Ortega: Learning from experience

 Daniel Ortega keeps talking about mistakes.

 The head of the leftist Sandinista Front says he erred during his party's 11-year reign in Nicaragua, and he's vowing not to do it again. Censorship, property seizures, a military draft, war: All that's over.

 He wants another shot to prove it. Ortega, the former guerrilla who helped oust a dictator and was then ousted himself, is running for president again. Ortega lost elections in 1990 and 1996, but in polls for this November's voting, he leads both Liberal Party candidate Enrique Bolaños and the Conservative Party's Noel Vidaurre.

 Ortega spoke with Miami Herald Central America correspondent Frances Robles last week in his Managua office. Here are excerpts:

 Q. Thinking back, what were the biggest errors?

 A. One thing is what we're not going to do again -- what we did do back then. We don't consider those mistakes, but rather what we had to do. We are committed not to do confiscations or repossessions, which was a necessity at that time. I can't say that was a mistake, but pure historic necessity.  . . .

 Talking about mistakes, I'd say, the fact that when we went to confiscations of Somoza properties, we crossed the line and we started to affect other people who didn't have to lose out: small producers. Private economy survived, lots of private people kept working, but it was a mistake to affect them.

 Q. Why should people have faith that if you won, it wouldn't be another era of errors?

 A. This has to do a lot with the passage of time. With the passage of time, problems change. Now the principal problem affecting Nicaraguans is employment. It's no
 longer war. There are, let's say, 50 to 70 percent of the population unemployed and underemployed. To those people, the war is in the past. The problem of confiscated properties has nothing to do with anything -- they didn't lose anything.

 The strongest political element used in the presidential campaigns of '90 and '96 has above all been the fear of war. Socially speaking, we're strong. People believe in the Sandinista Front. When we talk about education, talk about health, they know it's true. But when people say, ``vote for the Sandinistas and we could go back to
 mandatory military service.'. . . Most backward people are most influenced by that message.

 Q. Has your party's relationship with Americans changed?

 A. The signals have not been the best because again the United States is committing the mistake of not allowing Nicaraguans to pick freely. When the representatives
 of the U.S. government publicly and officially express that they are against the Sandinista Front in these elections, there is a risk of people succumbing to pressures.

 Q: Your vice presidential candidate is Agustín Jarquín, a former dissident. How can you be allied with people you once jailed?

 A. I think, in the first place, we have to understand we cannot see ourselves and treat ourselves as enemies. We have to transcend that. If not, we'll be stuck in the same circle and won't get out. We can't keep feeding hate. That phase of hate, war and conflict is over.

 Q. How do you do that?

 A. It's not easy. It's hard. The hardest. You are attacked, and you can't strike back the same way. This struggle is much harder. It's easy to confront. It's much easier to go the other way. This costs us a lot. It cost me a lot. This war is much harder than the 1980s.

 To produce the changes we are trying to make, conditions are much more complex than in past decades. Governing in Nicaragua now is much harder than when we
 governed. The factors that led to the revolution have been diluted. They haven't disappeared, they have just been watered down with globalization.

 We don't have the conditions we had in the '80s. For instance, we had solidarity, important support, from socialist parties, from Europe, that permitted us to
 counterbalance U.S. opposition. That's gone. The socialist camp isn't around. Europe has other priorities.

 Q. Do you think your relationships with leaders like Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein hurt you? People can say, ``Daniel Ortega hasn't changed at all. Look at the friends he has.''

 A. Hurt me? Why would that hurt me? Who judges who? Some of these `judges' have committed abominable crimes. They've promoted dictatorships and then call
 themselves judges. They question these governments' lack of democracy . . . They criticize Cuba and Libya for example, and then other countries in the same region
 aren't classified as dictatorships or human rights violators. Why? Because they have good relationships with them. The problem here is if you submit to their policies,
 you're good. When you want to keep your dignity, you're bad. That's the story of Latin American countries and American presence.

 Q. Is it correct to say that in the past 10 years, there has been more democracy and less social progress?

 A. I think the following: I think there still isn't democracy. . . . There is no democracy -- even if you're voting every day -- if there is no education, no culture. The people of this country vote with their stomachs, not with their heads. . . .

 Q. If you win, what would your relationship be with Washington?

 A. We are clear that we can work in themes that are of [common] interest -- particularly theirs -- that we are ethically obligated to contribute to. For instance, drug
 trafficking. That's their  big problem. The big consumption is there. We don't produce here or consume here. Consumption is there, but we are conscious of trafficking.

 Then they have another point of interest: [confiscated] American properties. We have a firm promise to find a solution to this by compensating those citizens [whose
 property was confiscated under Sandinista rule], independent of whether they are American or not.
 

                                    © 2001 The Miami Herald