WORLD -- Nicaragua and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), a.k.a. North Korea, have re-established formal diplomatic relations, according to officials and a variety of reports between April 18 and this writing.

      Diplomatic relations had been suspeneded since 1990, when then Sandinista leader and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was defeated for reelection by pro-contra Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.   However, Ortega won the presidency again in November 2006 and, though he has apparently moderated his views to embrace certain aspects of market economics and has vowed to work constructively with the United States, he remains a leftist icon.   Ortega led the Sandinistas' socialist revolution against the right-wing dictatorship of Antonio Somoza in 1979 and thereby led the country for 11 years, many of these years engulfed in civil war.   The United States government legally and later illegally backed the contras, who were Somoza supporters, while Cuba and the Soviet Union supported the Ortega regime.   The Sandinistas won elections held in 1984; their supporters have characterized these as free and fair elections, but their opponents have tended to disagree.   Observers and analysts have also disagreed about the fairness of the 1990 elections that brought Chomorros to power.   

   Ortega's resurgence may be seen as a furtherance of the revival of a socialist bloc in Latin America, which began when Hugo Chavez was first elected President of Venezuela in 1998.   Chavez is a close friend of Cuban President Fidel Castro.   Following in Chavez's lead is Bolivian President Evo Morales.

   Kim Jong Il has been the leader of the DPRK since his father President Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, having served as Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army (KPA) since 1991, Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK since 1993, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in 1997, and a Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) Delegate since 1998.    Officially, Kim Jong Il shares power with SPA Presidium Chairman or, President Kim Yong Nam and Premier Kim Yong Il, neither of whom is related to him.   Kim Il Sung serves ceremonially from beyond the grave as Eternal President.

   Though Kim Jong Il does not enjoy the same level of support among Western leftists as does Ortega, he, too, is a highly recognizable and significant leader of the international revolutionary left.   Kim's many detractors have charged him with running a totalitarian regime, building a cult of personality around his father and himself, and with human rights abuses.   However, Kim's supporters assert that these claims are exaggerations or gross misrepresentations, and that Kim's leadership is crucial in the fight against capitalism and U.S. imperialism and for the construction of socialism and communism.