The Jaguar Smile

11 EL SEÑOR PRESIDENTE

When I arrived at Daniel Ortega’s house on the evening of 24 July, Miguel d’Escoto was already there, his back a little less painful than it had been the last time we met. News had just come in of an attack by unnamed assailants on some sort of Contra ‘summit’ in the heart of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. Some of the FDN leaders were thought to have been injured. ‘The attack shows how freely the Contra can move inside Honduras,’ d’Escoto said. ‘They were meeting in a building very close to the house of the President of Honduras. That couldn’t have happened without the government’s approval.’ Who was responsible for the attack? Father Miguel’s face was impossible to read. ‘Of course, we are being blamed.’

More guests arrived, until most of the country’s leading poets and intellectuals were there: Rocha, whom I’d met at the National Assembly; Silva, who ran a children’s hospital; Claudia Chamorro, the Nicaraguan ambassador to Costa Rica. Ernesto Cardenal’s beam, beret, smock and jeans turned up. So did Carlos Martínez Rivas, about whom people had been worrying for days. Martínez Rivas, a poet notorious for embarking on mammoth drinking bouts that often put him in hospital, had been hitting the bottle again; so when he turned up sober with Sergio Ramírez, there was a general sense of relief. Martínez Rivas was thought by many to be the most innovative, fresh poet in Nicaragua. ‘He hates being translated,’ Cardenal told me. ‘He thinks translation is a form of assassination.’ Martínez Rivas’ booming good humour, faintly jowly face and bush-shirt that was a little tight at the buttons reminded me of a favourite (and now dead) uncle.

‘There’s wine in this soup,’ he scolded Rosario Murillo sternly. ‘What are you trying to do? Make an alcoholic of me?’

Also present was José Coronel Urtecho, a tall Tatiesque man of gentle bearing, who murmured to me as Martínez Rivas and Cardenal began the verbal sparring that would continue all evening: ‘They are the two greatest poets of Latin America.’ Coronel’s modesty was also great; his own reputation equalled theirs.

Rosario Murillo was telling me about her last trip to New York with Daniel. They had decided to try and make a direct appeal to the American people, who were, as the opinion polls showed, mostly opposed to the Reagan policy in Central America. So she had gone on the Phil Donahue show, and Daniel had been filmed by TV cameras as he jogged in Central Park. ‘From that point of view things had gone so well,’ she said. ‘After Donahue people would wave to me in the street and shout Viva Nicaragua.’ She had even managed to button-hole Nancy Reagan at a public function and suggest that maybe the two of them might get together and try and mend some fences. Nancy, mumbling awkwardly, had been steered away by her minders at high speed.

‘Then Daniel said he needed new glasses.’ Rosario asked some American friends to arrange for a discreet appointment with an optician, and these (very wealthy) friends had insisted that the new glasses would be their gift to President Ortega. When Daniel and Rosario emerged from the opticians they found, to their dismay, that the press were there after all. The next day, the New York papers splashed the story of how the President of impoverished Nicaragua had spent $3,200 on new spectacles. ‘That much money,’ Rosario said. ‘I never dreamed glasses could cost so much. It’s true we bought a few pairs, including sunglasses for the children, because we cannot get such things here, but still! And we hadn’t paid a cent, anyway, but they didn’t print that.’ The scandal of the President’s spectacles had left its mark. ‘You don’t know how careful we have to be when we’re there. We have meetings scheduled from before breakfast until late at night, and we never eat out anywhere. Endless Chinese takeaways in the hotel room. And then that business with the glasses, really, it was too bad.’

Daniel Ortega entered, with that odd mixture of confidence and shyness. He sat down next to me — we were arranged in our wooden rocking chairs around a long, low table set out in one of the verandahs — and, without any preamble, began to talk politics. He was going to the Security Council in a couple of days’ time, to ask America to abide by the Hague judgment. But an interesting thing had happened. He had been approached by a group of US Catholic prelates who wanted a meeting with him while he was in the States. ‘This will be one of our most important meetings. It may be they want to mediate.’

‘In the matter of the expulsion of Bishop Vega?’ I asked.

