Nicaragua Network

1. Pope Francis names Archbishop Brenes cardinal
2. UNESCO expresses concern for deforestation in the Bosawas Reserve
3. Social security reform moves forward
4. Political news: Leadership of National Assembly elected; preparations begin for Caribbean Coast elections
5. Rural working students to be able to get secondary school diplomas without moving to cities
6. Training program gives fishers and farmers livelihood choices
7. Dairy sector growing with advance of rural electrification
8. Spanish Embassy organizes Dario exhibit
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1. Pope Francis names Archbishop Brenes cardinal

On Sunday, Jan. 12, Pope Francis announced the appointment of 19 new cardinals of the Catholic Church, among them Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes of Managua.  Also chosen were five others from Latin America and the Caribbean: from Brazil, Haiti, Saint Lucia, Chile, and Argentina (the latter replacing Francis himself who had been archbishop of Buenos Aires before his election as pope), two Africans and two Asians.  Analysts noted that those chosen had spent many years working as parish priests before being named bishops and that there were fewer theologians and more defenders of the poor.

“I want to continue to be the same Padre Polo that you know,” said the new cardinal upon receiving the news. He added, “It is a great gift for a land so tiny that loves Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary to be in the heart of the pope.”  Brenes was born in Ticuantepe in 1949 to a father who was a small farmer and a mother who was a seamstress.  He studied theology in Mexico and was ordained by then-Archbishop Miguel Obando in 1974.  He served as a parish priest in the departments of Managua, Masaya and Carazo before being named bishop of Matagalpa in 1991.  In 2005, he was named archbishop of Managua, succeeding Cardinal Obando who had reached mandatory retirement age.

First Lady and Communications Coordinator Rosario Murillo said that she and President Daniel Ortega had called Cardinal Brenes “to greet him, to congratulate him, his mother, and his whole family and to tell him of the honor we feel in this small, blessed country in the center of America to have two cardinals.”  She said, “We are sure that Cardinal Brenes will continue his pastoral work, close to the poor, contributing to the path, opened by Cardinal Obando, of reconciliation, of greater harmony, and for the happiness of Nicaraguan families.”

Congratulations also came in from business and political figures, including the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce, the Independent Liberal Party (PLI), the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), and the Conservative Party.  Agustin Jarquin of the Christian Democrats said, “This decision … will give more strength to the voice of the church and will help us to confront the challenges faced by our blessed Nicaragua.”  Relations between the government and some members of the Catholic hierarchy have been rocky in recent years but, on Dec. 3, members of the Catholic Bishops conference met for a three hour lunch with President Ortega which one bishop said was an encounter “to bring us closer together” and which could “open the possibility that in the future we can all work for the growth of the country.”  (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 12, 13; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 13; La Prensa, Jan. 12; Informe Pastran, Jan. 13)

2. UNESCO expresses concern for deforestation in the Bosawas Reserve

On Jan. 10, Claudia Valle, representative in Nicaragua of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said that her organization was “concerned for Bosawas.”  Bosawas, which was named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1997, is the largest reserve in Central America and makes up 14% of the total territory of Nicaragua.  The area has been invaded by colonizers who have cut down trees and entered into conflict with the indigenous groups of the area.  Valle said that the only advance in 2013 has been in raising consciousness about the issue and that “we can’t continue just talking and taking actions with minimum impact like last year; there must be a more forceful response” from the state institutions charged with preserving the environment.  She added that the authorities “should decide clearly what it is that they want to have, a zone for agriculture and cattle raising or a reserve.”

During 2013, the Cerro Saslaya National Park, Nicaragua’s first national park formed in 1971 which forms the heart of Bosawas, lost 15.2% of its forest amounting to 9,335 hectares, according to the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA).  The Mayangna indigenous group predicts that, at this rate, in ten years the park’s forests will be gone. A MARENA survey reported that Cerro Saslaya has been invaded by 5,628 people working on 942 farms.

A group of environmentalists visiting Cerro Saslaya Park in the first days of January reported colonizers with chain saws taking down trees in order to plant crops in the cleared areas. They said that the logs are being sold illegally.  Oscar Montalvan stated that there is imminent danger of an enormous loss of biodiversity including, he said, as many as 350 species of ants and some snakes that have not been registered by science. Among the birds found in the park are the Harpy Eagle, the Quetzal, and the macaw. Mammals include jaguars, mountain lions and tapirs.

