Nicaragua Network

1. Massive crowd celebrates 34th anniversary of revolution in Managua
2. Ortega signs decree mandating small pensions under Social Security
3. Nicaragua has trade surplus with US under CAFTA; US denies transparency waiver
4. Nicaragua winning battle against maternal deaths
5. Community policing model reducing crime
6. Long-time Los Angeles activist honored in Nicaragua
__________________________________________________________

1. Massive crowd celebrates 34th anniversary of revolution in Managua

A crowd of what appeared in photographs to be well over 100,000 people (organizers said 300,000) filled a major Managua plaza and the Avenida Bolivar to celebrate on July 19 the 34^th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution which overthrew the Somoza family dictatorship.  As in previous years, people began arriving at mid-day in busses and trucks paralyzing the main highways into Managua.  Massive screens were placed along the Avenida Bolivar so that the crowds that filled the full extent of that avenue could hear the music and the speeches.  A prominent place was given to young people of the 19^th of July Sandinista Youth Organization wearing their T-shirts with a bold 34/19 logo.  The celebration can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/36091959.

Cardinal Miguel Obando gave the invocation saying that thousands of young people lost their lives 34 years ago so that today young people could fight against hunger and illiteracy on the side of the poor.  National Communications Coordinator Rosario Murillo proclaimed Nicaragua as socialist, Christian and in solidarity under the Sandinista Front which, she said, represents unity, peace and reconciliation. High officials of the Nicaraguan government were all in attendance while among the foreign guests were Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú, former Panamanian President Martin Torrijos, former Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas, Venezuelan National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, and Salvadoran Vice-President Salvador Sanchez.  Diosdado Cabello said that he was delighted to be in the land of Sandino whom he called “one of the greatest followers of [Simon] Bolivar who has ever lived in the Americas.”

President Daniel Ortega spoke for an hour during which he remembered the Battle of San Jacinto against the forces of US filibusterer William Walker in 1856 and the fight against the US Marines by Benjamin Zeledon in 1912 and Augusto Sandino (1927-1934).  He said that the task for today is to eradicate poverty in Nicaragua and that task has begun thanks to the miracle of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) and the examples of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.  He said that the struggle against poverty will be helped by the construction of a shipping canal across Nicaragua but that, “even without the canal, the country has the human capacity to defeat poverty.”  He noted that the canal was “extremely viable” but that “all will depend on the feasibility studies that are now being carried out” adding that Nicaragua would not slow its efforts to become self sufficient in food production. 

But the part of his speech that grabbed the headlines was when he announced that he would issue a decree mandating small pensions for seniors who had not paid into the Social Security System for enough years for a full pension.  He noted that those reduced pensions had been instituted by the Sandinista revolution in 1982 but revoked President Violeta Chamorro under the neo-liberal economic measures imposed on her by the United States.  Seniors have been demanding these smaller pensions for the last few years and, in June, several organized groups of seniors, supported by organizations of young people, most of them from opposition political parties and organizations, had protested in the streets.  Ortega said his decree would countermand the 1994 decree of the Chamorro government and provide a small monthly pension payment to an estimated 8,000 seniors.

The political opposition denounced the commemoration.  Liberal National Assembly Deputy Eliseo Nuñez called it a “paradoxical celebration with one dictator celebrating the fall of a previous one.” Enrique Saenz, National Assembly deputy for the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), condemned the Ortega government for transforming “a national fiesta into a political event,” and said, “The waste of resources for this celebration is part of a communications strategy of the Ortega regime by which they are trying to fix in people’s mind a vision deprived of reality and plagued with fantasy.”  MRS leader Dora Maria Tellez accused Ortega of having stolen US$2.5 billion in monies from Venezuela and Henry Ruiz of the Sandinista Rescue Movement denounced the canal concession that Ortega signed in June and said that “If Sandino were alive and they [the Ortega government] were in his ranks, the idea of a firing squad would have been raised because they are traitors.”

Two international conferences held in Managua saluted the 34^th anniversary of the revolution.  At the IV Encounter of Latin American and Caribbean Youth of the Left young people said that, after visiting projects around the country, they appreciated the advances in attention to children, neighborhood organization, and the promotion of productive activities in Nicaragua.  Fifty-five representatives from twelve countries also gathered in Managua for the VII Encounter of Social Movements of the Americas and the Caribbean.  Attendees were most impressed with the Zero Usury Program which loans small sums to women at an interest rate of only 5%. The gathering resolved to “express our militant solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution and its 34 years of struggle and victories for the people of Nicaragua.”