‘Oh, no,’ Ortega said dismissively. ‘Vega, he’s Cia. He is completely with the counter-revolution. He has been saying appalling things, that are simply treason by any standards: openly supporting the Contra aggression.’

‘And what about Carballo?’ I asked, Carballo being the other expelled priest. Ortega was equally dismissive. ‘Carballo was Obando y Bravo’s other voice. Only he spoke much less carefully. Obando is, still, more circumspect.’

The conversation moved on to the subject of the remaining Nicaraguan bishops. The trouble with them, Ortega said, was that their attitudes were so parochial, so provincial. ‘The best one is Estelí, also the one from Bluefields, Schmitt. The rest … We opened discussions with them, you know. We said, we know you feel threatened by us, by the revolution. Tell us what your fears are and let’s see if we can work something out. We also said we wanted to consult them on various policy matters before making them public. The law on national service, for example, we would have liked to consult them on that. And on other matters, including military business.’ But the bishops had been unwilling or unable, he suggested, to speak at that level. ‘You know, one of them would pull out a piece of paper with his little local grievances listed on it, and the next would have his piece of paper, and so on. They all came with their private agendas. We had told them to resolve these things at the regional level. But they can’t think nationally.’ In his view, the bishops were far from unified. ‘They often have no coherent view on an issue. But Obando’s statements make it seem as if they do.’

Obando y Bravo’s theological education, Ortega said, had been paid for by a Somoza crony, a certain Guerrero, known as ‘Dr Quinine’ because of his dealings in the drug. Then Somoza gave Obando a house, a bank account and a Mercedes-Benz. (An embarrassing photograph existed of Somoza and Obando having a hug.) ‘There was a big fuss about the car, because it was such a blatant thing. Finally he had to give it back, but it took him nine months to do so. Nobody knew about the house and the bank account at the time. We didn’t know ourselves until after we came to power and could examine the records. We decided it would be counter-productive to move against Obando. So these things have still not been returned.’

He grinned. ‘The funny thing is, he and I are from the same village. I knew about Obando’s family from my mother.’

In 1974, the FSLN’s fortunes, which had been at a low ebb, were revived by a dramatic coup. On 27 December, Sandinista commandos arrived at a fancy dress party at the home of a Somoza crony, Chema Castillo, and kidnapped a group of ambassadors and senior officials. Somoza was obliged to accept their terms. Sandinista statements were put out on radio and TV, a number of political prisoners were freed and a ransom of $2 million was paid. (The commandos had originally asked for $5 million, but two wasn’t bad.) The intermediary between the guerrillas and Somoza was none other than Obando y Bravo. And one of the prisoners freed was Daniel Ortega.

‘Obando came with us on the plane to Cuba,’ Ortega reminisced. ‘I went over to talk to him, to say that our families knew each other and so on. But I formed the impression that he was very frightened. I asked him what the matter was and he finally said, “Do you think Somoza put a bomb on the plane?” It was sad; he was afraid that he would be sacrificed.’ Ortega, fresh from jail, had to offer reassurance. ‘I told him our people had checked the plane and we didn’t think there was a bomb. But after a while he was frightened again. This time he said, “Do you think they will arrest me when we land in Cuba?” It was incredible. I said, “Do you seriously think Fidel is going to put you in jail?” It showed how provincial his thinking was.’

I brought the discussion back to its starting-point. ‘What will the US bishops offer you, do you think?’

‘They will have their own agenda, that’s sure; Vega and so on. But maybe they want to mediate between us and the Vatican.’

‘Do you really think the Vatican is ready to make a settlement with you?’

‘It’s possible. There are indications. In the period in which I was refusing to meet Obando, Sergio visited Rome. Before he left, the papal nuncio here in Managua said it was impossible for the Pope to receive Sergio in the present circumstances. But in spite of that, the Pope did receive Sergio, and they had a constructive meeting.’ This was fascinating. Perhaps the Pope really had understood how great the challenge to his authority had grown in Central America, and had decided that the God of the Poor had to be placated, made peace with, because he could not be destroyed.

I asked about the forthcoming trip to the UN. ‘Presumably the US will use its veto in the Security Council.’

