Word: ortega
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...through the germination period. It's hard to imagine Nicaragua's rustic peasants being called on to save the day as the global food crisis has doubled average food prices in Latin America over the past year. But riding the campesinos to the rescue is exactly what President Daniel Ortega aims to do in his bid to assume a regional leadership role in confronting the food crisis...
...great challenge, our great battle, is to produce food in Nicaragua," Ortega said. "We have to fill Nicaragua with food, even in our yards at home, we have to plant a little bit of beans and corn. This will mean income, and will assure us food... it will allow us to export to international markets, to the rich countries that have money to pay for these products...
...Ortega had earlier signed a food-security pact with his fellow travelers in the ALBA alliance, a socialist cooperation agreement between Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia. ALBA is blaming the food crisis on the "tyranny of global capitalism," and is using the situation as a teaching moment for its regional propaganda campaign...
Dena Fisher, a retired public health professional from New York who first visited Nicaragua in 1986 and still runs a project here, says Ortega's return has actually made it harder for her group to raise funds in the United States, because people don't want to be in solidarity with the current Sandinista government. She calls her project "humanitarian," and says she doesn't even like to use the word solidarity anymore...
Another longtime leader in the solidarity movement, who spoke under the condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal, said anyone who thought Ortega's reelection would mark a return of revolution is "freeze-dried in the 1980s." The Ortega of today, she said, represents the same economic and business interests as the conservative right, only with a "schizophrenic discourse" that tries to tap the revolutionary appeal of the past...