Nicaragua Network

1. Red alert extended for municipalities in departments of Leon and Managua
2. Relations with Costa Rica remain tense
3. Canonization of Pope John Paul II brings back memories
4. Nicaraguan ambassador to US discusses bilateral relations
5. FBI looks for Nicaraguan victims of US pedophile
6. Road improvements advance, if slowly
7. Coffee Commission begins work
8. Twenty-seven years ago Ben Linder was killed by the contras at age 27
 

1. Red alert extended for municipalities in departments of Leon and Managua

Another series of quakes last week quashed hopes for a lifting of the state of red alert for much of the Departments of Managua and Leon.  On Apr. 24 at 3:13am, a trembler of 4.4 on the Richter Scale shook the shores of Lake Cocibolca (Lake Managua).  The Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (INETER) said that the epicenter of the quake was six kilometers under the western part of the lake near the Momotombo Volcano. Then, on Apr. 25, there were two smaller quakes with epicenters under the Tiscapa Crater Lake in Managua at depths of 15 and 19 kilometers. The stronger of the two was the second at 10:55 am registering 2.6 on the Richter Scale. None of these quakes caused injuries or serious damage but the tremblers, along with the second report from the committee of local and foreign experts studying the recent seismic activity, led the government on Apr. 26 to extend the red alert for the municipalities of Managua, Ciudad Sandino, Mateare, La Paz Centro, Nagarote, and Leon. [Municipalities in Nicaragua are much like US counties and include the municipal seat and surrounding smaller communities.] Schools will remain closed in those municipalities. The remaining municipalities of the Pacific Coast area will be under yellow alert with the state of emergency lifted entirely for the rest of the country. 

The second report of the national and foreign experts, issued on Apr. 24, noted that, “The probability of the occurrence of a quake in the Managua fault system could be greater today than before the events that began on April 10.”  Apr. 10 was the day of the 6.2 quake that shook the Pacific region of Nicaragua. The report added, “Given the level of seismic vulnerability of the city of Managua and the ever latent possibility of a strong quake, we recommend keeping in place the emergency measures issued by the authorities, with the goal of preserving lives.” The report noted that the country has a “good construction code,” last revised in 2007, but that the Ministry of Infrastructure should inspect and certify construction materials and projects before issuing building permits and continue its current inspection of all public buildings.

Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo announced that engineers from the Ministry of Education had inspected 398 schools in the municipalities most affected by the quakes and found that 101 had suffered damage. She said that those with minimal damage can be repaired in the next two weeks while those with serious damage will be repaired by mid-year.  In another governmental announcement, officials from the Central Bank and the National Financial System (SFN) reported that the country’s banking system was prepared to guarantee the continuity of financial operations in the case of a disaster.

Covering an area of 260 acres and with 23,000 venders and 120,000 customers each day, the vast Eastern Market in Managua is a challenge for the emergency planners of the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation and Attention to Disasters (SINAPRED).  SINAPRED experts have planned evacuation routes for venders and customers in case of a damaging quake which, given the tenuous and often illegal electricity connections, could be followed by a fire. At the time of an emergency, a siren will sound and organized brigades will activate the 13 evacuation routes to secure locales, according to Guillermo Gonzalez, director of SINAPRED. Emergency drills were held in all of Managua’s markets last week with high levels of participation at the Roberto Huembes and Ivan Montenegro Markets and lower levels of participation at others.  (El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 24, 26, 28; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 25, 26, 28; Informe Pastran, Apr. 28; La Prensa, Apr. 27)

2. Relations with Costa Rica remain tense

Presidential advisor Bayardo Arce said on Apr. 25 at the inauguration of the International Tourism Fair in Managua that the Central American business community was “more intelligent at times than their governments” adding that trade and investment between Nicaragua and Costa Rica had continued to grow in spite of tense relations between the leaders of those two countries.  Costa Rican President-elect Luis Guillermo Solis did not visit Nicaragua as he did the other countries of the region to invite President Daniel Ortega to his May 8 inauguration and Arce said, “If the president of Costa Rica doesn’t come here, then possibly our president won’t go there.”  Solis’ reaction was to say that it was up to Nicaragua and that there would be delegations to his inauguration that would not be led by their heads of state, which opened the possibility that a lower level delegation would attend the ceremony.

