Strikes Laid to Outgoing Sandinistas : Nicaragua: Days before Chamorro is to take power, mail, phone and banking services are in disarray.

With just four days remaining before the new government of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is scheduled to take office, the outgoing Sandinista government appears to be orchestrating a series of strikes that may threaten Chamorro’s ability to assert her government’s authority.

The strikes, which Sandinista leaders say are intended to ensure the demobilization of Contra rebels as scheduled, have halted mail service and crippled international telephone service. Friday, they shut down the nation’s banking system. Sandinista activists also have threatened to disrupt electricity, water and health services.

In some cases, the Sandinista government has granted workers’ demands for hefty wage increases, saddling Chamorro’s incoming conservative government with sharply higher expenses at a time when inflation already is rampant. For example, President Daniel Ortega last week doubled the salaries of water workers.

In the past, the Sandinistas have threatened to make the nation “ungovernable” if they ever lost their grip on power. By the current campaign of labor unrest, they seem to be flexing their muscles in a last-minute reminder to the Chamorro government that they remain a force to be reckoned with.

But the government is not directing the strikes, according to Cesar Jerez, director of the Jesuit-run Central American University in Managua, who has good relations with Sandinista leaders. Jerez described the strikes as the work of individual labor groups tied to the government. “Everybody’s trying to avoid a deterioration of the situation, but there are things that are not in control,” he said.

The Sandinistas have attributed the labor unrest in part to workers trying to win higher salaries before the new government takes office, and Ortega has issued calls for restraint. “These struggles are just, but the problem can’t be solved overnight,” Ortega said.

However, in a speech Friday night, Interior Minister Tomas Borge, one of the nine members of the ruling Sandinista National Directorate, called the strikes “a form of pressure (on the Contras) so they comply with their commitments.”

Other Sandinista leaders, such as Damaso Vargas, vice secretary of the Sandinista Workers Central, the main Sandinista labor group, have acknowledged that the strikes are centrally controlled with the dual purpose of securing large wage increases and making sure that the Contras are neutralized as a fighting force.

“We can paralyze the country in a matter of minutes, and that should be understood by the new government,” said Vargas, who warned in an interview that the strikes could continue until June 10, when the Contras are scheduled to complete the process of surrendering their weapons.

In an agreement signed Thursday, the U.S.-backed Contras promised to begin giving up their arms April 25. High-ranking Sandinista officials and labor leaders have said they do not trust the rebels to comply with the accord, and the current round of strikes appears designed to force Chamorro’s government to see that the Contras are disbanded by June 10.

Beset by runaway inflation, a plummeting currency and the unemployment of about a third of the work force, Nicaragua’s economy is already in terrible condition.

President Bush has lifted the five-year-old trade embargo against Nicaragua and pledged a $300-million aid package to help the new government. Chamorro’s economic team has prepared steps designed to reinvigorate the nation’s economy.

Nonetheless, Chamorro’s government at the outset would be vulnerable to labor unrest by Nicaragua’s public work force of about 30,000 employees.