp., $39.95 (Cloth). Violeta Chamorro was elected pres- ident of Nicaragua in 1990, defeat- ing the Sandinistas who had ruled since 1979. The Sandinista revolu- tion pursued national indepen- dence, state leadership of a mixed economy, social benefits for the country's poor majority and demo- cratic empowerment of the popula- tion through mass organizations and guarantees of a wide variety of rights. The Chamorro government took office pledging to roll back many of these changes. This collection examines what remained of the Sandinista project after six years of Chamorro's rule. In five chapters, six authors exam- ine Chamorro's economic policies, the domestic and international pres- sures which produced them, their impact on various segments of the population, and the efforts of the formerly government-sponsored Sandinista mass organizations to find a meaningful autonomous role. Economic stagnation was the biggest problem Chamorro faced, and several chapters overlap con- siderably on this topic: the over- view by Gary Prevost, the examina- tion of the political process by Harry Vanden, Richard Stahler- Sholk's account of structural ad- justment policies and Cynthia Chavez Metoyer's analysis of its impact on women. Stahler-Sholk's chapter is the most valuable, exam- ining Nicaragua's domestic eco- nomic policies and its relations with international financial institu- tions vis a vis the hemispheric dom- inance of neoliberalism. Buffeted by the U.S.-financed Contra war, the Sandinistas left the economy in bad shape. The Chamorro government failed to reactivate it. The government cut back in health, education and state employment, privatized state- owned enterprises (where workers were able to preserve their posi- tions in some firms by buying a share of the capital), attacked agrarian reform by returning prop- erties to prerevolutionary owners and strangling credit, and encour- aged foreign investment in a free- trade zone. The poor suffered: 50.3% of the population fell below the poverty line in 1993 and unem- ployment and underemployment reached 53.6% by 1994. While unemployment and im- poverishment were foreseeable consequences of the government's policies, these did not even succeed on their own terms. As Stahler- Sholk shows, "structural adjust- ment" mainly meant reducing gov- ernment spending in a (mostly futile) battle to contain inflation, without any real structural changes to reactivate production. In the only chapter which deals with the popular response to the rollbacks, Pierre M. La Ram6e and Erica G. Polakoff describe the transformation of the Sandinista mass organizations. Like Stahler- Sholk, the authors put their topic in an international context, relating events in Nicaragua to issues of participatory socialist democracy and recent transformations of social movements in Latin America. To the Sandinista leadership, these organizations were vehicles to defend the revolution more than channels to express the popular will. Interviews with leaders make clear that the struggle to assert an independent role and provide for mass participation in a hostile political environment is daunting, Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEc 1997 47 Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEc 1997 47REVIEWS but that activists maintain a firm commitment to social justice. Several authors show that some of Chamorro's policies were antici- pated by the Sandinista regime itself. They are unsparing of the Sandinistas' economic austerity program which betrayed their com- mitment to the poor, their exploita- tion of their positions of privilege and their vanguardist positions which denied real autonomy to the mass organizations. The book was evidently com- pleted before the 1996 election, and though several authors refer to Arnoldo Alemin as the likely vic- tor, they do not satisfactorily account for the right-wing ascent which his election represented. The new government can be expected to exacerbate the Chamorro govern- ment's policies, promoting accu- mulation of private capital and attacking unions, agrarian reform and other institutions through which the Sandinista government sought redistribution to the poor majority. -Jack Hammond Last Resorts: The Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean By Polly Patullo, Foreward by Michael Manley, a Latin American Bureau book, distributed by Monthly Review Press, 1996, 220 pp., $19 (paper). This excellent book asks whether Caribbean tourism is the future engine of growth in the area, or whether is it the engine of short- term cash and long-term disaster. Few still dispute that the vacation industry has become a permanent feature of the Caribbean or that it contributes hard currency for local economies. The main argument now concerns who controls it and how it develops. Patullo examines the industry in detail. Successive chapters look at the history of tourism, the interac- tion of resorts with local econo- mies, planning (or the lack of it), employment, the tourists them- selves, the cruise-ship component and the airlines and finally the influence on local culture. The assessment comes across decidedly negative. The trend toward all-inclusive hotels and playgrounds, for example, means few linkages with local economies. Cruise companies now tend to buy private islands rather than dock at local ports. Job creation comes overwhelmingly at the lower end of the scale and locals are underrepre- sented in management positions. Furthermore, employment is sea- sonal and usually dead-end. In cul- tural terms, resorts create what the tourists want to see rather than pre- senting authentic artistic creations. Local craftsman do the same. As a SCUBA diver, I can attest to the often irreversible damage already done to Caribbean reefs. Moreover, the industry often serves as a cover for the drug trade. Patullo, for some reason, fails to add that almost all Caribbean beaches have problems with oil spills due to the fact that supertankers regularly criss-cross the area. The text is liberally sprinkled with revealing quotes from industry leaders, government officials and critics of the industry. The author correctly notes that not just foreign corporations prey on the islands, but local entrepreneurs (most notably Butch Stewart of the Sandals chain) have jumped on the bandwagon as well. The book, unfortunately, focuses mostly upon the English-speaking Caribbean, with less attention given to Hispanic or Francophone areas. The book contains its quota of digs at Cuba, though it never explains the real reason behind the recent development of tourism there. Increasingly, Caribbean nations have been taking note of the indus- try's downside. Several attempts have been made to present a united front to foreign entities-one example being the attempt by the 34-member Caribbean Tourist Orga- nization to collect uniform port charges on cruise ships. But the sledding is rough due to the involvement of the local elites in primary and secondary roles and to the competition that exists between islands. The threat to use an alter- nate port of call or build a resort elsewhere is real. The industry, however, has reached a point where host nations have to take control before more environmental, social and cultural destruction occurs. And this does not just mean that local entrepreneurs grab a greater share of the business. If govern- ments do not act responsibly, Carib- bean peoples in tourist-dependent countries will soon become, as the calypsonian sang, "like an alien in we own land".
