[Marxism] Daniel Ortega and abortion rights

[Louis Proyect]

Desperate acts of faith
Gioconda Belli

October 30, 2006 11:38 AM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gioconda_belli/2006/10/nicaragua.html

Interrupting a pregnancy that endangered a mother's life - therapeutic 
abortion - was legal in my country until a few days ago. On October 26, the 
national assembly in Nicaragua struck down article 165 of its penal code, 
which had been untouched since the 19th century, and decided to penalise 
this life-saving procedure. The decision was taken in spite of numerous 
protests by women's organisations, the international community and, more 
importantly, the leading medical associations of the country.

It was no surprise that the ruling Liberal party - which is liberal by name 
but, in effect, represents the most rightwing, conservative and corrupt 
Nicaraguan politicians - would do this to please the Catholic church. 
Pinochet did it in Chile and the Arena party in El Salvador. What was 
dismaying and representative of the desperate attempt to regain power on 
the part of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, was that the 
majority deputies who voted to penalise abortion - 28 of the 52 - were 
Sandinistas.

Nicaragua is holding general elections on November 5. This is the fourth 
time Ortega is running for president. He was defeated in 1990, 1996 and 
2001, but he has not given up. On the contrary, he has refused any 
suggestion within his party of the need for a new candidate. Anybody who 
has tried to rise within Sandinista to compete with Ortega has been 
marginalised or expelled. That was the case of Herty Lewites, the popular 
Sandinista mayor of Managua, who left office with a 76% approval rating. 
Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario accused him of treason in no uncertain 
words. Herty decided to run anyway and led a coalition, the Movement for 
the Renovation of Sandinismo, until his untimely death of a heart attack in 
July 2 of this year.

Besides getting rid of inside competition, Ortega entered into an uncanny 
alliance with the Liberal party and signed a pact with Arnoldo Aleman, the 
Liberal party leader. After being president from 1996 to 2001, Aleman was 
found guilty of embezzlement of state funds and condemned to jail. Thanks 
to the pact signed with Ortega, he was granted a "family regimen" which has 
allowed him to live at home, move freely in Managua and continue to be the 
highest real authority within liberalism. In exchange for this favour, the 
Liberal party agreed to reduce the percentage of votes needed to be elected 
president from 40 to 35%. With more obstacles out of the way, Ortega then 
decided to "clean up his act" and court the Catholic church.

Supplying the votes it needed to achieve its demand to penalise therapeutic 
abortion has been Ortega's most outrageous attempt to demonstrate that he 
has changed and is now a devoted and true convert to the faith. His support 
of the church in its staunch opposition to all kinds of abortions, 
including those aimed at saving a mother's life, aims to dispel whatever 
doubts any one could have of his "conversion". Ortega's campaign, 
orchestrated and managed by his wife, Rosario Murillo claims that 
Sandinista is now the party of unity, reconciliation and peace. When 
Edmundo Jarquin, who took over as presidential candidate for the MRS after 
Lewites death, declared last August that he supported therapeutic abortion, 
Rosario Murillo gave an interview to the Sandinista Radio Ya, and declared:

     It is precisely because we have faith, because we are religious, 
because we love God above all else that we have been able to overcome all 
obstacles. This is why we coincide fully with the Catholic church. We 
emphatically join the church and churches in their opposition to all kinds 
of abortion. We emphatically say no to abortion, yes to life, yes to 
religious beliefs, yes to faith, yes to the search for God, yes to the 
spiritual and pastoral guides of our people such as Cardinal Obando, who 
gave Nicaraguans the flag of reconciliation, the same flag we support and 
which will bring Nicaragua out of its misery.

I for one do not believe either in Murillo's or Ortega's proclaimed 
transformation. On the last two electoral campaigns Ortega has tried very 
hard to pretend to be a different man, only to revert to his old self as 
soon as the polling stations close and he has to admit defeat. For 16 
years, as the sole leader of the Sandinista party he has modified it and 
purged it to suit his authoritarian style. His pact with Arnold Aleman, on 
the other hand, has turned every institution in the country into a party 
structure where Liberals and Sandinistas make decisions according to their 
parties' instructions with no respect to legal procedures that they adjust 
and interpret to suit their objectives. This is how Ortega was able to 
avoid the charges brought against him by his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica 
Narvaez, who accused him of sexually abusing her since she was an 
11-year-old child.

According to the latest polls, Daniel Ortega has a strong chance of winning 
this election. It is not surprising given his manoeuvring through the years 
and the sorry inefficiency and corruption of the Liberal governments. 
Although Daniel Ortega has been an accomplice to this state of affairs, he 
portrays himself as the advocate of the poor, as a repenting Christian who 
this time will get it right. Obtaining the complicity of the Catholic 
church and his one time nemesis, Cardinal Obando y Bravo - who Ortega 
managed to protect from a scandal of misused funds in a church's non-profit 
organisation of which the cardinal is president - this time he might be 
able to convince voters that he's a changed man. Obviously, Ortega 
considers that a few thousand dead women are of no consequence if he 
finally manages to regain power in Nicaragua.

--

www.marxmail.org