‘That’s certain,’ Ortega agreed. ‘But then we can go to the full General Assembly and argue it out there.’

Would Nicaragua be suing the US for damages in the US courts, as had been suggested? ‘At this time,’ Ortega said carefully, ‘we don’t want to assume the US has rejected the Hague ruling. We must give them the chance to accept.’

There was an interruption: a quarrel between the assembled great poets. Carlos Martínez Rivas burst into an attack on Ernesto Cardenal’s nationwide poetry workshop scheme, under which ordinary people — Cardenal was particularly fond of pointing to the large numbers of participating policemen — could write and discuss poetry. Cardenal was evidently rather proud of the workshops (I had heard him, three years earlier, extolling their virtues at a literary congress in Finland), but Martínez Rivas did not mince words. ‘Poetry has stagnated in Nicaragua,’ he boomed. ‘Nobody reads any more. They only open Ventana (the literary supplement of Barricada) when they’ve got something in it. And then they only read their own poems. Anyway, with these workshops, everybody has started sounding exactly the same. Nobody’s trying new things, nobody’s looking for a new language.’

Having seen some of the workshops’ output, I had some sympathy with Martínez Rivas’ argument, but kept out of the fight. Cardenal’s smile remained in place, but its temperature seemed to have dropped. There was old business between these two. They had been quarrelling for years. They conducted themselves very well, never ceasing to be amicable, to crack jokes, but the dispute was real for all that. From the sidelines, Sergio Ramírez mischievously egged them on, trying to draw Coronel into the fray, but he wouldn’t be tempted. Martínez Rivas began to tease Cardenal for being so prolific. ‘I remember once, years ago, I was asked to write a poem in two weeks for some fiesta. The winner got to choose the festival queen. I said, how can I write a poem in two weeks? Go ask Cardenal. So they did, and he had something already written that he adapted, and he won the prize. I said, how can you use a thing written in one spirit for a completely different purpose? But anyway, he won. So I said that since I’d arranged it all for him, he had to let me choose the queen. He got the prize, but I chose the girl.’

Amidst these barbed tales of old Managua, I remembered another instance in which Cardenal had adapted an old poem to a new purpose. He had drafted a poem about the death of Sandino, and the fact that his grave was unknown. Then, in 1954, an attempt to capture Anastasio Somoza García, the then dictator, ended in failure. One of the conspirators, Pablo de Leal, had his tongue cut out before being killed. It is said that another, Adolfo Báez Bone, was castrated. The main torturer was Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who would be the last dictator of the line. When Cardenal heard the news, he decided to make Báez Bone the subject of his poem instead of Sandino:

When the guests had departed and the dust had settled, I asked Daniel Ortega a few more questions. First, though, he wanted to give me his views on La Prensa. ‘They can do anything they like, but they must not advocate support for Reagan and the Contra. That’s the mark. They went over it. What could we do? Put them on trial? That would have created too much negative attention. So all we could do was close the paper.’

I said: ‘I want to be clear about this. I’ve been told that the problem with La Prensa was CIA funding and control. But now you’re saying it was the editorial line.’

Ortega replied: ‘There’s a war on. In peacetime, if La Prensa wants to take CIA money, which it did, and push the US line, that’s fine. If it wants to attack the Frente, that’s also fine. But now it’s different. The enemy uses the paper.’ The internal front argument again. The fear of a repetition of Chile. Amongst all Nicaragua’s phantoms, I thought, there were two darker spectres. Edén Pastora, the skeleton in the cupboard; and Salvador Allende, who was possibly the most important political figure in Nicaragua, after Sandino, anyway.

I asked: ‘I’ve heard many people saying they think a US invasion is inevitable. What’s your view?’

Ortega: ‘There is a certain fatalism here about this. The situation at the frontier is very tense. Many things could trigger an invasion. For example, in March, we crossed over the Honduras frontier to attack Contra camps. The Honduras government knew we were there, they knew why, they said nothing. It was OK. But the US made a great fuss, moving their personnel and weaponry to the front at a time when we were already falling back. Finally the Honduras government did send us a protest, because of the intense US pressure on them to do so. Now the situation is worse than it was then, because soon, US advisers will be legally allowed to be present by the Congress. So if we shoot down a helicopter and a US citizen dies, it could be provocation. Actually, in March, a US citizen was killed, but since he was there illegally — illegally according to the Congress — Reagan couldn’t make anything out of it.

