TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2008

Nicaragua Network Hotline (June 24, 2008)

1. Political conflicts continue
2. International representatives express fears; Ortega reacts
3. IMF satisfied
4. 1984 US invasion plans uncovered

Topic 1: Political conflicts continue

On June 20 supporters of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) and the Conservative Party (PC), marched and rallied to protest the cancellation of their parties' legal status, due to failure to meet legal requirements. Organizers put the crowd at 12,000 and police estimated it at 5,000. Dora Maria Tellez, who had earlier in the week ended a 13 day hunger fast told the crowd, “The people are hungry; inflation has taken away half of their plate of food but the government only remembers the poor in billboards.” She demanded that the government of President Daniel Ortega put the brakes on inflation in the price of food and fuel and “if it cannot do so, it should leave [¡Que se vaya!]” to which the crowd responded “¡Que se vaya!” The MRS has been conflating their legal recognition with the food crisis which seems a stretch considering that food and oil price increases are a global crisis and the Sandinista government has done more than most to ameliorate the effects on Nicaraguans including lower gas prices for transportation cooperatives, subsidized food for consumers, and increased credit and support for small farmers to increase the supply of basic food.

MRS National Assembly delegate Monica Baltodano said that this rally “will be the beginning of the struggle of the citizenry against the establishment of an institutional dictatorship” by the Ortega government. This is another perplexing statement from a hero of the war for national liberation against the Somoza dictatorship. With no press controls, no political prisoners, no people who have been disappeared, or repression by the police and military, it is difficult to see what trappings of “dictatorship” that MRS politicians are condemning. Overheated rhetoric is not the sole province of the MRS. La Nueva Radio Ya, a staunch Sandinista station known for its inflammatory rhetoric, spoke of Dora Maria Tellez' “supposed hunger strike” saying that she lost no weight since “behind everyone's back she threw back big plates of salad, since she is a vegetarian, which confirms that the whole thing was a show put on by the right.”

Eduardo Montealegre, candidate for Managua mayor for the Constitutional Liberal Party Alliance and president of the “Let's Go with Eduardo” Movement, the organization he cobbled together after the collapse of the Nicaragua Liberal Alliance, visited the rally and gave a letter of support to Edmundo Jarquin, the MRS candidate for president in 2006. However, he did not participate in the march.

Carlos Mejía Godoy sang several of his songs at the rally. He has forbidden the FSLN from using the revolutionary songs he wrote during the long struggle against Somoza, saying that they can only use the Sandinista anthem. He added that use of the song “La Consigna” by the government and/or party violates his copyright. La Consigna popularized the acronym FSLN and explained the party's armed struggle for the people of Nicaragua. He said on Friday that his lawyers were in charge of any legal proceedings to protect the songs. His announcement caused consternation among many former combatants who have remained with the FSLN and consider the revolutionary songs to be part of their patrimony.

Meanwhile, the weekly Bolsa de Noticias reported that sources close to civil society organizations have said that a march planned for June 27 by the Movement for Nicaragua has been funded with US$80,000 from the International Republican Institute (IRI), one of the core groups of the US taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy. Jarquin confirmed that IRI is funding the demonstration. Violeta Granera, director of the Movement for Nicaragua, also confirmed IRI funding on June 16 while at the same time denying that the funding came from the U.S. government. During a 2006 Nicaragua Network delegation meeting with the IRI in Managua, we were told by the IRI spokesperson, “We created the Movement for Nicaragua.” It is painful to reconcile the MRS collaboration with one of the primary agencies for US anti-democratic manipulation in other countries.

Topic 2: International representatives express fears; Ortega reacts

A June 20 statement by the “cooperation round table,” which is coordinated by European Union Ambassador Francesca Mosca, expressed concern about “the processes of inclusion and active citizen participation” in Nicaragua due to the decertification of the MRS and Conservative Party. The statement continued: “We are concerned about the electoral law and the judicial order which leaves so much room for interpretation that it raises questions about its application in the present resolution.” The cooperation round table includes the ambassadors to Nicaragua from Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, the European Union, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Nicaragua received about US$500 million each year in loans and donations from these countries and institutions. U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli added his voice the following day.

President Ortega reacted to the statement during a speech at the inauguration of a 28 megawatt electricity generating plant in the department of Masaya which had been sent by Venezuela. He said the ambassadors “believe that they have the right to criticize because they are giving us a few crumbs which they call aid but which is only a tiny payment on the enormous debt that they have” with the developing countries.

