Word: nicaragua
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That, of course, is exactly what some in Washington are afraid of. Ortega's turn-back-the-clock triumph has rekindled memories of Washington's cold war obsession with Nicaragua, which embroiled the U.S. in a bloody guerrilla campaign and nearly doomed the Reagan presidency. Although Nicaragua, a nation of 5.5 million, is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, the prospect of an Ortega restoration prompted the Bush Administration to threaten to cut off more than $200 million in total aid to the country and moved cold warriors like former U.S. Marine Lieut. Colonel Oliver North...
Jaime Morales was a wealthy Nicaraguan banker in the 1980s when Daniel Ortega stole his six-bedroom house. Ortega, who was then Nicaragua's President, called it a justified "confiscation" on behalf of the Marxist revolution that he and his Sandinista Front were leading. Morales became a leader of the U.S.-backed contra army that waged a civil war with the Sandinistas. That conflict killed 30,000 people and led to Ortega's ouster in a 1990 election--after which he paid Morales for the house...
...sign of either Ortega's maturation or his opportunism--or both--that when he recaptured Nicaragua's presidency in the Nov. 5 election, his running mate was none other than Morales. Ortega still wears that drowsy look of arrogant defiance, speaks in the same mumbling cadence and insists on driving his SUV himself to cultivate a populist image. But with Morales beside him in a Managua hotel ballroom, schmoozing local and foreign investors, Ortega sounds like a changed man. "We won't eradicate poverty by eradicating capital or alienating investors but by joining forces with them," he says. Ortega...
...same for Ortega, says Ortega's running mate, Jaime Morales, a former Contra leader whose house had been confiscated by Ortega in the 1980s (Ortega has since paid him for the home) but who has reconciled and allied with Ortega. "I don't blame the U.S. for all of Nicaragua's problems as many do," says Morales. "But the U.S. and President Bush and his officials still seem to be in a Cold War hangover. They need to realize the Cold War has ended...
...summer during Mexico's presidential election. It kept quiet about its support of conservative candidate Felipe Calderon, while his leftist opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, allowed himself to be painted as a Chavez clone. The result was a narrow Calderon victory. This week, perhaps chastened by the result in Nicaragua, the Administration backed off its aid threats and instead swallowed the fact that one of America's most reviled Cold War nemeses is now a democratically elected head of state. "We congratulate the Nicaraguan people," a State Department spokesman said, "for conducting peaceful elections and demonstrating their commitment to democracy...