TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009
Nicaragua Network Hotline (April 21, 2009)
1. Monica Baltodano leaves MRS2. Miskito Council of Elders declares independence
3. Question of armed groups persists
4. Nicaraguan phone numbers to change Wednesday
Topic 1: Monica Baltodano leaves MRS
On April 14, National Assembly Deputy Monica Baltodano announced that she was leaving the bench of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) saying that she did not agree with a series of decisions taken by the leadership of the MRS. She said that she was following a decision made by the Sandinista Rescue Movement (MPRS) to which she belongs. The MPRS joined the MRS for the presidential elections of 2006. She stated, “In the last few months the political spokesperson of the MRS took decisions with which we differed and the last big difference was with the position that Edmundo [Jarquin] took with relation to the elections in El Salvador when he practically went to campaign for ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance).”
Baltodano recalled that the MPRS called for voters to mark their ballots to make them null and void in the Nov. 2008 municipal elections rather than vote for the candidates of the Constitutional Liberal Party Alliance (PLC) as the MRS was promoting or for the FSLN. According to Baltodano, MPRS proposals were not adopted by the MRS. She said the “Let's Go with Eduardo” Movement (MVE) of Eduardo Montealegre and the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) are both groups with strongman (caudillo) tendencies.
Baltodano requested that she be recognized in the Assembly as MPRS and not as independent. Enrique Saenz, president of the MRS, said that he lamented Baltodano's decision but defended what he called the democratic practices of the MRS bench in the Assembly. For several weeks Baltodano has not attended press conferences organized by the MRS. Baltodano said that she wanted to dedicate herself to organizing more support for the MPRS. Her departure once again left the MRS with only two members, one short of the number needed to qualify as a bench and receive a budget and staff in the National Assembly. Several weeks ago when one MRS delegate resigned and joined the Sandinista bench, a former contra leader changed his registration to MRS in order to preserve its status as a bench. This time another former contra leader, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Jr., switched to the MRS. So now the party founded by dissident Sandinistas is represented in the National Assembly by two former contras and two former Sandinistas, party leader Enrique Saenz and former FSLN National Directorate member Victor Hugo Tinoco.
Topic 2: Miskito Council of Elders declares independence
On April 18, Miskito Council of Elders proclaimed an Independent Caribbean Coast Nation with the election of Rev. Hector Williams as the Wihta Tara (grand judge) or maximum leader of Moskitia. He, along with a Council of Ministers of the Communitarian Miskito Nation, will hold the reins of government, according to the proclamation. An Indigenous Army of Moskitia was formed as well.
The unsatisfied historical demands for land, self-determination, and respect for culture along with exploitation by successive local, regional and national governments were some of the causes that pushed the elders to declare independence according to the proclamation. The Council of Elders proclaimed independence July 2002 but never took the steps to set up a government and army. The proclamation announced a period for the turnover of government from the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) to the government headed by Williams. The proclamation calls for suspension of all elections within the Miskito Nation and orders businesses to stop paying taxes to the Nicaraguan government, announcing that they will be collected by the Miskito government. As of the writing of this hotline it is unknown what borders the Council of Elders is claiming. Past claims have included the entire Caribbean Coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua as well as part of Costa Rica.
The Elders sent messages to the National Police and the Nicaraguan Army asking them to coordinate a peaceful turnover to the newly created Indigenous Army formed by 200 former Yatama combatants. Yatama fought independently with the contras against the Sandinista Revolutionary government, but made a negotiated peace with the government in 1986 which resulted in the world's most expansive autonomy law which was thoroughly violated by the three right-wing governments that succeeded the Sandinista electoral defeat in 1990. The Elders said that they were not in accord with the way National Assembly Deputy and Yatama leader Brooklin Rivera and the Regional Authorities have been managing the North Atlantic Region.
“The hour has come when the Coast must rise up and go forward toward development after more than 100 years of going backwards under all of the governments of Nicaragua and the regional governments that obey orders from Managua,” said Gamelias Henriquez, president of the Council of Elders. He said that the Indigenous Army will defend the independence of Moskitia against any attempt to take the territory back, remembering when President Jose Santos Zelaya killed indigenous people who opposed the incorporation of the Atlantic Coast into the Republic of Nicaragua in 1894.
