Newly elected Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega finds himself the new caretaker of a powerful arsenal of Russian SA-7 missiles from the 1980s – an arsenal the US has wanted destroyed for years. Only days after Ortega's 10 January inauguration, the political opposition, echoing the long-time position of the US, began pressuring his administration to destroy the remaining ground-to-air missiles, but Ortega has resisted.

It is a geopolitical issue that underlines the balanced position Ortega must maintain between remaining loyal to his leftist political roots and aware of the international aid his country needs from Washington.

As the president of one of the region's poorest countries he must placate international donors in order to keep the Nicaraguan economy afloat. As the leader of his country's Sandinista party, he has an established record as an enemy of the US, an internationally known status that gives him instant credit with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others.

What Ortega eventually decides to do with the missiles could indicate the international partners he is likely to embrace. Destroying the missiles would appease Washington, but it would make Ortega appear weak to his anti-American friends.

MANPADS

Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) have been called the terrorists' delight. Their alleged use by the Iraqi insurgency against US helicopters has been a cause for concern. Stinger missiles the CIA sold to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Russian occupation there in the 1980s leveled the playing field between rebels on the ground and the deadly Russian helicopters. During roughly the same time, the Russians provided some 2,000 SA-7 MANPADS to the Sandinista government, led by Ortega, for use in combating the US-backed insurgency determined to stop the spread of communism in Nicaragua and Central America.

One thousand of these missiles have been destroyed but just as many remain. Stockpile controls and security are a concern. The potential weakness of Nicaragua's weapons stockpile control system was revealed in 2001 when an arms broker in Guatemala persuaded the Nicaraguan army to sell him 3,000 AK-47 rifles and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition. These weapons were eventually delivered to Colombia's paramilitary forces.

The Nicaraguan army guards the Russian missiles still in its arsenal. US leaders are worried that some of these missiles could be illegally transferred to terrorists or others operating in the region who may use them to shoot down international commercial flights.

In 2003, US President George W Bush met with then-Nicaraguan president Enrique Bolanos and urged him to destroy the missiles. The Nicaraguan Congress, led at the time by Ortega and his allies, trumpeted the Nicaraguan military's demand for a reciprocal payment of US$80 million for missile destruction. Bolanos pushed ahead, pledging to destroy all of the missiles without compensation, but Ortega won out.

The Nicaraguan Congress passed the Weapons Control Law, which stipulated that the president must have prior approval of the legislature before ordering the military to destroy weapons. Bolanos vetoed the law, but the Congress voted to override his veto. Since then, the missiles have remained untouched.

Controversy over planes

Bolanos' failed efforts to destroy the missiles prompted Washington to temporarily suspend military aid to Nicaragua in July 2005. While that aid was restored after the Nicaraguan military assured Washington that the missiles were under an adequately secure control regime, the US still seeks to destroy the missiles.

A bill that proposes to destroy over half of the remaining missiles has languished in the Nicaraguan Congress since Ortega's inauguration.