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Sandinista Ortega returns to power in Nicaragua
By Ana Fernandez
AFP
MANAGUA
Petroleumworld.com 01 11 07Ex-Sandinista guerrilla leader and US nemesis Daniel Ortega was to be sworn in as president Wednesday almost 17 years after being voted out of office, in another gain for Latin America's ascendant left.
Ally Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez was winging in from his own inauguration, and was to be joined by Spanish Crown Prince Felipe, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian. Nicaragua is one of 24 countries that recognize Taipei.
The return to power of the retooled Marxist rebel, now 61 and a proponent of peace and reconciliation, has thrown an international spotlight again on this Central American country of 5.4 million, 70 percent of whom live in poverty.
He is among newly elected leftists, also including Ecuador's president elect Rafael Correa, whom Chavez is hoping to shape into a regional anti-US axis of the left, which already groups socialist Bolivia and communist Cuba.
Ortega was the Marxist leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front that ousted US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
The Soviet-backed Sandinista government seized private assets, distributed land to poor farmers and battled US-financed Contra rebels throughout the 1980s.
Ortega was voted out of power in 1990, at the end of a bloody civil war against the Contras, and lost two subsequent presidential elections, before prevailing in his third to succeed Enrique Bolanos.
During his campaign against US-backed conservative rival Eduardo Montealegre, Ortega toned down his revolutionary rhetoric.
But Washington, and particularly its ambassador in Managua, urged Nicaraguans to turn out to defeat him.
Nonetheless US President George W. Bush on Monday told Ortega that he hoped to work together on a range of issues, the White House said in Washington.
Bush telephoned Ortega "to congratulate him and the Nicaraguan people on their commitment to democracy," said national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Bush "expressed his strong commitment to the well-being of the Nicaraguan people and our continued interest in a relationship with Nicaragua, noting such ongoing areas of cooperation" as trade and reform-driven economic development, he said.
"The president also noted that reconciliation, unity, democracy, and job creation -- the agenda outlined in Daniel Ortega's election platform -- are areas for possible cooperation," said Johndroe.
When he won reelection, Ortega immediately visited with traditional allies in Central American capitals, but also met with Chavez and paid a visit to Cuba.
AFP 10 1806 GMT 01 07
Copyright© 2001 AFP.All Rights Reserved.
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