Every commentator had an opinion last week about whether Ortega should or should not attend Solis’ inauguration.  Former Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre Sacasa told Informe Pastran, “Daniel has a number of options.  Many will advise him not to go and to send a low level representative such as his ambassador to Costa Rica. But at the other extreme, he could go to San Jose and demonstrate his commitment to rescuing a relationship that is of transcendental importance for both countries.”

In related news, commentators speculated about whether Ortega would inaugurate alone the Santa Fe Bridge over the San Juan River and if Solis would attend such an event if invited.  The bridge is located in Nicaraguan territory a few miles from the border with Costa Rica and will provide a much needed new border crossing between the two countries.  The Japanese government provided the US$30 million funding for the bridge which is 420 meters long and 40 meters high in the middle of the span and fulfills a commitment by Nicaragua and Costa Rica made 19 years ago to build the infrastructure to better connect the two countries and develop the border region. Construction on the span was begun in 2011. The inauguration is expected to be held on May 10.

Costa Rican Security Minister Mario Zamora said that the construction of the expanded border post on the Costa Rican side of the border at Las Tablillas was not yet complete and that his government had asked the Nicaraguans to delay opening the bridge to traffic until the second half of this year.  Director of Migration Kathy Rodriguez said that, if the bridge were to be opened for use before the completion of the Costa Rican border post, undocumented immigrants could cross more easily. Costa Rica has received US$2 million in aid from the United States to open customs and migration offices at Las Tablillas but has not begun the construction which is expected to take two years. (El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 26; Informe Pastran, Apr. 22, 28; La Prensa, Apr. 22, 25)

3. Canonization of Pope John Paul II brings back memories

The Nicaraguan government was represented by Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo and by Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Vatican Jose Cuadra Chamorro at the Apr. 26 canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II in Rome.  Communications Coordinator Rosario Murillo said that, as president of the Commission on Reconciliation, Justice, and Peace, Cardinal Obando was the best person to represent President Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua at the ceremony.  Nicaragua’s new cardinal, Managua Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes said that he would not travel again to Rome having just returned in early March from the ceremonies making him and 18 other bishops cardinals.  “I just travelled to Rome,” he said, adding, “It is a very tiring trip and I would like to participate with my people here in Nicaragua.”

Bells rang in many Catholic churches early Sunday to mark the canonization.  In Chinandega Catholics held a procession carrying photographs of the two popes. In Estelí, conservative Bishop Jose Abelardo Mata held a special mass at which 25 married couples renewed their vows. Cardinal Brenes, in his Sunday homily said that some groups had opposed the canonization of John Paul II, “but the Church followed the feelings of the majority who, from the moment of his death, Apr. 1, 2005, asked that he be declared a saint.”  Brenes remembered the polemical visit that Pope John Paul II made to Nicaragua in 1983 during the Sandinista Revolution and his second visit under President Violeta Chamorro in 1996.

In its Apr. 26 edition El Nuevo Diario reviewed the infamous March 1983 visit noting that the Pope’s mass in Managua was attended by 900,000 people with the revolutionary government spending more on diesel for busses than the government’s budget for a month.  Poet priest Ernesto Cardenal remembered how he was the only one of the four priests serving the Sandinista government (against Vatican orders) who was in Managua at the time and thus at the airport to greet the Pope. The Pope shook his finger at Cardenal and told him roughly twice, “You must regularize your situation.” Cardenal also remembered how 17 young reservists from the Sandinista Youth who had been ambushed by counterrevolutionary forces were buried the day before from the same plaza where John Paul was to say mass.  Cardenal said, “The blood was still fresh and it was expected that the Pope would say a few words.” But those words did not come.  Then-vice-president Sergio Ramirez wrote that he had been given a copy of the Pope’s sermon before the mass and “Those were the same words that I had read but pronounced with aggressive emphasis which sounded like a rain of stones from the powerful speakers which we were inaugurating in his honor that day.”  [To read more memories about Pope John Paul II’s 1983 visit to Nicaragua by Nicaragua Network Co-Coordinator Katherine Hoyt, click here: http://www.nicanet.org/?page=blog&id=26279.] (La Prensa, Apr. 25; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 24; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 28)

4. Nicaraguan ambassador to US discusses bilateral relations

Nicaraguan Ambassador Francisco Campbell gave the 16^th Annual Blavatt Lecture at the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College in Virginia on Apr. 22.  After thanking the Gettysburg-Leon Sister City Project for its support of the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (URACCAN), Campbell spoke about the need for US-Nicaraguan relations to be based on mutual respect and support for sovereignty and the right of self-determination. He condemned those in Nicaragua and the US who continue to view the relationship through political lenses. Campbell spoke about Nicaragua’s partnership with the US on the Drug War, stating that drug traffickers are finding paths around Nicaragua because of Nicaragua’s success in disrupting their transit routes. He also noted that Nicaragua’s strategy for security includes improving the quality of life economically and in terms of social investment so that poverty does not drive people to cooperate with the traffickers.

