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Why Meddle in Nicaragua?
By Michael Shifter,
Washingtonpost.com
As Latin America's busy election
cycle winds down, the Bush
administration deserves a lot of
credit. In election after
election it has shown admirable
restraint and has wisely avoided
taking sides. Nicaragua,
however, has been the exception.
U.S. conduct in advance of
Sunday's election has been
anything but restrained. The
Bush administration has blotted
its otherwise exemplary record
in a small and impoverished
Central American country --
probably the one in which there
is the least at stake for U.S.
interests.
Washington has been in a dither
about the prospect of former
Sandinista president Daniel
Ortega returning to power after
16 years. To be sure, an Ortega
win would not be cause for
celebration. He has essentially
become a corrupt and cynical
party boss, intent on amassing
and maintaining power. His pact
in 2000 with former president
Arnoldo Aleman, who was later
convicted of embezzlement,
tightened his grip on key
electoral and judicial
institutions. Ortega has forged
alliances with a number of
former enemies, including
contras -- members of the
U.S.-supported rebel army that
sought to topple the
Soviet-backed Sandinistas in the
1980s. The chances that an
Ortega presidency would usher in
the kind of fundamental economic
and social reforms that
Nicaragua desperately needs are
next to nil.
Yet Ortega's possible comeback
would not have far-reaching
repercussions in Latin America
and surely would constitute no
threat to the United States.
Intervention in Nicaragua's
internal affairs is unwarranted.
Nevertheless, an alarmed Bush
administration seems to be
suffering from a Cold War
flashback. U.S. officials have
threatened dire consequences for
Nicaragua should Ortega be
elected. Both Commerce Secretary
Carlos Gutierrez and the
American ambassador in Managua,
Paul Trivelli, have said that an
Ortega presidency would scare
off foreign investors and
jeopardize Nicaragua's
participation in the Central
American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)
with the United States.
Nicaraguans have been given
notice that U.S. aid would be
cut under an Ortega
administration. Most egregious,
Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, Ed Royce
and Pete Hoekstra sent letters
to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Homeland
Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff requesting that they
block remittances sent by
Nicaraguans living in the United
States back to their families --
an important part of the
Nicaraguan economy -- in the
event of an Ortega win.
These tactics are clearly
intended to prevent Ortega --
who, polls suggest, is hovering
around the 35 percent he would
need to win outright -- from
returning to the presidency. The
Bush administration has also
tried without success to
persuade a divided opposition to
unite behind the candidacy of
conservative Eduardo Montealegre,
who recent polls show would be
Ortega's strongest challenger.
Adding to the spectacle, Oliver
North, who helped raise funds
for the contras in the 1980s by
selling arms to Iran, went to
Nicaragua last week to throw his
weight behind another candidate,
Jose Rizo, who is aligned with
Aleman.
U.S. interference in the
Nicaraguan election --
criticized by the Organization
of American States monitoring
group -- has been motivated in
part by a sense that under a
Sandinista government
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, an ally
of Ortega and adversary of
President Bush, would be able to
cause further mischief and gain
a foothold in Central America.
But such fears are exaggerated.
Chávez's capacity to carry out
his agenda has been limited.
In fact, Chávez's support for
anti-U.S. candidates in various
elections this year -- including
those in Peru and Ecuador -- has
largely backfired. At a minimum,
any possible criticism of Chávez
for interfering in Nicaragua by
giving oil and fertilizer to
Sandinista-controlled
municipalities is neutralized by
Washington's own questionable
role.
Before Nicaragua, the Bush
administration could claim the
moral high ground in dealing
with Latin American elections
this year. Even in the tight
Mexican election -- where there
is clearly more at stake than in
Nicaragua -- U.S. officials were
highly professional, winning
praise even from advisers in the
campaign of leftist Andrés
Manuel López Obrador. In Peru,
where a stridently anti-U.S. and
pro-Chávez candidate had a real
chance of winning the
presidency, the United States
was properly discreet.
But it seems it couldn't resist
the temptation to meddle in an
election to thwart an old Cold
War foe. Too bad. There was
reason to believe Washington had
finally learned its lesson.
The writer is vice president for
policy at the Inter-American
Dialogue and teaches Latin
American politics at Georgetown
University.
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