On June 17, the newspaper El Nuevo Diario published an open letter to Ortega signed by international notables of the left Noam Chomsky, Susan Meiselas, Ariel Dorfman, Salman Rushdie, Eduardo Galeano, Hermann Schulz, Juan Geiman, Brian Willson, Tom Hayden, Bianca Jagger, and Mario Benedetti asking him not to close the doors on dialogue and expressing their personal sympathy for Dora Maria Tellez. The letter said, “What led Dora María to … put her life and health on the line is a clear demand : that political spaces not be closed and that a national dialogue take place to resolve the food crisis and the high cost of living which, like many countries, Nicaragua faces.” Analysts in media close to the government lamented that the signers of the letter have been manipulated by those who do not want Nicaragua to take advantage of excellent relations with the countries of the ALBA, such as Venezuela and Cuba.

Topic 3: IMF satisfied

The mission of the International Monetary Fund that has been in Nicaragua since June 9 expressed satisfaction in general with the fulfillment of the agreement the government signed with the international financial institution last year. Members of the mission met with the National Assembly's Economic Committee and noted that since the last visit in February the country has taken several positive steps, including the recent passage of the law against electricity fraud. The IMF had required passage of this law before it would release a payment of US$39 million of a three year loan of US$111 million.

Another positive development, according to the IMF, was the restructuring of a good part of the debt that the government owes the private banking system, increasing the repayment period from 10 years to 20 years. The IMF also praised a new law that will oblige the government to report to the legislature on the use of funds from international sources outside of the budget.

Topic 4: 1984 US invasion plans uncovered

La Prensa reported that documents uncovered in the archives of the former East Germany intelligence agency, Stasi, revealed 1984 Pentagon plans for an invasion of Nicaragua by 50,000 US troops. The plan was to provoke the Nicaraguan army to enter Honduran territory and then for Honduras to ask the US to come to its aid. The operation planned to include troops from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Vieques, Puerto Rico, as well as the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy and numerous other naval ships.

FSLN founder and former National Directorate member, Tomas Borge, told La Prensa that the invasion was cancelled due to the capture of CIA contractor Eugene Hasenfus, whose plane was shot down over Nicaraguan territory in October 1986. His capture exposed what became the Iran-Contra scandal which shook the Reagan administration when the Congressional investigation exposed that it was selling arms to Iran, then at war with Iraq, and using the profits to circumvent the Congressional ban on aid to the contras.

The papers in the Stasi archive reveal details of several US “war games” done in preparation for an invasion, such as “Solid Shield” between April and May 1987 and “Lempira,” “Blazing Trails,” and “Guardians of the Kings” in 1985-1987. The reports detail numbers of troops involved as well as their home bases and air fields.

A 1987 Stasi document posits that the Esquipulas II peace talks were used by the US to pressure the FSLN and El Salvador's FMLN. The Sandinistas, the report said, “feared that if it did not show results in 90 days that there would be a direct US military intervention.”

On September 12, 1984, the Stasi received a report, “On the Preparation of an Invasion by the USA in Nicaragua” which cited “reliable circles of the Congress” and stated that government departments received a White House request to work quickly on plans for Nicaragua with the view toward an invasion. The invasion was planned for the first months of Reagan's second term in 1985.

Yuri Andropov, in his last years as director of the Soviet Union's KGB, promised to then Interior Minister Tomas Borge, the conditional support of the USSR, but “not to the point of a nuclear war.” The pledge was found in a file of a later conversation with Minister of State Security of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Erich Mielke. The US was suspicious but, Borge said, “It was unthinkable for us that the Soviets would put military bases in Nicaragua; we said it to the United States; we said it to them [the Soviets].”

Borge remembers that they were clear that they would suffer a conventional military defeat against the United States. Only “prolonged resistance” could increase the losses and dissuade the invaders. “I was assigned to resist in Managua, which is the reason why I organized different safe houses ... but an invasion would have been disastrous for Nicaragua,” he stated via telephone from Lima where he serves as Nicaragua's ambassador to Peru.

This hotline is prepared from the Nicaragua News Service and other sources. To receive a more extensive weekly summary of the news from Nicaragua by e-mail or postal service, send a check for $60.00 to Nicaragua Network, 1247 E St., SE, Washington, DC 20003. We can be reached by phone at 202-544-9355. Our web site is: www.nicanet.org. To subscribe to the Hotline, send an e-mail to nicanet@afgj.org
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