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In Nicaragua, The Political Battle Is Moving From The Streets To The Negotiating Table
By Glenn Garvin • May 2, 2018
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Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega speaks to supporters at Las Victorias square in Managua, Nicaragua, on Monday, April 30, 2018.
A meme making the rounds on social media in Nicaragua dryly sums up critics' view of President Daniel Ortega. Labeled "Questions To Be Addressed By The National Dialogue," as upcoming negotiations between the president and his opponents have been labeled, it includes only two: "When are you leaving?" and "Who are you taking with you?"
After two weeks of bloody confrontations in the street between pro- and anti-Ortega forces, the president's opponents, as the meme notes, cannot imagine any settlement in which he stays in power, but most of them also cannot imagine any scenario in which he willingly leaves power.
"He either lives in a civil way, obeying the law and stopping the brutality and the corruption, or he becomes the Nicaraguan version of the Ceausescus," said Nicaraguan journalist Alvaro Cruz, editor of the Salvadoran newspaper Diario El Mundo, referring to the communist couple who ruled Romania during the Cold War and wound up being executed by their own former supporters when they resisted a popular uprising.
Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.
Nicaragua's Ortega Has 'Vindicated' Himself. Cuba's Castro Would Have Been Proud.
By Tim Padgett • Apr 26, 2018
Alfredo Zuniga / AP via Miami Herald
While a growing global chorus calls for Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega to step down, I'm thinking back to one of my favorite editorial cartoons.
It appeared 28 years ago, at the curtain call of Ortega's first presidency – right after Nicaraguan voters tossed out him and his Marxist Sandinista party, ending their decade of authoritarian rule.
The cartoon shows Ortega rafting across the Caribbean to Cuba. Iconic communist dictator Fidel Castro stands onshore angrily shouting, "You lost a WHAT?!"
Don't Go To Nicaragua, Officials Warn After Evacuating U.S. Embassy Amid Deadly Riots
By Monique Madan & Glenn Garvin • Apr 23, 2018
The U.S. government stripped its embassy in Nicaragua down to bare-bone operations Monday after five days of deadly protests around the country, despite Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's efforts to calm his tempestuous nation.
The State Department on Monday ordered nonessential employees and all embassy family members to leave Nicaragua.
In a public statement, the Department of State also warned travelers to "reconsider travel to Nicaragua due to crime and civil unrest."
Nicaragua's President Withdraws Social Security Reforms That Sparked Violent Unrest
By editor • Apr 22, 2018
The welfare reform package proposed by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that set off days of deadly protests has been canceled.
In a televised national address, Ortega said the board of Nicaragua's social security system had voted to revoke the measures that were approved last week.
The sweeping pension overhaul plan that increases contributions for workers and employer, but lowers overall benefits.
U.S. Has No Right To Be Shocked By Nicaragua; Could Have Prevented Ortega Long Ago
By Tim Padgett • Nov 2, 2016
Esteban Felix / AP via Miami Herald
I understand why Miami Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is outraged at Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
Ortega's a strongman, autocrat, caudillo, whatever authoritarian label you want to give a guy who's mugged Nicaragua's democracy and turned much of the impoverished Central American country into his fiefdom.