TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
Nicaragua News Bulletin (September 27, 2011)
1. Campaign update2. Harassment of journalist condemned
3. Campaign launched against dengue fever
4. Conference held on sexual violence against women
5. Geothermal energy to enter grid
6. Nicaraguans march to support Palestine recognition
7. Cuban 5 supported by Assembly
8. People with disabilities get a house call
1. Campaign update
On Sept. 24, the United States Embassy in Nicaragua released a statement which said that the United States “laments that the rules for ‘accompaniment' published by the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) impede electoral observation that would have credibility.” The Embassy communiqué said that the ideal would have been for national and international observers to have been present to oversee the “totality of the electoral process, including verification [of voter rolls] and culminating on the day of the elections.” The Carter Center confirmed last week that it will not be sending an observer mission, but the CSE has signed agreements with the European Union and the Organization of American States to send missions to view the elections. CSE President Roberto Rivas said that the groups will have “freedom of mobilization, access to the polling places and the right to make pronouncements about the voting.”
The candidates for president continued their travels around the country seeking votes. President Daniel Ortega addressed a large crowd in Granada and reviewed the accomplishments of the previous four years emphasizing food security, road building and repair, and affordable housing and property titles. Opposition media outlets noted travelers' complaints that public transportation busses had been put into service to carry voters to the president's rally. Former President Arnoldo Aleman, candidate of the Constitutional Liberal Party Alliance, visited Matiguas, Siuna and Mulukuku and other towns in the interior of the country, some of which had never been visited by a presidential candidate. Radio broadcaster Fabio Gadea, candidate of the Independent Liberal Party Alliance, visited Puerto Cabezas and Waspam in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN), where he reminded listeners that the Sandinista government in the 1980s forcibly moved 42 indigenous communities away from their homes near the Coco River [at the beginning of the contra war].
Meanwhile, National Assembly Deputy Monica Baltodano, a leader in the Sandinista Rescue Movement [a dissident Sandinista group that did not join the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) in supporting conservative Fabio Gadea], urged citizens to register a “protest vote” on November 6th by not voting for any of the candidates and instead attaching protest stickers to their ballots. The stickers would say “Don't count on me for this farce!” The announcement of the protest vote campaign was made in front of the Supreme Electoral Council accompanied by marimbas and folk dances. Reaction to the proposal was generally negative. A group of young people members of the Democratic Coordination Roundtable confronted Baltodano and said that her position favors Ortega's Sandinista Party. Former Sandinista Minister of Education Carlos Tunnerman said, “In spite of all of the difficulties that the electoral process has had… and all the irregularities and anomalies… the popular will expressed by a massive voter turnout of Nicaraguan citizens will legitimate the election of the candidate.”
Sept. 19 at 6:00pm was the deadline for all parties and alliances running candidates in the elections to submit to the municipal electoral councils in each town their lists of party members to be a part of the electoral boards at the voting tables in each polling place in the municipality. But leaders of the PLI Alliance said that electoral offices closed early in some towns and in others their lists were not accepted. They said that they therefore would lack representation on the electoral boards in 30 of Nicaragua's 153 municipalities. Separate from the electoral board members at each polling place are the poll watchers that each party will have independent of whether it has a member on the electoral board at the voting table. (El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 20, 22, 24, 26; Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 26)
2. Harassment of journalist condemned
The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA-SIP) last week expressed concern over the harassment and resulting self-exile of Nicaraguan journalist Silvia Gonzalez in a press release that also condemned harassment of reporters in Venezuela and Argentina. Gonzalez resigned her jobs as reporter for El Nuevo Diario and radio commentator in Jinotega and went into exile after receiving death threats and, she said, receiving no assistance from the police. IAPA officials said they hoped that “President Daniel Ortega will take the necessary steps so that none of Gonzalez' children or other family members, who are still in Nicaragua suffer any reprisal.”
