NICARAGUA: Steering a Middle Course

The new regime guides a merciful, but moneyless, revolution

"This is a polite revolution" With those words Sergio Ramirez Mercado, soft-spoken leader of Nicaragua's revolutionary junta, summed up all the changes in his nation since the overthrow of Dictator Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza Debayle five weeks ago. Polite has meant, above all, merciful. After 46 years of stifling one-man rule, the pervading atmosphere of fear is gone. There has been no reprisal by the victors; not a single member of Somoza's national guard has been executed, though its members killed thousands during the revolt. Despite predictions to the contrary, the unity of diverse political groups who joined together to topple Somoza has not collapsed. Instead, Nicaraguans of differing ideologies seem to be luxuriating in the unaccustomed privilege of political freedom.

No sooner did the junta feel secure enough in victory to lift a 7 p.m. curfew than Managua burst into noisy life. Roadblocks at major intersections came down, and the streets filled with honking traffic. Restaurants and theaters showing old American films like Mandingo began to attract crowds. Radio Sandino, voice of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (F.S.L.N.), adjusted to the brand new beat: to its broadcasts of revolutionary anthems it added disco hits by the Bee Gees.

Meanwhile, the Government of National Reconstruction was issuing many welcome decrees. First came an end of censorship, permitting long-silenced newspapers like the stridently anti-Somoza La Prensa to start up their presses. Homes, cars and other property that guerrillas had confiscated during their battle with Tacho's national guard were ordered returned to the rightful owners, though some of the Sandinistas were reluctant to give up their "liberated" booty. Last week a 52-article provisional constitution was announced, containing guarantees of equal justice under law, the abolition of torture and capital punishment, and the right to free expression. Of the 3,000 guardsmen and Somoza thugs that the junta had held in custody while determining if they had committed atrocities in the despot's name, more than 1,000 have been cleared and allowed either to go home if they wished or enlist in the revolutionary army.

Since the majority of Somoza's ministers fled into exile with the departed dictator, the junta has resorted to unusual tactics to recruit civil servants. "I called every friend in my telephone book until I had a staff," one harried official told TIME Correspondent Roberto Suro. To ensure that the bureaucracy does not fall back into the predatory pattern of the past, the junta enacted a tough anticorruption law that provides hefty fines for malfeasance. Says Ramirez: "A government official today can stick his foot in his mouth, but not his hand in the cookie jar."