Nicaragua Network

1. Shipping canal project back in the news
2. Price of red beans goes up, alarming consumers
3. Gaviria: Election of Zuluaga would mean conflict with Nicaragua
4. Florida Congresswoman postpones visit to Nicaragua
5. Carter Center criticizes reappointment of Electoral Council magistrates
6. Free Trade Zone production triples
7. Formal sector employment passes 700,000
8. Constitution to be translated into Miskito, Mayangna, and Creole
9. Oldest human remains dated at 6,000 years old

1. Shipping canal project back in the news

On June 4, the web publication ShippingWatch headlined “Maersk Line supports the Nicaragua Canal” and summaries of the article appeared in all the principal Nicaraguan media outlets.  Keith Svendsen, head of daily operations at the world’s largest container carrier, told ShippingWatch, “Building a Nicaragua canal seems to make good sense. The canal is projected to have room for the biggest ships.” He added that there is currently a waiting list to sail through the Panama Canal and its expansion will enable it to handle ships of up to only 336 meters in length while Maersk Line’s new series “clocks in at 400 meters.” Two days later, ShippingWatch printed another article about the canal, reporting on the interest of the Danish company DHI in working on the ports envisioned for the project. Andreas Grogaard Buhl, head of environment at DHI, told ShippingWatch, “The project is doable; it’s just a matter of financing.” But he also said the agriculture that depends on water from Lake Nicaragua and the species, including a rare fresh-water shark, that live in the lake must be taken into consideration.

Meanwhile, the HKND Group, which holds the concession for the shipping canal, modified the project slightly on its web page subtracting one of the two previously planned airports and adding vacation centers, an electrical station, cement and steel factories, and other installations. Jose Adan Aguerri of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) said business leaders agreed with the additions to the plan and added, “In reality we can’t have so many airports.” He said the business community was awaiting the environmental and economic studies. However, opposition National Assembly Deputy Eliseo Nuñez said, “There won’t be a canal, just a cement plant, …vacation centers, a port, because what Wang Jing, front man for the Russians and [President Daniel] Ortega, wants to do is take a strip of land from Nicaragua and do business without having to follow any of the criminal or labor laws of the country.”

Presidential advisor on investments Alvaro Baltodano said that there was great interest on the part of Chinese construction companies to build the canal but everyone had to have patience to wait for the feasibility and environmental studies. He said that the studies would be completed this year and construction would also begin this year, adding “We all are sure of this.” However, noted geographer and environmentalist Jaime Incer Barquero said on June 9 that the canal was not ecologically or economically viable and that an international group of scientists had not received answers to the questions about the project that they had submitted to the government.

In related news, Salvador Montenegro Guillen, director of the Center for Research on Aquatic Resources at the National Autonomous University (UNAN) said that, in light of drought predictions for this and future years, Nicaragua should begin to develop the proposal contained it its 2012-2016 National Human Development Plan which calls for a massive agricultural irrigation project using the water from Lake Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). In 2009 President Ortega promised to push for a program to “irrigate 65,000 hectares in the first five years, expanding to 625,000 in the next 15 years.” No one has commented on how a shipping canal through the lake would affect its use for irrigation. (ShippingWatch, June 4, 6; Informe Pastran, June 4,5, 6, 9; Radio La Primerisima, June 4, 5, 6; El Nuevo Diario, June 5. 7; La Prensa, June 4, 6, 8)

2. Price of red beans goes up, alarming consumers

The National Bank, reporting on inflation for the month of May, said that the price of red beans, a mainstay of the Nicaraguan diet, had risen 21.66%. While inflation overall was lower than at the same time last year—0.94% compared to 0.99% for May of 2013 with an annual rate of 4.85% compared with last year’s 7.73%—what worried the consuming public was the rising cost of their daily gallo pinto (rice and beans) with the beans selling for as much as US$1.00 per pound. Carlos Riuzzhet, the owner of Betulia Foods, sells 350 pounds of packaged gallo pinto to grocery stores and supermarkets each day. He said that he has had to increase the price for a pound of gallo pinto from US$0.52 per pound to US$0.72 and is planning on introducing a smaller half pound package.

The issue immediately became political with the daily La Prensa blaming the problem on President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela who has not made a firm decision about how many tons of black beans his country will purchase from Nicaragua in the coming cycle. La Prensa quoted opposition National Assembly Deputy Eliseo Nuñez who said that behind it all is the Sandinista Front, Alba Alimentos (Alba Foods), and the Ortega-Murillo family who he claimed were slowing down the production of red beans and promoting the planting of black beans to export them to Venezuela.