While the IAPA (usually known by its Spanish initials SIP) is generally considered to be the voice of the large corporate press in Latin America, varying voices in Nicaragua condemned the death threats against the outspoken opposition journalist. Erwin Espinoza with Radio Ya (a Sandinista outlet) in Bluefields, said, “What occurred with her is lamentable and we are in solidarity with her; … the Police do not have the capacity to … protect us.” Vice-President Jaime Morales Carazo called it “shameful that Gonzalez had to leave the country because of threats and persecution.” Her newspaper, El Nuevo Diario, refused to accept her resignation saying that keeping her on staff was “the least we can do.”
Gonzalez said that the threats began in July of this year when she accused the Nicaraguan military of murdering Gabriel Jose Garmendia, a former contra leader who opposition figures said had again taken up arms against the government but who the Army said was a common criminal who was shot in suspicious circumstances. The threats continued, she said, when she accused Jinotega Mayor Leonidas Centeno of corruption and reported on protests in San Jose de Bocay about what she maintained was partisanship in the issuing of voter cards. She said her children received threats to pass on to her and death threats were sent to her by telephone, text messages, and by letter. Gonzalez said that the Police only compiled a list of the telephone numbers from which she had received the threats and told her they didn't have enough personnel to follow through on her case.
Vilma Nuñez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), expressed the fear that journalists will censor themselves after the experience of Silvia Gonzalez. She criticized the National Police for not following up on the case, adding, “Are we really the safest nation in Central America if I have to leave the country in fear that the authorities cannot guarantee my security?” (La Prensa, Sept. 23; El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 20, 22)
3. Campaign launched against dengue fever
Nicaraguan governmental institutions partnered with communities in a national hygiene campaign focused on the prevention of dengue fever and other infectious illnesses that increase during the rainy season. Over the weekend, workers from the Ministry of Health, Councils of Citizens Power, mayors' offices, Sandinista Youth, and other volunteers participated in the elimination of breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which transmit most of such illnesses.
According to the scientific literature, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (which besides dengue are also vectors for yellow fever and other viruses) can better reproduce in locations with clean standing water, in puddles, and abandoned containers (pots, tires, etc). In addition to clean up efforts, health experts and other volunteers are going house-to-house looking for individuals who are suffering from fevers or muscle and joint pain to rule out the possibility that dengue is already present and to take the proper measures to prevent it. To this date, there have been 643 confirmed cases of dengue fever. This number is much lower than the 3,000 reported last year. However, the rainy season continues and may bring more cases, so the government is taking steps to prepare communities for possible further flooding and to prevent the resulting health impact. (Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 24)
4. Conference held on sexual violence against women
Representatives of the governments and legal systems of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador met in San Salvador last week to agree on measures to prevent and combat what they called the “high incidence” of sexual violence against women. Among those meeting were justices of the supreme courts and ministers of health from the four countries along with representatives of international organizations dealing with the issue. Leonor Calderon, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said that it was an important step that in all the countries of Central America sexual violence is now a crime in public law [where in the past it was a private matter to be resolved between families or within the family]. But, she added that it is necessary “to break the silence to combat this problem.”
The representatives at the meeting signed the Declaration of San Salvador promising to push in their countries for funds to adequately finance the judicial system, prosecutors' offices, and health services and to guarantee a legal framework to implement public policies to combat sexual violence. Also attending the gathering were representatives of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Latin American Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
In Nicaragua, the group Aguas Bravas (which works with survivors) said that, according to the National Police, there were 4,013 reported sexual crimes in 2010, of which 1,829 were rapes, an increase in rapes of 33.3% from the previous year. (Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 20; El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 22)
5. Geothermal energy to enter grid
The Sandinista government has secured US$160 million in financing to guarantee the completion of the second phase of the San Jacinto Tizate geothermal electric plant. Phase 1, which will add 36 megawatts of renewable energy production, saving 300,000 barrels of oil, will enter the grid in October or December (depending on the source). Phase 2 will add another 36 megawatts and will be completed in 2013. When President Daniel Ortega took office in 2007 the country was facing crippling electricity shortages. Current government policy is to make Nicaragua self-sufficient in energy while giving renewable energy production preference over oil-based production.
