MANAGUA, Nicaragua - The United States, piling pressure on Sandinista and rightist opposition leaders that it accuses of undermining Nicaraguan democracy, on Tuesday revoked visas held by some politicians and their families and threatened to withhold millions of dollars in aid.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick delivered a blunt message as a crisis threatens President Enrique Bolanos, a U.S. ally under pressure from his party dissidents and leftist Sandinistas to accept constitutional reforms weakening his power.
Nicaragua's "promising future is threatened by a creeping coup. It's threatened by corruption... This is the way of the corrupt pact," Zoellick told a news conference, referring to an unlikely alliance between Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and former right-wing president Arnoldo Aleman.
The United States canceled visas for two of Aleman's adult children and the country's attorney general and said others will have their visas revoked as well.
"The United will not welcome corrupt people in our country" and will work to have other countries deny access as well," he said.
Ortega, an old adversary of Washington, was Nicaragua's president in the 1980s during a civil war against the U.S.-backed Contra rebels. He could win a return to power at polls next year.
U.S. officials have expressed concerns that Ortega, who Washington accused of running a Soviet-backed government during the Cold War, could return to office.
Attorney-general Julio Centeno said the visa cancellations were purely political.
"Your government can give and deny visas to whoever it wants but no one can violate the sacred human right of dignity by calling honest citizens corrupt simply for not thinking like you," he said in a letter to the U.S. Embassy.
Debt Forgiveness
Zoellick said Nicaragua was poised to benefit from $4 billion in debt forgiveness, $175 million promised from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account and trade benefits promised under the new Central American Trade Agreement, which Nicaragua has yet to approve.
But all this could be lost if anti-democratic forces in Nicaragua prevail, he said.
Ortega and Aleman, who is serving a 20-year sentence for massive corruption during his 1997-2002 term, are political rivals who have joined forces to try to limit Bolanos' powers. Aleman was sentenced to prison under Bolanos's government.
Despite his sentence, a court has given Aleman freedom to move around the Nicaraguan capital due to health concerns.
Zoellick, U.S. officials said, was aiming in particular at some members of Aleman's Liberal Party who may erroneously think Washington is so opposed to Ortega's rule that it would accept a "corrupt puppet" of Aleman.
"There is going to be no deal here with Aleman on the part of the United States," Zoellick insisted.
He was to meet later with the country's archbishop, members of the Liberal Party, business leaders and an activist group that has organized pro-democracy demonstrations in Nicaragua.
The conflict has at times threatened to force Bolanos from office and the Organization of American States described it last week as the most frustrating crisis in the Americas.
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