TUESDAY, JUNE 09, 2009
Nicaragua Network Hotline (June 9, 2009)
1. Decisions on international aid approach2. Assembly passes law to govern Nicaragua's coasts
3. Opposition marches in Masaya and condemns limits on foreign funding
4. Pellas salutes pact with unions; National Workers Front (FNT) condemns union pact
5. Nicaragua exporting beans and cattle to Venezuela
Topic 1: Decisions on international aid approach
On June 10 the United States government will make the decision about whether to resume Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) aid to Nicaragua that was suspended in December due to controversy about the November municipal elections. Ambassador Robert Callahan said last week that “Nothing has changed so I fear that unless we have something new soon, it will be truly difficult [for aid to be renewed].” The MCA has funded jobs and projects in western Nicaragua for: 1) development of rural/agricultural businesses; 2) building and repairing roads; and 3) land titling. Juan Sebastian Chamorro, director of the MCA in Nicaragua, said that US$110 million has already been contracted and will continue, but US$64 million may be cancelled. The cuts would harm only the poor. Other US aid programs have continued.
Prosecutor General Hernan Estrada said that the property titling program will continue with or without US aid. He said, “With respect to the titles, not only are we going to continue, but halfway through President Daniel Ortega's term, we have exceeded the number of property titles given out by the administrations of Presidents Aleman and Bolaños during their entire terms.” He said that if the MCA money is cancelled, “we have funds now promised through ALBA [the Bolivarian Alternative for Our Americas cooperation agreement].”
Mendel Goldstein, the European Commission's ambassador to Nicaragua, said on June 1 that the European Union would not turn over “a blank check to the president nor to the people; we're not going to give out money any which way; that's not possible.” Amazingly he added, “Without us, where would this country be?” He noted that aid from the European Commission (EC) and members of the European Union totaled US$3.31 billion between 2000 and 2007. The Budget Support Group, which also suspended some of its aid in December, is composed of the EC, several European countries and the World Bank. On June 11 it will make its decision about whether to renew budget support aid.
Edwin Castro, coordinator of the Sandinista bench in the National Assembly, said Goldstein's statements were “unfortunate.” He added that if Goldstein really made them it would mean that “we would be returning to colonial times, but we became independent from Europe in 1821 and we are a sovereign country.” On June 5, the government reiterated that it will not accept political conditions from the donor community.
Topic 2: Assembly passes law to govern Nicaragua's coasts
On June 4, the National Assembly unanimously passed the Law on Development of Coastal Zones which had been under discussion for over four years. The Law's Article 19 allows public use of ocean beaches 50 meters above the average high tide mark, a provision opposed by members of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP). COSEP promoted the position of private property owners and national and investors who wanted a public access limited to 30 meters. Business leaders were pleased that the law supersedes a 1917 law which established an area of public access of two kilometers. What effect the law will have on disputed ownership and use of Caribbean Coast islands such as the Pearl Cays is unknown. Public access to lakes will be limited to five meters. Members of the indigenous community of Salinas de Nahualapa of Tola in the Department of Rivas announced that they are considering filing suit against the legislation because it does not take into account the land grants that indigenous groups received from the Spanish crown in the 1600s.
Topic 3: Opposition marches in Masaya and condemns limits on foreign funding
Opposition groups marched without incident in Masaya on June 7 to protest alleged fraud in last November's municipal elections and to demand the removal of magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Council. Because a Sandinista march was announced for the same day, there were fears of violent encounters similar to those that have taken place in the past, but the fears proved unfounded.
At the Sandinista rally, the 30th anniversary of the death of eleven young people in Masaya during the final offensive of the 1979 revolution was commemorated and Education Minister Miguel de Castilla officially declared Masaya free of illiteracy. Membership cards in the Sandinista Party were handed out to new members as part of a national campaign to build membership.
The opposition march was organized by the Union of Citizens for Democracy, a coalition of 16 groups. Benjamin Lugo of the Movement for Nicaragua, a group created and funded by the US International Republican Institute, calculated that some 4,000 people attended. Politicians such as losing presidential and Managua mayoral candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, and Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) leader Edmundo Jarquin attended the march. The Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) which maintains an “on again, off again” pact with the Sandinista Party did not participate.
