Washington Not Ready to
Add Nicaragua to the
Axis of Evil
By Jeff Stein, CQ
National Security Editor
When Daniel Ortega
unexpectedly led his
left-wing party back
into power in Nicaragua
in early 2007, he faced
a dark future —
literally.
The lights were going
out all over the
country. Its ancient
power systems leaked so
much electricity that
even its one creaky oil
refinery, privatized by
his pro-American
predecessors, couldn’t
make up for shortages.
Blackouts were shutting
off power for as much as
12 hours a days in many
towns and cities. Food
spoiled. Ice melted.
Children read by
candlelight.
The dire situation had
helped bring down
Ortega’s rivals, and now
it could quickly undo
him and his Sandinista
party.
But Ortega had an ace:
Venezuela’s garrulous
anti-American leader,
Hugo Chavez.
They struck a deal — and
what a deal it was.
Chavez would supply
cheap oil on easier
terms than a subprime
mortgage.
Not only that, the deal
was made between
Chavez’s state oil
company and shadowy
entity set up by
Sandinista party
officials — not, in
other words, the
Nicaraguan government,
according to
knowledgeable sources.
Ever since, the
commercial entity, known
by its Spanish acronym,
ALBANISA, has in turn
been selling cheap oil
to party officials who
hold the mayorships in
scores of Nicaraguan
towns and villages.
Not only that, a chunk
of the proceeds are then
recycled back to party
officials for local
economic and social
projects.
Ortega and the
Sandinistas have
benefitted, big time —
and so have Nicaraguans.
The blackouts have
ended. Fertilizer, also
produced by the
Venezuelan oil, is
plentiful.
Yes, the cost of energy
to Nicaraguan consumers
has risen 18 percent,
according to independent
figures and Latin
American news media, but
that’s only half the
rate of the rest of the
region.
So Nicaraguans have done
well by Ortega and
Chavez, the
Mussolini-like orator
whose grandiose vision
of leading a regional
economic and political
alliance against the
United States gained a
significant new piece.
Not so ordinary
Venezuelans, as they
grapple with their own
energy shortages.
ALBANISA, meanwhile,
remains a cypher. Even
critics of Ortega go
tight-lipped when the
subject comes up,
refusing even to name
its officials.
No one knows how much
party officials are
pocketing (if anything,
it must be said) in the
deal.
“Everything is a
gigantic fudge ball of
data when you try to get
anything straight from
the Nicaraguan
government,” says
Managua-based reporter
Melissa Sanchez. “It’s
like Daniel Ortega is
pulling numbers straight
out of the sky.”
The party has been
fracturing on Ortega’s
policies, she and other
local observers say.
When the erstwhile
commandante and his
buddies moved the
presidential office from
the Casa Blanca,
Nicaragua’s White House,
into party headquarters,
they became known as
“los Danielistas.”
ENTER THE IRANIANS
But there’s no free
lunch, even in socialist
Nicaragua.
And so Chavez presented
the bill: Be nice to the
Iranians, Ortega was
told.
That was hardly a
stretch, of course, for
Ortega, the one-time
Marxist firebrand whose
pro-Soviet, pro-Cuba
stance in the 1980s
ignited a U.S.-backed
civil war. Eventually,
the Sandinistas were
ousted in the country’s
first real democratic
elections.
So it came as no
surprise that Ortega
relished returning to
the international stage.
Not long after his
inauguration in January
2007, Ortega, Chavez and
their messianic
counterpart in Iran,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
were singing “Kumbaya”
together in Tehran,
Caracas and Managua.
Their concerted
denunciations of
American imperialism,
coming amid difficulties
in Iraq and Afghanistan,
not to mention a loss of
economic clout vis-a-vis
Europe, sounded
positively quaint to
some ears.
But when they moved
swiftly to tie a bow on
their new partnership,
alarms were sounded in
some military and
conservative circles in
Washington. Fears
hardened that Iran was
building a second front
in the Western
hemisphere, bases from
which to attack America
or U.S. interests if
Washington launched air
strikes on its nuclear
facilities.
When Ahmadinejad pledged
to finance a new, $350
million deepwater port
on Nicaragua’s
still-wild Caribbean
coast, the outcry went
up another decibel.
Some right-wing
commentators cast it as
just the “first step” in
an Iranian plan to build
a “dry canal” of
pipelines, rails and
highways from the
Caribbean to the
Pacific.
The conservative
Nicaraguan newspaper Hoy
claimed that “advance
parties of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard” had
come into the country.
When Iran dispatched an
ambassador and announced
it would underwrite a
Nicaraguan film industry
and even donate cartoons
to Managua TV, the
commentary became
apoplectic.
The House adopted by
voice vote a
Democratic-sponsored
resolution (H Res 435)
last November expressing
“concern” about Iranian
activities in the region
and urging President
Bush to create more
mechanisms for joint
counterterrorism
operations in the
Western Hemisphere.
