ON MAY DAY this year, Commander JAIME WHEELOCK, one of the four main leaders of the Sandinistas, spoke to with the problems military aggression on the country's borders.
On this 1984, the people Nicaragua are engaged in struggle, a struggle that is still necessary to attain national sovereignty and to attain a higher standard of living and social progress. How different it is from the May Days of other such as 1963, when worker and student demonstrators were massacred; such as in 1965, when workers were repressed and tortured; such as in 1978 when some workers' leaders were murdered, imprisoned, or sent to the torture chambers.
How different it is towith the people Ud y holding a freedom, celebrating with joy the Day Workers.
We are poor. We have inherited debts. Gestuction, and a people living in extraordinary poverty. We still have a long way to go reduce LCIO the number of children who have no shoes, to eliminate agricultural workers in His speech covered a wide variety of topics. Here confronting the Nicaraguan in the context of the world crisis and the general poverty of this country. But there is a fundamental factor that must of Mayorkers participate in all of the state's consultative bodies. There are no decisions on the economv or prices. on sub. sidies or wages, on which the working class. through its organizations, does not exoIes itself in a militant way. Workers participate directly power through CDS's (Sandinista Defence Committees), through nousanes of organizations, in assemones died dievving and raising producPower But most important of all is the fact that the revoluleadership, the Lullal y Sandinista Liberation Front, is the organizabon WOrKCIs. the organization that returned power to workers after taking it away from somozaism We have given power to the working class, and it is the working class that holds power here!
You will remember the period after the triumph, when Somoza had left us a devalued all economy in ruins, a counin debt. What happened in those first months? There beans because nobody had planted any. There was no rice because that had not been planted either.
Eggs were in short sup ply because all the chickens, all the hens, had disappeared. what happened! The DECC eggs tripled or quadrup!ed. Whv? Because there was a shortage. And when goods are scarce Dul wages continue to be paid at norWECI there Is the prices of the items that are scarce go up.
Scarcity We were short of certain products. Sugar, for example, was not scarce, because had sugar. Milk because we had milk. was not scarce, But eggs, meat, corn and beans What did we scarle. we could no During 1980 and 190 we produce, imported. maintained ourselves LIC basis ot imports. on the basis of international using our hard cur10alls. rency to buy corn, milk beans and rice. the shortages were not felt: there was no longer a scarLIly But following these phenomena, we have suffered others. First among them is the fact that the Sandinista People's Revolution coincides with The crisis striking blows at all poor economies. Even some strong ones have had to unel currencie throw thousands of workers out of work. We have been fighting against this crisis, trying to prevent the workers' economy from being hit.
Last year, for example, we exported a lot of coffee we prouuctu rice, beans sorhum Level betore in history of the country.
But this production is insufficient, because from the beginning we wanted to give our people the best. We wanted to give the peasant more food, the working class more food, and at cheap prices.
The products we sell guns prices. The products we buv on the international market are going at very high prices.
In short. companeros. 1979. since ticular from 1980 to 1983. Nicaragua has lost • In International trade, because the crisis, about $2 halon. That is We have lost through selling our products at the price they impose on us.
Inrough buyulig goods, again at the prices they impose on us Year after year. the Only the workers and peasants will go all the way country losing some $400 million. What could we have done with that 52 billier We have given more support health care, we could have built Houses have strengthened our economy luld That is, in a nutshell, there al c today certain products or wnich Inere are not enough to meet the needs of all workers.
The problem of food of shortages. will resolved in the long term. But we are not going 1o be able to emerge from this wtuation shoriage one as pegave alicia tional crisis that forces us to assign priorities for the hard currency we have left after we pay for the oil, after we make payments on the debts — that forces ChOOsc DC WCCI medicines or houses, milk tue have no paper mills "
toilet paper). deodorant o bab; tovs. We will have to assigning for this hard currency It is important that the should cost 1 córdoba, and yet when you find a pound the market, what does it cost? Eighty córdobas a medio, 8 córdobas pound COr dobas. First of all there is anaren "in une prices, secondly, the official price is not being respected even though there is a subsidy.
Ukav. do three things. The first thing we are going to do is finish the reorganization of wages, so that we do not have one truck driver at a mill making 6,000 utal cordobas (a month); another 10,000 another 8,000. All should
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Chinandega, in the North-west of Nicaragua. we reproduce some sections of the speech dealing