Pinteresque encounters

In the 1980s I was solicitor to the London Embassy of Nicaragua. My only memorable task resulted from a telephone call from a man who claimed he could restore to Nicaragua a huge sum of money deposited by its former rulers, the Somoza family, in a Swiss bank. He wished to be paid handsomely for this service, but his story seemed plausible and could not be dismissed out of hand. My clients were not averse to paying him once the money was handed over. Alas, it never was. After a series of meetings with the mystery man, we had to accept that it was a hoax. Nevertheless, my connection with Nicaragua improved my knowledge of Latin American politics—and I met the late Harold Pinter.

Sandinista control
At the time the country was under the control of the Sandinistas, the left-wing revolutionary party. The Sandinistas had in 1979 overthrown the corrupt Somoza regime. Their leader, Daniel Ortega, had been installed as president. His government included a prominent priest and well-known writers and scholars. In that respect it resembled the former elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, which in 1973 had been forcibly removed in the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet. I had visited Chile in 1974, and again in 1979 on behalf of Amnesty International to investigate the disappearance of a British subject, William Beausire. It was my support for the opposition to the Pinochet regime which had prompted the Nicaraguans to seek my legal help.
Ortega also shared with Allende the extreme antipathy of the then US administration. The US had supported the Pinochet coup and doubtless would have been happy to see Ortega suffer the same fate as Dr Allende, who died in his office when it was bombed by Pinochet’s aircraft. But Ortega has proved himself a survivor.
Harold Pinter was a keen supporter of the Sandinistas. When Ortega made an official visit to the UK in 1989, Pinter and his wife arranged a celebration at their house in Holland Park where the president could meet friends and sympathisers. I received a letter from Pinter, which I still treasure, inviting me to attend.
About 30 people gathered in the elegant drawing room to hear an address from the president—a Nicaraguan diplomat laboriously translated the speech sentence by sentence. It was a solemn and detailed review of the achievements of his government, interlaced with diatribes against its reactionary opponents. As time went on guests stifled yawns and whispered to each other behind their hands. After an hour and a half the marathon ended. We all left hurriedly with embarrassed thanks to our hosts. Ortega’s rhetorical skills were probably more effective at home than in Holland Park, but the popularity of his government waned and in 1990 the Sandinistas were defeated. Th e ambassador was replaced and so was I.

Notoriety
Remarkably, after so long an interval, and in spite of serious allegations about his personal conduct, Daniel Ortega regained the presidency when the Sandinistas again achieved power in 2006, but he no longer led a government of intellectuals. He has now become notorious for his brutal suppression and arbitrary imprisonment of political opponents. Many of them were among his closest colleagues in the earlier Sandinista leadership.
A number of eminent writers, including Ariel Dorfman, the Chilean poet and author of the play “Death and the Maiden” have denounced Ortega’s “dictatorial designs for Nicaragua”. They have rallied to the defence of a leading newspaper editor incarcerated by Ortega, Carlos Chamorro, praising him for “standing up to the brutality of authoritarianism”. When I read an account of the writers’ denunciation recently, I remembered a public meeting in the late 80s when Pinter was one of the speakers. Th e subject was the continuing dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile. Pinter read the following poem by Dorfman:

We all know the number of steps,
companero, from the cell
to that room.
If it’s twenty
they’re not taking you to the
bathroom.
If it’s forty-fi ve
they can’t be taking you out
for exercise.
If you get past eighty
and begin to stumble blindly
up a staircase
oh if you get past eighty
there’s only one place
they can take you,
there’s only one place,
there’s only one place,
now there’s only one place left
they can take you.

The audience was deeply moved by this poem, its power enhanced by Pinter’s reading. It is of course about the torture chambers of Pinochet’s Chile, not Nicaragua, but its echo in today’s Nicaragua is chilling.
Among the obituaries of Harold Pinter there was a particularly touching tribute by Dorfman. He wrote about their friendship and his enormous respect for his fellow dramatist. About Ortega I am sure they would have agreed. He would not, I suspect, remain welcome in the Pinter household.