Campbell said that bilateral relations with the US are built on “security, trade and investment, and renewable energy.” He said that while the countries of Latin America need to cut drug production and disrupt trafficking routes, the United States needs to cut internal demand for drugs and the export of guns to Mexico if the region is to become secure. Campbell discussed the increase in trade between Nicaragua and the US under DR-CAFTA, and the fact that Nicaragua achieved 52% electricity production from renewable sources in 2013 and expects to exceed 90% by 2017. (Informe Pastran, Apr. 24)

5. FBI looks for Nicaraguan victims of US pedophile

Authorities from the US FBI are looking for possible victims of alleged US pedophile William James Vahey who taught at the Nicaraguan American School of Managua (ANS) from August 2013-March 2014 when he was dismissed for possessing child pornography pictures that he had collected prior to moving to Nicaragua. Vahey committed suicide in Minnesota on Mar. 21. He had been the object of an international man hunt. The ANS released a statement saying school officials did not know of the charges against Vahey and that their top priority was always the safety of their students. (Informe Pastran, Apr. 23)

6. Road improvements advance, if slowly

Nicaragua’s road network has grown from 20,333 kilometers in 2007 when the Sandinistas returned to government to 23,897 at the end of 2012, the latest period for which figures are available. Paved roads total 3,282 km. Marvin Altamirano, President of the Nicaragua Transportation Association, said that progress has been made to improve the main roads of the country but that more needs to be done on the Caribbean Coast, a deficiency acknowledged in the 2012-2016 National Human Development Plan.  Nicaragua has budgeted US$146.4 million for road improvement this year, and road improvements are the principal public investment projects for this year. Nicaragua’s road network is the second largest in Central America including Panama, but when measured with relation to total land area, Nicaragua’s network ranks fourth.

The World Bank approved a grant of US$27 million for paving rural roads around the country with paving stones. Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo added that the asphalt paving of 16 km. of road between San Rafael del Norte and Yali in the department of Jinotega is progressing. She also announced the construction of four bridges in the southern part of the country that will join Cardenas with Colon and the paving of ten kilometers of highway from Malacatoya to Granada, benefitting 7,000 residents. (El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 26; Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 23)

7. Coffee Commission begins work

Government spokesperson Rosario Murillo announced that on Apr. 29 the National Commission for the Transformation and Development of Coffee Cultivation would begin work.  Participating in the commission will be the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury, and the Family Economy along with coffee growers, cooperatives, lenders, and exporters.  The commission has the task of writing the regulations for the new Coffee Law passed late last year to help growers, many of whom are small producers, confront the crisis caused by the outbreak of coffee rust disease and aging coffee groves.  In related news, the price of coffee on the international market has hit US$213 per hundredweight, good news that Nicaraguan growers had not expected.  Former trade minister Mario Arana said that farmers would be wise to sell their coffee now and not on the futures market because, while the price could go up, it also could go down. The rise in price is due to a severe drought in Brazil. (Radio La Primerisima, Apr. 28; El Nuevo Diario, Apr. 24)

8. Twenty-seven years ago Ben Linder was killed by the contras at age 27

Each year on Apr. 28, the Nicaragua Network remembers the life of US engineer Ben Linder who was killed by counterrevolutionary forces while building small hydroelectric dams to bring electricity to isolated villages in the mountains of northern Nicaragua.  Twenty-seven years ago Ben was killed at only twenty-seven years of age. Bryan Moore wrote for the Nicanet web page: “While working on a small dam in the remote northern region of San José de Bocay, performing the miracle of transforming ‘water into light’, Ben and two Nicaraguan co-workers, Pablo Rosales and Sergio Hernandez, were killed by Contra forces armed and paid for by the US government. In the midst of the Iran-Contra scandal, the murder of a US citizen made headline news and deepened opposition to US intervention in Nicaragua and other Central American countries.”  Friends of Nicaragua have not forgotten him. To read more, click here: http://www.nicanet.org/?page=blog&id=24429&highlight=Ben+Linder