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Although the elegant Chamorro still commands considerable respect among the Nicaraguan people and abroad, her detached management style has increasingly isolated her. Through the first 24 hours of the hostage drama, she did not act at all, waiting for her son-in-law and chief of staff, the controversial Lacayo, to return from a trip to El Salvador. Even then she remained out of sight, while other politicians and civic leaders visited or sent representatives to the hostage sites. Before the last prisoners were freed on Wednesday, she left for Mexico, offering no explanation. In the end, the government indicated only half-hearted interest in bringing charges and made it clear that the abductors would be granted amnesty. "The hostage incident was a product of the incompetence and negligence of the government," says economist Francisco Mayorga, chief of the negotiating team. "The President and the people in power are aloof and detached from reality."
Even if Chamorro were more engaged, she would be in a difficult spot. She must navigate between the Sandinistas, who balk at most attempts to decontrol the economy, and the U.N.O. coalition, which denounces every concession given to the former ruling party. Although the President has reduced the public sector, advanced privatization and deregulated commerce, U.N.O. members continue to rail at her for maintaining prominent Sandinistas in top positions. "In the end, Chamorro didn't keep anybody happy," says Rene Nunez, a Sandinista leader.
Nicaraguans fear they have made little progress since voters signaled their hunger for reconciliation and democratic reform three years ago. The hostage standoff seemed like a new production of an old script with a familiar cast of characters. Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo headed the government negotiations with the contras, now called the recontras. Former President Daniel Ortega mediated with the ex-Sandinistas, rechristened the recompas, for rearmed soldiers or companeros. Even the costumes and props remained the same. The recompas sported the Sandinistas' trademark black-and-red kerchiefs. The recontras, outfitted in fatigues, hoisted rifles purchased with funds thought to have come from Miami-based backers.
The prospect for more disturbances runs high. Last March recontras stormed the Nicaraguan embassy in Costa Rica and took 25 people hostage. Two months later, the monotonous routine of strikes, denunciations and demonstrations was broken by a blast in Managua that uncovered a well-stocked safe house reportedly maintained by Salvadoran and Basque guerrillas, rekindling fears that the Sandinistas were engaged in international subversion. July brought the worst incident to date: 45 people were killed when recompas clashed with mostly government troops in the northern town of Esteli. The recontras claim that since 1990 about 400 of their men have been killed by recompas. The military counters that it has little control over the renegade recompas forces.