A cold warrior's revival - Daniel Ortega defied Reagan and the U.S. Now the Sandinista leader is a candidate on a comeback trail
A cold warrior's revival - Daniel Ortega defied Reagan and the U.S. Now the Sandinista leader is a candidate on a comeback trail
By Oscar Avila
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published November 3, 2006
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Daniel Ortega has retired his combat fatigues and talk of revolution. Instead of calls to arms, the balding comandante preaches love and reconciliation at campaign rallies set to the tune of "Give Peace a Chance."
Nearly two decades since his Sandinista government battled U.S.-financed contra rebels, Ortega is poised to win back the country's presidency Sunday by the narrowest of margins, a victory that would once again bring him to the front lines of Latin America's raging ideological battles over the U.S. vision for the hemisphere.
In his fourth attempt to regain power, Ortega has capitalized on a rift among his right-wing opponents by cobbling together an odd coalition of die-hard leftists, disaffected youths and former enemies. For a running mate, he chose a former contra supporter whose house was claimed by Ortega after being confiscated by the Marxist Sandinistas in the 1980s.
While Ortega leads in most opinion polls, his challenge will be to win enough votes Sunday to avoid a December runoff when a unified-opposition candidate would likely defeat him.
More than 20 years after President Ronald Reagan made it a top U.S. priority to undermine the Sandinistas, a policy that led to the infamous Iran-contra scandal, U.S. officials again see an Ortega-led government as a nightmare. They have actively campaigned to promote and unify his rivals, while warning that U.S. aid could be at risk if Nicaragua moves into the orbit of leftist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
Ortega's top rival, Eduardo Montealegre, a Harvard-educated banker supported by the U.S., says he would continue with the free-market economic policies that Nicaraguan leaders have pursued since Ortega lost the 1990 presidential election, although many Nicaraguans say those policies have not lifted the hemisphere's second-poorest nation out of misery.
Ortega, 60, insists he has moderated his Cold War-era views. But at a drizzly final campaign rally in a Managua plaza this week, he skewered the three presidents who followed him in office for not tackling the country's core problems of illiteracy, hunger and unemployment.
"The last three governments had their opportunities to fulfill all that they promised," said Ortega as smoke rose from fireworks and streetside grills. "Now, with the will of God, we ask the opportunity to govern in peace and pull our people out of poverty!"
Origin of taking power
Ortega and a ragged band of rebel fighters overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza 27 years ago. He and his supporters took the name Sandinistas after Augusto Sandino, a national hero who resisted U.S. intervention in the early 20th Century. Soon after taking power, the Sandinistas entered the Soviet camp and received bountiful aid from Moscow and Havana.
Reagan warned that the Sandinistas were only a few days' drive from the Rio Grande, and his administration helped create a rebel army known as the contras that staged attacks from neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica. The ensuing civil war left 30,000 dead and the country ravaged.
In 1986, a scandal rocked the White House when it was discovered that National Security Council operatives were organizing arms sales to Iran and channeling the profits to the contras. Several administration figures were convicted of crimes, though most of them were pardoned or successfully appealed. Ortega lost the presidency in 1990 in elections set up as part of an agreement to end the war. Resisting all challenges to his leadership of the party, he lost again in two subsequent presidential races.
Beyond the stubborn poverty, voters are deeply frustrated with the country's leadership. Former President Arnoldo Aleman is currently serving 20 years under house arrest after being convicted of massive corruption. Nevertheless, he and Ortega angered many by forging a notorious pact that divided up government posts and powers between their two factions.
The pact lowered the percentage needed to secure a first-round presidential victory from 40 percent to 35 percent, provided the winner bested the runner-up by at least 5 percentage points. Critics saw the new rule as a deliberate attempt to help Ortega overcome his electoral difficulties; with a field splintered among five candidates, the new standard gives him his best shot to regain the presidency. The U.S. government tried to engineer a single challenger to Ortega, but the right wing is bitterly split over its loyalty to the convicted Aleman. His former vice president, Jose Rizo, is also vying.
