TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2009
Nicaragua Network Hotline (March 10, 2009)
1. International Women's Day provokes wide range of responses2. Forest fires continue to blaze in western departments
3. Ortega interviewed by David Frost
4. Government to meet with business council over crisis
5. Nicaragua signs a new offshore oil exploration deal
Topic 1: International Women's Day provokes wide range of responses
March 8th, International Women's Day, was celebrated in a variety of ways including an FSLN-organized march of several hundred in Managua. Speakers, ranging from Managua Vice-Mayor Daisy Torres (FSLN) to representatives from the most humble neighborhoods, called on all Nicaraguan women to claim their full rights and to take their due place in the social, economic and political life of the country. Several banners along the march route called for women's rights to full birth control, and on the government to reinstate therapeutic abortion, reversing a controversial decision, supported by the major political parties, to criminalize it shortly before the 2006 presidential election.
Rosario Hernández, representing Managua's District 6 of the Nicaraguan Community Movement, said proudly, "We in the Community Movement have been working non-stop ever since the Revolution in 1979. We work in health and education, getting clean water and making sure people receive their land titles. But, here, today, we should celebrate particularly our work against family violence, violence against us women and against our children. Men need to realize that we too can be desperate, we too need work, we too can lose our self-respect; but that that's no excuse. Violence is not the answer; it only makes the children violent, and we perpetuate the problem. Remember that this is the 30th anniversary of the revolution and the 75th anniversary of the death of General Sandino, the person who rid Nicaragua of the oppressor's forces and who has inspired us all ever since to keep on fighting no matter what. In his spirit, and that of his strongest supporter, his wife, Blanca Arauz, we must continue to go forward, together, men and women together."
Others spoke of the various government programs, especially free health care and schooling, Zero Hunger and Zero Usury, saying that they were beginning to free women from the traditional burdens of multiple work loads, giving them a measure of dignity and self-confidence previously denied them, and some chance of improving the lot of both themselves and their children.
However, in a statement showing the class divisions in the women's movement, feminist Sofia Montenegro said, "These programs, Zero Hunger and the rest, are mere palliatives. What's really going on here in Nicaragua is a retrenchment in women's rights. We women need to get out into the workforce, to make our own way, not be tied even further to the house by having to take care of pigs and cows as well as our children."
The Maria Elena Cuadra Movement (MEC), a non-union association of women workers in the Free Trade Zones, organized a conference of unemployed women to share their perceptions of the effects of the international financial crisis. Facing what commentators are calling the “third wave” of impacts, Nicaraguans are suffering as the economy takes rolling hits, and as the flight to the US dollar distorts investment patterns throughout the world. For Nicaragua's women, so many of them the sole breadwinners for their families, the effects are to make an already hard life almost insupportable. The unemployed have no government subsidy on which to fall back, they are on their own, MEC members said.
MEC executive director Sandra Ramos explained that the conference was analyzing first and foremost the devastating effects of the crisis on women working in factories of the Free Trade Zones. She said that in 2008 alone five textile factories had shut down, throwing 18,000 women out of work. And that the Association of Textile and Garment Industries is already on record as saying that the prospects for 2009 are flat out “bad” because of the recession in the US. The US is the primary customer for Nicaragua's garments and other products.
Others also stressed the necessity for the restoring of women's 100 year-old right to therapeutic abortion, for the upholding of a secular state, and for the authorities to crack down on domestic violence. Sorrowfully, it was noted that at least 17 women had been murdered during the first two months of this year.
Topic 2: Forest fires continue to blaze in western departments
The Nicaraguan Army together with the Environment and Forestry ministries were still battling to contain forest fires that have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest and grazing land in Leon and Chinandega. Initial civil defense reports said that although some fires were now being brought under control, there was a great deal of concern over the fire raging around the El Hoyo volcano. Sources said that as yet this fire was continuing to burn fiercely, fanned by very strong winds. "All in all," said one, "the working conditions are very difficult - and very dangerous.” A whole series of communities was being directly affected by the flames and heavy smoke, among them Momotombo, La Chistata, La Paloma, La Montañosa, La Hoya and Las Pilas. Many local residents were forced to leave, although many also remained to guard what little they had.
Local mayor, Alberto Mendez, describing the struggle of the firefighters as "nothing short of heroic," said that everything that could be done was being done, but that until the winds abated, the fires would still have the upper hand. "When Mother Nature takes control," he said, "there's very little we mortals can do." Fires have been of unusual intensity this year. Despite the fact that the recent weather has been unseasonably cool, the brush and timber were already tinder dry and the cooler weather has brought with it the fierce, gusting winds more usual in January and early February. Usually after the turbulent beginning to the year, March and April become increasingly hot and stuffy, with little if any wind, breathless before the onset of the torrential rains in early May.
