Will the Obama administration ever start standing up to the Latin axis of caudillos? Nicaragua invaded Costa Rica last month — yet the State Department is all but AWOL.
State is taking a carefully worded, almost neutral stand in the dispute between Costa Rica — our ally, and the world’s most pacifist country — and Nicaragua, a key player in Hugo Chavez’s group of Latin strongmen.
Last month, Nicaragua sent troops into a jungle area at the mouth of the San Juan River, which has long been determined by mediators to be on Costa Rica’s side of the border. The excuse for the invasion: Google Maps recently showed the area as part of Nicaragua.
Costa Rica, as its President Laura Chinchilla Miranda noted in a Nov. 3 address to the nation as the dispute begun, is “a peace-loving country — and this is what distinguishes us the most, among nations in the world.” The country has long chosen to have no army and to rely solely on diplomacy to solve disputes.
So Miranda appealed to the Organization of American States for help. Last Friday, the OAS voted to punt. And Washington agrees: State Department spokeswoman Viriginia Staab told me yesterday that “we encourage both sides immediately to distance any armed military and civilian security forces from the disputed area and avoid provocative rhetoric and actions.”
Costa Rica’s deputy UN ambassador, Saul Weisleder, told me Washington’s low-key support of his country is meant to avoid riling the region’s anti-Yanqui-imperialist hotheads while other countries do the heavy lifting. But, really — “Both sides”? “Armed forces”? “Provocation”? Again, Costa Rica has no military — it merely sent some policemen in to stare at the troops occupying its soil.
Indeed, State should be doing more, if only because Google was relying on State Department data when it mislabeled the land in question.
To be fair, Staab tells me State had warned Google that the database was “unsuitable for users of Google Earth who zoom in to view large-scale images.” But the Nicaraguans somehow missed the nuance. Their troops remain in the area, citing Google.
Nor is the “even-handed” OAS approach working. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says he’ll leave the OAS if it presses the matter. If that happens, his sugar daddy, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, is likely to bolt, too.
Ortega hopes to use his tough stance to drum up domestic support for a third presidential term. In fact, his victory in next year’s election is predetermined if the OAS can’t send election observers, as it now plans.
Never mind that Nicaragua’s constitution limits a president to two consecutive terms in office. Ortega can use the government’s hold over institutions and the press to erase that — just as Chavez did in becoming Venezuelan president for life. Last year, Manuel Zelaya tried to pull the same trick in Honduras — and Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner is mulling a similar campaign now. (Her husband’s recent death removed the option of further tag-team end-running of the term limit.)
Washington has failed to take a strong stand against such violations of democratic principles. The Obama administration actually took Zelaya’s side last year against Hondurans — who nonetheless fought for their constitution (and won).
The Obama crowd needs to stop flinching every time the caudillos exploit the old Yanqui go home rallying cry.
Chavez, Ortega and the rest threaten their neighbors and America’s global interests. Most recently, Chavez bought from Russia the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that Moscow had promised not to deliver to Iran — and it’s a safe bet he’ll soon deliver the materiel to the mullahs.
It’s time to reverse course. America must clearly side with its ally Costa Rica against Ortega’s aggression. Beyond the border dispute, such a stance would signal that American hemispheric leadership is back.
And unlike Costa Rica, we can back up our diplomatic prowess with force, if need be. beavni@gmail.com