Celestino Taylor, a forest ranger from the Mayangna Sauni Bas-Sikilta community, said that in the middle of January the Ecological Battalion of the Army is scheduled to visit the area.  He said that the battalion will patrol the zone to detect land invasions and decide how to remove the illegal families.  He said that, with the logging of the forests, the rivers have dried and it is no longer possible to travel on them in boats.  “Now we have to walk on the land,” he explained.  Other locals said that the Catholic Church in Bluefields pays two teachers for a school in the core of the reserve that shouldn’t be there while in the buffer and transition zones just outside the reserve the government provides schools and sets up voting precincts while political parties campaign for votes among the colonizers in the area.

Victor Campos, deputy director of the Humboldt Center, said that the government named two commissions in 2013, one to do a complete report on Bosawas and the other to carry out remedial actions on deforestation and land invasions.  He said that the reports of the commissions have not been released but that the coming months will be the ideal time to work with the communities and the Ecological Battalion to prevent further environmental destruction. Luis Herrera Siles, a professor at the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (URACCAN) in Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas), suggested that all the local actors, the government, and the University work together on possible solutions.  In 2012, the government of President Daniel Ortega provided communal title to three Mayangna communities and four Miskito communities while promising a permanent presence of the Army’s Ecological Battallion along with the expulsion of colonizers and their relocation to other territory.  In 2013, thirty lawyers were placed under investigation for creating fraudulent deeds and selling land in the Bosawas Reserve to mestizo settlers.  In spite of all this, the land invasions have continued.  (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 10; La Prensa, Jan. 8; 10, 12; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 11, 13)

3. Social security reform moves forward

More details have been announced about the new regulations put in place by the National Social Security Institute (INSS) as part of efforts to assure the survival of the system for succeeding generations.  National Assembly Deputy and leader of the National Workers Front (FNT) Gustavo Porras repeated on Jan. 7 the announcement he had made on Christmas Eve that, under the new regulations, the retirement age will remain at 60 and the number of years a worker must pay into the system (14 years) will also remain the same. Employer contributions will rise over the next few years from 16% to 19%.  Among the other changes designed to keep the system afloat that Porras made public for the first time last week is an increase in the maximum taxable earnings threshold for social security payroll taxes from the current US$17,760 per year to US$26,000 in 2014 and to US$34,500 in 2015.  This will affect about 2% of those paying into the social security system.  Something that will affect more workers is a change in how retirement pensions will be calculated based on an average salary among all those included in the system. The reforms are expected to give the system stability for the next 25 to 30 years. 

The Democratic Public Sector Workers Federation, an opposition trade union federation, announced that it would challenge the new regulations in the courts as unconstitutional violations of workers’ rights and would ask the Office of the Comptroller General for a full accounting of the funds of the INSS.  Jose Adan Aguerri of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) said that while his organization did not agree with every measure, it supported the changes because it agreed that the costs must be shared.  Sandinista National Assembly Deputy Walmaro Gutierrez, who chairs the Economic Committee, said, “No change that has to do with social security in any country in the world is agreeable,” but he added that the decision of the government was that the majority of the workers should not be affected.  In response to criticism of the changes, he said that “those of us with good salaries, especially government officials, should not take a stingy position.” (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 7; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 11; La Prensa, Jan. 8, 10; Informe Pastran, Jan. 8)

4. Political news: Leadership of National Assembly elected; preparations begin for Caribbean Coast elections

On Jan. 9, the National Assembly elected its leadership for 2014, confirming for another year Sandinista Rene Nuñez as president of the Assembly.  Also elected to leadership positions were four other members of the Sandinista Party, one member of the Independent Liberal Party Alliance, and one member of the Constitutional Liberal Party.  Sandinista Deputy Alba Palacios, reelected as first secretary, said that there had been negotiation among the parties to achieve a proportional representation for the opposition and the new leadership was elected by a unanimous vote of those present, 88 votes to zero.  The Sandinista Party enjoys a super majority in the Assembly and there was criticism from some in the opposition of those who negotiated with the Sandinistas and accepted leadership positions because they felt the opposition leadership members would have limited influence over legislation.

