Stop Arguing and Cut the Cake

Don’t underestimate the significance of today’s inauguration of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and her United Nicaraguan Opposition. For more than 40 years, the Sandinistas--and before them the Somozas--ruled that small, poor country seemingly as permanently as, well, a wall used to divide the two Berlins. No longer.

Not that the passion is gone. Many will always believe that the Sandinistas are heroes for having dumped the brutal/corrupt Somoza dictatorship in 1979. Many still believe that former President Reagan is a hero for aiding the Contras in their war against the brutal/corrupt Sandinistas.

But rather than rehash the bitter arguments of the last decade, people of good willon both sides here and, more important, in Nicaragua, should use today’s magnificent occasion to simply celebrate the fact there has been a peaceful transfer of power in a country that has known only chaos and war since 1978. That should tell us that democracy can work under even the worst of circumstances. And that’s a hopeful sign, not just in Central America, but all over the Third World where poor nations struggle to reach modernity and social justice without political violence.

There will be time enough, in the months to come, to discuss and debate the many daunting problems that Chamorro faces as president of Nicaragua. After all, is it inconceivable that if Chamorro can’t overcome these problems, Nicaragua’s voters might someday turn to a new president with a better plan--maybe even a Sandinista party leader like Ortega?

But when and if that happens, it must happen peacefully (Chamorro’s inaugural is thus a most useful precedent). And it must happen because it’s what the Nicaraguan people want, not because it’s what people elsewhere--be it Moscow, Havana, Washington or Los Angeles-- think it’s what the Nicaraguan people want.

That is, after all, what real democracy is all about.