In the previous agricultural cycle, 1.5 million hundredweights of black beans were harvested in Nicaragua with 700,000 hundredweights exported to Venezuela and the rest to Costa Rica and the United States. Four million hundredweights of red beans (the favorite of Nicaraguans) were harvested in that same period which should easily cover national demand estimated at 2.7 million hundredweights.

Alvaro Fiallos, president of the Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG), said at a June 5 meeting of farmers and government officials that there is no shortage of red beans in the country but there are hoarding and price speculation. He said that with a production of 4 million hundredweights there would have been enough if domestic consumption had risen to 3 million hundredweights and another one million hundredweights of beans had been exported.  However, he said, not even 500,000 hundredweights were exported. “Therefore,” he explained, “what we have currently is a commerce problem, one of speculation and not of production.” He added that the predictions of a dry rainy season because of the El Niño climate phenomenon with a resulting bad harvest may have given speculators an excuse to raise prices. Michael Healy, president of the National Union of Agricultural Producers (UPANIC), said that all of the nation’s wholesalers had beans and that the problem was with the retailers. (La Prensa, June 6, 8; Informe Pastran, June 5; El Nuevo Diario, June 5; Radio La Primerisima, June 5)

3. Gaviria: Election of Zuluaga would mean conflict with Nicaragua

Former president of Colombia Cesar Gaviria said last week that the candidate running against President Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia’s June 15 run-off elections, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, if he wins, would likely break off relations with Nicaragua and other Latin American countries. Gaviria, who is working on Santos’ reelection campaign, told the daily El Espectador that Zuluaga “not only wants to continue the internal war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) but he wants to make war on neighboring countries, because he has decided to intervene in the internal affairs of Ecuador and Bolivia and Nicaragua.”  He added that there would be “a break off in relations with Venezuela.” On June 6, a Colombian polling organization reported that Zuluaga led Santos by eight points. Santos had a favorable rating of only 41% while his unfavorable rating was 46%. However, Zuluaga’s favorable rating was not much better, at 43%. Zuluaga is a member of the Centro Democrático party of former President Alvaro Uribe who consistently urged Santos to take an even more radical stand against the Nov. 19, 2012, World Court decision which gave to Nicaragua territorial waters that Colombia had claimed. (Radio La Primerisima, June 5; Informe Pastran, June 5, 6)

4. Florida Congresswoman postpones visit to Nicaragua

Right-wing Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen had to cancel her weekend visit to Nicaragua for “health reasons.” She had planned to travel to Nicaragua and Honduras with Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), who like Ros-Lehtinen is a Cuban-American. Ros-Lehtinen is on the House Foreign Affairs committee where she has been a harsh critic of President Daniel Ortega and an opponent of US aid to Nicaragua. Alfredo Cesar, president of the Conservative Party, said Ros-Lehtinen’s visit was “routine”. Cesar declared the Conservative Party “a friend of the United States” but added, “Nicaragua’s problems will be resolved by Nicaraguans, not by the United States.” Ros-Lehtinen had planned to meet with leaders of the political and civil society opposition to the Sandinistas as well as with big business leaders. Some in the very conservative Nicaraguan community in Florida had expressed discontent because Ros-Lehtinen was scheduled to meet with some, especially business groups, who they view as “legitimating” the Ortega government. Ros-Lehtinen hopes to travel to Central America at a future date.  (Informe Pastran, June 6, 9; La Prensa, June 6)

5. Carter Center criticizes reappointment of Electoral Council magistrates

On June 2, the Atlanta-based Carter Center expressed its “concern” over the reappointment in April of most of the same magistrates to Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) calling it a “significant lost opportunity for this country to strengthen its battered electoral institutions.” The press release from the Center spoke of “confirmed fraud perpetrated in the municipal elections of 2008” and said that the extension of the terms of the magistrates by the president in January of 2010 “clearly overstepped the office’s legal powers.” The statement went on to say, “On Nov. 6, 2011, this same CSE organized and held the least transparent national election in Nicaragua in the last 20 years, the results of which have proven to be impossible to verify….particularly with respect to proper allocation of seats in the National Assembly.” The Carter Center called for “a serious, thorough review of the Nicaraguan electoral system with the participation of all of the political parties.”

