Posted By Rick Moran On November 24, 2010 @ 12:10 am In FrontPage | 19 Comments
The conflict between Costa Rica and Nicaragua along their disputed border is more than just a continuation of a long standing argument over boundaries. It appears that Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has engineered the crisis to benefit his own political standing with an eye toward the elections next year.Ortega should have no business running for re-election in the first place. The country’s constitution forbids consecutive presidential terms, but Supreme Court judges appointed by the Sandinista leader exempted him and select cronies from the law. When the opposition legislature met at a Holiday Inn in Managua to plan moves to counter Ortega’s putsch (the National Assembly building was already surrounded by Ortega’s thugs), a Sandinista mob attacked [1] the hotel, tossing explosives, terrifying guests, and were prevented from visiting bodily harm on lawmakers only by the intervention of riot police. The police made no arrests nor did they try to stop the attack in front of the hotel.
With the lowest approval rating [2]of any president in Central America, Ortega cast about for a pretext to alter his political fortunes and found it on the Costa Rican border. The convoluted boundary has been a source of tension between the two countries since 1858 when a treaty was signed making the entire San Juan River Nicaraguan territory, while granting Costa Rica navigation rights along the waterway. Then, early this fall, Nicaragua dredging activities on the river was piling up silt near the disputed island of Calero. This threatened clear navigation of the river, and Costa Rica responded by asking Nicaragua to remove the dredge.
Ortega’s response was deliberately provocative. He dispatched a small military force to occupy Calero, tearing down a Costa Rican flag and raising the Nicaraguan standard. Costa Rican Security Ministry José María Tijerino accused the Nicaraguans of invading his country, setting off a round of diplomatic sparring at the Organization of American States — which voted 22-2 in favor of Costa Rica who was demanding removal of the troops. Ortega ignored the OAS vote, accusing Costa Rica and its allies of being “drug traffickers” while threatening to withdraw from the hemispheric body.
Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan army commander laughably used the lame excuse [3] that he was misled by an error in the Google maps he was using. After the international laughter subsided, Ortega tried another tack. [4] In an address to the nation, he claimed that the troops were stationed along the Costa Rican border to fight the drug trade and accused Costa Rica of wanting to seize the San Juan River for itself.
Although Costa Rica has no standing army, they boast an extremely well trained, well armed police force. Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla deployed a heavily armed defense unit to a base near the island and an uneasy standoff has been in place since. The conflict is now before the International Court in the Hague.
Back in Managua, Ortega’s political fortunes rose dramatically. As recently as late last summer [5], former deadly foes from the Sandinista government of the 1980s and the Contra rebels had joined forces to present a united opposition of sorts to Ortega’s authoritarian government. These oddfellows had differing reasons for opposing the president, but found common ground in their agreement that Ortega was attempting to subvert the constitution in order to set up a dictatorship. Coupled with Ortega’s broad based unpopularity, there seemed to be a chance that Ortega would be confronted with the choice of stealing the election next year or going down to ignominious defeat.
The conflict with Costa Rica has changed that calculus. Whipped into a nationalistic frenzy by the Ortega government, the middle class has united behind the government, joining the Sandinistas and the desperately poor in supporting the president. Business leaders, formerly critical of Ortega’s naked power grab, have joined with university students to back the government. Opposition newspapers have cooled their rhetoric and have been praising Ortega’s stand. And perhaps most surprising of all, the National Assembly, only recently attacked by Ortega thugs, passed a unanimous resolution pledging full support for Ortega and his dispatching of troops to the border.
This support contrasts with the near civil war that broke out earlier this year following Ortega’s machinations with the Supreme Court. Sandinista judges overturned the presidential succession ban in return for an executive order from Ortega allowing them to stay in their offices beyond their own constitutionally mandated date of retirement. These are the same judges who will rule on any legal challenges during the 2011 election.
When the opposition squawked, Ortega sent his Sandinista thugs to the Supreme Court where opposition judges were forcibly removed. The action precipitated the forced marriage between the Sandinista faction that still believes in “revolutionary change” and the Contra faction that seeks adherence to constitutional principles. In the confusing and conflicted world of Nicaraguan politics, there are other factions from both sides who are serving in Ortega’s government, including a faction led by the legendary Eden Pastora, the charismatic Contra leader during the 1980’s who leads the small military force squatting on Calero island.
Behind Ortega is the not so subtle hand of Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez. Chavez is bankrolling the Nicaraguan economy, keeping it afloat while the second poorest population in Latin America suffers the consequences of Ortega’s mismanagement.
Chavez has eschewed normal aid channels and is funneling cash directly to Ortega in a convoluted, very complex scheme [6]involving Venezuela and Nicaraguan oil companies. The bottom line, according to this report by McClatchy, [7] is that more than a billion dollars has been funneled into a company controlled by Ortega, who in turn, has dispersed enormous amounts of money to the desperate rural poor in Nicaragua. Indeed, the standard of living among the rural poor has increased dramatically for the better. Nearly 50,000 families have benefited from Ortega’s distributionist policies, and “the number of Nicaraguans in extreme poverty fell from 17.2 percent of the population in 2005 to 9.7 percent in 2009.”
No one begrudges starving people a better life, but there is a method to Ortega’s seeming beneficence. He is copying Hugo Chavez’s successful climb to power by buying off the poorest people in the country, giving him a strong base of support when the political winds start blowing against him.
The money Chavez is funneling to him gives Ortega more than clout with the poor, however. The company that the Venezuelans set up that Ortega controls – Albanisa – also channels money into a dozen other companies in a variety of economic sectors including wind power, transportation, security, gas distribution, heavy machinery, food sales and port management. One of these companies bought a television station that featured an opposition program that regularly criticized Ortega. Needless to say, the show was booted and is now looking for another home.
Ortega’s economic clout is enormous and he is planning to use this influence to buy, beg, and steal his way to re-election. His recent tiff with the OAS where he threatened to withdraw from that body might not be as empty a warning as it might seem. The OAS will be sending election observers to Nicaragua to monitor the election next year and Ortega would like nothing better than to keep all international observers – except those from friendly countries – out of the country so that prying eyes won’t disturb his plans to stay in office by any means at his disposal.
The Costa Rican crisis has served Ortega well. It won’t be difficult to keep that pot simmering for several months as the Nicaraguan strongman continues his assault on the people’s rights and plans his next moves to subvert the Nicaraguan people’s hard won democracy.
Rick Moran is Chicago Editor of Pajamas Media [8] and Blog Editor of American Thinker [9]. His personal blog is Right Wing Nuthouse.com. [10]
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