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

areas. The Contras were former Guardia).” His point was that in this region the poor,
rural individuals were recruited into Somoza’s private army through tactics of soldier
formation taught at the School of the Americas. Thus, it was difficult to promote the
FSLN agenda because of the locals’ tendency to sympathize with the Contras, who were
made up of former Guardia.
The Frente [FSLN] set up these campesino organizations throughout the
countryside in order to give people productive activity and a vida digna (dignified
life). MIDINRA took people from evacuated conflict zones and farm workers and
gave them land and technical assistance. These were the CAS. Then came the
APP that were designed to organize the confiscated lands of the Somozas and
abandoned landholders (Ramon Guillén, personal communication).
According to Don Ramón, the directorship of the Agrarian Reform failed; in his
words, “la cagó la dirigencia (the leaders screwed it up).” The decrees were taken too
literally, specifically the aforementioned Decree #3 (see Chapter Two) that required the
confiscation of the lands of the Somoza family and their cronies. However, as political
scientist David Close (1999:79) has also written, many landowners fled the violence of
the insurrection and the revolution. They also left because of the rising Contra activity in
the countryside. These people had to abandon their land for personal safety.
“El Frente les echaron la culpa de ser Somocista por sólo no estar en el país (The
FSLN placed blame on them for being Somocistas just for having fled the country), Don
Ramón clarified.
Another error of the Agrarian Reform, according to Don Ramón, was the
centralized production and processing of export products, such as coffee. The Salinas
Pinell APP was entirely devoted to coffee export. Other agricultural products were
intended to feed the workers.
85