The Independent Liberal Party (PLI) expressed its satisfaction with the communique saying that it represented “recognition of the truth of our denunciations of repeated electoral fraud that has occurred in Nicaragua.” However, Vice-President Omar Halleslevens said, “We have a Supreme Electoral Council that has been doing its job; it is true that it has been criticized but in Nicaragua because of the relationships we have, very radical and very critical, we tend to criticize everything.” He went on to say, “I believe that what the Carter Center said is ill-timed.  Here we had an appointment [of Roberto Rivas as president of the CSE]; there were elections in 2011 and I think that Nicaragua is on a good path.”(Informe Pastran, June 4; http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/nicaragua-06022014.html; La Prensa, June 6)

6. Free Trade Zone production triples

Alvaro Baltodano, presidential advisor on investments, said last week that exports from Nicaragua’s free trade zones (FTZs) has almost tripled in seven years growing from US$896 million in 2006 to US$2.56 billion in 2013. The majority of the factories are owned by North Americans, Central Americans, Mexicans, European, and Asians. Over 112,000 people are employed in the free trade zones, 53% of whom are women. The factories have a monthly payroll of US$26.4 million with 60% earning the industrial sector minimum wage. Speaking at a forum on the tripartite agreements between business, government and workers that maintain wages and stability in the sector, Jose Adan Aguerri of the Superior Council on Private Enterprise (COSEP) noted that FTZ exports now amounted to half of the total yearly exports of Nicaragua with textile and garment exports comprising the largest export category. [They apparently exceed even gold and coffee but do not produce any tax revenue for the government.]  On June 4, FTZ workers from all the unions met in Managua for the First National Assembly of Free Trade Zone Workers with the slogan, “United for more jobs, labor stability and development."

In related news, Baltodano said that it is up to the US Congress to decide if tariff preference levels (TPL) will be extended for another year for garments assembled in Nicaragua. The tariff preferences, which will end in December, allows access to US markets for garments made in Nicaragua with cloth or thread that did not originate in any of the countries party to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).  Baltodano said that Nicaragua is promoting the installation of factories that will produce thread and cloth so that if at some time in the future the preferences are not extended Nicaragua will still be able to compete. (Informe Pastran, June 6, 9; La Prensa, June 6; El Nuevo Diario, June 5, 7)

7. Formal sector employment passes 700,000

The number of workers paying into Nicaragua’s Social Security system has now passed the 700,000 mark with an increase of 7,466 workers this year, reaching 705,602. The annual growth has been 6.2% with a growth of 52.1% between 2007 and 2013, according to the Social Security Institute’s annual report. While lauding the advances, economist Mario Arana said that Nicaragua should seek an even more dynamic growth in the formal sector of over 10%. The report noted that 5,314 new employers signed up with Social Security for a total of 28,400. Central Bank President Ovidio Reyes said that the number of insured workers has increased because of the country’s economic growth in the last few years which has resulted in increased formal sector employment. (El Nuevo Diario, June 3, 5)

8. Constitution to be translated into Miskito, Mayangna, and Creole

Brooklyn Rivera, chair of the National Assembly Committee on Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and Autonomous Affairs announced that the Nicaraguan Constitution will be translated in the next few months into Miskito, Mayangna, and Creole English, the principle languages of the indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples of the Caribbean Coast autonomous regions. The translations will incorporate amendments to the constitution made this past year. The constitution was previously translated into the three Coast languages in 2012. Deputy Evelyn Taylor said that it is important that citizens of the Caribbean Coast be able to read the constitution in their own language. She added that between five and eight thousand copies will be printed.  The constitutional amendments reaffirm “the inalienable right” of the Caribbean Coast communities “to live and develop under the political, administrative, social, and cultural forms of organization that correspond to their historical traditions and cultures.” The amended constitution also establishes that elected members of the Autonomous Regional Councils will serve for five years and that the State guarantees that the communities will benefit from the development of natural resources, recognizes communal property ownership, and free elections.

At the same time, on the issue of indigenous property, Rivera said he was disappointed in the government because of the lack of progress in the removal of land invaders and loggers from the 22 indigenous territories where communities have received communal titles under the Sandinista government to their traditional lands. He called on the Attorney General, the Superintendent of Property, the Ministry of the Environment, the Army, and local governments to address the issue. (El Nuevo Diario, June 6; La Prensa, June 6)

9. Oldest human remains dated at 6,000 years old

A female human skeleton found at the Angi shell midden near Monkey Point in the South Caribbean Autonomous Region has been confirmed to be the oldest human remains found to date in Nicaragua. Carbon 14 dating failed to give a precise date because of the poor condition of the bones and teeth, but Sagrano Balladares of the Center for Archeological Investigation of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) said the skeleton was found 3.5 meters deep corresponding to a period 6,140 years ago. The consortium of archeologists from UNAN-Managua, and Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU) are continuing to excavate to the 10,000 year old level. The woman’s skeleton was buried in a fetal position facing east, with stones arranged at her head, leading investigators to believe she was buried ritually. Archeologists are hoping that the UN Economic, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO) will name the area a World Heritage site to contribute to its preservation. Twenty-three archeological sites have been investigated by Nicaraguan scientists on the Caribbean Coast, 13 of them in the Monkey Point area. Donald Byers, director of the Center for Research and Documentation of the Caribbean Coast, said that another shell midden larger than the Angi midden has been recently found in the area. (El Nuevo Diario, June 4)