Nicaraguan leader calls Obama's campaign 'revolutionary'

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States.

"It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university.

Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

In statements broadcast on Sandinista Radio La Primerisima, Ortega said he has "faith in God and in the North American people, and above all in the youth, that the moment of great change in the U.S. will come and it will act differently, with justice and equality toward all nations."

Obama, a senator from Illinois, is locked in a tight race with Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Ortega also called Obama a spokesman for the millions of Central American and Mexican citizens who migrate to the U.S. in search of work, though polls indicate most Latino voters so far have favored Clinton over Obama.

Also Wednesday, Ortega gave approval to various army officials to receive training at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, operated by the U.S. Defense Department in Fort Benning, Georgia — even as he said he would continue to lobby for the school's closure.

The president claims that members of the now-defunct National Guard who were trained at the school, formerly known as the School of the Americas, were involved in torture. Human rights groups say graduates went on to commit abuses throughout Latin America.

The U.S. military has acknowledged that some graduates committed crimes after attending the School of the Americas, but that no cause-and-effect relationship has ever been established.

Ortega did not explain why he approved the training, but said he would try to ensure officials did not turn into "torturers and killers."

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