Ortega's Chrysalis Offeres Odd Example for America
by Zach Bigalke
09 January 2007
Daniel Ortega, the man who spurred the Reagan administration to commit their now-infamous secret arms sales to the anti-American Islamic fundamentalist state of Iran in order to fund an insurgency against him, is set to return to power in Nicaragua. Following a spirited election that saw hundreds of observers from the Organization of American States, the European Union, and the Carter Center converged on the Central American nation in November to monitor what ended up being a laudable, free election. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter traveled to Managua himself to help oversee and ensure the democratic process. The fate of the country was placed squarely in the hands of approximately 3.5 million Nicaraguans; thirty-eight percent issued - through their votes - a clear mandate for the former president to make his comeback come full circle.
Ortega's leadership of the Marxist government in the nation during the 1980s still sits uneasy with the United States. Openly opposed during the election by the Bush administration with much the same haughty undertones that led the current president's father to refer to Ortega as "an unwanted animal at a garden party" during a 1989 Central American summit conference, the United States now harbors lukewarm sentiments to his new moderate veneer. The Organization of American States, intent on preventing another American-puppet ruler in the region, went so far as to condemn U.S. attempts to meddle in the electoral process with their open support of staunch Ortega dissidents Eduardo Montealegre and Edmundo Jarqun. Backing off their stance once the polls closed and the votes were tallied, the U.S. government is sitting back to see which way Ortega goes. Following the results of the vote, Bush made the magnanimous motion of calling Ortega to congratulate him and, through White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, has publicly "expressed his strong commitment to the well-being of the Nicaraguan people and our continued interest in a relationship with Nicaragua."
Privately, Bush must be rankled by the appearance other, bigger enemies will be making at Ortega's inauguration Wednesday. Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez, has already promised Nicaragua an aid package including thirty-two electricity plants, discounted oil supplies, a branch of his state development bank that will offer low-interest loans to the poor, agricultural machinery and help in improving the country's health and education systems. The real threat to the United States is that, as they make idle proclamations of wanting to work with the government of Nicaragua to improve democracy and the quality of life, leftist leaders such as Chavez, who has avowed that President Bush is "the devil", are making good on their words...walking the walk that they talk. And, with Chavez slowly working Venezuela deeper and deeper down socialist paths, Bush must be pondering the likelihood that he might persuade Ortega to revert to past Yankee-antagonizing philosophies.
Other attending rulers must cause Bush and his cabinet no less indigestion at night. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be present, as will Taiwanese president Chen Shui-Bian. While Ortega's post-election speeches give every indication that he intends to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan - making President Chen's visit appear more like a groveling session for the struggling Taiwanese despot than a show of strength and unity - the startling arrival of the Iranian leader possibly portends a reversion to Ortega's past ways, when all ties with Israel were severed and Nicaragua became a safe haven for exiled Palestine Liberation Organization militants. The possibility of an alliance between two volatile regions whose recent wealth and power have come from continued American oil gluttony is understandably unsettling; the challenge for the United States is to rediscover its diplomatic charm.
Because, if nothing else has been learned from the chain of events culminating in our current hopeless situation in Iraq and the deteriorating one in Afghanistan and, even, in the reelection of Daniel Ortega to the Nicaraguan presidency, it is that the United States can no longer forcibly bring peoples to support a puppet government or a puppet dictator. The new taste of democracy is leading peoples around the world to elect leaders that may, at times, be less than desirable to American interests. And the time for feudal politics, with allied autocrats receiving legitimacy of rule solely through the decree of one or another hegemonic power, have long become ineffective. The United States can install a leader only as much as its military can dominate over its opposition; the motivation lies entirely in the hands of the "enemy", as the U.S. military stretches itself ever thinner. The proposition that Washington might institute a draft to replenish its troops is preposterous, because several generations would have to be obliterated for the American government to obtain the manpower necessary to sustain this multi-front war. Thus, diplomacy becomes more essential than ever before.
In this the United States can learn much from the tale of Ortega himself. Born in La Libertad on 11 November 1945 to active political dissidents of the Somoza family holding dynastic control over the country, Ortega quickly grew into a rebellious opponent. Arrested by the age of fifteen for his political activities, he attended the University of Central America in Managua in 1963, where he discovered the underground Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Rising over the next four years through the Marxist hierarchy of the Sandinistas to the leadership of the urban guerrilla campaign, Ortega was arrested for a bank robbery in 1967 and served seven years in prison until, in 1974, he was released in an exchange of hostages between the Sandinistas and the Somoza government. Taking back over his commanding post, Ortega visited FSLN ally Cuba upon his release from prison before returning to his country to continue the fight against the Somoza dictatorship.
In 1979, with the overthrow of the Somoza and the installation of the five-member Junta of National Reconstruction, Ortega became the de-facto ruler of Nicaragua. As he strengthened the Nicaraguan alliance with Fidel Castro and his Communist Cuban government, U.S. president Ronald Reagan became timid of the "domino effect" of socialism in Central America. Unable to learn from past American blunders based on this theory in southeast Asia, Reagan approved the sale of arms and munitions to the anti-American Iranian theocracy to secretly support their war with Iraq (to whom the United States also provided arms during this conflict). Using the funds from this sale to fund the anti-Sandinista Contras, whose reign of terror from 1979 to 1986 led to the death of 100,000 Nicaraguans (including 50,000 children), Reagan continually flouted the desire of Nicaraguans themselves. In 1984 elections, found free and fair by the vast majority of international observers, the Sandinistas received sixty-seven percent of the popular vote and Ortega was officially elected to the presidency.
But Reagan saw things differently; attempting to undercut the fairness of the election by undercutting the reporting of the fair treatment of opposition candidates - who were given government campaign finances and state television time for their advertisements - by instead focusing on the dubious non-candidacy of lightly-supported immigrant Arturo Cruz. Hailing Cruz as the leader of the "democratic opposition", he was then held back from running for office. Now that their puppet was being withheld, the Americans could declare the elections unfair, null and void, and justify their continued support for the indiscriminately-murderous Contras.
Ortega weathered the storm as the legitimately-elected leader of Nicaragua until 1990, when former junta colleague Violeta Barrios de Chamorro surprisingly won over Ortega as the candidate of the anti-Sandinista National Opposition Union (UNO). Still a force in the FSLN party structure, Ortega vowed to continue "ruling from below". But time back in opposition to the ruling party did something unexpected to Ortega: it mellowed his perspective. While his fiery Marxist philosophies flourished during his early years in office after opposing first the Somoza and then the Contra, a more measured tone came out after his first presidential era. Embracing a conservative Catholic policy in exchange for his old radical atheist tendencies, Ortega has weathered corruption charges in the last years of his presidency to regain the trust of the Nicaraguan people.
Further extending an olive branch to his detractors, he has chosen ex-Contra commander Jaime Morales as his vice president; his chrysalis from rough, radical caterpillar to captivating, conservative butterfly has led many skeptics to give Ortega a second chance in office. In an interview with Reuters reporter Greg Brosnan, another ex-Contra leader, Alex Talavera, opined, "He was very young when he came to power. We should give him the benefit of the doubt."
As even Ortega's former opponents are warming to his new policies and worldview, so the United States should learn what a new faade and philosophy can do to alter the impression of one's peers, friend and foe. The continued reliance on the military-industrial complex to solve America's international-relations enmities will only perpetuate the dissipation of internal and external American security. Only once the United States government trades the vinegar of militancy for the honey of diplomacy will it begin to effectively catch the flies that trouble its slumber and security.