TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2009
Nicaragua Network Hotline (May 26, 2009)
1. Government readies a manual to regulate non-governmental organizations2. Nicaragua makes advances in agriculture
3. Government makes proposals to US on property issue
4. IMF mission begins two week visit to Nicaragua
5. Nicaragua cleans up its litter and counts its species
Topic 1: Government readies a manual to regulate non-governmental organizations
Minister of Government Ana Isabel Morales said that the government is ready to release a manual that would regulate the operations of non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua. The newspaper La Prensa reported that sources had told the daily that international groups would be prohibited from funding political activities and that international funds would have to be dedicated to social and economic projects only. Morales responded, “What the manual and the law establish is clear; [international] financing is not to involve itself in political issues.”
Organizations that carry out political activities with foreign funding were alarmed. Ana Quiroz of the Center for Health Information and Consulting Services said that any control imposed by the government of President Daniel Ortega would represent a limitation on the development of democracy in the country. Noting that there were about 4,000 NGOs in Nicaragua, she said that the goal would be to limit the action of groups that the government considered a threat by limiting their funding. Javier Melendez, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policies, said that the manual, if put into effect, would mean that “organizations such as the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the US or any other organization would not be able to train members of the political parties in leadership, transparency in the public sector or any other related subject.” He questioned, “With this restriction, will these organizations have to cancel their operations in Nicaragua?”
Let us hope so. The reason the measures are needed in the first place is because the main weapon of US “regime change” strategies, especially in Latin America, is the use of so called “democracy building” programs to fund and train right-wing opposition parties and even coup fomenters. Whether the regulations are ultimately judged good or bad depends on how the government defines “political.” NGO participation in electoral politics is strictly forbidden in the US, as it will now be in Nicaragua. However, if restrictions are placed on public policy advocacy, such as abortion rights, then it will have a chilling effect on Nicaraguan democracy.
Topic 2: Nicaragua makes advances in agriculture
The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, headquartered in Costa Rica, named Nicaragua and Chile as having the most dynamic agricultural sectors in the Americas. IICA Director Gerardo Escudero said that the increase of 5% in the production of food that Nicaragua has achieved is something that few countries in the world have matched in the present economic crisis. He added that a successful model must be sustainable, incorporate knowledge and technology, and include the small and medium farmers. “We have to rise out of the ashes of the urban industrial model that made us poor and look again at the countryside,” Escudero said. He also noted the increased participation of women in agriculture saying that women have taken over the responsibility of much of the region's food production.
The Food and Agriculture Organization said that Nicaragua is the country in Central America that has achieved the most in the fight against hunger, having lowered its percentage of malnourished from 52% to 22%. FAO representative in Nicaragua Dr. Gero Vaagt said, “The government of Nicaragua gives great importance to food and nutritional security which is reflected in the efforts it has made on the national level with small farmers, poor peasants, and the most vulnerable population of the country, to improve their food situation.” Among the government programs he mentioned were Zero Hunger, school nutrition programs, the infant malnutrition eradication program, and the National Food Program which seeks to increase food production by improving seeds. Although recent figures show that Nicaragua continues to have the most problems with nutrition in the region, Vaagt said that it is also the country that has put in place more policies to guarantee food security for its citizens. Nicaragua shows a drop of 30% in food insecurity, compared to an increase of 2% in Guatemala.
Food production should improve even more since the May 21 new Production Promotion Bank is getting underway with National Assembly approval of Sandinista Gustavo Picado Moreno board president and a former attorney for the Superior Council of Private Enterprize (COSEP), Orestes Romero Rojas, as vice-president. They were confirmed with the support of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN), the newly formed Bench of Nicaraguan Unity (BUN), and in the case of Romero, the Nicaraguan Democratic Bench (BDN). All of the presidential candidates in 2006 promised to establish a development bank after 17 years without a source of financing for small and medium farms and businesses and now it is finally a reality.
