Nicaragua Network

1. PLC challenges PLI candidates; Sandinistas seeking to install “a direct democracy”

2. Delegation to meet with Ortega about School of the Americas

3. Experts arriving to analyze Nicaragua's earthquakes

4. Bosawas Reserve loses 103,800 acres of forest per year

5. Social policy briefs: Improving education and fighting dengue



1. PLC challenges PLI candidates; Sandinistas seeking to install “a direct democracy”

The Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) challenged before the Supreme Electoral Council several hundred mayoral and city council candidates of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) saying that they were, in actuality, members of the PLC. All are running in the Nov. 4 municipal elections. Among them was the PLI candidate for mayor of Managua Alfredo Gutierrez. Gutierrez replied saying that not only had he never been a member of the PLC but that he had never been inside the party's headquarters. Several dozen of the challenged candidates from around the country travelled to Managua to protest saying that they were “not cattle branded by [the PLC leader, former President Arnoldo] Aleman”. PLI leader Eduardo Montealegre accused Aleman of collaborating with the governing Sandinista Party to reduce the advantage of the PLI as the strongest opposition party. PLI representative Luis Callejas took notarized letters of resignation from the PLC from those who had been members to the Supreme Electoral Council and accused other parties of registering as candidates people who were no longer alive. Julio Acuña of the Supreme Electoral Council said that citizens cannot participate as candidates of one party if they have not resigned from the party to which they previously belonged.

Meanwhile, Sandinista candidates swore to serve the Nicaraguan people in a ceremony led by Rosario Murillo, head of the Council of Communication and Citizenship. Referring to the massive increase in the number of city council seats, Murillo said that, “We are breaking tradition, … installing a direct democracy where people serve each other; we complement each other; we organize to work, and the result is that we will assure that these local governments will be community governments.” (El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 3; Informe Pastran, Sept. 3; Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 3)

2. Delegation to meet with Ortega about School of the Americas

On Sept. 4, a delegation organized by School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) was scheduled to meet with President Daniel Ortega to urge him to end the sending of Nicaraguan officers to train at the US Army's School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) at Fort Benning, Georgia. At a Managua press conference, SOAW founder Fr. Roy Bourgeois said that the SOA, which was originally located in the Panama Canal Zone, was known as a school of assassins, torturers and coup makers, including members of the Honduran military who overthrew President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras in 2009. He noted that five Latin American countries have withdrawn their soldiers from training there and that he hoped President Ortega would show his solidarity by joining them. In 2008, when Bourgeois first met with Ortega, 78 Nicaraguan soldiers trained at the SOA; this year there are only five. In total, 4,500 Nicaraguan military have trained at the school, the vast majority of whom were members of the National Guard of the Somoza dictatorship. The delegation was scheduled to meet with Human Rights Ombudsman Omar Cabezas before the meeting with the president.

The delegation, also sponsored by the Nicaragua Network, travelled to Esteli to learn about government anti-poverty and other social programs, meeting with beneficiaries of the Zero Hunger and Zero Usury Programs, among others. The group also met with experts to learn about the projects funded by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and government health and housing programs. (La Prensa, Sept. 4; Radio La Primerisima, Aug. 31, Sept. 2, 4)

3. Experts arriving to analize Nicaragua's earthquakes

The ground continued to shake in Nicaragua with two quakes measuring 4.2 and 4 on the Ricter scale occurring on Aug. 30 following temblors of 3.6 and 5.0 on Aug. 28. The government announced that teams of experts in seismology would be arriving in the country to evaluate possible deformations in the ocean floor following the massive 7.3 quake off the coast of El Salvador on Aug. 25. The team from the University of Florida in the United States arrived on Aug. 31 and will be joined on Sept. 5 by experts from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations. The Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (INETER) will work closely with the international experts, according to Rosario Murillo, government communications coordinator. She added that the System for the Prevention, Mitigation and Attention to Disasters (SINAPRED), Civil Defense battalions, and Citizen Power groups are on permanent alert in case of a major damage-causing quake.