With the transportation of thousands of people to and from Managua, there was one accident when five young people who had decided to ride on the top of the bus going back to Rivas “because it would be more fun” fell off near the end of the trip and had to be taken to the hospital.  It appeared all would recover although one young man spent several hours in intensive care. (Informe Pastran, July 17, 19; Radio La Primerísima, July 17, 18, 19; La Prensa, July 19, 21; El Nuevo Diario, July 20)

2. Ortega signs decree mandating small pensions under Social Security

President Daniel Ortega announced in his speech during the July 19^th celebration that he was issuing a decree that would change the country’s Social Security regulations to allow for small pensions to be extended to seniors who had not paid into the system for the required 750 weeks (14 years).  A report issued on July 21 said that the board of directors of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS) had met on July 18 to approve the changes and Ortega signed the decree the next day.  Adults who have reached 60 years of age and who paid into Social Security for between 250 weeks (4.8 years) and 400 weeks (7.7 years) will be eligible for a small pension of US$50 per month.  Those who paid into the system for between 451 weeks and 600 weeks (11 ½ years) can receive US$83 per month.  And those who paid in for between 601 and 749 weeks will receive a pension of US$117.  A disabled person can begin to receive a small pension after paying into the system for only 150 weeks in the six years before becoming disabled. 

Two of the organizations representing seniors, the Union of Older Adults (UNAM) and the Association of the Retired and Pensioned (AJUPIN), pronounced themselves pleased with the decree and said that they accepted the parameters.  UNAM president Porfirio Garcia, after meeting with a government commission to learn the details, said, “We are very satisfied because we consider that we have taken a step forward in the restitution of the rights of senior citizens.  While it is true that the pension is quite small, it will be a help to all those who have turned 60 and have paid in for at least 250 weeks.”

Treasury Minister Ivan Acosta, who heads the government commission on the topic, said that the funds will not come out of the general budget but rather from the Social Security System.  Groups of seniors had been demanding this reduced pension for a number of years and in recent weeks that demand had been taken up by opposition political parties, civil society groups, and media outlets and, as Informe Pastran noted, “threatened to become a permanent political banner that could corrode support for the executive and the National Police” who were called on to enforce order at the protests.  The government had been paying with ALBA funding an amount similar to the announced small pensions (plus food packages and health care) but officials had said that the Social Security System itself could not afford the payments.  The seniors worried that at some future time under a different government the ALBA funding could disappear and so would their monthly payments.

Managua Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes said that the important thing is that the seniors were heard and now they are guaranteed a minimum pension for their basic needs.  Opposition members said that the protests of the seniors and young people in June had forced the government to act.  Sociologist Oscar Rene Vargas said, “It was the social pressure that made [Ortega] change his position.”  [The Nicaragua Network only notes that there must be gnashing of teeth at the International Monetary Fund which has demanded that Nicaragua reduce expenditures by Social Security—by raising the retirement age and other measures--, not increase them.]  (Radio La Primerisima, July 21; Informe Pastran, July 22; El Nuevo Diario, July 20, 22; La Prensa, July 21)

3. Nicaragua has trade surplus with US under CAFTA; US denies transparency waiver

With the visit to Nicaragua of Walter Bastian, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere at the U.S. Department of Commerce, coming up at the end of the month, figures were released last week on the trade balances of the Central American countries with the United States under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA).  The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Commerce Department stated in a report that DR-CAFTA countries had exported to the United States US$12.337 billion and had imported US$12.116 billion from the US indicating a trade surplus of US$ 221.8 million between January and May of this year.  However, the figures are misleading.  Only the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua had trade surpluses with the United States while the other countries imported more, in one case much more, from the US than they exported to the US.  Oddly, the graph in El Nuevo Diario did not include the Dominican Republic but with a little simple math one can discover that the DR exported US$5.475 billion worth of goods to the US while importing only US$2.993 billion thus supplying most of the balance of payments surplus for the entire region.  Nicaragua exported to the US a total of US$1.140 billion while importing only US$740.3 million, thus contributing also to the surplus. Costa Rica had the worst imbalance—importing from the US a total of US$2.928 billion exporting to the US only US$$1.132 billion.  The other Central American countries had smaller imbalances.