“The bottom line is if
there is a confrontation
with Iran, and Iran gets
bombed, I have
absolutely no doubt that
Iran is going to lash
out globally,” John R.
Schindler, “a veteran
former
counterintelligence
officer and analyst for
the National Security
Agency,” was quoted as
saying last December to
the San Antonia
Express-News, in a
typical comment.
“The Iranians have that
ability, particularly
from South America.
Hezbollah has fronts all
over Latin America. That
is not new. But it’s
certainly something
we’re starting to care
about now.”
OTHER VOICES, OTHER
ROOMS
Oddly enough, however,
Bush administration
officials, who can
usually be counted on to
sniff evil anywhere the
Iranians are involved,
generally yawned.
One reason may be that
the Iranians have been
slow to pony up when it
comes to building the
$350 million port, much
less a “dry canal”
across the country.
Likewise, there’s not a
lot of faith that the
Iranians will actually
open their wallets for a
$230 million
hydroelectric dam in
northern Nicaragua,
announced March 13.
Nicaraguans roll their
eyes when the subjects
of Iranian influence
comes up.
“I wish!” said one
insider. “We need that
port.” The Iranians
haven’t even agreed on
the shape of the deal.
“We’d be willing to put
up with all this
bullshit” about the
Revolutionary Guard, he
said, if the Iranians
would actually start
building it.
To be sure, Adm. James
Stavridis, chief of the
U.S. Southern Command,
told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that
he was “concerned as I
see Iran move into the
region.” But other
commentary has been far
more constrained, if not
enthusiastic, about
developments in
Nicaragua — even from
administration
officials.
John Danilovich, CEO of
the Millennium Challenge
Corporation, a U.S.
government-sponsored
entity aimed at
alleviating third-world
poverty, told Congress
in February how he’d
toured some of MCC’s
projects in Nicaragua
with Ortega himself. “We
went up to the north . .
. which is a poor part
of the country,” but
where MCC projects had
flourished.
The peasants surged
forward to tell Ortega
how much the projects
had helped them, saying
“God bless the United
States of America.”
“And I must say that, at
the end of this,”
Danilovich said,
“President Ortega spoke
before a crowd of 6,000
people. And at the end
of the speech, as ironic
and unlikely as it may
seem, he said, ‘Viva los
estados unidos.’”
Even Condoleeza Rice
told Congress that the
Bush administration had
“excellent relations”
with “Nicaragua, where
we have a long history,
so to speak, with that
government.” The MCC
programs, agreed the
secretary of State, had
been wildly popular
there.
“Those Sandinista mayors
have been really clear
that they want those MCC
programs to go forward,”
she said.
Sandinista officials
have also welcomed Drug
Enforcement
Administration agents to
Nicaragua.
And even Southcom
commander Stavridi
conceded that the
Defense Department
continued to work well
with its Managua
counterparts.
“Even in countries where
we have differences at
the
government-to-government
level,” he told the
Senate Armed Service
Committee, “like
Nicaragua or Bolivia,
Ecuador at times, we
continue to have strong
military-to-military
relations.”
So which is it —
terrorist platform or
budding ally?
Watchful waiting, on
both sides, seems to be
the consensus.
If the Iranians get
serious in Nicaragua,
there might be something
to worry about, even its
stoutest defenders say.
Until then, everybody
just needs to relax.
BACKCHANNEL CHATTER
To the Shores of
Tripoli: Evidently the
liens slapped on
U.S.-based companies
doing business with
Libya by a private
attorney, reported
exclusively here last
week, have had their
intended effect.
The State Department
said March 28 that
Assistant Secretary
David Welch was working
on a deal with Libya to
compensate relatives of
the American victims of
two terrorist attacks
carried out by agents of
the regime, the 1986
bombing of a West German
discotheque frequented
by American GIs, and the
1989 sabotage of Pan Am
flight 103.
The Bush administration
had asked Congress to
exempt Libya from such
legal actions, in order
to expedite American oil
exploration and other
business deals in Libya.
But attorney Thomas Fay,
who represents victims
of the La Belle
discotheque bombing,
says the State
Department has no
authority to make a deal
with Libya on its own.
“We have not been
contacted by David
Welch,” he told me. “We
have not given him any
authority to speak for
our clients.”
Fay said, “The
settlement agreement for
our clients has already
been made. Our clients
have fully performed
their part. Libya has
refused to pay the
amount it agreed to.”
Fay added, “It is time
for the State Department
to acquire some backbone
and stand up for the
American citizens who
pay their salaries. That
is what the State
Department could do to
‘help American victims
receive fair
compensation in the
shortest time with
greater certainty.’”
The State Department
could not be reached for
comment March 28.
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