Thankfully, the Cold War’s over

Published 12:00 pm Saturday, November 11, 2006

Oliver North was in Managua campaigning against

leftists on the ballot recently, and at least one California congressman warned that dire economic sanctions would be imposed by the United States should Daniel Ortega be elected as Nicaraguan president. It felt like 1986 all over again; you half expected to walk past the news stand and see Fawn Hall on the cover of Maxim.

While most Americans eagerly followed the results of Tuesday’s elections here at home, a few Bainbridge Islanders were also watching the ballot results in a tiny nation far to our south. Volunteers with the Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Island Association – who for two decades have maintained trade with Ometepean farmers, importing coffee beans under the Cafe de Oro label (available at Town & Country) – watched as Nicaraguans decided their political future as well.

Re-elected to office after 16 years was Ortega, a thorn in the side of the Reagan Administration in the 1980s. Ortega and his Sandinista allies made their name by overthrowing the repressive Somoza regime in 1979; while by no means saints, they promoted land reforms, public health and other popular initiatives aimed at raising their countrymen up out of want. Unfortunately, those ideas ran headlong into the “domino theory” then current in American foreign policy, which held that even a tiny nation of impoverished campesinos posed a threat to the world’s greatest superpower if its government tilted to the left. In the Cold War climate, what followed were economic sanctions against Managua; a covert, Washington-backed insurgency that claimed an estimated 30,000 Nicaraguan lives; and the arms-for-hostages scandal known as “Iran-Contra” in which North and Hall starred.

The Sandinistas were voted out of power in 1990, but their brand of reform never went completely out of style. “We have watched over the years, more and more of the municipalities around the country going Sandinista. I think that’s very positive,” BOSIA founder Kim Esterberg said this week. “It’s not that some strongman in Managua was wielding power, but it was coming from the grassroots with more people wanting a progressive agenda.”

Of course, as Esterberg points out, the sister island program itself transcends the politics of the day; it’s all about the beans. Every cup of Cafe de Oro coffee that Bainbridge Islanders drink betters the lives of the folks in Ometepe who get paid for growing and harvesting the crop. Meanwhile, dozens of Bainbridge students head to Ometepe each year to live with and learn about their neighbors in the next hemisphere. Cultural exchange and trade proves the best diplomacy, regardless of who’s in power.

Time will tell what the return of Ortega heralds for the Nicaraguan people. Save for the results of our own national elections this past Tuesday, we might well have seen a return of 1980s-era policies toward that nation – sanctions, isolation, economic loss, ill will. Instead, a sea change in Washington D.C. offers hope that unilateralism will give way to a more nuanced approach. The buzzword is “engagement” – that U.S. interests would be better served meeting disfavored states diplomatically, rather than vilifying them out of hand.

The Cold War has been over for a while now, and our relations with Managua should reflect that reality. Two groups of islanders, at least, can hope.