NICARAGUA:
Same As the Old Boss?
By Jaime Daremblum,
american.com
When Sandinista leader
Daniel Ortega returned
to power as president of
Nicaragua last year,
there were encouraging
signs that this time
would be different.
Ortega’s first term as
president in the 1980s
was marred by failed
socialist economic
policies, his support of
Communist revolutions in
the region, and a
military conflict with
the U.S.-backed Contra
rebels. Even so, at the
time of Ortega’s
election in late 2006,
Latin American democrats
hoped this onetime
revolutionary had
abandoned his radical
past in favor of a more
pragmatic, pro-growth,
and pro-American future.
There were plenty of
reasons to be
optimistic. It appeared
that Ortega had finally
begun to recognize that
free markets and
business investment held
the keys to prosperity
for Nicaragua, one of
the poorest countries in
the Western Hemisphere.
(Some 50 percent of
Nicaraguans live in
poverty.) He repeatedly
assured the public that
he desired a good
working relationship
with the United States.
He put foreign and
domestic investors at
ease by maintaining his
support for the Central
American Free Trade
Agreement. And he
insisted he would
continue pursuing the
free-market polices
initiated by his
predecessors in the
center-right Liberal
Party.
Unfortunately, despite
his pre-election
rhetoric, Ortega has
started to slip back
into his old ways:
strengthening
friendships with radical
leaders around the
world, initiating
regional disputes,
dismissing promises made
to the Nicaraguan
people, and publicly
denouncing both
capitalism and America.
Only a year ago, his
brother, Humberto
Ortega, a former
military leader,
stressed that the
president was determined
to establish a
government of national
unity. “There’s no room
for radicalisms or
international
alignments,” he said.
Following his
inauguration, President
Ortega traveled around
the region promoting the
cause of Central
American unity. At the
time, many democratic
supporters viewed his
first trip to Guatemala
as an attempt to
distance Nicaragua from
the increasingly radical
governments of
Venezuela, Bolivia, and
Cuba.
But recently, Ortega has
reverted to his old
form. In September he
addressed the United
Nations General
Assembly, where he was
supposed to request
humanitarian aid for the
victims of Hurricane
Felix. Instead, Ortega
used the world stage to
rant against global
capitalism and denounce
“the enemy”—America.
This is the language of
Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez
and other radical Latin
populists.
Ortega has started to
slip back into his old
ways: strengthening
friendships with radical
leaders, initiating
regional disputes,
dismissing promises made
to the Nicaraguan
people, and publicly
denouncing both
capitalism and America.
Indeed, Ortega’s
burgeoning alliance with
Chávez became even more
apparent last November
at the Ibero-American
Summit in Santiago,
Chile. After Chávez
repeatedly accused
former Spanish prime
minister José María
Aznar of being a
“fascist” and then asked
the Spanish king if he
had prior knowledge of
Venezuela’s 2002 coup,
which briefly removed
Chávez from power, King
Juan Carlos turned to
Chávez and said, “Why
don’t you shut up?”
Ortega fueled the
controversy—and
underscored his
partnership with Chávez—by
accusing Spain of having
intervened in
Nicaragua’s elections,
which prompted Juan
Carlos to storm out of
the summit.
More alarming than the
Chávez-Ortega alliance
is the small network of
Latin American regimes
that have boosted their
strategic ties with
theocratic Iran.
President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad has made
several trips to the
region, most recently
this past September,
when he stopped in
Venezuela, Bolivia, and
Nicaragua. During his
latest tour, the Iranian
leader claimed that he
and Ortega “have common
interests, common
enemies, and common
goals.” During an
earlier Ahmadinejad
visit, Ortega honored
his Iranian guest with
two of Nicaragua’s
highest medals of honor,
the Liberty Medal and
the Rubén Darío Medal.
It was no surprise that,
in his September speech
at the UN, Ortega
defended Iran’s (and
North Korea’s) right to
pursue nuclear
technology. “Even if
they want nuclear power
for purposes that are
not peaceful,” he said,
“with what right does
[the U.S.] question it?”