Meanwhile, commentators noted that in December it will be 40 years since the last “big one” hit Managua and new buildings are being built over the 18 fault lines that traverse the city, including the new Military Hospital (on the side of Tiscapa Crater Lake) and the new judicial complex (on the North Highway). The important question is whether they are being built to code. Those that were built to code survived the Dec. 23, 1972, quake and those that were not built to code collapsed. La Prensa headlined “Two earthquakes and we still have not learned the lesson,” noting that the 1972 quake followed almost exactly 40 years after the 1931 quake that destroyed the city. The writer forgot the damaging 1885 quake which occurred 46 years before the 1931 quake. So, after December, many fear that Managua will be living on borrowed time. (Radio La Primerisima, Aug. 28, 30, Sept. 3; El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 28, 30; Informe Pastran, Aug. 30, 31, Sept. 3; La Prensa, Aug. 31)

4. Bosawas Reserve loses 103,800 acres of forest per year

A study released last week by the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG) and the German Agency for Sustainable Development (GIZ) revealed that the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve is losing an average of 103,800 acres per year of forest to logging and burning for planting and pasture for a total of 1.5 million acres between 1987 and 2010. The Reserve, which is mainly in the Department of Jinotega, represents 14% of the national territory and is more than double the size of Lake Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). According to the study, the principal causes of the loss of the forest are the advance of the agricultural frontier, increased cattle ranching, land speculation, and both legal and illegal logging in the region. But the study notes that land speculation is a bigger threat than the clearing of land to plant crops or graze cattle. Marcial Lopez, author of the study, said that, “The illegal traffic in properties is one of the major problems. All the buying and selling activity in the zone is illegal.”

Lopez added that 40% of the lumber that circulates in the country is illegal, noting, “That illegal logging is the result of an activity in which many actors participate. Often the extraction is done with the permission of the Forestry Institute and they use that permit to camouflage illegal timber.” The international demand for raw materials feeds the deforestation. The poverty of the inhabitants of the zone makes them susceptible to the ready money of the buyers and no one is controlling or regulating the extraction. According to the study, there is minimal presence of regional or national government in the area. In Bonanza, one of the towns near the Reserve, the study says that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Forestry Institute are not present nor are the Environmental Ombudsman or the Property Office.

The study makes several recommendations. First of all it advises beginning a dialogue among the actors in the region led by the central government. Government ministries should set up offices in the zone with budget and personnel. Existing property registry records should be cleaned up. The wave of migration into the Reserve should be stopped and abuse of forest laws punished. (Radio La Primerisima, Aug. 28)

5. Social policy briefs: Improving education and fighting dengue

In the next few days, the government will give 3,665 families in Managua the urban production package that includes chickens along with fruit and vegetable seeds, tools, and other items appropriate for an urban setting to improve their nutrition and living standard. The urban production package is part of the Zero Hunger Program and is administered by the new Family and Community Economy Ministry. Rosario Murillo, Government Communications and Citizenship Coordinator, announced the program on Channel 4 Television. She also said that the government was installing 1,200 new street lights in Managua providing greater safety for citizens. Over 600 lights have been fixed. In the next few days, 75,000 improved cooking stoves will be distributed throughout the country. These stoves use less firewood and cause less smoke contamination for women as they cook. Seventeen new rural schools will be inaugurated soon to benefit 4,652 students. (Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 3)

The Ministry of Education, recognizing the large number of rural schools that do not have access to safe potable water, has announced that with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, 250 schools in the Department of Matagalpa will soon have safe running water. The announcement came at the time of the release of a UNICEF study showing that 70% of schools in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have access to safe potable water while the figure for Nicaragua is less than 50%, still a very large percentage. (El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 1)

The European Union has donated US$40.2 million to the education sector in Nicaragua and the donation is being supplemented by a US$25 million loan from the World Bank focused on primary education and a further US$16.7 million grant from the Global Alliance of the US based National Association for the Education of Young Children. EU Ambassador Javier Sandomingo said that the goal is to support the government's strategic plan to improve education. Education Minister Miriam Raudez said that funds will be used to make schools “more dignified places and to improve the quality of the education children receive.” (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 30; Radio La Primerisima, Aug. 29)

Managua and nearby towns are registering the greatest number of suspected and confirmed cases of dengue fever, according to the Local System for Integral Attention to Health (SILAIS). Dr. Carolina Davila said that 126 health posts in 70 neighborhoods will be used by health workers as bases from which to visit homes and do abatement activities to reduce the number of mosquitoes that carry the disease. The ages group that has been most affected is children between 10 and 14 years of age among which there are 134 suspected cases, followed by children age 5 to 9, with 126 cases. The Roberto Huembes, Israel Lewites and Roberto Montenegro markets will also be treated, garbage that could provide nesting areas collected, etc. Homes in the Department of Masaya will also be visited and treated. (El Nuevo Diario, Sept. 1; Radio La Primerisima, Sept. 1)