Meanwhile, the United States for a second year in a row did not issue what is known as “the transparency waiver” and will not provide to Nicaragua an estimated US$3 million in bilateral aid.  There was no official communication from the Department of State to that effect but an official at the US Embassy in Managua said last week that the Department was not going to issue the waiver due to a lack of compliance with minimum norms for fiscal transparency.  He added that the funds would have been for military assistance and anti-drug trafficking activities among other programs.  At the same time, the US voted for multi-million dollar loans from the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank for Nicaragua for the next five years.  Informe Pastran calls the US position “contradictory” noting that its representatives on those bodies have endorsed such statements as “The World Bank Program in Nicaragua is the best executed in Central America.  The portfolio includes 14 projects totaling US$400 million of which US$230 million have been expended” and “The rigorous supervision by the World Bank and the [Nicaraguan] Treasury Ministry has meant a quick response to any problem in the [programs’] execution.”  However, both business leader Jose Adan Aguerri and government economic advisor Bayardo Arce stated that the waiver that really counts is the so-called “property waiver” which, if issued at the end of the month, will certify that Nicaragua has made progress in resolving property disputes involving US citizens dating from the 1980s.  Nicaragua has every expectation that that waiver will be granted.  (El Nuevo Diario, July 18, 20; Informe Pastran, July 16)

4. Nicaragua winning battle against maternal deaths

The Ministry of Health released report at a regional meeting of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) showing a drop in maternal deaths in Nicaragua from 86.47 per 100,000 births in 2005 down to 50.6 per 100,000 births in 2012.  The report noted that, while in 2005 only 34.7% of pregnancies were accompanied by prenatal care, in 2011, 54% received prenatal care.  Births in government health clinics or in hospitals rose from 49.8% in 2005 to 74.2% in 2011.  Another factor in the decrease in maternal deaths has been the increase in maternal wait homes of which there are now 100 in the country.  Last year, those centers located in larger towns and cities welcomed 25,163 at-risk pregnant women from rural areas so that they could give birth in a near-by hospital.  Health Minister Dr. Sonia Castro said that while Nicaragua has now achieved the UN Millennium Development Goal in this area, the goal of the Ministry is to reduce maternal death rate to 27 per 100,000 births. (El Nuevo Diario, July 22)

5. Community policing model reducing crime

Speaking in San Salvador at a regional conference on community policing, Nicaraguan National Police spokesman Commissioner Fernando Borge said last week that the proactive, preventative, community policing model of Nicaragua’s police has helped make Nicaragua one of the safest countries in Latin America.  He described “a model of shared responsibility, that of person-family-community” which shapes all the areas of police work.  He noted that reported crime in Nicaragua declined by 9.8% in 2012 when compared with 2011, adding that in the first half of 2013, reported crime had declined by 4.5%.  Borge noted that this year out of each 100 cases reported to the police, they have been able to resolve 79.  Most reports are of minor offenses, totaling 77.8%, while only 6.1% are dangerous crimes. “The participation of the community and the participation of the family is active, committed participation which takes responsibility” for identifying problems in the community, he stated. Participating in the gathering were police representatives from Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.(Informe Pastran, July 17; La Prensa, July 17)

6. Long-time Los Angeles activist honored in Nicaragua

Aris Anagnos, long time activist in solidarity with Nicaragua and other social justice causes, was honored in Nicaragua on July 19 with the Ruben Dario Order of Cultural Independence for “his support for the Nicaraguan revolutionary struggle, the defense of human rights and for his dedication to the search for peace in the world.”  President Daniel Ortega told how Anagnos, a Greek-American, joined Greek combatants to fight against the Nazis during World War II and after the war continued to work for peace and justice against the war in Vietnam, in solidarity with the struggles in Central America, and in solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. The ceremony honoring Anagnos (misspelled in the Nicaraguan media as Agnano) took place in a Managua hotel with the attendance of special invited guests and members of the diplomatic community. 

Anagnos said, “I accept this honor as a representative of the whole peace movement in the United States because there are many people who have participated in this movement and merit recognition.”  He said that it had been a great privilege to participate in the struggle of the Sandinista Front and, he added, “Now it is a great pleasure to return to Nicaragua and observe the improvement in the life of the people of Nicaragua, thanks to the Sandinista movement and the Sandinista government.  Congratulations on the 34^th anniversary today and let us continue the struggle for peace and justice.” (Radio La Primerisima, July 20)