Nicaragua Network

1. Central American presidents to welcome Obama at SICA summit
2. Waiver “very probable” according to Ambassador Powers
3. US extends Temporary Protective Status to Nicaraguans in United States
4. Sandinista government continues programs expanding peasant agriculture
5. Rainforest preservation receives increased attention
6. Indigenous Parliament of America meets in Managua
7. More facts emerge about Solka case
8. Causes of dolphin deaths determined
9. Motorcycle law to be enforced
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1. Central American presidents to welcome Obama at SICA summit

The office of President Daniel Ortega announced on April 5 that he would be attending the May 4 summit in Costa Rica of the Central American Integration System (SICA) which will feature the participation of US President Barack Obama.  Communications and Citizenship Coordinator Rosario Murillo said, “We have had the pleasure of receiving the letter that the president of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, sent to our President….”  She added, “Our president with great pleasure confirms his participation in this event where he will represent all the people of Nicaragua.”

There had been speculation all week about whether Chinchilla would invite Ortega and if she did whether he would accept.  Relations between Nicaragua and Costa Rica are tense because of an on-going dispute over a small piece of land at the mouth of the San Juan River and Nicaragua’s exercising of its treaty rights to dredge sections of the river, all of which belongs to Nicaragua.  Complicating the issue was the building by Costa Rica of a road along the southern bank of the river which has caused a major scandal because of its devastating environmental impact and the corruption involved in its construction.

Costa Rican Communications Minister Francisco Chacon said on April 5 that Obama “will have bilateral meetings” with the presidents attending the summit.  This clarified his statement the previous day which announced that the only bilateral meeting would be with Chinchilla.  According to the Obama administration, the US is interested not only in strengthening relationships on security issues but also in pursuing the “incredible opportunities” in trade and energy cooperation.  Forty US officials were in San Jose last week to prepare for Obama’s visit.  (Informe Pastran, Apr. 4, 5; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 4, 6; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 5; La Prensa, Apr. 5)

2. Waiver “very probable” according to Ambassador Powers

US Ambassador to Nicaragua Phyllis Powers said last week that it was “very probable” that the United States would extend the property waiver to Nicaragua in July because substantial progress was being made in resolving cases of compensation claims from Nicaraguans who had their property taken by the revolutionary government in the 1980s.  These Nicaraguans later because US citizens and have demanded their property returned or compensation under a US law that mandates that all US aid be cut to Nicaragua if US citizens’ property has been confiscated.  A waiver can be issued if progress is being made in resolving the cases and each year since the law was passed in 1994 the waiver has been issued.

Powers said that the US Embassy was working “very closely with the Government of Nicaragua,” that more cases were being resolved this year than last, and she was very optimistic.  However, she noted that as the number of cases is reduced, those that remain are “each year more difficult.” [Many were members of Somoza’s National Guard and gross violators of human rights.]  She said, “The fact that we are working together to resolve [the cases] is good; there is the will to work together and with the owners who are making the claims and that for me is positive.” (Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 1; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 2)

3. US extends Temporary Protective Status to Nicaraguans in United States

The United States Department of Homeland Security announced last week that it was extending for another 18 months temporary protective status (TPS) to Hondurans and Nicaraguans living in the US without residency visas.  TPS, which allows covered individuals to work legally in the United States, benefits approximately 3,000 Nicaraguans and 70,000 Hondurans.  The program, set to expire on July 6^th but now extended until Jan. 5, 2015, requires participants to reapply for their TPS documents within 60 days.  Temporary protective status was accorded Hondurans and Nicaraguans in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch and has been renewed ten times since then.  Thousands of Central Americans are living and working in the US under TPS but they would like to be included under any new immigration law so that they would not have to live in uncertainty about their status every 18 months.  All Nicaraguans living in the US (including the relatively small number covered under TPS) sent remittances totaling over US$553 million to their families in Nicaragua last year.  (El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 4; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 3; La Prensa, Apr. 3)

4. Sandinista government continues programs expanding peasant agriculture

Pedro Haslam, minister of the new Family, Community, Cooperative and Associative Economy Ministry, announced that 30,000 Nicaraguan producers of basic grains will receive credit in 2013 from a US$9 million revolving loan fund. The program, funded by national institutions and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) is a revolving loan fund. He said 20,000 families with small plots of at least 2.1 hectares benefitted in 2012. The program contracts with small farmers to buy their rice, beans, corn and sorghum at a fixed price with the farmer paying off the loan with a portion of the harvested crop.  The government sells the product at its subsidized food markets to the poor while the farm family consumes or sells on the open market the remainder of the harvest. The program, by providing credit to small farmers, injects money into the peasant agriculture system without resorting to private banks, thus raising the living standards of poor families and furthering the Sandinista government’s goal of food sovereignty.

