i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

Chapter 8
Community-Based Campesino Organizing:
Case Studies of Small-Scale Coffee Farming in Las Segovias
The repercussions of the Sandinista electoral loss in 1990 were widespread in the
agrarian countryside of Las Segovias. Nicaragua’s coffee production and export yield
were at all-time lows toward the end of the 1980s. The International Coffee Organization
penalized Nicaragua’s coffee exports and applied deductions that resulted in below-
market values because of consistently poor quality and low yields during and after the
Contra War (Robleto Lang 2000: 20; Rocha 2001).
The post-Sandinista transition government struggled to restructure as corrupt
practices hindered governmental organizational efforts. The “piñata”— the land and
property grab of state-owned holdings after the FSLN lost the 1990 election—proved to
be debilitating for Violeta Chamorro’s incoming administration. The Sandinistas were
able to maintain control of the transit and labor unions via the piñata. They could call a
huelga (strike) at any time.
Doña Violeta’s UNO administration struggled to introduce reforms to the
economic, social, and political sectors of society. Exiled capitalists were welcomed back.
The state offered indemnity for confiscated holdings. The government urged former
military and Contra fighters to exchange their weapons for arable lands. In fact, several
farmers with whom I worked were still holding onto their Soviet-era AK-47s that the
FSLN had issued to their troops in the 1980s.
The situation for the former FSLN-managed, state-formed agrarian entities was
grim. The Areas Propiedades del Pueblo (APPs, introduced in Chapter 3) were privatized
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