Few observers doubt that the U.S. favorite is Montealegre, a bespectacled leader of the National Liberal Alliance who hasn't hesitated to exploit many voters' bad memories of Ortega's rule. His campaign has shown campaign ads with footage from the civil war and the empty store shelves he says marked the Sandinistas' time in power.
A failure to connect
"It's [Ortega's] style of government to ally with countries sowing conflict. In the '80s, instead of Venezuela, it was Russia," said Adolfo Arguello, Montealegre's campaign manager.
But Montealegre's own campaign hasn't caught fire, analysts say, because he is viewed as wooden and out of touch with the working-class voter, despite campaign ads showing him dancing.
Without explicitly backing Montealegre, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez warned Nicaraguan voters to "reject the politics of corrupt and discredited caudillos," noting that Nicaraguan exports to the U.S. are up 33 percent since the signing of a free-trade agreement with the U.S.
Oliver North, the former NSC staffer who coordinated the Iran-contra scheme, came to town last month to warn against an Ortega victory. And several House Republicans said if Ortega wins, they would urge the U.S. government to intercept $800 million in remittances that Nicaraguan immigrants send home so they don't help prop up a hostile regime.
ut Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University, said the United States' approach to the election has been "disastrous and counterproductive" because voters resentful of the overt meddling may respond by backing Ortega.
Just as U.S. influence hangs over the election, so does the presence of Chavez.
The Venezuelan leader has openly supported Ortega, whom he brought on his television show, "Alo, Presidente!" and gushed that "the Sandinista revolution is more alive than ever."
Nicaraguans took greater notice when Chavez sold them tens of thousands of barrels of diesel fuel at discount last month. The idea that Ortega would have an energy-rich ally resonated in a country where power outages are common.
Roger Noriega, a former assistant secretary of state under President Bush, said policymakers should be worried that Ortega would align himself with Chavez. "I don't see the Sandinistas making a run for Harlingen, Texas, but they would clearly upset the positive vision that democracy and free trade can deliver the goods," Noriega said.
Ortega insists he would not reassert the same government-heavy policies on the economy that he did during his first turn in power. On Wednesday, he signed a 10-point agreement with the Nicaragua Chamber of Commerce saying he would protect free enterprise and access to credit.
Still, his campaign speeches invoke the evils of "savage capitalism." He says he aims to reach those left behind in Nicaragua's new economy.
Surprising coalition
While dogged by many controversies, Ortega has brought together a surprising coalition of support. Among his backers is Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Sandinistas' most influential internal opponent in the 1980s, but who has praised Ortega for supporting a strict abortion ban this month.
For many backers, the promise of a fairer society trumps Ortega's sins.
Roberto Jose Irigoyen, who was conscripted into the Sandinista army, now scrapes together a living selling sodas and giving 35-cent shoeshines near a white tower that serves as a memorial to those who died in the war. Irigoyen doesn't necessarily view the Sandinista era fondly. Nor does he gloss over Ortega's newly lavish lifestyle that seems at odds with his revolutionary idealism. He says most politicians are crooked and Ortega "probably has the biggest mansions of all of them."
Still, Irigoyen, 39, is backing Ortega. "With mistakes come wisdom, right?" he said. "The three previous administrations have been a disaster. No matter what, I see Ortega as being on our side."
But some of Ortega's former comrades in arms watch his rebirth wistfully. Victor Hugo Tinoco came of age with Ortega and served as his ambassador to the United Nations. Tinoco says what bound the Sandinistas then was not ideology but a desire to demolish the iron grip of the Somoza regime.
Tinoco and many Sandinista intellectuals recently split with Ortega to form the Sandinista Renovation Movement party. Tinoco is running for Congress and is leading a push from the left to stop what they see as Ortega's authoritarianism.
"This is what happens to people when they have too much power for too long," Tinoco said. "Now we see in him many of the same characteristics we saw in Somoza."
