Nicaragua Wary of US
Senators' Visit
MANAGUA - Despite its apparent pureness, the
brief visit US Senators Christopher Dodd and
Robert Corker made to Nicaragua yesterday
casts doubts on its true objectives,
political analysts here have pointed out.
The legislators barely stayed three hours in
Managua, closing a Central American tour
that previously included Panama, Costa Rica,
El Salvador and Honduras.
In brief statements to the press at the end
of his meeting with Vice President Jaime
Morales Carazo, Dodd explained the tour's
objective was to get first hand information
on "affairs" in the region.
The Managua media referred to the
experienced Democrat senator from
Connecticut as an expert on Central American
affairs and friend of Nicaragua, and
sustained the regional visit is part of his
last activities in Capitol Hill as he's
retiring.
Their brief stay in Managua started early
yesterday with a breakfast attended by
Liberal congressmen and former foreign
ministers Eduardo Montealegre and Francisco
Aguirre Sacasa, as well as Deputy Victor
Hugo Tinoco, prominent member of the
Sandinista Renovation Movement, all of them
opposed to the current government led by
Daniel Ortega.
The two US congressmen then met for 45
minutes with Morales Carazo, who had met
Dodd over two decades ago, when the current
vice president was chief negotiator of the
Nicaraguan counterrevolution.
Morales Carazo became in 1993 a member of
the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) and
was in charge of their 1996 general election
campaign. However, in 2002 he was expelled
as a dissident from the party.
On May 28, 2006 he accepted the invitation
of his past enemy, Daniel Ortega, to become
his running mate in the 2006 presidential
election. Ortega won the election.
Some local political circles are wary of the
apparent innocence of the quick visit, as
its true objectives could be far beyond the
apparent.
It took place amid a political moment marked
by heated debates, with huge efforts by the
liberal opposition to consolidate a strong
unity that would lead to its possible return
to power; and few days before the regional
elections in the communities of the Atlantic
coast. |
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