NICARAGUA -- The country that Daily Show host Jon Stewart once jokingly derided as "Bizarro Korea" is greatly stepping up its presence in a region that social critics from Mark Twain to Noam Chomsky have criticized the United States for trying to exploit and monopolize.

           Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who was elected in November after a 16-year (involuntary) hiatus from the office, met with Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Foreign Minister Kim Hyong Jun (no known relation to North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il).   Kim laid bare the reason for the rapprochement.   Despite Ortega's at least rhetorical embrace of market approaches and pledge to cooperate with Washington, Kim views the DPRK and Nicaragua as nation-brothers under the skin -- in his words, "two peoples struggling against the politics...of hegemony," referring obviously to the "superpower," the United States.  Ortega said that he planned to build stronger ties with the DPRK in "matters of defense" and other areas.

        Both Ortega and Kim Jong Il have long histories as "hard" leftist leaders and implacable opponents of U.S. imperialism.   Ortega rose to power in 1979 after his Sandinistas overthrew the unpopular rightist regime of Antonio Somoza and installed a Marxian socialist, but not explicitly Communist, government.   Ortega and the Sandinistas quickly became embroiled in a civil war against the essentially pro-Somoza contras (the word simply means "against"), whom US President Ronald Reagan characterized as "freedom fighters" and as comparable to the Founding Fathers.    The Reagan administration secured funding for the contras legally until 1984 and illegally for several years after that, following a Congressional ban on such aid.   One of the ways in which this was accomplished was by selling weapons to Iran -- hence, the explosive Iran-contra scandal that, to many people, tarnished the legacies of both Reagan and his Vice President and immediate successor, George H.W. Bush.

      The Sandinistas held elections in 1984, which they won.   They and their supporters, including Chomsky, have insisted that these elections were free and fair, while opponents of the original Ortega regime have vehemently disagreed.   On the other hand, voters tossed out Ortega and the Sandinistas in the 1990 elections.   Anti-Ortega activists have characterized these latter elections as free and fair, while Sandinista supporters have dismissed them as rigged.    Between 1979 and 1990, Ortega's regime attracted the support and admiration of a number of US leftists, including then US Representative Ron Dellums (D-CA), who is currently the Mayor of Oakland, California.   In any case, Ortega pulled off a solid comeback in November 2006.

         The situation of Kim Jong Il is quite different.   Unlike Ortega, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, and, to a lesser extent, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Kim has attracted precious little support from Western leftists.   Unlike the Latin American socialist leaders, Kim is routinely derided in the West, especially the US, for his physical appearance -- he is relatively short and somewhat overweight.  His regime has been accused (typically with little, no, or inconclusive evidence) of starving its own people.   Nevertheless, Kim, despite his national and personal isolation and (arguable) eccentricities, appears to be a force to be reckoned with.  He managed to consolidate his power in the mid-1990s, when the DPRK, faced with a crushing famine due to the disappearance of Soviet aid, natural disasters, and other factors,  seemed on the verge of both economic and political collapse to outside experts.   More recently, he has attracted the admiration and support not only of Ortega, but also of Venezuelan President Chavez, who may see in Pyongyang a partial model for his "21st century socialism" -- and certainly for his opposition to US imperialism in general and George W. Bush in particular.

         At the risk of engaging in excessive speculation, one may say that the DPRK is seeking to lessen its isolation and simultaneously to help build or consolidate a transoceanic anti-US socialist bloc.   The DPRK has long maintained friendship with Cuba, despite the geographical distance and cultural differences between the two.   While the DPRK's ideology of Kimilsungism and Juche differs in some significant ways from Cuba's Marxism-Leninism and Chavez's "21st century socialism," it nevertheless remains "socialist" and "communist."   Such alliances among smaller, supposedly rogue nations would appear to be inevitable as a number of countries wish to offset the unitary superpower status of the United States.

      As for the specific DPRK-Nicaragua relationship, ties between the two states are strengthened through the Venezuela-DPRK Friendship Parliamentary Group, which, last month, celebrated "Red Sun's Day," the 95th birthday (April 15) of Kim Jong Il's late father, Kim Il Sung.   (Kim Il Sung continues to lead his country ceremonially as its Eternal President, despite his death in 1994.)

         The US State Department had not yet responded directly to the Ortega-Kim embrace as of this writing, but it seems clear that the so-called international community expects countries to adhere by United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718, which were both passed in 2006 and denounce the DPRK's testing of nuclear weapons and missiles.

         "It is very necessary....to further strengthen the relationship and friendship between our people, and, in the s way, face the conspiracies of our enemies," including "pressure and blackmail by the United States."  Yang also extolled the virtues of Chavez's "important achievements in the process of constructing 21st century socialism."