TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Nicaragua Network Hotline (Sept. 30, 2008)

1. Controversies around NGOs continue
2. Zoilamerica Narvaez withdraws demand at Inter-American Human Rights Commission
3. Ortega intervenes to insure cooking gas supply; consumer group demands lower gasoline prices
4. Government programs produce positive results in diverse communities
5. Government sets minimum wage


Topic 1: Controversies around NGOs continue

The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) said that President Daniel Ortega's government is carrying out “selective political persecution” against the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that oppose him instead of reconciling with them. The Leon home of CENIDH president, and the most respected human rights leader in Nicaragua, Vilma Nuñez, was painted red and black, the Sandinista party colors, in what Nuñez said was a direct threat. Nuñez, who went from a Somoza jail to the Supreme Court when the Sandinista revolution triumphed in July of 1979 said, “I am a Sandinista but not a Danielista.” She added that her house “was a safe house during the insurrection and many people lived there.” She called on those who painted the house to come forward and “don't be cowards.”

The government crack-down continued on NGOs that funnel US and European government funds to unregistered groups and social movements. A Ministry of Government official announced on Sept. 24 that he would send to the Public Information Ministry information about at least 17 NGOs accused of “triangulation” of funds from international groups. Bayardo Izaba of CENIDH said that social movements do not need to register and that the constitution guarantees the rights of movements to organize citizens. No one, he said, can prevent them from receiving funds. He explained that the law penalizes only money coming from drug trafficking or theft, but Assistant Attorney General Ana Julia Guido said on Sept. 25 that the crime of money laundering was not restricted to funds coming from illicit activities. She stated that board members of several NGOs would be called in to testify, including the Civil Coordinator, the Center for International Studies, Nicaraguan Social World, the Community Trade Network, Oxfam, and Forum Syd, a Swedish organization.

Gustavo Porras, leader in the health workers union and a deputy in the National Assembly, warned on Sept. 23 that every time opposition groups protest, Sandinistas would confront them in the streets. ”The working class, the poor, we are going to take to the streets each time it is necessary” to prevent the opposition from “carrying out its plan of restoring neoliberal policies,” he said. What Sandinista affiliated groups did in Leon on Sept. 20 [where they violently prevented an opposition march] “is correct; it is the class struggle,” Porras insisted. Minister of Government Ana Isabel Morales called for tolerance for other's views. She said that the violence in Leon was a reaction to the campaign of harassment of the government by the opposition which had carried out violent acts against Sandinista journalists and media outlets.

Meanwhile, President Ortega inaugurated a new “Plaza of the Bible” in Managua on Sept. 27, and promised evangelical groups that they wouldn't be fined for violations of the laws governing NGOs. Ortega also promised to hand over title to 190 lots for the construction of churches and to increase the number of copies of the bible printed in the nation's indigenous languages, including 25,000 in Miskito.

Topic 2: Zoilamerica Narvaez withdraws demand at Inter-American Human Rights Commission

Zoilamerica Narvaez, step-daughter of President Daniel Ortega, announced last week that she had asked the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to withdraw her claim of denial of justice by the Nicaraguan legal system under which she had accused Ortega of sexual abuse. The case had been denied in Nicaraguan courts based on expiration of the statute of limitations. On Sept. 26 Prosecutor General Hernan Estrada released a letter that Narvaez had sent to the Commission, in which Narvaez said that she had decided that her case had caused damage to herself and her family and had been manipulated politically by different interests in Nicaragua.

Narvaez went on to say in the letter, “I have taken the decision to find a solution with the desire to give Nicaraguan society an example of brothers and sisters with the capacity to arrive at understanding and reconciliation by means of true dialogue.” She said that she wanted to “thank pastors, women, family members, and communities of good faith who accompanied me personally and spiritually and invite them to work in harmony for the peace and development of Nicaragua.”

The Narvaez case recently provoked incidents outside Nicaragua's borders when women's groups in Paraguay and Honduras protested planned visits of Ortega to their countries. Ortega cancelled his visit to Paraguay for the inauguration of President Fernando Lugo. Women's organizations seem to be a particular target of the Ortega government's crack-down on NGOs.

