Nicaragua Network

1. Nicaragua 5^th in world in renewable energy investment
2. Bosawas land traffickers indicted in Bonanza; 2.2 million trees to be planted in Bosawas
3. Santos wins reelection in Colombia, defeating hardliner Zuluaga
4. Action demanded on murders of women
5. New Police law passes on first reading in National Assembly
6. El Niño threatens small hydroelectric power stations
7. Director of ANPDH named to Esteli appeals court
8. Nicaragua expresses “unconditional” solidarity with Venezuela against imperialism
9. 288 die in traffic accidents; 60% involving alcohol
 

1. Nicaragua 5^th in world in renewable energy investment

Nicaragua ranks the fifth highest in the world in investment in renewable energy production as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) according to the Renewables 2014 Global Status Report published by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21^st Century (REN21).  Meanwhile, Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the Inter-American Development Bank ranked Nicaragua third in Latin America, behind Brazil and Chile, in investing in renewable energy production.  Since the return of the Sandinistas to the presidency in 2007, Nicaragua has invested over US$1.5 billion in renewable energy production while at the same time expanding access to electricity to 78% of the population. The percentage of Nicaragua’s electricity use produced from renewable sources has grown steadily from 27% in 2007, 28% in 2009, 32% in 2011, 43% in 2012, and 51% in 2013. The government is on track to reach its goal of 90% renewable energy production by 2020 with plans to spend another US$1 billion through 2018.

The government renewables plan incorporates every source of renewable energy including hydro, geothermal, wind, solar, and biomass. As the web publication Clean Energy for All reported, the government has signed long term contracts with the sugar industry to produce electricity from biomass resulting from the six month long sugarcane harvest. Of the 63 renewable energy projects currently underway, 17 of them are solar. Recent solar energy projects in Chinandega have brought power to dozens of artisanal fishers. In Masaya, eight bakeries and 51 small furniture and handicraft businesses installed solar and biomass powered equipment funded by the government and international aid.

The Nicaragua Network/Alliance for Global Justice is organizing a delegation Aug. 3-12, 2014, to examine the effects of climate change in Nicaragua and the programs the Sandinista government is implementing to mediate those effects. For more information, visit www.nicanet.org and send an email to Chuck@AFGJ.orgfor an application. (Informe Pastran, June 12, 16; El Nuevo Diario, June 10; Radio La Primerisima, June 14;http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalStatusReport.aspx)

2. Bosawas land traffickers indicted in Bonanza; 2.2 million trees to be planted in Bosawas

In Bonanza on June 11, the Indigenous Territorial Government of the Mayangna Sauni As filed a formal complaint against four traffickers in indigenous and protected land in the Bosawas Biosphere Nature Reserve in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region.  The court accepted the complaint and scheduled the first hearing for July 1. Alberto Mercado, technical coordinator for Bosawas at the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), said that his institution will accompany the indigenous government, which holds communal title to the land, and present the results of studies of changes in the soil, water, and forests that have occurred as a result of the clear cutting by land invaders. “All the proofs are there, with documents signed and sealed,” Mercado said. He added that MARENA is working with the Ecological Battalion of the Army to try to stop the deterioration of Bosawas and they have placed barricades on the roads into the Reserve to prevent more families of colonizers from entering. “We have prevented 22 families from entering the nucleus of the Reserve, about 150 people,” he said. But he added that the Reserve is immense and similar to Swiss cheese in that it has many entrances.

Meanwhile, youth groups have been getting involved. Government spokesperson Rosario Murillo announced that, as part of the activities to celebrate the 35^th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, the 19^th of July Sandinista Youth will be carrying out activities to promote knowledge about and conservation of the Bosawas Reserve.  And the Guardabarranco Young Environmentalists Group held a forum with MARENA at the Central American University to discuss the situation in the Bosawas Reserve and to explore possible solutions to the deforestation.  Among the proposals was a series of massive campaigns to raise consciousness about saving the Reserve.