Haslam also said that 25,000 additional families will receive farm animals such as pigs and chickens, as well as seeds through the Zero Hunger and Food Production Package programs in 2013. And the “Edible Yard” program, which provides the inputs for family gardening and reached 71,000 families in 2012, has as a goal to reach 120,000 families in 2013 in Managua and other major cities. He said the government will also continue its program to stimulate basic grain production in the dry areas of the country as well as the two autonomous territories of the Caribbean Coast. He said that in 2012, 10,800 families in 124 communities in seven indigenous territories were benefitted by the program. (Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 3)

5. Rainforest preservation receives increased attention

Coordinator of Communication and Citizenship Rosario Murillo, commenting on efforts to preserve Nicaragua’s forests, said that this year three times as much forest is being affected by illegal logging and damage by illegal mestizo settlers as last year. The areas most affected are the Bosawas and Indio Maiz Biosphere Reserves. The Bosawas alone comprises 14% of the country. Murillo announced that President Daniel Ortega has directed that a commission of experts, headed by Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA) Juana Argeñal, to prepare a full report on the situation in the Bosawas and to appeal for international support to preserve the biosphere reserve. Murillo called on all citizens, especially young people, to come together to “save Bosawas.” [Mayagna indigenous communities in the reserve have been calling for government action to combat illegal settlements which are damaging the rainforest.] Fires alone damaged over 26,600 acres in 2012, not counting acres lost to illegal logging and land speculators who are moving poor families into the rainforest who then clear cut the forest for subsistence agriculture.  The commission will include representatives of the army and fire department, the National Police, UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which has named the Bosawas a World Heritage Site, and other government agencies including the Secretariat of the Caribbean Coast. The Bosawas Reserve is 19,228 sq. km in size. Enforcement has historically been almost nonexistent due to an inadequate number of forest rangers. Since 1987 the Bosawas Reserve has lost 564,737 hectares of forest.

But, in 2011, the Sandinista government formed an Ecological Battalion of the army whose mission is to crack down on illegal logging and colonization. Germany is helping to fund the battalion with US$326,000, the first time Germany has ever funded a foreign military project according to German Ambassador Karl Otto König. In the past 12 months, the Ecological Battalion has seized 572,000 board feet of illegally logged timber and removed some illegal settlements from the forest. They have set up three points of enforcement in the communities of El Hormiguero near Siuna, Cola Blanca near Bonanza, and Ayapal near San Jose de Bocay. The Bosawas forest is considered to be the “lungs of Central America” and a patrimony not just of Nicaragua, but of the world, according to the ambassador. The battalion conducted 3,297 operations from April 2012 through March 2013, employing 16,634 members of the military, 725 MARENA employees, and indigenous leaders.  In addition, 19 chain saws and 66 guns were confiscated, 61 people were arrested, 228 logging trucks were confiscated and 4,800 mature marijuana plants plus 36,800 plants in nurseries and 28 exotic animals were captured. The brigades also reforested 123 hectares of land. In operations to control illegal settlement, army officials are accompanied by the police, MARENA and property officials.   (La Prensa, Apr. 3, 5; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 6; Informe Pastran, Apr. 8; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 8)

6. Indigenous Parliament of America meets in Managua

On Apr. 8 and 9, the XIII Session of the Indigenous Parliament of America (PIA) met in Managua to address common issues for indigenous peoples in the hemisphere. Twenty-five delegates came to the gathering from 11 of the 18 countries that are members of the PIA.  The countries that sent representatives were Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.  The Parliament (which was founded in 1988) resolved to establish its permanent headquarters in Managua after 13 years without a formal headquarters or any place to “keep our files” as Hugo Carrillo, president of the PIA, put it.  The last time the organization had an office, in 2000, it was also in Managua.  The new PIA headquarters office will be located in the building of Nicaragua’s National Assembly.  Brooklyn Rivera, National Assembly Deputy and chair of the Committee on Indigenous Affairs, will serve as technical secretary of the organization.

