Nicaragua Threatened With Cutoff of Dollars, U.S. officials Warn
Three more members of the U.S. Congress are warning of dire consequences if Daniel Ortega wins the presidential election in Nicaragua this Sunday.

With polls showing the Sandinista leader within a whisker of winning the 35 percent of the vote necessary, four Republican House members have suggested a cutoff of all U.S. dollars to that country should the "pro-terrorist" friend of Iran and North Korea succeed in the Nov. 5 election.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, wrote to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to call for the U.S. government "to prepare in accordance with U.S. law, contingency plans to block any further money remittances from being sent to Nicaragua in the event that the FSLN enters government."

Joining Rohrabacher with expressions of concerns are Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who wrote to the Nicaraguan ambassador to the U.S. warning about the possible consequences of an Ortega win, and Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif. and Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who wrote a separate letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

All four are suggesting the cutoff of "remittances" – cash that flows from the U.S. to Nicaragua through foreign workers and companies to the tune of $850 million a year.

Ortega, the leader of the FSLN, holds a lead in the presidential election among a number of candidates, according to polls. If the top vote-getter receives 35 percent of the total, he wins the presidency. If he gets less, he faces a runoff.

Two surveys gave the former president and ally of the former Soviet Union and Fidel Castro – along with Iran and North Korea – 34.4 percent and 33.8 percent support, a whisker short of the 35 percent needed to secure the presidency in the first round.

This is Ortega's third comeback attempt after being voted out in 1990. Besides his alliances with Castro, Iran and North Korea, he is also friendly with Venezuela's anti-U.S. firebrand Hugo Chavez.

Polls have consistently tipped Ortega to come in first, but his lead is due to a split among a group of pro-U.S. leaders, and he could easily lose a run-off against either close rival.

When Ortega was last in power, President Reagan denounced his regime as "one of the world's principal refuges for terrorists" and a "partner of Iran, Libya, North Korea and Cuba in a campaign of international terror."

"Nicaraguan passports were issued to international terrorists to facilitate their movement across borders," said Rohrabacher. "In 1993, it was reported in the Washington Post and elsewhere that one of the terrorist suspects arrested by the FBI for the first World Trade Center bombing carried five authentic, but fraudulent, Nicaraguan passports, apparently issued by officials in that country."

Rohrabacher fears a return to that kind of insurgency against the U.S. in the western hemisphere should Ortega and the Sandinistas sneak back into power. He wants to stop the flow of U.S. dollars – about $700 million of which come into that country through routine commerce.

Not only do Ortega and the Sandinistas have long-standing friendships with Iran, North Korea and Cuba, but many of them also were trained in the Middle East with the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the sponsorship of Yasser Arafat.

Recently, both Daniel Ortega and his brother, Humberto, paid official state visits to North Korea seeking assistance and formal relations. Also, recently, the prime minister of Iran visited Nicaragua, expressing "solidarity from the ayatollah for the Sandinista communists."

A victory by Ortega would spell a major turnaround in U.S.-Nicaragua relations, because the current government is very cooperative with Washington.