After reading the proclamation of independence, the Elders asked for the United Nations to accompany the new nation in its process of independence. Invitations had been extended to the diplomatic community accredited in Nicaragua, to the U.N., to the central and municipal governments and regional authorities, but no representatives attended.
The local government made attempts to frustrate the efforts of the organizers of the meeting, at first denying them the use of a sports facility and then, after giving them the keys, turning off the electricity. Representatives of the Ministry of the Environment then confiscated and returned to the sea eight turtles which members of the Awas Tara community had brought to help feed the gathering. Henriquez denounced the authorities for calling them “a bunch of crazy old men” adding that the goal of the gathering was to make the claim for the right to land of the Ramas, Miskitos, creoles, Sumos and other groups of the Coast who feel that they have been invaded and stripped of the land that they had held for centuries without titles, without boundaries and in harmony.
Rivera said that the decision to declare independence was not based on consensus among the communities and that those who participated in the independence declaration were only from the neighborhoods of Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas). He stated that people out in the other communities of the region did not even know what was happening. He said the Elders were badly advised by Oscar Hodgson [legal advisor to the Council of Elders]. “Tell me this,” Rivera said, “In what country in the world can you just declare independence this way? Independence is achieved at the cost of struggle and blood.”
Topic 3: Question of armed groups persists
Members of Military Intelligence of the First Military Region, the Nicaraguan Pro-Human Rights Association (ANPDH) and the bishop of Estelí, Abelardo Mata, met on April 18 in an interchange about the bishop's claim that there are armed bands in the north of Nicaragua. Col. Carlos Navas said that in some zones of Telpaneca, San Juan de Limay and San Juan de Rio Coco some armed individuals have assaulted trucks. Mata said, “I don't doubt your claim, but the problem that I am focused on is whether behind this violence on the part of some bandits, there is also a political issue around the problem of land.”
Roberto Ferrey, a leader in the Nicaraguan Resistance Party formed by former soldiers in the contra army which fought against the government in the 1980s,
and also present at the meeting, said that people had a right to know what is the truth between the contradictory versions they hear with the Catholic Church saying that there are armed groups and the Army saying that they are common criminals. He said, “What we know from people in Jinotega is that they have seen armed men who have uniforms and weapons, apparently new, and that they are in groups in that department.” He added, “That worries us and I want to emphasize that they are not groups from the Nicaraguan Resistance.”
Colonel Navas promised to continue to meet with citizen groups and leaders in an effort to keep society informed about the groups which he continued to call bandits. Bishop Mata said that he had put before the Army the concrete problems confronting the population along the Coco River and in the Bosawas Reserve, where the problems of land needed to be resolved.
In separate news, Carlos Barcia, Secretary for Agrarian Issues of the Nicaraguan Resistance Party said that some governmental officials are taking property that was distributed to former combatants of the Resistance after the end of the war of the 1980s and returning it to its original owners some of whom had lost their land because it was taken by state-owned banks when they didn't pay back loans taken out against the property. We know that happened under the Chamorro, Aleman, and Bolaños governments, often in response to US pressure to return the properties of “US citizens.” Many Somocistas who left Nicaragua after the fall of the dictatorship became naturalized US citizens. When the right-wing government of Violeta Chamorro won in 1990, former Sen. Jesse Helms championed the cause of returning their property. It would be very disappointing if the current government of Daniel Ortega is continuing to return property to people who mortgaged their land and took the money out of the country in the 1980s without making payments on their loans.
Barcia said he still has confidence that Cardinal Miguel Obando and his Peace and Reconciliation Commission could work out these conflicts. “We don't want our generation to again be involved in acts of violence,” he said, urging a rapid and effective response to the property problems.
Topic 4: Nicaraguan phone numbers to change Wednesday
On Wednesday, April 22, all landline and cell phone numbers in Nicaragua will change from seven digits to eight in order to satisfy increasing demand, according to the Nicaraguan telephone company ENITEL. “Eight digit numbers are already in use in the other Central American countries. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica already use them and now we will join them,” said Victor Garcia, Manager of Regulation and Interconnection of ENITEL. Cell and mobile phones will have an 8 added to the beginning of their current number and landline phones will have a 2 added. Listing information is a free call by dialing 121.
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