‘On the seventh anniversary we deliberately held the Acta at Estelí, to show our determination. After we repelled the two Contra forces that had massed on the frontier, the Honduras government was afraid that, as in March, we would go after them across the border, in “hot pursuit”. They actually contacted us to warn us that the US had decided that if we did, that was it, they would attack us. It was very clear. So it could happen at any time.’

I asked: ‘Now that the US is spending so heavily to “buy off” your neighbours, do you agree that you are gradually becoming isolated?’

Ortega: ‘It’s not so easy for the US to isolate us. The people of Central America know that a war here would spread, would become a Central American war. The US had been trying to persuade Honduras, Costa Rica and Salvador to break with us, as you know, and they may succeed. But even Costa Rica, in spite of everything, still has reservations.’

I asked: ‘Who was responsible for the attack on the Contra in Tegucigalpa today?’

Ortega: ‘We think some guerrillas may have done it. But that fifty Contra leaders could meet so near the President’s house: this has disturbed the people of Honduras.’

I asked: ‘On the economy: considering the great pressure it’s under, how close is it to total collapse?’

Ortega: ‘In this special situation, war, we believe that the idea of collapse is not appropriate. You must understand that our people have never been used to great affluence, and minimum subsistence levels are being maintained. We are even slowly improving our agrarian and industrial base.’

I asked: ‘But with inflation at 500 per cent, a more or less total strike of investment capital, and a fiscal deficit that represents forty per cent of government spending, are you really saying you can survive indefinitely?’ The latest economic indicators were pretty terrible: figures released by the Economic Commission on Latin America showed a three per cent drop in gross domestic product, a five per cent fall in production in manufacturing industry, a vast trade gap. Cotton production had been badly hit by disease and weather and had fallen by nineteen per cent. Low world prices, as well as drought, had meant a reduced income from coffee, sugar and cotton exports (most of the coffee crop had been sold in advance, at 1985 rates, and had therefore missed out on the rise in coffee prices in 1986.)

Ortega gave a somewhat sheepish laugh. ‘Well, we have managed so far, and let’s say we hope to go on. We subsidize the price of a number of essential commodities, basic grains, oil, soap, beans, agricultural tools. All in limited quantities, of course. The rest of the prices, we have to let them rise, and they have gone up enormously. But at subsistence level the inflation is controlled.’

I asked: ‘You make a great deal, understandably enough, of the Hague judgment. But many Western commentators play it down, setting the La Prensa closure and the expulsion of the priests against it, “balancing” it, so to speak. How can you hope to win the argument when, rightly or wrongly, the Western media simply don’t see the Hague rulings the way you do, and don’t give it the column-inches?’

Ortega replied: ‘We know there is a lot of sympathy for our case among the people of the United States and Europe. We have to continue to take our case to the people.’ More televised jogging, more chat-show politics. The twentieth century was a strange place.

It was one o’clock in the morning; time to leave. As I said goodbye to Rosario Murillo, she seemed already to be bracing herself for the Chinese takeaways of Manhattan. ‘The one thing I always look forward to in New York,’ she said bravely, ‘is the yoghurt.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. The wonderful yoghurt. It’s the only thing I miss.’

‘Enjoy it,’ I said, and wished them both good luck in New York. On the way out, I murmured to Rosario: ‘And don’t visit any opticians.’

After leaving, I was struck by the fact that, throughout the dinner, I had not seen Daniel Ortega actually eat anything. I had been right next to him, and he had turned away all the evening’s delicacies, even the turtle meat. (Which had been unexpectedly dense and rich, like a cross between beef and venison. The turtles, incidentally, were protected during the whole of their breeding season, and could only be caught in limited quantities for a few months of the year.)

I found out that he was known for this little habit, which could have been a sign of nervousness, or, more likely, an attempt to make himself seem a man apart, different from the crowd.

And perhaps, when nobody was looking, el señor Presidente would sneak into his kitchens and stuff himself in secret.