The government also intends to regain control of the geothermal plant at Momotombo. The plant there could produce 70 megawatts of electricity but only produces 5 megawatts because, according to Ernesto Martinez Tiffer, president of the state-owned Nicaraguan Electricity Company, the private company that owns it has “not invested one cent” in maintenance. Forty megawatts of electricity production from wind generators is also scheduled to go on-line in 2012. In this way it is hoped to reduce energy produced from fossil fuels from 65% to 49%. (Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 20; El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 20)
6. Nicaraguans march to support Palestine recognition
On Sept. 23, Palestinians in Nicaragua, joined by Sandinistas, legislators, and state employees marched in Managua in support of Palestinian statehood. FSLN legislative bench leader Edwin Castro said that Nicaragua would welcome Palestine as the 194th state in the UN, calling it “equal justice.” Dissident Sandinista Moises Hassan, whose parents were Palestinian, called recognition by the UN as “the first step to forge unity between the two countries.” Hassan has never been able to visit a brother and other relatives in Palestine because Israel has refused him a visa.
Speaking at a ceremony accepting the credentials of new ambassadors from Venezuela, Guatemala, France and Spain, President Daniel Ortega recalled the “privilege of receiving the hero of the Palestine Resistance, Yasser Arafat” in the1980s. There is a long history between the Sandinista Front (FSLN) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In the 1970s some Sandinista fighters were trained by the PLO in Palestine and some even settled there taking on Palestinian names.
Ortega said, “We join those voices that today are demanding recognition of the Palestinian State and the existence, logically, of the State of Israel.” He said recognizing Palestine does not make Israel “disappear,” but that Israel must live within its borders and not continue to expand into Palestinian territory. Nicaragua and Cuba were the first countries of Latin America to recognize Palestine as an independent State. Prior to the Palestinian Authority's petition for recognition by the UN last week, 15 countries of Latin America, the new wave led by Brazil, had recognized Palestinian statehood. (Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 23; El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 24)
7. Cuban 5 supported by Assembly
With what was variously described in the media as 56 or 63 votes in favor, the National Assembly passed a resolution calling on the US Congress and President Barack Obama to release the Cuban Five. The Five infiltrated Cuban right-wing exile organizations in Miami and were arrested in the US after Cuban authorities reported the results of their investigations to the FBI. The Five received heavy prison terms and have served 13 years.
The text of the resolution said that the five were convicted under “highly corrupted judicial procedures” and that the United States had the obligation to “correct errors in its procedures of administration of justice.” The text also noted that the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and other nations have approved similar resolutions. Only two members of the Nicaraguan Democratic Bench voted against the resolution although several deputies abstained. The resolution was adopted during a visit by a delegation of Cuban legislators. (El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 20, 22; Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 21)
8. People with disabilities get a house call
The “Voice for Everyone” Cuban-Nicaraguan medical brigade fanned out over Managua last week going door-to-door to survey and provide evaluations of people with disabilities. The brigade has previously covered nine other Departments. And in what was described as the second phase of the campaign, the brigades provided wheelchairs, walkers, canes and crutches to people previously surveyed, many of whom were virtually prisoners in their own homes due to their disabilities. The youth group Solidarity Program assisted the brigade in knocking on every door. The bi-national brigade has been working for over a year to cover every home in the country to meet President Ortega's challenge to restore the right of health care to the disabled. Brigades have now visited 22,000 homes in three of the seven districts of Managua and the departments of Leon, Chinandega, Carazo, Granada, Rivas, Masaya, Jinotega and Matagalpa. On Thursday, visits begin in Madriz. (Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 21, 22, 26)
Labels: Archives