A switch is being made at the recently-finished new US Embassy in Nicaragua. After doing his stint here as ambassador since September 2005, Paul Trivelli has been recalled to Washington. As per usual with US ambassadors, his mission has received mixed reviews.
Trivelli’s approval rating is high among most Liberals and Conservatives, with the notable exception of former president and convicted felon Arnoldo Alemán.
Trivelli was no fan of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party – PLC figurehead and he made his disdain public in rather un-statesmanlike fashion on a number of occasions. This is because Alemán is one of the architects of a PLC-Sandinista “pact” to divvy up power in the country. Normally, the role of the US representative here is to unite what the US considers “democratic” political forces in a bid to stave off “anti-democratic” influences, which in this case, as it has been for several decades, are represented by the Sandinistas. Alemán did not fit into either side of that equation.
The ambassador’s sense of humor led him to make offhand remarks from time to time. One made during the lead-up to the 2006 presidential elections turned into an in-your-face gaffe. In reference whether PLC candidate José Rizo was nothing more than a point man for Alemán (under house arrest and awaiting a pardon should Rizo win that election), he quipped, “If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” Despite the ambassador’s command of the loving tongue, he had failed to consider that the word for duck in Spanish (pato) is slang for “homosexual,” although other words enjoy more common usage in Nicaraguan-speak for the same sexual orientation. This ruffled the feathers of many a Liberal.
As naturally as rain falls down and the sun rises in the morning, most Sandinistas considered Trivelli yet another in a long line of US-empire proconsuls interfering in domestic affairs. Nicaraguan history abounds with examples of US ambassadors wielding their power and influence to get Nicaragua to try to shape up into a semblance of what their government wants here.
The new appointee is Robert Callahan. Anyone hoping for a normalization of relations between Washington and Managua might well yearn for the times of Trivelli. Callahan has been a right-hand man or flak for John Negroponte throughout his career as a hot-spot ambassador (Honduras back in 80s and recently, Iraq). Negroponte is now the US intelligence service’s top dog.
From 1981 to 1985 when the ground-work was being laid for the contra war, Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras with Callahan as his press secretary, crafting the words of every denial and declaration related to the contra war preliminaries. Covert operations, slush funds, and clandestine meetings were the order of the day under Negroponte. He turned a blind eye to human rights violations by the Honduran military in exchange for the loan of that country in order to establish a staging ground for US-sponsored operations against the Sandinista regime.
Quite a clique was formed then, including Eliot Abrams (still in the State Department with a purview of Latin America) and several others who did not survive the Iran-Contragate revelations. That scandal, which played tricks with Ronald Reagan’s memory and kicked in his Alzheimer’s, showed the scorn that band had for their country’s own laws and for this region.
An example of the complete lack of respect of Negroponte-Abrams et al for Central America, and their dark sense of humor, was the appointment of a career diplomat named William Walker as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of relations with Central America from 1985 to 1988. Then he was made ambassador to El Salvador from 1988 to 1992. His mid-19th century namesake was a US expansionist mercenary who attempted a takeover of Central America on behalf of the slave states.
The contra war is long over and times have changed, but with the appointment of Callahan the question is whether or not those in charge of US regional policy have. Or are they too suffering from the effects of the recent Screen Actors’ Guild writers’ strike. Is the stage being set for a re-run?