Word: ortega
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Actually, Ortega's main motivation may have been domestic politics. Nothing assures votes like a patriotic stance, and the Sandinistas have long fared well by whipping up war fears. Nicaraguans resent dying in this long-drawn-out conflict, and more of them blame the contras than the Sandinistas for the latest surge in countryside attacks...
...case, the contras cannot count on a rebound of U.S. aid, even though some of the sharpest U.S. reaction to Ortega's move came from liberal legislators who have long opposed U.S. aid to the guerrillas. Said one of them, Wisconsin Congressman David Obey: "Daniel Ortega is a fool and always has been." Despite Bush's initial outburst, the Administration's response otherwise remained low-key. That was due in part to a realization, as a senior Administration official put it, that "there's not the remotest chance Congress will okay the restoration of lethal aid." Congress abolished such assistance...
...then, did Ortega venture so much opprobrium abroad to score points at home in a race that, by most accounts, he was already winning? The answer may lie in a poll published two weeks ago by the Nicaraguan Institute of Public Opinion. With nearly 90% of Nicaragua's 1.97 million voters registered, large numbers of them as the result of a Sandinista campaign, Ortega led the opposition by 26% to 21%. Yet the Institute's sample showed that 46% remained undecided -- more than enough to make any candidate for office extremely uneasy...
Uruguay's President Julio Maria Sanguinetti, chatting with George Bush, spotted him first. Sanguinetti muttered a low warning to the U.S. President that Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, who had just entered the room at Costa Rica's Hotel Cariari, was headed toward them. Bush squared himself, picking up the Sandinista comandante in his peripheral vision. He was poised for this power game that is played with body language and photo opportunities. Adversarial heads of state strive to gain a psychological edge over one another and to make points with the vast electronic audiences that watch these dramas. In this...
...Ortega strode in," Bush related. "I was not sure whether it was a defensive stride or a take-command stride. He made his way around a table toward us. He is a bigger and broader man than the common perception. I noticed his uniform, the very bright khaki cloth and the bright red bandana. I don't say it to denigrate the Boy Scouts, but he looked like a senior Boy Scout leader...