|
KAFKA IN MANAGUA: Ollie North Is Helping A Communist Win In Nicaragua |
|
|
|
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
|
|
Thursday, 02 November 2006 |
Franz Kafka couldn't make this up. Ollie North is doing his best to see that his Sandinista foe,
Daniel Ortega, responsible for the Communist tyranny in the 1980s that took so
many lives of his (and my) Contra friends, will be elected president of
Nicaragua this Sunday, November 5th.
He's not doing it on purpose. Just like Democrats who are so filled with Bush-hatred they will
support anything that hurts Bush even if it hurts America, Ollie is so filled
with State Department-hatred that it is blinding him to what he is doing.
I know it's hard to believe - and that Foggy Bottom has
gotten something right for once adds to the Kafkaesque weirdness.
The story begins in 1997 when the mayor of Managua, Arnoldo
Aleman, was elected president with a strong anti-Sandinista platform. He turned out to be the greatest crook
Nicaragua had ever seen, personally embezzling over $100 million from his
poverty-stricken country.
As the evidence against him mounted, Aleman made a deal
known as El Pacto (the pact) with Ortega and the Sandinistas, giving
them control over the courts and a number of government agencies in exchange
for protecting him from prosecution.
It worked until the evidence reached Everest, and he was
sentenced, in December 2003, to a 20 year prison term - which he is serving,
thanks to his Sandinista buddies in the courts, on his private ranch for
"health reasons."
Aleman's political party is the PLC (Constitutional Liberal
Party), which he continues to run from his ranch. Breaking with the PLC in protest over Aleman's control of it was
Aleman's foreign minister and finance minister for his PLC successor (current
president Enrique Bolaños), Eduardo Montealegre.
A Harvard MBA and successful businessman, Montealegre last
year founded the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance Party (ALN-PC, an alliance between
PLC dissidents, several liberal parties and the Conservative Party) as an
alternative to the PLC and the Sandinistas.
Under this banner, he is running against Danny Ortega for president.
But Ollie North is not supporting Montealegre, whom Reagan
Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick describes as "decent, conservative, ethical, and
pro-American." Ollie is instead
supporting the PLC candidate, Jose Rizo, whom Kirkpatrick describes as an
"Aleman crony."
Why would Ollie do this?
Why would he travel to Managua last week to campaign for Aleman's puppet
Rizo, to campaign in effect for the El Pacto, to make every effort to split the
strong anti-Sandinista vote guaranteeing Ortega's victory?
Because Montealegre is being supported by the State
Department and US Ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli.
The latest October polls all show Ortega in front,
Montealegre second, Rizo third (e.g., Gallup: 32.5%, 21.1%, 16.8%). The Aleman-Ortega Pacto re-rigged the
election rules so that whoever gets 35% or more of the vote (plus leads the
nearest competitor by 5%) wins the presidency.
Divide and conquer.
Hugo Chavez is pouring millions into supporting Ortega, just
as Ortega was supported by Castro and the Soviets in the 1980s. Yet clearly, if Ollie - who remains a hero
to many for his work with the Contras - were not doing his best to confuse
Nicaraguans with his support of Rizo and split the anti-Sandinista vote, that
vote would defeat Ortega.
So we get Kafka in Managua:
Ollie North would rather have a Communist win in Nicaragua than the US
State Department.
I trekked through the jungle with the Contras, got into
their firefights with the Piricuacos - the Contras' term for the
Sandinistas who were so tyrannically vicious they were "dogs out for blood" -
and had my life saved by them during a Sandinista ambush.
I learned first hand that the Contra rebellion was a genuine
peasant revolt against a Marxist-Communist dictatorship. That the most famous supporter of that
rebellion may enable that dictatorship back into power is a tragic irony.
|
