Former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Cuban boy Elian Gonzales and Reverend Lucius Walker of the U.S. sit together during a political rally at the former Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba, July 26, 2003.
Posted on 08/21/2003 9:21:39 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Here goes a ''nightmare scenario'' that some senior Bush administration officials are worrying about: the possibility that rightist and leftist candidates with dubious democratic credentials will win upcoming elections in Central America, and unleash a new cycle of violence in the region.
It's entirely possible, they say. Consider:
• In Guatemala, former dictator and current president of Congress Efraín Ríos Montt, 77, has won a legal battle to become the ruling party's candidate in the Nov. 9 presidential elections.
EX-GENERAL
Ríos Montt, a former army general whose 1982-1983 military regime was marked by massive human rights abuses against Guatemala's Indians, had been banned from running for office by a 1985 rule that bars former coup plotters from participating in presidential elections. But a constitutional tribunal earlier this month ruled in Ríos Montt's favor, in a decision that critics say resulted from intimidation by the former dictator's followers.
Asked about Ríos Montt's candidacy, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview with the Univisión network earlier this month that ''we have serious reservations about his candidacy.'' U.S. officials say that, under the current rule of Ríos Montt's party, Guatemala has become a corrupt state that could rapidly degenerate into a rightist dictatorship.
''Guatemala's situation is probably the most worrisome in the region,'' says Manuel Orozco, an analyst on Central American affairs with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue think tank. ``Ríos Montt has the support of important parts of the army, which continues to exercise heavy influence over the government and uses intimidation, insubordination and paramilitary squads to impose its will.''
• In El Salvador, former Marxist guerrilla leader Shafik Handal's Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front is leading in the polls for the March 21, 2004 presidential elections. The FMLN, which laid down its weapons in 1992 after the end of a civil war that claimed 75,000 lives, has become the single largest legislative bloc in El Salvador's Congress.
SOCIALIST STATE
Handal, 72, is one of the most backward-thinking former Marxist leaders in Latin America. Unlike other former leftist leaders, he still talks about turning his country into a socialist state, and recently sent a letter to Cuban President Fidel Castro supporting the jailing of 75 peaceful oppositionists on the island.
U.S. officials are not shy about expressing their concerns about Handal. Dan Fisk, a ranking U.S. State Department official, was quoted by the Agence France-Press news agency recently as saying that the FMLN's speeches ``look like they have been written in Havana.''
• In Nicaragua, former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega is emerging as the leading candidate for the 2006 elections. A June poll by the Borge and Associates firm showed that, while 56 percent of those questioned said they have not yet chosen their candidate, the leftist Ortega was the front-runner among those that have a favorite contender, with 13.8 percent. Next was finance minister Eduardo Montealegre, with 8 percent.
FEARS JUSTIFIED?
Are U.S. officials right to fear a return of political hard-liners in Central America?
Probably not. A regional ''nightmare scenario'' is unlikely, even if it is a fact that the pro-free market governments that have ruled Central America for the past decade have mostly failed to improve living standards, and a majority of voters seem to be longing for change.
First, while their parties are leading in the polls or are the best organized in their respective countries, neither Guatemala's Ríos Montt, nor El Salvador's Handal, nor Nicaragua's Ortega is an attractive candidate.
On the contrary, polls show that Ríos Montt has only about 10 percent of voters' support, while Handal has about 9 percent.
'Ortega's 13.8 percent of voters' preferences doesn't mean anything, especially if you consider that the Sandinista party has a core base of 30 percent of the vote,'' says Carlos F. Chamorro, publisher of Nicaragua's political newsletter Confidencial.
EXPATRIATE FACTOR
Second, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and Guatemalan expatriates in the United States -- whose remittances have become their native countries' largest single source of income -- are likely to help finance the campaigns of moderate candidates, giving them more resources than their rivals. Trans-national politics will play a larger role than usual in Central America's upcoming elections.
Third, the probable signing of a Central American free-trade agreement with the United States, scheduled to be announced in December this year, may give a boost to moderate candidates. They will be able to promise a rapid increase of exports to the United States, and thus give voters something to look forward to.
FINAL ANALYSIS
Summing up, there is a lot of pre-election anxiety in Central America's business and human-rights circles, but moderates may win over extremists at the last minute.
We have seen this movie before, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a replay.
Lets either win it once and for all, or quit it.
All the US needs to do is to make some noise that if democracy fails in any of these countries, they will cut off the spigot. It is OK for them to elect commies so long as it remains possible to throw them out of office after they make a mess (this is how people learn the hard way). But if they try to stop elections and hold power undemocratically, the money should be cut off.
Well, aren't these people sending the money to their families, not the government? What would it serve to deny expatriates the opportunity to send support back to their loved ones?
Sounds like the same nightmare a lot of people in this country find disturbing.
He is a corrupt, evil scumbag. I don't know what it is that is considered "rightist" about him.
Shades of the Draka version of North America ?? I happen to agree.
Yep! I wouldn't necessarily have put them under the Yoke, but it wouldn't be the filthy Third World sewer it is today.
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