‘A Catastrophe That Has to Be Stopped’ : Well-Organized Squatters Turn Sandinista Ideology to Own Uses in Managua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua —  In most respects, Dinamarca is a model Sandinista neighborhood where workers have joined together to build a water system and schoolhouse, to stand guard at night against crime, and to defend the revolution.

There’s just one problem: The year-old community is illegal. Dinamarca is one of dozens of “spontaneous settlements” in the capital, and the nearly 500 families living there are well-organized squatters who mean to use the revolution to stay where they are.

“We are Nicaraguans and the land is ours,” said Francisco Paulino Giron, 60, a construction worker. “We have fought for the liberation of this country, and we, the poor people, want a little bit of land where we can live without being exploited.”

Giron’s neighbor on a block of wood-and-clapboard shacks is Leonte Rojas, 49, a truck driver. “We are Sandinistas,” said Rojas. “Anytime they call us to combat we will go. But we have to have somewhere to live.”

Was a Rocky Lot

A year ago, Dinamarca did not exist; the land it now occupies across from the U.S. Embassy was a rocky, weed-filled lot. Today the self-made community is part of a serious problem for the revolutionary government--rapid, uncontrolled urban growth.

And while the Sandinista government is trying to solve the problem through centralized planning, the highly politicized squatters use both Sandinista ideology and organizing techniques to stand their ground.

“Now we organize ourselves,” Dinamarca resident Arlen Lopez said proudly.

The population of Managua, still small by the standards of Latin American capital cities, has lately grown at a phenomenal rate of about 6% annually. In 1979, the year that the Sandinista revolution deposed dictator Anastasio Somoza, about 600,000 people lived here. Today, Managua counts almost a million inhabitants, about one-third of total population in a country having agriculture as its economic base.

Dinamarca was one of 21 squatter settlements to appear in Managua between mid-1984 and mid-1985. Together, they house 14,000 families. So far this year, six more settlements have appeared, although authorities managed to dismantle one of them.

Housing, Jobs Scarce

The government is unable to provide enough housing, water, electricity, plumbing and, most importantly, jobs, to the residents already here. Officials say that although they built 18,000 housing units in three years, still there is a shortage of 30,000. Many units house two and three families.

The demand for water in Managua is 56 million gallons daily, but the water company pumps only 42 million, leading to rationing two days a week for every household. Many residents without services hook illegally into the water and electric systems.

And only about a third of the city’s prospective workers have salaried jobs, with the rest relying on occasional or informal employment.

Officials say that if the urbanization trend continues unchecked, the capital will be a disaster by the end of the century.

“We have 30% of the population of the country now,” said Carlos Carrion, head of the Sandinista Front’s regional delegation for Managua. “If this continues, we will have 45% of the population in Managua by the end of the century. . . . This is a catastrophe that has to be stopped.”

Poor Lured to Cities

The root of the problem lies in economically motivated migration from the countryside to the cities, the same problem that swelled the population of Sao Paulo, Brazil, to at least 12 million and of Mexico City to 17 million. Because of falling crop prices, eroding land, rising production costs, growing families and competition from big farmers, peasants decide they can no longer live off the land and move to cities looking for cash-paying jobs.

They are drawn to the capital not only by the prospect of work but also because, however difficult urban life might be, it still offers more services and more opportunities than the countryside.

“Water is rationed two days a week in Managua, but it’s better than the rest of the country where most villages have water only in the mornings, every morning,” Minister of Housing Miguel Ernesto Vijil said.

Migration tends to take place in stages, from a farm to a provincial city to the capital. Provincial families who move to the capital may start out living with relatives. Later, they gravitate to squatter settlements, along with young couples who have lived with their parents and workers who cannot afford increasing rents.

Aggravated by Quake, War

In Nicaragua, the situation has been aggravated by a shift, beginning in the 1950s, into large-scale cotton production along the highly populated Pacific Coast, a 1972 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital, and, more recently, the ongoing war with U.S.-backed rebels in the country’s northern and southern border regions.

The war has not only forced some farmers off their land in areas of combat, but has also absorbed scarce resources that officials say might otherwise have been used to build housing and provide services.

The 1972 earthquake, which destroyed about 50,000 residences in Managua, left the capital with expanses of vacant space that makes the overpopulation problem less visible to the eye than in other Latin capitals. There is no downtown Managua, and a city thoroughfare may be interrupted by crossing cattle.

The capital is spread over about 60 square miles, but nearly 20 square miles are vacant, so one of the government’s first jobs in attacking overpopulation is to make the public aware that it is a serious problem, Carrion said.

