122 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
Nicaragua... and to all those who with their lives are creating the new one'.
What drew women into the struggle in such large numbers? How did they integrate their own liberation with the more general struggle of people fighting against oppression? What made it possible for them to sacrifice the ultimate, their own lives and those of their children for the cause of a further freedom? What conclusions can we drew from the amazing radicalisation of women's aspirations, their desire to contribute and sense of responsibility to the struggle for a just society-both with regard to the women and with regard to the struggle? These are some of the questions which keep nagging at you while reading these extraordinary, compelling and at the same time moving testimonies of Nicarasruah women in struggle.
The successful organising by the FSLN (Sandinist National Liberation front) of women on a large scale began only in 1977 with the founding of AMPRONAC (Association ofNicaraguan Women Confronting the Nation's Problems) which after the victory of the Revolution,, was renamed Luisa Amanda Espinosa Women's Association in honour of the first woman to die fighting in the ranks of the FSLN.
Gloria Carrion, 26, founding member of AMPRONAC, points out that in Nicaraguan and perhaps in Latin America in general—women are the centres of their families—emotionally, ideologically and economically. This is particularly the case for working class and peasant women. Often abandoned by their unemployed husbands, women are forced to take any job to support their families. It is their class condition, in the first place, which drew women to the revolutionary struggle.
Amada Pineda, ^6, typical peasant woman, had nine children of which one died in the war, two died of measles and pneumonia because they could not afford a doctor, and a two month old baby died in a rainstorm when Amada had to flee the guards. She was gang-raped by members of the National Guard. She says : As for me, many women have suffered what I have. Think of the women in Cuba: so many were captured, tortured and raped. There are many women in Nicaragua who can tell of the barbarities they have suffered.
Gladys Baez, whose mother washed and ironed to support me two of them, started her political life in the late fifties. She was a member of the Socialist Party of Nicaragua, representing its women's wing at the Moscow Women's Congress in 1960. She left the party because of its biased .-attitude towards her as a woman and soon after joined the FSLN, recognising as correct its position on the need for armed struggle as against the Socialist Party's commitment to peaceful transition. She was the first woman to go into the mountains, front where much of the guerrilla activity was carried out and where all the training for the final military assaults was conducted. While in jail, she was tortured to such an extent that all doctors had given her up. Speaking about her condition, she says : "But I refused to accept the fact that I was going to die, although I didn't think I would recover as much as I have. It took me two years".