----------
oavila@tribune.com
Looking back at the Iran-contra scandal
andinista leader Daniel Ortega's attempt to return to the presidency of Nicaragua recalls a time in the mid-1980s when U.S. opposition to the group resulted in the Iran-contra scandal.
WHO ARE THE SANDINISTAS?
E-mail this story
Printable format
Search archives
RSS
The Sandinista National Liberation Front was founded in the 1960s in opposition to the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the Somoza family. It was named after Augusto Sandino, a Nicaraguan national hero who fought U.S. "imperialism" in the 1920s and 1930s. Sandinista guerrillas overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979.
WHAT WAS THE IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL?
After Congress banned federal funding of the U.S.-backed contra rebels in 1982, the Reagan administration concocted alternative schemes to raise money. The primary plan was selling arms to Iran, allegedly in exchange for Iran's help in freeing hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then channeling the proceeds to the contras. The scheme was discovered in 1986 when a gunrunning airplane was shot down over Nicaragua, and crew member Eugene Hasenfus told his captors of CIA involvement.
President Reagan admitted the arms sales on national television and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese revealed that the contras had benefitted.
- - -
WHERE THE KEY PLAYERS ARE NOW
Ronald Reagan
The former president died June 5, 2004.
Caspar Weinberger
The former defense secretary was indicted for lying to investigators and later was pardoned. He died March 28, 2006.
Elliott Abrams
The former NSC staffer was convicted of unlawfully withholding information from Congress and later was pardoned. He is now special assistant to President Bush and senior director at the NSC for Near East and North African affairs.
Daniel Ortega
The Sandinista leader is a Nicaraguan presidential candidate.
Lawrence Walsh
The former independent counsel who investigated the scandal is now in private practice.
John Poindexter
The former National Security Adviser was convicted of criminal charges but successfully appealed. He is now a private contractor and resigned from his Pentagon job in August 2003 after questions were raised about his proposed public database scanning program.
Oliver North
The former NSC staffer was convicted of criminal charges but appealed and had his conviction overturned. He is now a conservative political commentator and host of a Fox News program.
By Oscar Avila
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published November 3, 2006
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Daniel Ortega has retired his combat fatigues and talk of revolution. Instead of calls to arms, the balding comandante preaches love and reconciliation at campaign rallies set to the tune of "Give Peace a Chance."
Nearly two decades since his Sandinista government battled U.S.-financed contra rebels, Ortega is poised to win back the country's presidency Sunday by the narrowest of margins, a victory that would once again bring him to the front lines of Latin America's raging ideological battles over the U.S. vision for the hemisphere.
In his fourth attempt to regain power, Ortega has capitalized on a rift among his right-wing opponents by cobbling together an odd coalition of die-hard leftists, disaffected youths and former enemies. For a running mate, he chose a former contra supporter whose house was claimed by Ortega after being confiscated by the Marxist Sandinistas in the 1980s.
While Ortega leads in most opinion polls, his challenge will be to win enough votes Sunday to avoid a December runoff when a unified-opposition candidate would likely defeat him.
More than 20 years after President Ronald Reagan made it a top U.S. priority to undermine the Sandinistas, a policy that led to the infamous Iran-contra scandal, U.S. officials again see an Ortega-led government as a nightmare. They have actively campaigned to promote and unify his rivals, while warning that U.S. aid could be at risk if Nicaragua moves into the orbit of leftist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
Ortega's top rival, Eduardo Montealegre, a Harvard-educated banker supported by the U.S., says he would continue with the free-market economic policies that Nicaraguan leaders have pursued since Ortega lost the 1990 presidential election, although many Nicaraguans say those policies have not lifted the hemisphere's second-poorest nation out of misery.
Ortega, 60, insists he has moderated his Cold War-era views. But at a drizzly final campaign rally in a Managua plaza this week, he skewered the three presidents who followed him in office for not tackling the country's core problems of illiteracy, hunger and unemployment.
