Mainstream WeeklyIn the hour when I saw him in the Nicaraguan capital addressing fellow Sandinistas, I did not imagine even fleetingly that he would one day trade his revolutionary credentials for a political dictatorship sans elections.
For someone who won millions of hearts for boldly spearheading an armed struggle against the American-backed Anastasio Somoza, it is painful that he is now being compared to the very despot he helped overthrow in 1979.
It was an epoch-making event, in American’s own backyard, overshadowed only by the Islamic revolution that ousted the Shah – another American lackey – in Iran the same year.
Born into a working class family, Ortega was attracted to Marxism, in part due to Fidel Castro’s charisma, and went on to become a key leader of the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front, known by its Spanish acronym FSLN.
As the Somoza dynasty collapsed amid mass anger, Ortega, in olive green military fatigues, took power for the first time as coordinator of what came to be known as the Junta of National Reconstruction.
From 1979, he presided over Nicaragua, then a country of some three million in Central America, becoming the President in 1985, a post he held until 1990.
It was in the summer of 1985 that I flew into Nicaragua, financed in a small part by the United News of India (UNI), where I then worked, but mainly by my now late sister, who was an American citizen.
I spent 17 days in the country, mainly in Managua, the capital. I also made my way to the border region with Costa Rica which suffered regular attacks at the hands of CIA-backed anti-Sandinista fighters, known as Contras.
Nicaragua was then home to scores of Westerners who were in solidarity with the Sandinista revolution which at one time threatened to ignite a similar fire in neighbouring El Salvador. The country also played host to many leftists from South and Central American countries who felt safer in Nicaragua.
Once he became the US President, Ronald Regan, a rabid anti-Communist, made it his mission to stifle the Sandinistas. Ortega refused to give up. He stood up to the Goliath, earning widespread admiration.
I was attracted to Nicaragua for more than one reason.
There was a sense of adventure, fanned by Jaswinder Singh alias Jassy, a versatile journalist who introduced me to the upheavals in South America and prodded me to go to Nicaragua since I was visiting the US.
Journalism was another factor which made me take a long flight from Toronto (Canada) to Managua. I wanted to report the war raging there.
Finally, I was genuinely attracted to those determined to end a rotten and corrupt system and lay the foundation for a new one which could be embraced by the mass of poor and middle class.
I was warned that the US administration did not look upon kindly to those who went to Nicaragua from the US. A friend in Canada gave me the contact for an American attorney to contact in case I was detained in any American airport.
The US-funded war by the Contras was accompanied by a punishing American economic squeeze of Nicaragua which ended economic aid, slashed sugar import quotas and led to a total trade embargo.
To his credit, the Sandinistas unleashed land reforms, redistributed wealth, nationalized industrial sectors and conducted one of the biggest campaigns in the region to promote literacy.
Everything combined to help Ortega win the first presidential election with more than 60 per cent of votes. I did meet Nicaraguans unhappy with the government but Ortega appeared to be hugely popular.
The situation would change soon.
It was in Managua – I paid 5 dollars a day as rent for a single room in a middle class neighbourhood – that I attended a FSLN meeting where I saw Ortega and the rest of the leadership.
The American-sponsored war against the Nicaraguan government went on. I continued to follow it from India.
Ortega visited New Delhi for the first time during the 1983 Non-Aligned Summit when he met Indira Gandhi. He paid a three-day state visit three years later when he met her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi.
This was when Ortega and Rajiv Gandhi famously had golgappas in Delhi!
Ortega lost the presidential election in 1990. It was also the year when the Nicaraguan embassy in New Delhi was shuttered.
By then, the FSLN had lost much of its social democratic sheen and become more of a Leninist outfit, firmly controlled by Ortega. Not all the economic steps the Sandinistas unveiled were popular.
Ortega lost successive elections and returned to power only in 2007. This is when he turned authoritarian, dismantling checks and balances, viciously cracking down on political rivals, suppressing the independent media, and making political compromises. Electoral and judicial bodies became beholden to the FSLN.
Many of his former comrades got disgusted and quit the party, appalled by Ortega’s audacious promotion of his wife in the government. This included his own brother Humberto, who was promptly dubbed a traitor and imprisoned.
Hugo Torres, another former revolutionary, had helped Ortega to escape from prison in the 1970s. He too was arrested and died in custody. Other former Sandinista colleagues were also jailed or bolted from Nicaragua.
Ortega was accused of promoting the very political and class interests the FSNL had always opposed.
Like innumerable people around the world, I felt personally betrayed. Yes, powerful vested networks, within and outside Nicaragua, were ranged against Ortega. Still, did he have to make such a dramatic political U-turn?
Even amid all this, I did not expect Ortega to announce that there would be no further elections in Nicaragua.
The decision took Nicaragua back to the dark days of the ousted dictator, Somoza.
This was not the Ortega I saw in Managua.
Lord Acton was right after all. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.