Nicaragua: Unfinished Revolution : The New Nicaragua Reader

by Peter Michael Rosset (Editor)

ON FEBRUARY 25, 1990, Nicaragua's voters elected Violeta Barrios de Chamorro as president, ending ten years of government by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional--FSLN). The choice was a dramatic one because voters hoped that the new government of the newly formed National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Opositora--UNO) would bring an end to more than a decade of civil conflict and the harsh sectarianism of the Sandinista years and improve the rapidly deteriorating economy. In her predawn acceptance speech the morning after her election, President-elect Chamorro tried to establish a climate of reconciliation, stating that there were neither victors nor vanquished in the election. Soon after, recognizing the FSLN "as the second political force of the nation," she stated her commitment to respect the will of the 40 percent of the people who had voted for the FSLN. The losing candidate, President Daniel José Ortega Saavedra, about two hours later foreswore the FSLN's self-image as a "vanguard party" and delineated the FSLN's future role as a strong, but loyal, opposition party. Rhetorically, at least, the stage seemed set for the cooperation between the two camps needed to bring about economic recovery.

505 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Dr. Peter Rosset is based in Oaxaca, Mexico, where he is a researcher at the Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano (Center of Studies for Rural Change in Mexico), and co-coordinator of the Land Research Action Network. He is also Global Alternatives Associate of the Center for the Study of the Americas and an affiliated scholar of the University of California, both in Berkeley, California, USA. He is the former co-director of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland, California.

He previously served as executive director of the Stanford University Regional Center in Chiapas, Mexico. During the 1980s he spent eight years in Central America, where he led several sustainable agriculture projects. Peter has taught at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, the National Agrarian University of Nicaragua, the Havana Agricultural University (ISCAH) and the University of Las Villas, both in Cuba, and the Tropical Center for Agricultural Research & Education (CATIE) in Costa Rica. Peter has also been a Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and is a Board Member of Focus on the Global South in Thailand.

He is a food rights activist, agroecologist and rural development specialist with a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.