TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2009
Nicaragua Network Hotline (February 10, 2009)
1. Aid continues from Europe, the US and Iran2. New school year begins with new curriculum
3. Reaction continues to Montealegre's joining the PLI
4. Housing bill passed by committee in National Assembly
5. Coffee exports fall 9.1% in first quarter of the harvest year; lobsters beginning to sell
Topic 1: Aid continues from Europe, the U.S. and Iran
A delegation from the German parliament expressed to the Nicaraguan government on Feb. 6 the need to resolve “with transparency” the question of the Nov. 9, 2008, municipal elections while at the same time noting Germany's intention to continue its financial support for Nicaragua through non-governmental organizations. At the same time the government of Spain approved a fund of €3 million (around US$4 million) for small farms and businesses in Nicaragua through the Foundation for Rural Socio-Economic Development. At the ceremony marking the donation, Spanish Ambassador Antonio Perez-Hernandez said, “Nicaragua is a priority for Spain.” He said that “There have been some recent statements from the European Union which have expressed a general position and now each member country can orient its cooperation in the direction it sees fit.” He added that, “We have no intention of reducing our cooperation [with Nicaragua].”
US Ambassador Robert Callahan confirmed Feb. 4 that his government will continue aid to the Ministry of Education independent of “some little problems we have in our bilateral relations.” In December the United States suspended disbursements of more than US$60 million to conclude the Millennium Challenge project for development in the western part of the country as a pressure mechanism because of complaints of municipal election irregularities by losing Managua mayoral candidate Eduardo Montealegre.
Callahan presented Minister of Education Miguel de Castilla with a donation from the US Agency for International Development of US$254,000 to buy educational materials. The USAID program has donated a total of US$13 million to a program called “Excellence” which has benefitted 3,000 elementary schools since 2004. The program promotes active and participatory methods in which each child can succeed and it involves the parents and community in the reformed curriculum. It also incorporates the particular needs of the indigenous and ethnic communities. The Education Ministry reported that 444,761 children in 153 municipalities have participated in the program. Callahan said during the event that a quality education strives to give students the abilities and knowledge that are necessary to work and participate in a democratic society as informed citizens. [See article below.]
Meanwhile, the Iranian Ambassador to Nicaragua Akbar Esmaeil-Pour said that his country intends to broaden its relationship with Nicaragua and invest in several projects. Speaking to the National Assembly, Esmaeil-Pour said, “We have decided to expand friendly relations with struggling and heroic peoples like those of Nicaragua.” He reminded the deputies that Iran had offered the government of Nicaragua several projects in the areas of health and energy.
Topic 2: New school year begins with new curriculum
Miguel de Castilla, Minister of Education, saw the new school year off early in the morning on Feb. 3 at the Villa Venezuela Primary School where he said that, during 2008, eleven new schools had been built and 4,000 classrooms repaired. He criticized previous heads of the Education Ministry saying, “You can see the disaster they left.” He also criticized the media for blowing up the issue of whether teachers should hold down two teaching jobs, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, to make ends meet. The Ministry had tried to limit teachers to only one job in the public schools in order to be able to hire teachers who were unemployed, but the protests caused the Ministry to backtrack on the issue.
In most departments the numerical goals for registration were not met on the first day but Ministry officials expressed the hope that more children would register during the week. Gloria Gonzalez, departmental delegate for Chinandega, said that last year 117,000 children registered in her department and this year they had hoped to register 125,000 but only 88,700 had registered so far. She said that at the end of January 75,000 backpacks, 30,000 pairs of shoes and 30,000 uniforms had been distributed mainly to rural children in Chinandega. Deymin Vanesa Centeno, departmental delegate for Chontales, said that registration would go on all week, adding that there were no fees being charged and uniforms were not required. Children without birth certificates were being registered, according to Ministry officials. In Masaya, 500 working children were registered. Mayra Cortez, principal of the Benjamin Zeledon High School, said her school with 3,600 students lacked about 300 chairs along with some other basic materials.
Rosa Maria Mendez, who was in charge of training teachers at 17 schools said that under the new curriculum being inaugurated this year, students will no longer merely memorize their lessons as presented by the teacher but will learn to work with the teacher to find the answers and to be creative.
