Monday, Jan 08, 2007
Opinion
Ortega banks on tourism http://www.hindu.com/2007/01/08/stories/2007010804491100.htm
Rory Carroll
DANIEL ORTEGA, the Sandinista leader who battled U.S. infiltration the last time he ruled Nicaragua, returns to power with an unlikely slogan: Welcome, gringo.
Mr. Ortega hopes to accelerate a boom which has brought hordes of backpackers, surfers and retired Americans to Nicaragua's beaches and colonial towns.
It is an ironic reversal for a man still remembered and reviled in the U.S. as a Cold War foe who fought a bloody civil war against Contra rebels funded by the Reagan White House. Now a balding 61-year-old grandfather who espouses reconciliation, the former revolutionary firebrand won an election last November using John Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance' as his campaign anthem.
Since then Mr. Ortega, who presided over 33,000 per cent inflation during his 1985-90 term, has sought to reassure tourism chiefs and other investors that his government will keep the economy stable. Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti, lacks jobs, electricity and infrastructure. The new President will need a booming tourism industry if he is to deliver tangible benefits to the peasants and urban poor who voted him back to power.
"No one is going to allow the seizure of property big or small," he said recently. "We need to eradicate poverty, but you don't do that by getting rid of investment and those who have resources."
>From a tiny base, tourism has exploded, with 803,933 tourists visiting in
2005, mainly from the U.S., central America and Europe, up from 579,165 in
2002. Last year's revenues are expected to be $240 million, outstripping the
other main earner, coffee.
The Lonely Planet guidebook ranked Nicaragua number three on its list of must-visit destinations, citing friendly people and a landscape of lakes, rainforests, volcanoes and oceans.
The return of Ortega, however, has spooked some outsiders. In the surfers' paradise of San Juan del Sur and the colonial gem Granada several building projects have been halted while investors wait to see if the Sandinista really has changed.
However, there is no evidence of major financial outflows, suggesting most investors have given Mr. Ortega the benefit of the doubt.
- © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007
Copyright © 2007, The Hindu.