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By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Diplomatic relations between Colombia and Nicaragua are once again in the news, with the two countries trading broadsides over the Nicaraguan government’s recent decision to grant asylum to three female members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in June said that the FARC members in question reportedly survived the March 1 attack on a FARC camp just over the Colombian border in Ecuador that resulted in the death of Raul Reyes (Luis Edgar Devia Silva), FARC’s No. 2 and one of its most long-standing and experienced operational commanders. After the March 1 raid, Nicaragua briefly severed diplomatic relations with Colombia in protest of the country’s violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty.

Ortega accused the Colombian government of conducting “state-sponsored terrorism” against the FARC members in his explanation of why he granted them asylum. To emphasize this point, Ortega further accused the Colombian government of plotting to assassinate the three FARC members in Nicaragua. He then stressed that the three need Nicaraguan protection so they can serve as witnesses in a future trial of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez for “crimes against humanity.”

Nicaragua’s granting of asylum and Ortega’s rhetoric have outraged the Colombian government, which had formally requested extradition of the three FARC members. Colombia has said it finds it inconceivable that the Nicaraguan government should make heroines out of people who had been residing in the camp of a recognized “terrorist” organization — a group that has killed thousands of Colombian citizens, kidnapped more than 700 people and constantly attempted to overthrow the Colombian government. The Colombians have also said that it is unacceptable, offensive and irresponsible for the Nicaraguan president to accuse Uribe of committing crimes against humanity.

Ortega’s granting of asylum to the FARC members is consistent with the way the Sandinistas granted shelter, and even citizenship, to hundreds of Marxist militants when the Sandinistas ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990. Similarly, Nicaragua’s growing relationship with Iran is very similar to the relationships it enjoyed with U.S. foes such as Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein during the first Sandinista reign.

Nicaragua’s status as a sanctuary (and even an operational base) for these militants nearly resulted in terrible consequences for Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1993, when a group of jihadist militants attacked the World Trade Center in New York and one of the militants was found to have Nicaraguan identification documents in his jacket pocket.

Friend of Pariahs and a Marxist Sanctuary

There has always been a tight relationship between the Marxist FSLN and its ideological brethren and patrons in places like Cuba and the Soviet Union. This relationship manifested not only in terms of military training and equipment, but also in terms of foreign aid such as food, health care and education. This aid was made doubly important by the trade embargo placed on Nicaragua by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1985. In addition to receiving aid, the FSLN also assisted the Cubans and Soviets in providing aid to like-minded revolutionary groups in the region, such as the Salvadoran Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), FARC and others.

As the Soviet Union suffered economically in the late 1980s and eventually collapsed in early 1990, the amount of aid Soviets could provide to their Marxist friends and proxies declined dramatically. This drop in aid significantly affected Cuba’s economy. As a consequence, Cuba lost much of its ability to assist partners in the hemisphere such as the FSLN. This caused the Sandinistas to seek new sources of funding, and they found some help from the pariah nations of Libya and Iraq. In fact, at the end of the first Sandinista reign in 1990, the Libyan Embassy in Managua was several times larger than the U.S. Embassy there. The Libyans were situated in a large and imposing building, while the U.S. Embassy was literally housed in trailers — a temporary setup established after the 1972 Managua earthquake destroyed the former embassy.

The Libyans did have a presence at the United Nations in New York, but since those personnel were so closely scrutinized by U.S. authorities, they decided to use their embassy in Managua as the base for the vast majority of their intelligence operations in the Western Hemisphere.

However, the fall of the Soviet Union affected more than just economics. As the political landscape shifted in the late 1980s, places that had served as havens and training bases for Marxist militants, such as South Yemen and East Germany, became less welcoming. In 1990, both of those countries ceased to exist. This left a lot of fugitive Marxist militants looking for a place to go, and many of them relocated to Managua. What resulted was an influx of Marxist militants from European groups such as the Irish Republican Army, ETA and the Red Brigades, as well as Middle Eastern militants, such as representatives of the various Palestinian Marxist-oriented groups.

Some of the fugitives who moved to Managua were educated, skilled and surprisingly entrepreneurial. A couple from the Italian Red Brigades opened a popular Italian restaurant in downtown Managua, and members of the Basque group ETA opened an automobile repair garage in Managua’s Santa Rosa neighborhood.