Word: ortega
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...communique from Havana last week sounded downright chummy. "Fidel expressed to Daniel the readiness of Cuba to cooperate with Nicaragua as far as possible to make the policy a success," read the statement. Fidel, of course, was the bearded one. And Daniel was Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra. The topic of conversation: a peace plan for Central America that Ortega had signed in Guatemala City the previous week...
...together with Castro may have revived doubts about Ortega's status as an independent decision maker, but it was far friendlier than a session in Washington on the same subject. When Ronald Reagan met with more than a dozen conservative supporters to discuss his tentative support of the Guatemala plan, as well as his sponsorship of a rival accord hammered out with Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright, his guests angrily denounced both pacts. They argued that either one of them would destroy the U.S.-backed contras who are fighting to overthrow Ortega's Sandinista government. Said Howard Phillips, chairman...
Arias is already pushing Ortega in that direction. He publicly called on the Nicaraguan leader to lift the five-year-old state of emergency and restore civil liberties by the Nov. 7 deadline. But Ortega made no promises, saying the reopening of the opposition newspaper La Prensa, which was closed by the government more than a year ago, and the Roman Catholic radio station Radio Catolico, is "an option of ours...
...Ortega seems eager, however, to give at least the appearance of cooperation. He quickly formed the Nicaraguan version of the "national reconciliation commission" that each country must set up to monitor compliance with the pact. He invited opposition political groups and Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Managua, to nominate candidates for the four-person panel. As a friendly gesture to Arias, Nicaragua dropped its lawsuit in the World Court charging Costa Rica with violating international law by harboring contras...
...meeting in the White House Oval Office, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz sealed a surprising accord with House Speaker Jim Wright and other congressional leaders. Three days later, in a grand reception room at the National Palace in Guatemala City, five Central American Presidents, including Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega Saavedra, proclaimed they had reached their own "historic compromise." And so, after six years of undeclared war between the U.S.-backed contras and the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, the battle last week suddenly became one between two rival peace plans for the region...