Ortega has agreed to
help Iran and Venezuela
finance a $350 million
deepwater port at Monkey
Point along Nicaragua’s
Caribbean coast. The
countries plan to lay
down pipelines, rail
tracks, and highways to
connect this port to the
Pacific Ocean. Iran has
even established
official diplomatic
relations with
Nicaragua, raising
concerns among other
Central American
countries and also among
the Israelis. During a
recent television
interview, Ehud Eitam,
Israel’s ambassador to
Costa Rica and its
non-resident ambassador
to Nicaragua, said it is
difficult not to be
suspicious of Iran’s
intentions when its
Nicaraguan embassy is
heavily staffed with
members of the
Republican Guard, which
the United States has
branded a terrorist
organization. In Eitam’s
view, Iran’s presence in
Nicaragua is clearly “a
matter of intelligence.”
While cozying up to new
friends in Caracas and
Tehran, Ortega is also
alienating many of
Nicaragua’s old ones. In
a speech delivered last
month, he referred to
the leader of the
Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, a
terrorist guerrilla
group deeply enmeshed in
cocaine trafficking and
hostage taking, as a
“dear brother.” This
infuriated the Colombian
government.
Closer to home, Ortega
has already damaged the
Nicaraguan economy,
which had been on an
upward trajectory since
he first left office in
the early 1990s. (In
fact, during the 16-year
period following
Ortega’s first
presidency, the
Nicaraguan government
privatized more than 350
state enterprises, cut
inflation, and reduced
its foreign debt.)
Ortega initially worked
to assuage fears in the
business community that
he would scare away
foreign investment. In
January 2007, he told
Cargill CEO Warren
Staley that “you can
count on Nicaragua as a
country that is willing
to continue working and
increasing those
investments.”
Yet despite his brief
flirtation with
market-oriented
policies, Ortega is now
moving Nicaragua back in
a socialist direction.
He recently asked his
cabinet to come up with
a plan for nationalizing
the country's oil
imports, and he appears
determined to abandon
all responsible
macroeconomic policies.
This shift has not gone
unnoticed. In recent
months, Ortega’s poll
numbers have plummeted,
the political opposition
has become increasingly
aggressive in their
attacks, and Ortega has
backtracked a bit on his
anti-American outbursts.
Last February, only 17
percent of Nicaraguans
told pollsters that
their country was headed
in the wrong direction.
By June, that number had
swelled to 57 percent. A
poll released earlier
this month found that
more than 60 percent of
Nicaraguans believe
Ortega is an
authoritarian ruler.
Nicaragua’s opposition
parties have formed an
alliance known as the
“bloc against the
dictatorship,” which
includes a splinter
group of Ortega’s
Sandinistas. It has been
launching more frequent
and forceful attacks in
recent months. The
reformist opposition is
now working to extend
the so-called “Framework
Law” in order to ensure
that Ortega’s political
appointments have to be
approved by Congress.
Perhaps Ortega is
feeling the pressure.
Despite his
anti-American
grandstanding, the
Nicaraguan president has
not completely turned
away from the United
States. There have been
recent U.S.-Nicaraguan
discussions, for
instance, over the
Soviet-era missiles left
over from Nicaragua’s
civil war in the 1980s.
Ortega is reportedly
negotiating with the
United States to get
helicopters and medicine
in exchange for these
missiles. Whatever his
public rhetoric, he
continues to show
interest in working with
U.S. officials behind
closed doors.
Just as Venezuelans
stood up to Chávez in a
referendum that would
have greatly expanded
the president’s powers,
it appears that the
Nicaraguan people and
political opposition are
setting up roadblocks
for Ortega. Concerns in
the business community
may curb Ortega’s more
foolish economic
policies and help
prevent the country from
spiraling deeper into
poverty and despair.
The situation in
Nicaragua is serious.
Let’s hope the political
opposition can continue
to check Ortega’s turn
to the radical left and
help redirect Nicaragua
onto a path of political
and economic freedom.
Jaime Daremblum is
the director of the
Center for Latin
American Studies at the
Hudson Institute. He was
Costa Rica’s ambassador
to the United States
from 1998 to 2004.
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