Meanwhile, preparations are moving forward for the March 2 regional council elections in the North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions (RAAN and RAAS).  Brooklyn Rivera, who represents the RAAN in the National Assembly, said the electoral atmosphere is heating up on the Coast.  Rivera, a leader in the Yatama indigenous party which in some jurisdictions runs candidates in alliance with the Sandinista Party and in others runs alone, complained last week that the electronic voter rolls were “in disorder” and it was difficult for voters to determine where they were supposed to vote and for the political parties to determine who their voters were. “This is a problem that I hope we will overcome,” he said.  He also spoke out in favor of allowing national and international election observers, or accompaniers as he explained the Supreme Electoral Council prefers to call them.  While he recognized that the distance between communities, which often must be traveled by boat, is a problem for observers, he said that observers would provide “greater seriousness, transparency and respect for the results.”  (El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 9, 11; Informe Pastran, Jan. 9)

5. Rural working students will be able to get secondary school diplomas without moving to cities

The Sandinista government is launching a new program of Saturday secondary school classes to reach working young people in the countryside. According to Jose Antonio Zepeda, general secretary of the National Association of Nicaraguan Educators (ANDEN), the program is a continuation of the “Battle for the Sixth Grade”, which seeks to educate all Nicaraguans through the sixth grade, and it is part of the government’s promise to raise the quality of education. Eventually the program will involve over 1,100 teachers. It is launching with 500 teachers who will travel to the countryside on weekends and teach Saturday classes from 7 am to 3 pm in 367 schools. Students who move up to secondary school will no longer have to go to urban areas to further their education, saving their families the cost of transportation, food and housing.  Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo stated that the new program is expected to serve 17,250 rural students. According to the Ministry of Education and the Nicaraguan Central Bank, the program will cost US$4 million. (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 9; El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 9; Informe Pastran, Jan. 8)

6. Training program gives fishers and farmers livelihood choices

A four month old project to train and support farmers and fishers in the coastal areas of Leon, La Paz Centro, and Nagarote in methods of aquaculture is beginning to show success. According to Luis Felipe Loza, a delegate of the Ministry of Family Economy in Leon, the program is designed to give small scale producers and artisanal fishers training and resources not only to fish but to create and run fish farm nurseries of marketable fish, giving them broader livelihood choices. Small producers have been hampered by lack of motorized boats and fishing nets capable of reaching the depth of the schools of fish. They sell their fish at local markets or to middlemen. Initially focused on fishing, the program has trained dozens of fishers organized in 12 cooperatives and additional registered individuals. The project is now producing 150-300,000 pounds of fish a month. In addition to training in business management, accounting, and aquaculture skills, the program also provides fishing equipment such as boats and motors. (El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 9)

7. Dairy sector growing with advance of rural electrification

The dairy sector is one of the economic sectors that is beginning to benefit from the government’s National Sustainable Electrification and Renewable Energy Program. Currently only 30% of the national milk production is sold beyond community markets due to the lack of electricity for refrigeration and pasteurization. Local producers have no option other than to turn excess milk into cheese.  Currently 23.8% of the population has no access to electricity. While that number is down from 45% in 2006, it is still a major impediment to agricultural efficiency, particularly the dairy industry. The goal of the rural electrification program is to reach 87% of the population by 2016. Milk production currently stands at an estimated 5 million liters a day. Thanks in part to the progress of electrification, in 2012 Nicaraguan dairy farmers produced 216.2 gallons of milk, a 27.2% increase over 2006, but producers are anxious for electrification to reach them so a larger percentage of milk production can be shipped to more distant markets. (El Nuevo Diario, Jan. 13)

8. Spanish Embassy organizes Dario exhibit

Documents and personal manuscripts of the Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario (1867-1916), known as the “Prince of Castilian Letters” and the “Father of Modernism,” will be able to be viewed in Leon beginning Jan. 17, in an exhibit organized by the Embassy of Spain in Nicaragua.  The objects form part of the Ruben Dario archive of the Marques de Valdecilla Library at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  The exhibit is just one event programmed for the XII International Ruben Dario Symposium scheduled to be held Jan. 16 to 21 which will be titled “Ruben Dario: Precursor of Latin American Unity.”  The documents were given to the library in 1ibrary in 1956 by Francisca Sanchez who had been Dario’s companion during the last years of his life. They include thousands of letters, notebooks, cards, photographs and other papers revealing his literary, journalistic and diplomatic work, his domestic activities, his love for Francisca, relations with friends, and his economic problems.  The exhibit will be shown at the offices of the Ortiz Gurdian Foundation.  Dario’s family was from Leon and he is buried in the Leon Cathedral. (Radio La Primerisima, Jan. 7; El Nuevo Diario, Jan 6)