Unexpected confession

The independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was supported by the presidents of two countries

Moscow's forecasts that Abkhazia and South Ossetia could be recognized by about a dozen more states have begun to come true. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (pictured) was the first head of UN member state to follow Russia's example by declaring recognition of the independence of the former unrecognized republics. He did this on September 2, but only yesterday the fact of recognition was confirmed by the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry.

“President Ortega, in a speech to military personnel on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the creation of the Sandinista People's Army, said that the government of Nicaragua recognizes the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It also fully supports the position of the Russian government, which, through dialogue with European countries, is making efforts to peacefully resolve the armed conflict,” said Deputy Head of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry Manuel Coronel Couts.

Former partisan and fighter against tyranny, 62-year-old Daniel Ortega went much further than many of Moscow’s allies. Let us recall that after recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on August 26 , Russia received only moral and verbal support from the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez and the President of Cuba Raul Castro. According to Vremya Novostey, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov spoke in the same spirit in a conversation with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Tashkent. In other unrecognized republics, the President of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria expressed approval. Radical Islamic movements also showed solidarity with Moscow: the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

At the Russian Embassy in Managua, VN, a diplomat who wished to remain anonymous, said that they “learned about the sensational news from the newspapers.” In a conversation with our newspaper, the head of the Center for Economic Research at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vadim Teperman, however, also called Ortega’s decision “completely unexpected”: “Hugo Chavez could have rather done this, but he only approved of Russia’s actions, while refraining from recognizing independence.” The expert ruled out that Ortega’s decisions were “influenced by any pressure from Moscow”: “Perhaps the President of Nicaragua hopes that his country will receive something from Russia in the form of weapons , loans, purchases of Nicaraguan goods or investments in some project . Moreover, relations with the United States are tense, and Chavez’s help is apparently not enough.”

In his speech, Ortega, recalling that Abkhazia and South Ossetia “were part of the Soviet Union with the rights of autonomy,” emphasized that Russia “had no other way except to provide them with military-political assistance in the face of constant threats from Georgia.” . He accused the Western media of “deliberately suppressing the scale of casualties and destruction as a result of Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia.” The president also criticized “global capitalism” for “spending huge amounts of money” not only on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also on plans “to take Russia into military encirclement through NATO and dismember it, as happened with the USSR.”

The Republic of Nicaragua, whose main ally and donor is now Venezuela, was led by Mr. Ortega as president in 1985-1990 after the defeat of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Jr. in 1979 by his military-political movement, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). . At that time, the Sandinistas received significant economic and assistance from the USSR, but by 1990 it dried up, and Ortega, having lost the elections to a pro-Western politician, to the surprise of many, did not fight for power by armed means and went into the legal opposition. In 2006, he and his FSLN, which transformed into a political party, won the presidential and parliamentary elections with 38% of the vote and the same number of seats in parliament.

Now the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry is preparing the documents necessary for the official recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which, according to Deputy Minister Kouts, “will soon be submitted to parliament for approval.” The two main opposition forces have strong positions there - the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance and the Constitutional Liberal Party. Therefore, as Boris Martynov, deputy director of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained in an interview with VN, “problems may arise with the approval of the president’s decision, and Ortega is a law-abiding person.” The possibility that “recognition may not pass in parliament” was confirmed by VN and Marina Chumakova, director of the Center for Political Research at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN, Victor VOLODIN