NICARAGUA

EE

In May, Mercedes Tenorio and
Alberto Seguera, two executive officers
of the Nicaraguan Federation of Health
Care. Workers (FETSALUD) are travel-
ling across Canada to inform Canadians
of the ahcievements of their revolution,
to strengthen solidarity with the people
of Nicaragua, and to seek support for
their union and material aid for health
programs in their country. :

FETSALUD is a union which played
an important role in the struggle to over-
throw the dictatorship of Anastasio
Somoza. Since the popular triumph over’
Somoza in 1979, FETSALUD has
worked to improve the working and liv-
ing conditions of its members and the
health services avialable to the Nicara-
guan people.

FETSALUD currently represents 80
per cent of the country’s 17,200 health
care workers. Its membership includes
hospital and clinic support staff and
clerical workers, auxiliary and para-
medical staff, and doctors. While fully
supportive of * the Government of
National Reconstruction, FETSALUD
remains an independent union which is
not affiliated to any international trade
union body.

Along with other trade union organi-
zations, FETSALUD is represented in
the National Council of State where it
actively participates in determining
government policies and programs,
including those which affect trade unions
and the health care sytsem.

During the 50 years of Somoza dicta-
torship, health care was reserved for the
wealthy elite and privileged sections of
urban population. Under Somoza,

death were diarrhea and preventable dis-
eases such as polio, measles, diphtheria,
whopping cough and tetanus. Over 50
per cent of children under the age of five
suffered from malnutrition.

attempt to hold power was the bombing
and destruction of many of the country’s
hospitals and clinics. At the end of the
war a large number of doctors and
skilled technicians left the country.
Those who remained faced the tremend-
ous task of building a new health care
infrastructure and extending health care
services to people and communities
which had never been serviced before.
Since 1979, the Sandinista govern-
ment has launched ambitious and large-

tuberculosis, malaria and parasitic infec-
tions were common. Principal causes of ~

One legacy of Somoza’s desperate

The United States government's intervention in Nicaragua, including the illegal and
criminal mining of the Central American nation’s harbors, means setbacks for the
Sandinista government's successful health campaign, Mercedes Tenorio, with the aid
of translator Dr. Jim Lindsay, told delegates to the B.C. NDP convention May 19.
Tenorio, one of two representatives of the Nicaraguan Federation of Health Care
Workers touring Canaada, has been in B.C. for the last week gathering support for the
_ country’s ongoing health campaign.

B.C. can help campaign
for health in Nicaragua

scale health programs which have
reduced infant mortality from 121 to 82
per 1,000 and virtually eliminated com-
mon diseases including polio, measles
and whooping cough.

In the new Nicaragua, health care is
considered a right which should be avail-
able to all the people, Yet, while health

conditions continue to improve, the U.S. -

economic blockade and the mining of
Nicaragua’s ports and the bombing of
port warehouses by counter-revolution-
aries (contras) and the CIA have created
a desperate need for medicine, supplies
and spare parts for hospital equipment.

‘In addition, health workers and |

government health centres have become
prime targets of contra raids in the north
and south. At least 19 health workers
have been killed by contras, 26 have been
abducted, raped and tortured, and 22
rural health posts and hospitals have
been destroyed.

The objects of FETSALUD and the
Sandinista government to make health
care universally available and to improve

Harry
Rankin 3

the health of the people by improving
their living and working conditions can-

"not be realized until Nicaragua is allowed

to live in peace.

You can show your solidarity with the
health care workers and the Nicaraguan
people by taking the following actions:

@ Make sure your union declares its
support for the right of the Nicaraguan
people to determine their own future
without outside interference. Demand
that the Canadian government publicly

‘oppose U.S. intervention against Nica-

ragua and actively support a negotiated

solution to the conflict in Central _

America;

e Establish lines of communication
and fraternal relations between your
union and FETSALUD. Show your
solidarity with FETSALUD by making
a financial contribution to the “FET-
SALUD Project”;

@ Support Nicaraguan health pro-
grams by participating in campaigns in
your community to collect medical supp-

- lies and equipment for the people of

Nicaragua.

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 30, 1984

Reagan the terrorist
alderman tells rally

“There is a series of lies béing spread
about Nicaragua. But when you’ve visited
there, and been there for a few weeks, you
realize that it’s nothing more than
that — lies.”

So said Gautemalan exile and liberation |

worker Enrique Torres to some 200 people,
gathered to oppose U.S. military interven-
tion in Central America, outside the U:S.
consulate in Vancouver Saturday.

In fact, Nicaragua’s Sandinista govern-
ment is establishing a democracy — “a
democratic way of life based on the needs of
Nicaragua’s people,” Torres asserted.

The turnout was lower than expected, an
inadvertent byproduct of Saturday’s one-
day bus strike, which also reportedly kept
keynote speaker Mercedes Tenorio, of the
Nicaraguan Federation of Health Care
‘Workers, from attending.

Called by the B.C.-Nicaragua Solidarity
Committee — formerly the Coalition to
Aid Nicaragua —the demonstration
marked a new upsurge in the work to sup-
port Nicaragua’s embattled Sandinista
government, as well as the struggle for inde-
pendence in El Salvador and Guatemala, in
the face of stepped up intervention by the
Reagan administration.

That intervention — including the recent
mining of Nicaragua’s harbor by CIA
agents, the continued financing of the
counter-revolutionary bands staging raids
on Nicaraguan towns and economic cen-
tres, and the show “election” to the presid-
ency of El Salvador of Napoleon Duarte
— is accompanied by a campaign of distor-
tion and falsehoods, speakers at the rally
noted.

They included newly-elected NDP leader
Bob Skelly, who said: “We should be bring-
ing up our youth to understand what is
happening in other countries.”

Skelly, who has visited Nicaragua and is
an outspoken supporter of the Nicaraguan
revolution, said the Sandinista government
is making real gains, “but something is
‘standing in the way — the United States.”

While the Canadian government is not
involved in Reagan’s intervention, neither is
it doing “‘what it could to help Nicaragua;”
said Skelly.

“T think these issues should be examined
in the next federal election. And for their
inactivity, the Liberals — and the Con-
servatives — should be thrown out of
office,” he said.

“In B.C., we should be doing everything
we can to help these people. I intend, as

leader of this party in B.C., to do that,
Skelly pledged.

The public gets a “pretty distorted pil
ture” of Central America through the
media, charged Vancouver Ald. Hany
Rankin, joining Skelly in criticizing the
Canadian government for “not speakin 6
out.”

“The press had a field day on the ques
tion of whether certain types should 8
allowed to come here and speak,” Sa
Rankin, referring to city council’s obje
tions to the choice of Henry Kissinger 454
speaker at a fund-raiser for the Arts am
Sciences Centre last February. “In thelf
opinion, city council shouldn’t be talkine
about such things. But he was allowed 40
come here and present his case for his mut
derous plan for Central America.”

_ Reagan talks a lot about terrorism, layiné
the blame on the Nicaraguan government
and the liberation forces in E] Salvador,
“but the greatest terrorist in this world §
Mr. Reagan,” he asserted.

The U.S. president has supported El Sal
vador president-elect Duarte, “even thou
he likes the outright murderer (fascist leadet
Robert D’Aubuisson), but he knows thé
American people can’t stomach him,” s4!
Rankin.

All the money the U.S. government puls
into destabilizing Nicaragua and propping
up El Salvador’s unpopular junta is waste
asserted Torres.

“The people of Central America will
overcome, we will be free,” he declared.

——

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