"The last three governments had their opportunities to fulfill all that they promised," said Ortega as smoke rose from fireworks and streetside grills. "Now, with the will of God, we ask the opportunity to govern in peace and pull our people out of poverty!"
Origin of taking power
Ortega and a ragged band of rebel fighters overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza 27 years ago. He and his supporters took the name Sandinistas after Augusto Sandino, a national hero who resisted U.S. intervention in the early 20th Century. Soon after taking power, the Sandinistas entered the Soviet camp and received bountiful aid from Moscow and Havana.
Reagan warned that the Sandinistas were only a few days' drive from the Rio Grande, and his administration helped create a rebel army known as the contras that staged attacks from neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica. The ensuing civil war left 30,000 dead and the country ravaged.
In 1986, a scandal rocked the White House when it was discovered that National Security Council operatives were organizing arms sales to Iran and channeling the profits to the contras. Several administration figures were convicted of crimes, though most of them were pardoned or successfully appealed. Ortega lost the presidency in 1990 in elections set up as part of an agreement to end the war. Resisting all challenges to his leadership of the party, he lost again in two subsequent presidential races.
Beyond the stubborn poverty, voters are deeply frustrated with the country's leadership. Former President Arnoldo Aleman is currently serving 20 years under house arrest after being convicted of massive corruption. Nevertheless, he and Ortega angered many by forging a notorious pact that divided up government posts and powers between their two factions.
The pact lowered the percentage needed to secure a first-round presidential victory from 40 percent to 35 percent, provided the winner bested the runner-up by at least 5 percentage points. Critics saw the new rule as a deliberate attempt to help Ortega overcome his electoral difficulties; with a field splintered among five candidates, the new standard gives him his best shot to regain the presidency. The U.S. government tried to engineer a single challenger to Ortega, but the right wing is bitterly split over its loyalty to the convicted Aleman. His former vice president, Jose Rizo, is also vying.
Few observers doubt that the U.S. favorite is Montealegre, a bespectacled leader of the National Liberal Alliance who hasn't hesitated to exploit many voters' bad memories of Ortega's rule. His campaign has shown campaign ads with footage from the civil war and the empty store shelves he says marked the Sandinistas' time in power.
A failure to connect
"It's [Ortega's] style of government to ally with countries sowing conflict. In the '80s, instead of Venezuela, it was Russia," said Adolfo Arguello, Montealegre's campaign manager.
But Montealegre's own campaign hasn't caught fire, analysts say, because he is viewed as wooden and out of touch with the working-class voter, despite campaign ads showing him dancing.
Without explicitly backing Montealegre, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez warned Nicaraguan voters to "reject the politics of corrupt and discredited caudillos," noting that Nicaraguan exports to the U.S. are up 33 percent since the signing of a free-trade agreement with the U.S.
Oliver North, the former NSC staffer who coordinated the Iran-contra scheme, came to town last month to warn against an Ortega victory. And several House Republicans said if Ortega wins, they would urge the U.S. government to intercept $800 million in remittances that Nicaraguan immigrants send home so they don't help prop up a hostile regime.
ut Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University, said the United States' approach to the election has been "disastrous and counterproductive" because voters resentful of the overt meddling may respond by backing Ortega.
Just as U.S. influence hangs over the election, so does the presence of Chavez.
The Venezuelan leader has openly supported Ortega, whom he brought on his television show, "Alo, Presidente!" and gushed that "the Sandinista revolution is more alive than ever."
Nicaraguans took greater notice when Chavez sold them tens of thousands of barrels of diesel fuel at discount last month. The idea that Ortega would have an energy-rich ally resonated in a country where power outages are common.
Roger Noriega, a former assistant secretary of state under President Bush, said policymakers should be worried that Ortega would align himself with Chavez. "I don't see the Sandinistas making a run for Harlingen, Texas, but they would clearly upset the positive vision that democracy and free trade can deliver the goods," Noriega said.
