TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2009
Nicaragua Network Hotline (February 24, 2009)
1. Commemoration of 75th anniversary of Sandino's death; 30th anniversary of Nicanet's birth2. Right wing again fails to unify; marches planned for Feb. 28
3. Journalists elect a president from Radio La Primerisima
4. Six US Representatives visit Nicaragua; aid decision set for March 11
5. Campaign to reduce dengue successful in 2008
Topic 1: Commemoration of 75th anniversary of Sandino's death
On Feb. 21, Nicaraguans commemorated the 75th anniversary of the assassination of “General of Free People” Augusto C. Sandino in 1934. National Guard leader Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who would take over the presidency two years later founding a dynasty that lasted for 43 years, ordered Sandino's assassination following a peace talk meeting with President Sacasa. Sandino's long struggle forced the US Marines, who had occupied the country from 1912-1933, to abandon the country leaving in place their proxy army, the National Guard.
President Daniel Ortega spoke at the ceremony in Ocotal, the scene of many battles between Sandino and the occupying forces of the US Marines and National Guard. Ortega said that his government's programs were inspired by the ideals of social justice of Sandino, naming the Zero Hunger Program, the literacy campaign, and free education and health care. Ortega said that the FSLN has to make “pacts with our adversaries” but “we must not confide in them because they are at the service of the empire, of those who put Somoza in power.” He also condemned those whom he called “opportunists” who pretend to be revolutionaries until things go badly and then “they begin to disown the revolutionaries.”
Ortega said, “Sandino is present in the struggle that today the people of Latin America and the Caribbean are carrying out in the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas).” He added that “Soon we will have more countries in this great alliance.” He said, “Sandino is present in the Councils of Citizen Power” and added that there are those who fear the councils “because they want power only for the rich; they don't want power for the poor, for the peasants, the women, the workers, the demobilized soldiers.”
In Managua, members of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) placed a wreath at the monument to Sandino at the top of Tiscapa Hill in the center of Managua. MRS National Assembly Deputy Monica Baltodano, herself a former Sandinista guerilla commander, released her new book, Sandinismo, Pacts, Democracy and Revolutionary Change. Baltodano said that Daniel Ortega had replaced popular struggle with electoral clientelism and political pacts, and has replaced loyalty to the Sandinista cause with “a cult of personality,” while replacing the red and black of Sandino's flag with “a pale pink.”
February 24 also marks the 30th anniversary of the 1979 conference that formed the Nicaragua Network, originally named the National Network in Solidarity with the Nicaraguan People. For 30 years we have supported the struggle of the Nicaraguan people for self-determination and dignity and opposed US government intervention in Nicaragua's sovereign affairs.
Topic 2: Right wing again fails to unify; marches planned for Feb. 28
Attempts to unify the right-wing failed again last week when the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) suspended discussions with the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) after the ALN refused to support efforts to overturn the Nov. 9 municipal elections. ALN party leader, Eliseo Nuñez, said they did not want to risk losing the four city halls that they had captured in the elections. Nuñez said, “We believe nullifying the elections would leave only two parties at the national level; it would leave just the PLC and the FSLN and we would really be damaging the foundations of democracy.”
Meanwhile, Robert Courtney, director of the US-funded organization Ethics and Transparency (E&T), claimed that fraud occurred in at least 40 municipalities on Nov. 9. He said E&T's investigation revealed expulsion of PLC poll watchers, annulling of votes, substitution of voter tally sheets, voter intimidation, and lack of vigilance at the time of transportation of electoral materials. With the exception of a challenge of results in two Managua precincts, no challenges of the election have been filed with the Supreme Electoral Council, the independent branch of government responsible for conducting elections.
Eduardo Montealegre, failed candidate for president and mayor of Managua, has urged all of his supporters to sign up with the Independent Liberal Party, causing some consternation among PLI old timers. PLI President Indalecio Rodriguez announced a party congress in May. There is concern that Montealegre only wants to use the party because it has legal recognition and place on the ballot which his group does not have. Montealegre ran for president in 2006 as a candidate of the ALN and for mayor of Managua with the PLC. The PLI was formed in 1944 to oppose the first dictator Somoza's plan to run for re-election. Montealegre has been touring the country with one of Somoza's grandsons adding to the PLI members' doubts.