In related news, William Schwartz, executive director of the National Forestry Institute (INAFOR), announced government plans to reforest 2,000 hectares in the Bosawas Reserve as part of a plan to plant trees on a total of 23,115 hectares nationwide. He said that INAFOR currently had in nurseries 11 million plants of which 2.2 million are to be planted in Bosawas.  He said that the operation would be headquartered at the military post of the Army’s Ecological Battalion at the entrance to Cola Blanca Hill, one of the six areas that make up the Reserve. Besides the Ecological Battalion, Schwartz said that students, private businesses, organized citizens, and government institutions would be joining the National Reforestation Campaign. He said that it was important to support the efforts of the indigenous peoples who over the years have been the ones who have taken care of the forests. In the last seven years, 116,000 hectares have been reforested nationally. (La Prensa, June 11; El Nuevo Diario, June 14; Informe Pastran, June 12)

3. Santos wins reelection in Colombia, defeating hardliner Zuluaga

President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia was reelected on June 15, bringing a sigh of relief to Nicaraguans. Santos’ opponent Oscar Ivan Zuluaga had taken a much more threatening stand against Nicaragua than Santos over the November 2012 World Court ruling that, while it gave San Andres and other Caribbean islands to Colombia, awarded the surrounding maritime territory to Nicaragua.

Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre Sacasa said, “Santos is a person who knows that the position of Colombia has cost his country prestige internationally and in time he will find a way to recognize the ruling from The Hague. Zuluaga, meanwhile, …used rhetoric that was much more hostile toward Nicaragua.” Aguirre Sacasa said that Santos has been respecting the ruling without expressly saying that he is doing so, in the sense that those who are fishing in the new Nicaraguan waters are Nicaraguan fishing boats or boats that have gotten Nicaraguan permission to fish while Nicaraguan naval vessels have been patrolling those waters.

International law expert Norman Miranda said he didn’t expect Santos to change his position over the short term but could gradually accept the ruling over the long term now that he doesn’t have to satisfy a “nationalistic Colombian clientele” having been safely reelected. Mauricio Herdocia, also an expert in international law, noted that the residents of the islands of San Andres and Providencia had voted for Santos indicating a rejection of the belligerent discourse of Zuluaga on the issue of the World Court ruling. Herdocia said that Nicaraguans hope that in his second term Santos will show congruence between his stand for peace and negotiations inside Colombia and a position of respect for international law outside the country. (El Nuevo Diario, June 16; Radio La Primerisima, June 16)

4. Action demanded on murders of women

On June 16, the group Action Now, which runs shelters for battered women, issued a call to action to address the issue of violence against women. Action Now director Martha Munguia said murders of women had reached 41 cases already this year, an increase over last year and an emergency level. By the end of April 2014, the Women’s and Children’s Police Stations had received more than 11,000 complaints by women who were attacked by men. Erlinda Castillo, national head of the Women’s Police Stations system, said that, “This cannot be eradicated from one day to the next,” adding that men, women, families, and communities have to transform their ways of relating to each other.

Reyna Rodriguez of the Network of Women against Violence (RMCV) said that her organization will carry out an in depth study of the causes of the rise in murders of women, noting in spite of education campaigns, marches, and rallies, the situation continues to worsen. Rodriguez said that of the 41 deaths this year, 16 perpetrators are in custody and being tried, another six have been convicted and are imprisoned, three committed suicide, and the remaining 16 are at large. Castillo said that the Nicaraguan Police was working in coordination with Interpol and “if they are outside the country, we will capture them there.”

Government spokesperson Rosario Murillo said that the Ministry of the Family in conjunction with the Police would be extending the new mobile women’s police stations to all the municipalities in the country to address issues of gender and family violence and that they would work with community and religious leaders in each town. She said that at the moment they are only functioning in seven districts in Managua. (Radio La Primerisima, June 16; La Prensa, June 15; El Nuevo Diario, June 14; Informe Pastran, June 13)

5. New Police law passes on first reading in National Assembly

On June 11, the National Assembly passed on first reading a new law to govern the National Police. The proposal has been controversial with opposition lawmakers protesting because it gives the president the power to extend the term of the chief of police. Sandinista legislators defended the law noting that the chief of police has always been named by the president, whether Liberal or Sandinista. Sandinista Deputy Edwin Castro said that the Nicaraguan Police, in spite of being the smallest in Central America, with 13,000 officers, works the best with the country’s citizens. He noted that 180,000 are involved with the police in what is known as “community policing,” a method that has given Nicaragua one of the lowest crime rates in the region.