Constitutional Liberal Party deputies did not vote when it became obvious that their favored candidate, Gilberto Wong, could not prevail. Wong was head of the Free Trade Zones in the 1990s and was hostile to union organizing in the garment industry. The other members of the board will be named by President Daniel Ortega and will include a representative each from the government, the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG), and the Nicaraguan Union of Producers (UPANIC). They will have to be confirmed by the National Assembly as well. The bank will begin operations with an initial capital of US$54.4 million and it is hoped that it may be able to help finance the second planting this year which will begin in September. Danilo Chavarria, President Ortega's first choice for board president, was dropped in the face of opposition from the other political parties.
Topic 3. Government makes proposals to US on property issue
Foreign Minister Samuel Santos and Prosecutor General Hernan Estrada met with US Ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan to review progress in compensation to US citizens for loss of property during the revolution of the 1980s. Auxiliadora Rayo, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, said the ambassador was informed that the government had favorably resolved 33 claims of US citizens during the previous (US) fiscal year. Those were claims filed during Violeta Chamorro's presidency (1990-1996).
Estrada told Callahan that there were 52 claims on that list from people who, after 15 years, had still not presented the required documents. Estrada proposed that they be purged from the list. Estrada also explained to the ambassador that the remaining names were of Nicaraguans, now citizens of the United States, who were officers in the National Guard or members of the Somoza family. He noted that not even the previous governments viewed those claims as valid.
In order to receive economic assistance from the United States, the Nicaraguan government each year must show “progress” in resolving pending property disputes resulting from Nicaraguans who left the country to live in the United States, became US citizens, and then claimed compensation based on US law on property confiscated from US citizens. Some of the property was foreclosed when the previous owners mortgaged the property, took the money to the US, and never made payments on their loans. Some was taken for agrarian reform, which the FSLN acknowledges was sometimes abused. And some was taken from supporters of the Somoza dictatorship and the Somoza family who had gained it by illegitimate means. Estrada said that since 1994, the Nicaraguan government has paid out US$1.228 million in compensation.
The US government makes the decision as to whether progress has been made on property claims each July. Estrada said that last year the decision was favorable based on the resolution of 40 cases. He said that he hoped that the decision would be favorable this year as well, as the list gets down to cases that are more difficult to resolve.
Topic 4: IMF mission begins two week visit to Nicaragua
On May 20 a mission from the International Monetary Fund began a two week visit to Nicaragua to evaluate the second and third revisions to the economic program that the country signed with the IMF in 2007. Central Bank President Antenor Rosales said that Nicaragua has fulfilled with responsibility the established parameters and should be receiving a disbursement of US$35 million of the more than US$113 total agreed to in the program. Rosales said that Nicaragua is asking for another US$25 million on top of that given the world financial crisis. The IMF mission, led by Luis Cubeddu, will analyze macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, economic growth and the level of international currency reserves. The fact that Nicaragua has registered an inflation rate of zero for the first quarter of 2009 and maintained its level of international reserves above the required level means that the government can count on the approval by the IMF of its economic policies, according to independent economist Nestor Avendaño.
Topic 5: Nicaragua cleans up its litter and counts its species
On May 23 the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA) inaugurated a National Cleanup Day with the objective of eliminating trash and litter from the roadways of all the municipalities of the country. Vice-Minister Roberto Araquistain said that the major challenge is to make people understand that they shouldn't throw their trash on the ground, especially plastic bags, which are the largest component of litter in the environment. All types of people participated in the clean-up, according to the vice-minister, including members of the Councils of Citizen Power, volunteers, students and employees of city offices.
Araquistain mentioned that highways, bus stops, and markets are the places where most garbage accumulates in any municipality because they are the places where people gather to buy food and drink. “It is not like before when we drank from glass containers,” he said. “Now we use plastic bags, and that has created the enormous quantities of plastic bags which contaminate the environment and the landscape. It is terrible.”
In other environmental news, Central America could have more biodiversity than previously believed, as Nicaragua, the largest country with the most extensive protected areas, only now begins a species inventory. Nicaragua has had no clear understanding of its natural resources. But, thanks to US$8.4 million in support from Spain to open biological laboratories in the SIAPAZ nature reserve which includes the Rio San Juan, Indo Maiz and Southeast, as well as in the Bosawas Biological Reserve in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, it can now do a comprehensive census.
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