Daniel Ortega

WASHINGTON – With Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega within a whisker of winning the presidency of Nicaragua, at least one member of Congress is calling for a cutoff of all U.S. dollars to that country should the "pro-terrorist" friend of Iran and North Korea succeed in the Nov. 5 election.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, today wrote to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to call for the U.S. government "to prepare in accordance with U.S. law, contingency plans to block any further money remittances from being sent to Nicaragua in the event that the FSLN enters government."

Ortega, the leader of the FSLN, holds a lead in the presidential election, according to polls, but could fall short of victory in the first round and lose a run-off.

Two surveys gave the former president and ally of the former Soviet Union and Fidel Castro – along with Iran and North Korea -- 34.4 percent and 33.8 percent support -- a whisker short of the 35 percent needed to secure the presidency in the first round.

This is Ortega's third comeback attempt after being voted out in 1990. Besides his alliances with Castro, Iran and North Korea, he is also friendly with Venezuela's anti-U.S. firebrand Hugo Chavez.

Polls have consistently tipped Ortega to come first, but his lead is due to a split among a group of pro-U.S. leaders, and he could easily lose a run-off against either close rival.

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With Ortega so close to securing 35 percent of the vote, Rohrabacher insist the time for planning is now.

"Under the unprecedented election rules in Nicaragua, a presidential candidate rejected by 65 percent of actual voters can be declared the winner," he wrote in his letter. "As a result, the election of a pro-terrorist government is a contingency for which we must be prepared."

When Ortega was last in power, President Reagan denounced his regime as "one of the world's principal refuges for terrorists" and a "partner of Iran, Libya, North Korea and Cuba in a campaign of international terror."

"Nicaraguan passports were issued to international terrorists to facilitate their movement across borders," said Rohrabacher. "In 1993 it was reported in the Washington Post and elsewhere that one of the terrorist suspects arrested by the FBI for the first World Trade Center bombing carried five authentic, but fraudulent, Nicaraguan passports, apparently issued by officials in that country."

Rohrabacher fears a return to that kind of insurgency against the U.S. in the western hemisphere should Ortega and the Sandinistas sneak back into power. He wants to stop the flow of U.S. dollars – about $700 million of which flow into that country through routine commerce.

Not only do Ortega and the Sandinistas have long-standing friendships with Iran, North Korea and Cuba, but many of them were also trained in the Middle East with the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the sponsorship of Yasser Arafat.

Recently, both Daniel Ortega and his brother, Humberto, paid official state visits to North Korea seeking assistance and formal relations. Also, recently, the prime minister of Iran visited Nicaragua, expressing "solidarity from the ayatollah for the Sandinista Communists."

A victory by Ortega would spell a major turnaround in U.S.-Nicaragua relations because the current government is very cooperative with Washington.

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