Also on the agenda for many groups was concern over the leaked draft of government regulations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which would establish that international NGOs with a presence in Nicaragua “must abstain from any participation in political activities of a partisan character.” Specific activities of Nicaraguan NGOs that are funded by international groups must not be political in nature either. The US regulates NGOs in a very similar manner. Nicaraguan Democratic Bench member, Maria Eugenia Sequeira, said that this prohibition constitutes a “blockade” of democracy. She said that, “More than ever, now that we have a dictatorial government, we need the support of friendly countries to promote democracy among our people.” Jarquin of the MRS called Ortega's government “a low intensity dictatorship” and said that it “is invading all the spheres of life.” Montealegre said that the regulations are a blow against democracy and part of “a pattern that is being followed in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia and now they want to implement it here and in Honduras.”
While the Nicaragua Network is not surprised that the “bought and paid for” Nicaraguan right-wing supports US intervention in Nicaragua's internal affairs, it is disappointing to hear former revolutionaries such as Jarquin echo the calls in favor of foreign electoral manipulation.
Ana Quiroz, director of the Center for Health Information and Consultancy Services (CISAS), speaking at a National Assembly hearing, noted that the Nicaraguan Constitution establishes that citizens can organize in the form they find most convenient and for the reasons they find convenient with no limitations except those provided for in the law. She pointed out that the Electoral Law clearly states which activities can receive foreign funding, and among those activities are advising and training, thus the government may need to change the law.
Topic 4: Pellas signs pact with unions; FNT condemns unions that supported Pellas
Manipulating workers' fear for their jobs in light of an international boycott of Nicaragua's famed Flor de Caña rum, Carlos Pellas, president of Nicaragua's largest business group, signed an accord with three of the country's major labor federations which “guarantees” jobs for the more than 7,000 workers at the National Liquor Company and Nicaragua Sugar Estates, Ltd. in exchange for the unions criticizing the International Union of Food Workers (UITA) which is working on behalf of former workers poisoned on the Pellas sugar plantations. The unions include the Sandinista Workers Central (CST), the Confederation of Union Unity (CUS), and the Autonomous Confederation of Union Unity (CUS-A). Chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) has killed several thousand sugar workers in recent years. Survivors and their widows have been camped in downtown Managua for several months demanding negotiations with Pellas. Apparently the Pellas Group is beginning to feel the pressure. Last week Pellas announced that he would help build a hospital to treat kidney disease and work with the government to study the disease.
The Nicaraguan Workers Front (FNT) strongly condemned the three unions for supporting the Pellas Group. The FNT said that it was a “vile action to put a brake on the claims of hundreds of workers who suffer from chronic renal insufficiency as a result of the indiscriminate use of agricultural toxins, the application of which is banned internationally because of their impact on human health.”
Meanwhile, a joint commission composed of members of the National Assembly committees on Health and Labor, and the Ministries of Labor and Health, the Social Security Institute, and affected former sugar workers, met to examine policy options with relation to the problem. Gustavo Porras, a physician who is General Secretary of the FNT and chair of the Health Committee, said, “This is a grave problem and it doesn't make sense to do a study to find out the causes of CRI when everybody know that it is linked to the use of agro-toxins and the farming practices that have been used, earlier with cotton and now with sugar.” He went on to say, “We have to write a law that establishes new forms of healthy farming.”
Topic 5: Nicaragua exporting beans and cattle to Venezuela
Two hundred and fifty small farmers in the Department of Carazo planted 870 acres of black beans, all for export to Venezuela, and the national cattle industry will export 1,100 head of cattle there as well this month, part of the Ortega government's efforts to find new markets under the Bolivarian Alternative for Our Americas (ALBA) cooperative fair trade agreement. The black beans were planted under contract with Nicaragua Food, Inc. (ALBALINISA), which made a commitment to purchase all that was produced. The cattle shipment was part of an agreement to export 5,500 head to Venezuela.
Small farmers received 80 pounds of seed and 200 pounds of fertilizer and technical assistance which enabled them to produce 1,437 pounds of beans per acre cultivated. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAGFOR) now plans to expand the program to 17,400 acres, all for export under ALBA to Venezuela.
Nicaragua's cattle industry has generated US$11 million under ALBA, according to National Assembly Deputy Douglas Aleman. That is expected to rise by the end of the year. Aleman also said that 6,000 tons of beef will be shipped to Venezuela in July as part of the ALBA agreements. He said that he expected that in the coming weeks a second accord will be signed to raise the amount of beef exported to Venezuela to 12,000 tons.
Aleman also said during a celebration of International Milk Day and the Week of the Child, that the proposed Law for the Promotion of the Dairy Sector will, among other things, establish that all children under 12 years old should have a glass of milk a day in school. Promoted by the dairy industry and the government, the law is expected to easily pass the National Assembly.
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