Topic 3: Ortega interviewed by David Frost
In an intriguing interview with well-known British journalist and broadcaster David Frost, President Daniel Ortega spoke about his belief that the possibility of presidential re-election was in the interests of the Nicaraguan people. He declared that he was eager to amend the Constitution to put in place a more parliamentary model, including creating the post of Prime Minister. Thus, even without presidential re-election, he, or anyone else, could serve as prime minister for a term and then run for president again. The interview was broadcast globally via the Al Jazeera TV station.
In response to Frost's observation that, "Your friend Preident Hugo Chavez has just been given the right to run for re-election as often as he chooses, " Ortega explained, "What I stand for is the right of people everywhere to elect the candidate of their choice, whether this means re-election or not. If a person is already serving them well, they have the right to re-elect that person. If not, they have the right to dismiss that person from office. Now that the FSLN is back in government, if the situation permits, I would indeed run again as presidential candidate. Or, if not, serve as prime minister for a term before standing again."
Frost elicited revealing statements from the Nicaraguan president about how his father and mother had suffered under the Somozas and how their influence caused him to start thinking about the injustices within Nicaragua before he was ten. He talked of his time in the guerrillas when he had not known who he had killed, if anyone, but was often “in situations of killing or being killed” and how he participated in the execution of Somoza's most brutal torturer, at whose hands he himself had suffered. Finally he called the FSLN electoral loss in 1990 “inevitable”' given that with a population 3 million, more than 30,000 people had already been killed in the US-backed contra war, thousands more wounded, and that “George Bush the Father” was openly threatening to continue the war while "every day, parents were burying more of their children." Ortega dismissed reported allegations that he was leading Nicaragua “down the road to dictatorship” and allegations from the poet Ernesto Cardenal that he was suffering from some health problem that caused him to avoid direct sunlight. Responding to Frost's observation that he seemed fit as a fiddle, Ortega laughed and said, "That's all part of the psychological warfare being conducted against us."
Frost was in Nicaragua to interview President Ortega for his program "Frost Over the World." He gave Ortega top billing, over actor Robert De Niro and Sen. John Kerry. Frost brought Nicaragua up again when speaking with Kerry, reminding the Senator that he had gone to Nicaragua during the 1980s in what Frost called "your vocation to dialogue." "Indeed," he continued, "President Ortega's last words to me were 'Please give Senator Kerry my personal greetings'." Kerry responded abruptly, "I just wish President Ortega was being a little more constructive." Kerry is chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
According to Raul Obregon, general manager of the polling firm, M&R Associates, re-election has met with consistent rejection by the majority of Nicaraguans. Obregon said, “If we were to have a referendum today to reform the Constitution to allow re-election, about 75% of Nicaraguans would say ‘No'.”
Topic 4: Government to meet with business council over crisis
President Ortega and Vice-President Jaime Morales Carazo will meet with the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), to discuss the effects of the global economic crisis on Nicaragua. Other high-level members of government will also be in attendance, as well as representatives from all areas of commerce and trade. In announcing the meeting, Morales said that Nicaragua's exports have fallen dramatically, while support for the country's budget had been withdrawn or suspended by the traditional international donor community. Taking all these matters together, he explained, Nicaragua is now facing a 2009 budget shortfall of roughly US$200 million.
On top of this, Central Bank President Antenor Rosales recently announced that his institution is projecting a drop in Nicaragua's international currency reserves of around US$40 million by year's end, a situation that would obligate an additional cut of US$65 million from the national budget. Eliseo Nuñez Morales, a Liberal Constitutional Party deputy to the Central American Parliament, demanded that business people take what he called a “more belligerent attitude,” since “the post-electoral crisis” had been a major contributing factor to the withdrawal of support from international donors. In a cool response, COSEP President José Adán Aguerri stated flatly that business people had already made their positions plain on this topic, and that what they are now asking for is that the current situation to be addressed as a matter of top priority.
Topic 5: Nicaragua signs a new offshore oil exploration deal
Nicaragua signed a contract with the US company Infinity Energy Resources on Thursday to explore for oil off the country's Caribbean Coast after the North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regional Councils dropped legal challenges. The Texas-based company will invest $30 million in exploration projects at two sites The firm can explore the 2,500 sq. mi. areas, both about 40 miles off Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast, for 6 years. If the company strikes oil it can extract it for 30 years. The government of President Daniel Ortega signed a similar deal in April 2008 with a unit of US oil company MKJ Xploration. The government of Enrique Bolanos tried to complete the exploration contracts, but was stalled in court by the Autonomous Regional Councils which claimed they had not been properly consulted. The area is populated mostly by African descendants and Miskito Indians -- among the poorest people in Central America. The councils feared oil exploration could hurt the local fishing and tourism industries. Like most of Central America, Nicaragua is dependent on costly fuel imports and would benefit enormously from the discovery of domestic oil fields, government official Javier Chamorro said.
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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