Word: ortega
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...Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, has good reason to be optimistic that things may be different under George Bush. The expectation in foreign policy circles is that instead of trying to make Ortega cry uncle, the Bush Administration -- by necessity as much as by choice -- will approach Nicaragua with something less drastic in mind than toppling its government. In large part, that will happen because the contras are in suspended animation, not demobilized but with little hope of renewed military aid from the U.S. Instead, the U.S. will put its weight behind the 18-month-old Arias peace plan...
...prospect of a new breeze was not lost on Managua. Last week, in interviews lasting four hours with TIME correspondent John Moody, Ortega seized the initiative to strike chords that sounded, and were doubtless carefully designed to sound, as conciliatory toward the U.S. as any during the Sandinistas' ten-year tenure...
...overall goal, Ortega said, is to "clear the ground" and "normalize all aspects of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations." Ortega asserts his willingness to reach compromise on virtually all the complaints the U.S. has voiced over the years...
Near the top of the list has been the size of Nicaragua's armed forces. The U.S. contends that the Sandinistas' 70,000-member standing army is much bigger than necessary for legitimate defense and that it looms as a threat to other countries in the region. Ortega claimed he has already cut back his troops by 10,000 and reduced the state security police by 6,000. Nicaragua has also slashed one-third of its security budget, from $180 million this year to $127 million in 1990. If Washington feels further reductions are necessary, added Ortega, "we're ready...
...Ortega insisted that the ranks of Cuban military advisers in Nicaragua, estimated by Washington to number some 8,000, have been thinned. He said the number of Cubans has fallen from "hundreds, not thousands" to "dozens." Further reductions, he suggested, would be tied to the departure of several hundred U.S. military personnel in Honduras and El Salvador. That amounts to no small condition, but the continued presence of U.S. advisers in Central American countries that are allies of Washington would also be prohibited under the regional peace plan devised by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez and signed...