Among the subjects included in the discussions were food security, autonomy, land rights, and ways to promote increased representation of indigenous people in national legislatures, consultation with indigenous communities in the drafting of laws, and recognition of indigenous rights already included in the constitutions and laws of the various countries and in international covenants.  Also on the agenda were genetically modified seeds and extractive industries (including petroleum and gold).  As part of the program, the delegates traveled to Jinotega to meet with Nicaraguan indigenous leaders.  (El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 8; La Prensa, Apr. 7, 9; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 7)

7. More facts emerge about Solka case

Last week we reported that a Federal District Court in Florida had ordered the Nicaraguan government to pay two members of the Solorzano family of Miami, one of which is a US citizen, a total of US$18 million for Laboratorios Solka.  The Managua pharmaceutical company had been confiscated in the 1980s by the revolutionary government but part of the company (54.7%) was returned to the Solorzano family in 1990 with another part (40%) going to the workers.  The Solorzano family also received US$1 million in compensation.

Laboratorios Solka representatives said at a press conference on Apr. 3 that, by June of 2008, the company had debts totaling US$1.67 million to a Managua bank and others which were not being honored and it was no longer viable.  At that point the government of President Daniel Ortega again took it over again and since then has kept the company functioning.  General manager Gloria Maltez Raudez said, “What happened in that ruling of the federal court was crazy.  How are we going to pay those people if they left the company full of debt?”  She noted that the US citizen who took the case to court in the US only owns 1.3% of the stock and has never visited the plant. 

Supreme Court justice Francisco Rosales said that the ruling of the court was invalid because the US court does not have jurisdiction. Rosales, head of the Constitutional Panel, said that “all internal legal routes have to be exhausted in order to take a case outside of a country and then it would be to an international court.” Presidential economic advisor Bayardo Arce said that the court did not even ask through diplomatic channels about the financial status of Solka.  He added that the ruling “is part of that deformed culture in the North American political system where they believe that they can rule everywhere.”

On April 8, the Solorzano family’s attorney said that his clients went to court in the US because there were US citizens among them but that now they want to negotiate with the Nicaraguan government and reach a definitive agreement.  Nicaraguan business people also spoke up in favor of negotiation among the parties—the government, the workers who are part owners, and the Solorzano family.  (Informe Pastran, Apr. 3, 4, 8; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 8)

7. Causes of dolphin deaths determined

Environmental groups have sent a report to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources which states that the deaths of the four dolphins that were washed up on Pacific beaches during Holy Week were the result of artisanal fishers using homemade underwater explosives. Use of explosives to fish is against Nicaraguan law, but the government said that it has lacked the capacity to enforce the law. Ivan Ramirez, director of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Sustainable Development (FUNDENIC) accused the government of tolerating the illegal use of explosives. Explosives are not selective in what they kill and they destroy marine habitat which will affect future fish yields. In 2012 in addition to fish and dolphins, 20 endangered turtles were killed by explosions. Dolphins are particularly susceptible because the explosions damage their sonar receptors making it impossible to navigate even if they are outside the kill radius.

Thousands of dead fish also washed ashore near San Francisco Libre during Holy Week in Lake Xolotlan (Lake Managua). Communication and Citizenship Coordinator Rosario Murillo announced that the investigation concluded that they were probably killed by pesticide run-off from chili pepper and watermelon farms exacerbated by deforestation caused by logging companies. She said the government is calling on the agribusiness companies involved to reforest the watershed. (Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 2; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 2; La Prensa, Apr. 3)

9. Motorcycle law to be enforced

After a three month education campaign to gain compliance with Law 431 which regulates motorcycles and the number of passengers they can carry, National Transit Chief Roberto Gonzalez announced that traffic officials have begun to enforce the law “with a heavy hand.” He said that in two days 600 tickets with their corresponding fines had been given out for such violations as too many passengers on the cycle, riding without a helmet, and riding without the appropriate driver’s license and/or vehicle registration.  Data from the National Transit Authority shows that 85% of traffic accidents involve a motorcycle and about 250 deaths a year result.  There are 140,000 motorcycles registered in Managua and 250,000 registered motorcycles in the entire country with many more unregistered. Motorcycles are basic transportation for many low income families and it is a common sight to see an entire family plus goods navigating the city streets and country roads. (La Prensa, Apr. 4)