Sinking their teeth back in
The tiny country of Nicaragua has once again pricked its overseer neighbour far to the north, and the emanations thundering from Washington are ominous. Veteran Cold Warriors are loading up their bombastic 1980s vocabularies and issuing threats and denunciations down towards the Central American isthmus. According to US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, the country is heading towards a “corrupt… creeping coup”. Roger Noriega, President Bush’s former Latin American envoy, foresees the country “reach[ing] depths such as those of Cuba”. Otto Reich, a Reagan-era policy consultant on Central America, pulled out his trump card and excoriated the Communist threat, warning portentously of withdrawal of US aid and foreign investment.
What has provoked such sour-faced admonitions? Nothing less than the political resurrection of Daniel Ortega, one-time Nicaraguan president and long-time leader of the Sandinista party that caused such trouble for Washington in the 1980s.Long though washed-up, Ortega has manoeuvred himself into position as potentially the country’s next president. At a time when the USA’s influence in the region is waning, with several South American countries rejecting the US-prescribed neoliberal programs and shifting to the left, the re-emergence of Ortega – and the reaction it has recently sparked - is a reminder of the dark days of American meddling in the Western hemisphere.
It is grimly appropriate that the US should once again try to address affairs in what is often condescendingly referred to as it’s ‘back yard’. Since the turn of the century, and the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe doctrine - which sought to keep the European powers of Spain and Britain from interfering in Latin America - Washington has often treated the countries below the Rio Grande as little more than de facto territories. Between the American-Spanish war and the Great Depression alone, the US sent troops into the territory of its southern neighbours some 32 times. In the post-war period, it has preferred covert operations and the use and abuse of aid and development funds to wield control. Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, and Panama in 1989 are just a handful of incidents where the US has surreptitiously overthrown sovereign regimes, usually in the protection of its own “interests” – which usually mean the foreign assets owned by American companies. These instances were usually camouflaged by invoking the threat of some insidious menace – with Communism being the frequent scapegoat. Such was the case in Nicaragua, which in 1980 saw the overthrow of the corrupt Somoza dynasty by the Ortega-led Sandinista movement. The Reagan administration, in the grips of an anti-Communist fervour having labelled the USSR as the ‘evil empire’, believed that the Sandinistas represented a Communist threat that would – in the oft-quoted ‘domino effect’ – quickly subsume neighbouring countries and soon reach all the way up to the American border. The administration quickly began orchestrating a resistance group, financing ‘contras’, or counterrevolutionaries, in Honduras and Costa Rica. This, coupled with the financial strangulation of Nicaragua’s economy, put enormous pressure on the inchoate Sandinista government. Despite huge development in the country’s infrastructure, particularly in literacy levels and health care, the population began to tire of the permanent warfare served up on their doorsteps at the behest of the United States, and in 1990 Ortega’s party lost power in a closely-fought election
The Sandinistas, while remaining the largest political party in the country, have since remained in opposition. Indeed, Ortega himself seemed until very recently to be a washed up relic, losing in 1996 and then being annihilated in the 2001 election, his power base seeming to ebb away entirely. A sexual abuse case made against him by his stepdaughter, from which he was acquitted, further tarnished his reputation.
However, earlier this year he made an unusual pact with former president Arnoldo Aleman – a pact referred to as ‘corrupt’ by Robert Zoellick – whereby the Sandinistas joined with Aleman’s Liberal party. What makes this unusual is that Aleman is technically a prisoner, indicted in 2003 for a string of corruption charges, although ill health means that he is serving his sentence on his own private ranch. Seizing the opportunity that this coalition provided, Ortega has been stumping like its 1989, deriding Bush as the 21st century Reagan, denouncing US ‘imperialism’ and generally doing his best to whip up anti-American sentiment amongst the Nicaraguan population.
All this would naturally be of some concern to the US, if it were having much of an effect. But the truth is that Nicaraguans are unlikely to return Ortega to the presidency any time soon. Along with Aleman, he is a figure synonymous with corruption and cronyism. His anti-American campaign is short on detail and long on boorish rhetoric that is effective in whipping crowds into a frenzy, but less effective at the ballot box. Right now the Sandinista – Liberal pact is running third in the polls for the November 2006 election. Ortega is also at odds with the general trend in the region, where neighbouring countries are aligning themselves with the US. While South America’s left-leaning movements, symbolised by Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution, are changing the dynamics of international relations in the hemisphere, many Central American countries see their future prosperity as inimitably tied to Washington. Hence, the recent passing of the Central American Free Trade Act, or CAFTA, which binds Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic into a NAFTA-style free trade market.
So why the rumblings from Washington? The accusations of a ‘creeping coup’ may seem a little overheated, but there is some justification. The judiciary, controlled by Ortega, has been seeking to blunt the powers of current President Enrique Bolanos and have him impeached. However, with little backing within the country and amongst the region as a whole, the success of such an operation is unlikely, and indeed Bolanas and Ortega have now agreed to delay the proposed constitutional reform until after the next election. It seems more likely that the old Reagan warhorses are simply reliving the times when an American adversary was a tiny country that could be subsumed without too much fuss. With Iraq turning into an ever-more disastrous mess, and American casualties edging up to the 2000 mark with no sign of abating, this current involvement in Nicaragua is a way of projecting American hegemony without the risk of political fallout. While Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez may be unbowed – and, with his country’s huge oil reserves, the US can ill afford to provoke him too much further – Nicaragua is a far less belligerent student, and the US can strictly admonish the country with little repercussion.