Montealegre said that his supporters would join Feb. 28 marches in Managua and seven other cities organized by the Movement for Nicaragua, a group founded and funded by the US International Republican Institute (IRI). The announced slogan for the march will be “Where is my vote?” During President Ortega's Ocotal address he called on Sandinistas to march on Feb. 28 and to start celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution that will culminate in July. Violeta Granera, coordinator of the Movement for Nicaragua, complained that Ortega's call for parallel marches was “total irresponsibility” adding that “the president knows perfectly well what the two [rival] marches will mean. If the president was sensible, the marches wouldn't be on the same day,” she stated, adding “they have every right to march; what they don't have the right to do is to attack us as they have done in the past.”
Topic 3: Journalists elect a president from Radio La Primerisima
The Nicaraguan College of Journalists, the primary professional association for reporters, elected Jose Leonel Laguna, a lawyer and journalist for Radio La Primerisima its new president on Feb. 21. Laguna won 44% of the vote against two other candidates. El Nuevo Diario labeled the win by the La Primerisima journalist “a threat to independent journalism” and La Prensa called it a “loss of independence.” Freelance journalist Sergio Simpson came in second, followed by Gustavo Bermudez of Radio La Corporacion. Radio La Primerisima said that the claim that the election meant the government of President Daniel Ortega now controlled the journalists' association had no base in fact and that it was “totally false” that Laguna was “the candidate of the government party.” Radio La Primerisima maintains a position of critical support for the government and is one of the few media outlets in the country that is not rabidly against or rabidly for the Ortega government.
Anti-Ortega educator and former Sandinista diplomat, Carlos Tunnermann, claimed that the government saw the possibility to take over the organization and took it, enrolling its public relations experts in the organization. Sofia Montenegro, journalist and director of the Center for Communications and Social Research (CINCO), said she has given the group “up for dead,” adding that it has been taken over by government supporters who will convert it into a subordinate organization where orders are given and received. These comments are strange considering that there is no press censorship in Nicaragua and the College of Journalists is a professional association without any control over media editorial policies.
Topic 4: Six US Representatives visit Nicaragua; aid decision postponed to March 11
Six members of the US House of Representatives, led by Eliot Engel (D-NY) who is chair of the Western Hemisphere Sub-Committee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, met with President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua last week. Engel reportedly conveyed the interest of the administration of President Barack Obama to improve relations between the two countries. They also discussed the accusations of fraud in the municipal elections last November. Engel said that he supported renewing disbursal of funds from the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) which were frozen based on concerns about the elections.
The decision on cancelling or continuing MCA funding will be made at the board meeting now scheduled for March 11. Please go to here and send a message to the Millennium Challenge board that to cut-off its poverty reduction aid will only hurt the poor in Nicaragua. For more information, click here.
Engel revealed that Ortega spoke to him about a past election [1996] where fraud was committed in order to prevent the Sandinistas from winning power, and he said that Ortega added that what was happening now in Nicaragua was that the losers didn't want to accept their defeat. Ortega expressed his interest in maintaining respectful relations with the United States. He added, “In Nicaragua there is not one political prisoner; there is absolute freedom of the press…. But in spite of this they say that here there is a dictatorship.” Others in the delegation were: Ruben Hinajosa (D-TX), John Salazar (D-CO), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Mark Souder (R-IN), and Jean Schmidt (R-OR). Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos said that the visit was very good in particular because of the interest on the part of two members of the U.S. Congress in supporting education projects in Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, on Feb. 18, US Ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan and the head of the Nicaraguan Army, Omar Halleslevens, observed the training of members of Nicaragua's naval force by 75 United States Marines on the Navy ship HSV-2 Swift [a high-speed catamaran] that had docked at the port of El Bluff on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Halleslevens said that the training was particularly welcome in light of budget cuts at a time when the forces need training in combating drug trafficking and protecting the environment.
Topic 5: Campaign to reduce dengue successful in 2008
109 of Managua's 686 neigborhoods having been fumigated and undergone standing water abatement efforts to reduce dengue and malaria. Maritza Cuan, director of the Local System of Integral Health Attention (SILAIS-Managua) reported that health brigade workers (brigadistas) and the Ministry of Health (MINSA) have gone door to door in the 109 District 6 neighborhoods educating people about how to remove the conditions that allow mosquitoes to breed and transmit dengue. The campaign will now move into District 4. Cuan emphasized that success depends on participation of the citizens “because there is nothing gained by the Ministry of Health fumigation and abatement if the population doesn't apply the methods of prevention such as destruction of the breeding places of mosquitoes.” Cuan said that in 2008 their efforts reduced dengue to only 20 reported cases of classical dengue and no cases of the life-threatening hemorrhagic dengue. SILAIS-Managua has 2,000 health brigadistas who have responsibility to train and educate the people in the communities and to carry out the abatement projects.
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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