Topic 3: Reaction continues to Montealegre's joining the PLI
Failed presidential and mayoral candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, who is also under indictment for corruption when he was Minister of the Treasury, began travelling the country to build what he called the “true opposition democratic coalition.” He was accompanied by Alvaro Somoza Urcuyo, son of the late President Luis Somoza and grandson of President Anastasio Somoza Garcia. Somoza said he supported Constitutional Liberal Party candidate for president, Jose Rizo in 2006, but has left the PLC because its leader, Arnoldo Aleman “had turned the country over to the Sandinistas.” Montealegre last week announced that he was joining the Independent Liberal Party (PLI), a party that was formed in 1944 to oppose the reelection ambitions of Somoza's grandfather.
Back in Managua, Montealegre said that the PLI was “the last hope in the defense of democracy that Nicaraguans have.” He called the corruption charges against him “political” and said he was ready to have his legislative immunity lifted for prosecution. Montealegre has been indicted along with 38 others in a case where the government was stuck with tens of millions of dollars of private debt from four failed banks. He said, “If they lift my immunity as Eliseo Nuñez threatens, well, I'll face the court and if I have to go to jail, well, I'll go to jail. But I'm not going to submit, nor am I going to give in; I'm not going to get down on my knees before anyone.”
Meanwhile, Enrique Quiñonez, who was elected as a PLC Deputy in the National Assembly and is a former contra commander as well as a former officer in Somoza's brutal National Guard where he worked at the infamous Infantry Basic Training School (EEBI), has also broken with Aleman. He said after meeting with right-wing Nicaraguans living in Miami that what most bothered those he met with was the handing over by the PLC leadership of the elections “by fraud” to the Sandinista Party (FSLN). He announced the creation of an “anti-pact coalition that he said would be led by Montealegre and the PLI, by Edmundo Jarquin of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), and by Conservatives and Liberals who oppose negotiations between the PLC and the FSLN. If it is indeed true that the MRS is joining a coalition which includes, not only high ranking officials of the Somoza dictatorship, but also the grandson of Sandino's murderer, it would seem that the MRS has definitively abandoned its ties to Sandinismo. However, we won't jump to conclusions based on statements by war criminal Quiñonez.
Indalecio Rodriguez, current president of the PLI, said that in May the party will hold its convention to elect new municipal officers and at that time will take into account the incorporation into its ranks of the members of the “Let's Go with Eduardo” Movement.
Topic 4: Housing bill passed by committee in National Assembly
The Infrastructure Committee of the National Assembly passed the Law for People's Housing on Feb. 5 and sent it to the whole Assembly for consideration. The bill provides for the building of houses (150,000 in the first stage) of between 387 and 646 square feet in size with a value of not greater than US$20,000 which would be paid for by the occupant over a number of years at low interest. The houses would be built by cooperatives, municipalities, and private companies and individuals, with the government guaranteeing the mortgages. Sandinista Deputy Edwin Castro said this would enable citizens who would not normally be able to obtain a mortgage from a bank to buy a house and in this way “we can work all together on this great housing deficit that Nicaragua has.” Estimates vary but the housing deficit could be as high as 750,000 units. The law would establish a National Land Bank of public lands and lands taken by the government for non-payment of taxes where housing could be built.
Criticisms were not long in coming. El Nuevo Diario headlined: “Arbitrary impositions in Social Housing Law.” El Nuevo Diario cited objections to obligations put on employers to 1) advance to employees money that would be owed them for years on the job in order to help pay for a house and to 2) deduct mortgage payments from employees salaries and make those payments on time and in full. La Prensa headlined, “There is no consensus” and noted that while the government claimed that most sectors of society had been consulted on the bill, the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) and the Chamber of Urban Developers (CADUR) said that there was not total consensus on the final version of the bill as it was reported out of committee. There has been right-wing criticism for every Ortega government anti-poverty proposal.
Topic 5: Coffee exports fall 9.1% in first quarter of the harvest year; lobsters beginning to sell
Coffee exports fell 9.1% in the first three months of the 2008-2009 harvest season compared to the same period the previous year, the government announced on Feb. 7. The export of coffee from October through December 2008 produced US$33.8 million compared to US$37.2 million during the same period in 2007. The government agency that monitors coffee exports, CENTREX, attributed the decrease to the fall of international coffee prices and a decrease in productivity on Nicaraguan farms.
Meanwhile, the 500,000 pounds of lobsters that Nicaragua has had in storage for three months due to the collapse of the market in the United States are beginning to sell but at a price, US$10 per pound, that barely covers the costs of production. Armando Segura, director of the Chamber of Fisheries, said that in January of 2008, CENTREX reported that the lobsters were selling for approximately double that. Besides some sales to the US, Segura said they were selling to the Dominican Republic and other Central American countries and had made contact with Taiwan. Only between 3 and 5% of the seafood produced in Nicaragua is consumed in country.
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