Ortega insists he would not reassert the same government-heavy policies on the economy that he did during his first turn in power. On Wednesday, he signed a 10-point agreement with the Nicaragua Chamber of Commerce saying he would protect free enterprise and access to credit.
Still, his campaign speeches invoke the evils of "savage capitalism." He says he aims to reach those left behind in Nicaragua's new economy.
Surprising coalition
While dogged by many controversies, Ortega has brought together a surprising coalition of support. Among his backers is Roman Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Sandinistas' most influential internal opponent in the 1980s, but who has praised Ortega for supporting a strict abortion ban this month.
For many backers, the promise of a fairer society trumps Ortega's sins.
Roberto Jose Irigoyen, who was conscripted into the Sandinista army, now scrapes together a living selling sodas and giving 35-cent shoeshines near a white tower that serves as a memorial to those who died in the war. Irigoyen doesn't necessarily view the Sandinista era fondly. Nor does he gloss over Ortega's newly lavish lifestyle that seems at odds with his revolutionary idealism. He says most politicians are crooked and Ortega "probably has the biggest mansions of all of them."
Still, Irigoyen, 39, is backing Ortega. "With mistakes come wisdom, right?" he said. "The three previous administrations have been a disaster. No matter what, I see Ortega as being on our side."
But some of Ortega's former comrades in arms watch his rebirth wistfully. Victor Hugo Tinoco came of age with Ortega and served as his ambassador to the United Nations. Tinoco says what bound the Sandinistas then was not ideology but a desire to demolish the iron grip of the Somoza regime.
Tinoco and many Sandinista intellectuals recently split with Ortega to form the Sandinista Renovation Movement party. Tinoco is running for Congress and is leading a push from the left to stop what they see as Ortega's authoritarianism.
"This is what happens to people when they have too much power for too long," Tinoco said. "Now we see in him many of the same characteristics we saw in Somoza."
----------
oavila@tribune.com
Looking back at the Iran-contra scandal
andinista leader Daniel Ortega's attempt to return to the presidency of Nicaragua recalls a time in the mid-1980s when U.S. opposition to the group resulted in the Iran-contra scandal.
WHO ARE THE SANDINISTAS?
E-mail this story
Printable format
Search archives
RSS
The Sandinista National Liberation Front was founded in the 1960s in opposition to the U.S.-backed dictatorship of the Somoza family. It was named after Augusto Sandino, a Nicaraguan national hero who fought U.S. "imperialism" in the 1920s and 1930s. Sandinista guerrillas overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979.
WHAT WAS THE IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL?
After Congress banned federal funding of the U.S.-backed contra rebels in 1982, the Reagan administration concocted alternative schemes to raise money. The primary plan was selling arms to Iran, allegedly in exchange for Iran's help in freeing hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then channeling the proceeds to the contras. The scheme was discovered in 1986 when a gunrunning airplane was shot down over Nicaragua, and crew member Eugene Hasenfus told his captors of CIA involvement.
President Reagan admitted the arms sales on national television and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese revealed that the contras had benefitted.
- - -
WHERE THE KEY PLAYERS ARE NOW
Ronald Reagan
The former president died June 5, 2004.
Caspar Weinberger
The former defense secretary was indicted for lying to investigators and later was pardoned. He died March 28, 2006.
Elliott Abrams
The former NSC staffer was convicted of unlawfully withholding information from Congress and later was pardoned. He is now special assistant to President Bush and senior director at the NSC for Near East and North African affairs.
Daniel Ortega
The Sandinista leader is a Nicaraguan presidential candidate.
Lawrence Walsh
The former independent counsel who investigated the scandal is now in private practice.
John Poindexter
The former National Security Adviser was convicted of criminal charges but successfully appealed. He is now a private contractor and resigned from his Pentagon job in August 2003 after questions were raised about his proposed public database scanning program.
Oliver North
The former NSC staffer was convicted of criminal charges but appealed and had his conviction overturned. He is now a conservative political commentator and host of a Fox News program.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 8:59 AM
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