29th Anniversary of Sandinista Revolution

international | anti-capitalism | news report Tuesday July 22, 2008 23:58 by A Klopstock

Award for former leader of German Democratic Republic

Last weekend marked the 29th Anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. On the 19th July 1979 the hated dictator and US hireling Somoza was overthrown in Nicaragua. As part of this year’s festivities Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega honoured the leader of one of those few European countries to stand side by side with the Sandinista Revolution during the 1980s. The leader was the Late Erich Honecker, the country, the German Democratic Republic.

To the outrage of the right-wing press in Germany Erich Honecker’s widow, Margot, travelled from Chile, where she now lives, to receive the Rubén Darío award. The GDR was instrumental in building the Carlos Marx Hospital in Managua in the 1980s and was deeply involved in assisting the revolutionary government in Nicaragua in its literacy campaign.

This event was not unique. In 2005 at the celebrations to mark the 15th anniversary of Namibian independence, Margot Honecker, the former GDR Education Minister, sat in the front row of honoured guests. During SWAPO’s war of independence wounded guerillas were cared for in the GDR as were hundreds of Namibian children.

While the powers-that-be in the “West” detest the GDR and all it stood for, liberation movements in the South held and hold a deep affection for that country and how it performed huge acts of solidarity towards those fighting imperialism. It is no coincidence that Margot Honecker now resides in Chile. After Pinochet’s fascist coup, the GDR welcomed thousands of Chilean into their country and offered support to the underground movement. After the collapse of the GDR Margot and Erich Honecker were welcomed to Chile, where their daughter now lives with her Chilean husband, who had once been a refugee in the GDR.

What remains a curiosity is that so many of the left in Ireland fail to see the positive contribution played by countries like the GDR. Indeed, even to offer any kind of appreciation of the GDR you will be foolishly slandered as a “Stalinist” and ironically in the most dogmatic fashion.