BY THE TIME I left Managua, half the people I had met were either hostages or hostage negotiators. Their warnings of violence, of political and social decomposition, were becoming reality even sooner than they had predicted to me during quiet meetings. Where I had sat with Nicaragua’s vice president, Virgilio Godoy, at the headquarters of the UNO opposition parties, he sat two days later with AK-47 rifles pointed at him by Sandinista thugs. At a farewell dinner party given for me by former Central Bank president Francisco Mayorga (later the key negotiator in efforts to free the hostages), we listened to Sandinista radio stations blame Mayorga for the nation’s problems and call for demonstrations. The guests stirred uneasily, wondering if turbas (Sandinista mobs) would turn up at his door. We left early. The next morning the Sandinista radio started mentioning my presence, and Nicaraguan friends began to call and say, “Get out of here, fast.”
“What a Mess,” said the headline in La Tribuna, Managua’s new independent newspaper. A fair description, but this was not what Nicaraguans, or Americans, expected in 1990 when Nicaragua’s civil war drew to a negotiated close. When Violeta Chamorro unexpectedly beat Daniel Ortega in the presidential election, there were rhapsodies of hope: with peace instead of war and democracy in place of tyranny, now the economy could start recovering—with generous foreign aid. It seemed plausible. In June of this year I visited El Salvador, where the same hopes are now being realized. New investment is evident, there is construction everywhere, and old enemies now battle each other with speeches and manifestoes. Why not Nicaragua too?
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