What has provoked such sour-faced admonitions? Nothing less than the political resurrection of Daniel Ortega, one-time Nicaraguan president and long-time leader of the Sandinista party that caused such trouble for Washington in the 1980s.Long though washed-up, Ortega has manoeuvred himself into position as potentially the country’s next president. At a time when the USA’s influence in the region is waning, with several South American countries rejecting the US-prescribed neoliberal programs and shifting to the left, the re-emergence of Ortega – and the reaction it has recently sparked - is a reminder of the dark days of American meddling in the Western hemisphere.
It is grimly appropriate that the US should once again try to address affairs in what is often condescendingly referred to as it’s ‘back yard’. Since the turn of the century, and the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe doctrine - which sought to keep the European powers of Spain and Britain from interfering in Latin America - Washington has often treated the countries below the Rio Grande as little more than de facto territories. Between the American-Spanish war and the Great Depression alone, the US sent troops into the territory of its southern neighbours some 32 times. In the post-war period, it has preferred covert operations and the use and abuse of aid and development funds to wield control. Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, and Panama in 1989 are just a handful of incidents where the US has surreptitiously overthrown sovereign regimes, usually in the protection of its own “interests” – which usually mean the foreign assets owned by American companies. These instances were usually camouflaged by invoking the threat of some insidious menace – with Communism being the frequent scapegoat. Such was the case in Nicaragua, which in 1980 saw the overthrow of the corrupt Somoza dynasty by the Ortega-led Sandinista movement. The Reagan administration, in the grips of an anti-Communist fervour having labelled the USSR as the ‘evil empire’, believed that the Sandinistas represented a Communist threat that would – in the oft-quoted ‘domino effect’ – quickly subsume neighbouring countries and soon reach all the way up to the American border. The administration quickly began orchestrating a resistance group, financing ‘contras’, or counterrevolutionaries, in Honduras and Costa Rica. This, coupled with the financial strangulation of Nicaragua’s economy, put enormous pressure on the inchoate Sandinista government. Despite huge development in the country’s infrastructure, particularly in literacy levels and health care, the population began to tire of the permanent warfare served up on their doorsteps at the behest of the United States, and in 1990 Ortega’s party lost power in a closely-fought election
The Sandinistas, while remaining the largest political party in the country, have since remained in opposition. Indeed, Ortega himself seemed until very recently to be a washed up relic, losing in 1996 and then being annihilated in the 2001 election, his power base seeming to ebb away entirely. A sexual abuse case made against him by his stepdaughter, from which he was acquitted, further tarnished his reputation.
However, earlier this year he made an unusual pact with former president Arnoldo Aleman – a pact referred to as ‘corrupt’ by Robert Zoellick – whereby the Sandinistas joined with Aleman’s Liberal party. What makes this unusual is that Aleman is technically a prisoner, indicted in 2003 for a string of corruption charges, although ill health means that he is serving his sentence on his own private ranch. Seizing the opportunity that this coalition provided, Ortega has been stumping like its 1989, deriding Bush as the 21st century Reagan, denouncing US ‘imperialism’ and generally doing his best to whip up anti-American sentiment amongst the Nicaraguan population.
All this would naturally be of some concern to the US, if it were having much of an effect. But the truth is that Nicaraguans are unlikely to return Ortega to the presidency any time soon. Along with Aleman, he is a figure synonymous with corruption and cronyism. His anti-American campaign is short on detail and long on boorish rhetoric that is effective in whipping crowds into a frenzy, but less effective at the ballot box. Right now the Sandinista – Liberal pact is running third in the polls for the November 2006 election. Ortega is also at odds with the general trend in the region, where neighbouring countries are aligning themselves with the US. While South America’s left-leaning movements, symbolised by Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution, are changing the dynamics of international relations in the hemisphere, many Central American countries see their future prosperity as inimitably tied to Washington. Hence, the recent passing of the Central American Free Trade Act, or CAFTA, which binds Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic into a NAFTA-style free trade market.
So why the rumblings from Washington? The accusations of a ‘creeping coup’ may seem a little overheated, but there is some justification. The judiciary, controlled by Ortega, has been seeking to blunt the powers of current President Enrique Bolanos and have him impeached. However, with little backing within the country and amongst the region as a whole, the success of such an operation is unlikely, and indeed Bolanas and Ortega have now agreed to delay the proposed constitutional reform until after the next election. It seems more likely that the old Reagan warhorses are simply reliving the times when an American adversary was a tiny country that could be subsumed without too much fuss. With Iraq turning into an ever-more disastrous mess, and American casualties edging up to the 2000 mark with no sign of abating, this current involvement in Nicaragua is a way of projecting American hegemony without the risk of political fallout. While Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez may be unbowed – and, with his country’s huge oil reserves, the US can ill afford to provoke him too much further – Nicaragua is a far less belligerent student, and the US can strictly admonish the country with little repercussion.
posted by DN at 2:52 PM
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