Three DeKalb area residents Sunday told a group of almost 40 people that although war-torn Nicaragua is suffering from political unrest and poor living conditions, most of the people they encountered seemed happy.

During a two hour meeting at the Wesley foundation, Virginia Guest, O.J. Cunningham, and Allen Weaver described their first trip to Central America.

During the trip, part of a tour conducted by the Rev. Fred Morris of Malta, the group met with neighborhood leaders, the opposition press, business people, U.S. Embassy personnel and members of the Sandinista government.

Guest said many of the people she met on farming cooperatives and in neighborhoods were more or less happy under Sandinista rule and are working hard to improve their condition.

The group stayed with a family in the capital city of Managua, and visited the home of a neighborhood group leader, who organized volunteers to improve their neighborhood through better garbage collection and street repairs, Weaver said.

Guest said she was particularly impressed by a visit to the Ministry of Education, which claimed to reduce illiteracy to 12 percent in only six months after the 1979 revolution. When former dictator Anastasio Somoza was in power, no efforts were made to educate the poor, and almost half the population was illiterate, Guest said.

Cunningham said most of the people were friendly and cooperative, except for those at the U.S. Embassy in Managua, where the group was searched and forced to leave cameras outside.

Although most of the people they spoke with supported the Sandinistas, there were also many dissenters who were not afraid to speak out, said Guest. One man they spoke with, the former mayor of Managua, said he resigned his position because he felt the Sandinista leaders were incompetent and their policies disastrous.

Guest said the most outspoken criticism of the government came from La Prensa, the opposition newspaper which was shut down several times by the Sandinistas. One employee they spoke with called the Sandinistas “kidnappers who are unable to govern.”

The group also visited the headquarters of the PLI, or Liberal Party, a united coalition of 14 opposition parties determined to oust the Sandinistas in the scheduled Feb. 25 elections. The PLI has nominated Violeta Chamorro as their presidential candidate. Chamorro, the publisher of La Prensa, is also the widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, whose 1978 assasination by Somoza sparked the revolution.

Guest said she sees the tolerance of an opposition as a positive step by the Sandinistas toward democratization. Cele Meyer, co-chairman of the DeKalb Area Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice, said the one universal complaint of the Nicaraguan people involves the U.S. trade embargo, which has caused a severe shortage of industrial supplies, office equipment and medicine.

In addition to their other stops, the group also visited Lamoscota, an orphanage for boys near Managua. The orphanage, which includes a small farm, has taken in 250 boys ranging in age from seven to 17 whose parents were killed in the war between the government and the U.S. backed Contra rebels. Meyer said the Network was able to raise $5,000 locally for the orphanage.

Guest said the Network opposes the current U.S. policy of funding the PLI, and hopes to see a fair and open election in February. “The Sandinistas have done a pretty good job” she said.

Morris said he hopes to return to Nicaragua during the elections as an official observer.