Another aspect of the measure being questioned, this time by attorneys, is an apparent prohibition against “private investigations or other actions that could threaten constitutional rights, intimacy or the privacy of individuals.” Criminal defense lawyer Roberto Cruz said that lawyers are concerned about this because the Code on Criminal Procedures establishes that there is freedom to search for evidence but the new law does not seem recognize that. Attorney Ramon Alvarez said that lawyers often contract with private investigators to seek evidence to support their cases which may not now be allowed. A second vote on the measure, article by article, will happen in two weeks. (El Nuevo Diario, June 12, 13; La Prensa, June 13)

6. El Niño threatens small hydroelectric power stations

A season with little rainfall, such as that predicted with the beginning of an El Niño climate phenomenon, could threaten small hydroelectric generating stations that do not have dams behind them and thus are more exposed to the danger of insufficient water in the streams that feed them. Patricia Rodriguez, technical manager of the company Multiconsult, said, “I can’t say that this will occur, that there could come a moment when the water level is so low that it is not advisable that the water go into the turbines because it carries too much sediment that can damage them.” In the last ten years, Nicaragua has installed ten small hydroelectric plants that together generate 12.2 megawatts of electricity.

Rommel Eleazar Loaisiga of the community of El Naranjo in the municipality of Waslala said that the small power station in his village which serves 778 families has changed the local economy. He said, “Businesses have increased, health has improved; before we didn’t have a milk collection station and now we have two.” But, he noted, if rainfall continues below normal, this development would be affected. (El Nuevo Diario, June 12)

7. Director of ANPDH named to Esteli appeals court

The Nicaraguan Supreme Court has named Roberto Petray, head of the Nicaraguan Pro-Human Rights Association (ANPDH), to the Appeals Tribunal of Las Segovias (usually referred to as the Esteli appeals court). Petray said that a year ago he submitted his curriculum vitae to the Court and, on June 13, Supreme Court Vice-President Marvin Aguilar called him to Managua to be sworn in as a judge. [The ANPDH was founded in the 1980s by the United States to “monitor” the US funded counterrevolutionarieswhen abuses by those forces had come under fire and the group received US$3 million of the US$100 million approved by the US Congress for the contras in 1986.]

Reactions to the appointment varied. Vilma Nuñez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, said that it was “inopportune” and “was a maneuver by the government seeking to convince public opinion that the Catholic bishops had negotiated appointments” when they met with President Daniel Ortega in May. Ultra-conservative Bishop Juan Abelardo Mata of Esteli is the president of the ANPDH and Petray has been one of his advisors. Sandinista National Assembly Deputy Edwin Castro said that there were no politics involved in the appointment. Petray himself stated, “My appointment had nothing to do with the dialogue [with the bishops] as some people have suggested.” Later in the week, he announced that he would continue as a member of the ANPDH. (El Nuevo Diario, June 10, 14; La Prensa, June 11; Informe Pastran, June 10; http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/2836)

8. Nicaragua expresses “unconditional” solidarity with Venezuela against imperialism

Vice Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke reiterated Nicaragua and President Daniel Ortega’s “unwavering support” for the government and people of Venezuela in the face of right-wing violence and US imperialism. He said, “Nicaragua is always proud to share the challenges, joys, pain, inspirations, examples, battles and victories of the glorious and fierce people of the Liberator Simon Bolivar and Commander Hugo Chavez.” Jaentschke made the statement during the 8^th Political Council Meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas-Peoples Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) in Caracas. He added, “Nicaragua salutes the revolutionary brotherhood of President Nicolas Maduro, his cabinet, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the youth, and Venezuelan families who remain unwavering in their commitment to continue fighting together all the battles, walking the paths, and approaching the dawn of our people though ALBA.” Jaentschke reaffirmed, in the name of President Daniel Ortega, “The firm, invariable, and unconditional solidarity of our government and people to each Venezuelan” in the face of the attacks of imperialism. (Radio La Primerisima, June 10)

9. 288 die in traffic accidents; 60% involving alcohol

The week’s news outlets were full of stories noting that, despite new laws raising fines and penalties for traffic infractions and increased enforcement by police, 288 traffic fatalities had occurred already this year, 25 more than the same period last year. Sixty percent of accidents involve alcohol. Traffic Police Commissioner Ivan Escobar said that many accidents would be prevented if people obeyed the law. He promised increased enforcement and more educational campaigns. Two hundred drivers have had their licenses suspended and 1,136 drivers have been fined this year for traffic violations. Of the 288 who died, 100 were riding motorcycles and 81 were pedestrians. (Radio La Primerisima, June 12)