Topic 3: Ortega intervenes to insure cooking gas supply; consumer group demands lower gasoline prices

On Sept. 24, President Daniel Ortega declared a state of economic emergency and ordered the Nicaraguan Energy Institute (INE) to “intervene in the company Tropigas Nicaragua, S.A., for a period of six months” and to run the company's cooking gas distribution network. Tropigas has refused to import propane cooking gas unless it is authorized to increase prices by 100%. The 25 lb. cylinder, which is the size most used in the country, presently sells for US$15. Tropigas controls about 60% of the market for cooking gas in Nicaragua, with Esso Gas, Petrogas, and Z-Gas, holding the rest of the market. Ortega said that Tropigas has been fined by INE for selling cylinders that were not full and has not paid the US$172,065 fine. Tropigas, a Guatemalan company which has operated in Nicaragua for 55 years, said it would exhaust all legal remedies to reverse the government's intervention. Vice-President Jaime Morales Carazo said on Sept. 26 that this was not the first step toward confiscations of property and announced that gas was beginning to arrive from El Salvador and Guatemala and that he expected the supply situation to normalize.

Meanwhile, controversies continue over the price of gasoline. While the world price for oil has recently declined 39%, the price at the pump in Nicaragua has declined barely 7%. On Sept. 26, an accord was reached in which those gas stations that received their product from the Exxon refinery would lower the price of regular and super by more than US$0.25 per liter. Some distributors did lower prices on Monday but by much less, only US$0.05 per liter.

On Sept. 28, the National Institute in Defense of the Consumer (INDEC) increased pressure on Exxon to lower prices by parking more than 30 tractor-trailer rigs and a dozen taxis in front of the company's refinery at 8:00am. INDEC director Marvin Pomares said that Nicaraguan families are so stressed by the high prices of food resulting in turn from the high price of gasoline that “the population can't take it anymore!” He added that his organization was pushing for the nationalization of the importation of crude oil and price controls and was supporting a bill backed by 5,000 signatures that would be introduced in the National Assembly within two weeks to put those measures into effect.

Topic 4: Government programs produce positive results in diverse communities

The FSLN-headed municipality of El Sauce, in the northern part of the Department of Leon, initiated a bean seed bank last year in time to ease a seed shortage before the second planting. [Most of Nicaragua has two harvests a year and some parts of the country have three.] Rains from Hurricane Felix destroyed much of the first harvest which forced farmers to sell all their beans rather than hold some of them back for the next planting. The Local Economic Development Office (ODEL) of El Sauce, with help from the US Millennium Challenge Account, gave an 80 pound bag of certified small red beans to 60 producers in nine communities. The producers gave back a portion of the harvest in payment.

ODEL spokesperson Jose Adalberto Corrales reported that, because of the bad rainy season this year, they recovered only 78% of the seed that they had hoped for, a total of 1,730 pounds. The seeds, stored in three municipal silos, together with 100 bags of beans donated by the Millennium Challenge Account for this year's second harvest, are being distributed to 140 producers who will also return a portion of their harvest to the seed bank. "With this bank we are going to guarantee seed security in time for this planting at lower cost and insure that the farmers will not fall into the hands of commercial lenders but will instead donate a minimal quantity of high quality seed back to the seed bank," said Corrales.

In Nagarote, Leon, the Project to Legalize Property titled 254 rural parcels with financing from the US Millennium Challenge Account. The legalization of property titles benefited 690 people in 254 peasant families. Ninety percent of the titles were given to women in accord with Ortega government policy. The lots are approximately ¾ of an acre. The Pilot Project for Recording and Regularizing Properties is funded with the assistance of the US Millennium Challenge Fund.

The Ortega government's Ministry of Farming and Forestry (MAGFOR) last week gave 90 poor families in San Rafael del Sur and 32 in Ciudad Sandino Food Production Packages as part of the Zero Hunger Program. The San Rafael families received 81 pregnant cows and 900 hens and roosters while the Ciudad Sandino families received 32 pregnant cows and 350 hens and roosters. (The families will receive pregnant sows in a few weeks.) The packages include construction materials for cages for the birds and shelters for the pigs, and each has a value of about US$1,300 of which the recipient family pays back 20% into a fund which the organized participants administer.

7. Government sets minimum wage

On Sept. 24, Minister of Labor Jeannette Chavez announced that the government was unilaterally raising the minimum wage by 18% given that negotiators from government, business and labor union sectors could not come to an agreement after 60 days of discussions. The new wage schedule will go into effect on October 1. Under the new rules, workers in the nation's free trade zones will receive a minimum of US$121 per month or US$0.50 per hour; farm workers, US$71 per month or US$0.30 per hour; construction workers, US$166 per month or US$0.70 per hour; domestic workers, US$104 per month or US$0.43 per hour. The previous week the National Workers Front (FNT) had lowered its demand from a 35% increase to 20% in an effort to reach an agreement, but the business sector remained opposed. Jose Adan Aguerri, president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), said that his organization did not support the wage hikes which he said “put at risk formal employment and reduce the possibilities for workers to find jobs.”

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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