government. The FSLN steps to increase THERE legal includes the Eastern in fist' price the inspectors'. the Comunions.
up.
garden These are black prices, least for fruit vegetables.
for the country. This is a major means of reducing shortages therefore speculation. But are and will remain many obstacles the •way tinues to weigh down heavily on the Nicaraguan has been replying by deepening the agrarian reform, cracking down on the flourishing illegal market, and taking urgent production. MARIA MERRI jective of all, of spare raw materials, aggravated the US blockade.
the workday is hours. up a bit.
hours.
inherent ally tionary It hapstraints on removed, doing LIOSC ure hardes jobs. to be thing. But obviously blems.
While an rising for developing country the Liberation the in dividing the services and administTaLOl Moreover, this year almost all social inas in education housing and health will be earmarked for the countryside. The objective is to stimulate a secvital because of what it exports but also because of its production of food crops, and in this way to stem the swollen Moanagua out os rural exodus that all proportion.
However, this measure is as much political as it is economic. With the turn taken in 1985 in the aD plication , of the agrarian reform, the distribution of land en masse individually to the peasants, it is necessary to firm up the 'workers' peasants' the backbone of the revoluton, accordnig to lne ex pression of the national leadership of the FSLN.
This choice, which involves consciously favouring some sections of the population to the detriment or olers, automallcally incurs dissatisfaction among those momentarily left out.
A number of measures have not exactly brought cheers those a -fected. That goes for the increase Managua, which is higher than the rest of the country. goes also for ' the new working hours in une colla The workday has been reduced and working time has been spread over the week. But workers in the tertiary administration now have to work Saturday mornings. The reason for this was to try to solve the bottlenecks in mass transit Managua.
The target of the 1986 plan achieve a growth rate of 5 per cell over last year anc raise gross domestic product by 4.9 per cent which make it possible bring the level of 1983.
ment that the Wheater since 1985 in production cent agriculture.
sectors substantial to leaving The has exacerthe economic Planning, 1985 the primary sector : cent. This tivities Will 1986 be a better year than 1985? A certain number of positive factors indicate that it will. The price of coffee, the coun try's main export product has soared on the world stabilising around 150 dollars per 100 Kuzrammer against dollars last year Moreover, this year the contras were unable to inwith the harvest which was excellent.
On the other hand, the prices for some other traditional ducts, cotton and sugar are in the doldrums. year, Nicaragua intends to reduce the land under cotton bi per cent favour of nontraditional On the military front, the defeat of the contras is becoming more pronounced. But for that reason the possibility of a direct intervention by US imperialism may be rein forced. Everything seems tha ticipation of such an even tuality influenced the economic choice that the Sandinistas made, in particular their giving priority relaunching the agrarian reform.
Of course, the measures that have beer taken have reinforced differepce in some sections of the population toward the government' policy.
But if major development occur, the attitude of the peasantry will no doubt be uccove.
• From International Viewpoint Belgium the strikes will be suspended.
On Saturday Brussels saw one of its largest demonstrations since the war in protest against the right wing Martens government's austerity policies. Around 150,000 marched in the culmination of four weeks of strikes that have paralysed many of Belgium's services. But at the rally union leaders announced that the union was going to join talks with the government and that
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THE WAR being waged by the US backed contras, as well as the United States economic embargo, con-