The government is just beginning to draw up a plan for dealing with overpopulation and squatter settlements. A yearlong study is to be completed in the fall, and Mayor Moises Hassan is now in Spain, consulting with urban planners from around the world.

Key to Build Countryside

Officials say that the key is to develop the countryside rather than the capital--the reverse of what was done during the first years of the revolution. They say they are trying to decentralize bureaucracies so that people need not travel to the city as often, to improve rural salaries and to step up agrarian reform to keep peasants in the countryside.

“We made errors in the first years that encouraged migration, and now we are trying to repair them,” Carrion said.

Despite current shortages, the government will not build any more housing in the capital or expand Managua’s waterworks, officials said. Officials are trying to spot areas that are potential squatter settlements, post signs on them prohibiting construction and, in some cases, put parks and sports fields there.

“We don’t expect to eliminate the growth, but to order it and reduce it as much as possible,” Carrion said.

As a stopgap measure recently, authorities acted quickly to halt a spontaneous settlement as it was beginning to take root in a field near the national university. The government succeeded in eliminating the settlement, but the resistance met by the officials shows the will, resourcefulness and organizational skills of the people who want to settle in the open lands.

100 Squatter Families

About 100 families had moved into the field, given their neighborhood the name of a Sandinista martyr and hung a flag before the officials arrived to talk to them.

“They put the children in front with signs that said ‘We are the spoiled ones of the revolution,’ and ‘We want to live here,’ and they sang the Sandinista hymn,” Carrion said.

He said the squatters’ leaders sat off to the side while their most humble spokesmen stood before the Sandinista officials to explain why they wanted to live in the settlement.

“We taught them,” Carrion said with a smile.

The meeting went on for several hours, with the officials explaining that peasants should go back to the land and the squatters explaining that most were not peasants and didn’t know how to farm the land.

“I told them that the (Sandinista) front tells the truth even when it is difficult . . . and that they had the bad luck to squat at a moment when the needs of the majority outweighed the needs of a few,” Carrion said.

The government offered the residents housing and jobs in government projects--a cattle farm and dairy--outside of the capital and many accepted. Some families were from the provinces and returned. The area was cleared.

“It was an emergency action in this case, but it can’t be the answer for everyone,” Carrion said.

In the case of Dinamarca, the government did not act quickly. The residents there have had a year to organize and are using the Sandinista system to institutionalize their neighborhood.

Divided Into Lots

The residents say they have divided their lots into regulation sizes to comply with the Housing Ministry standards that would apply to them if they were legal. They collected money door-to-door for construction supplies, and on weekends are building their own schoolhouse, for which they say they have been promised a government teacher.

They have formed Sandinista Defense Committees, through which they organized neighborhood watch patrols and appointed a commission to negotiate with the Sandinista government over the future of Dinamarca. As soon as they hold elections for their neighborhood leaders, the Defense Committees will be legally recognized by the zonal leadership, a Dinamarca resident said.

“Maybe this won’t guarantee that we can stay, but it is a point of departure to have a recognized organization,” Jose Ignacio Lorillo, 27, said.

Lorillo said that this month the residents will get their rationing cards, allowing them to buy in government subsidized stores rather than on the more expensive free market.

“We told them that we are human beings and we have the right not to have to buy from speculators,” Lorillo said.

Want to Pay for Water

Meanwhile, a resident painter has drawn up a neighborhood map that will be taken to the national water company in an effort to secure community faucets with meters so the residents can pay for their water. The 500 households currently use 15 illegal communal faucets.

“We want to pay for the water and electricity, but we can’t because they aren’t legalized,” said Arlen Lopez, 30, a cook.

Lopez, like other residents, has gotten a letter from her Sandinista union asking the Housing Ministry to help her resolve her housing problem. She says many of the residents are veterans of the Sandinista Popular Army or are in the reserves.

“How are they going to kick out their own people?” she asked.

The residents said the fate of the community is undecided. Lopez said the government says that Dinamarca is built on an earthquake fault and that they cannot stay. But she is skeptical.

“If there’s an earthquake fault here, there’s one under all of Managua,” she said.

The residents say that they are not trying to cause problems for the government and that they are willing to have a dialogue with the Sandinista officials. They also say that they are willing to move if they are given somewhere else to go. But they would prefer to stay where they are, in Dinamarca.

“We have won the opportunity to acquire what the people need,” said Apolinar Montiel, 36. “The people took the decision to move here.”