Nicaragua Network

1. Citizen security assemblies held around the country
2. Government decrees minimum wage increases
3. Opposition and Sandinistas commemorate anniversaries
4. Water supply threatened by deforestation
5. Economic briefs: Coffee, tourism, Social Security
6. Cuban trade delegation identifies 50 areas of interchange within ALBA
7. Fluoride treatments lead off National Day of Oral Health

1. Citizen security assemblies held around the country

Government communications coordinator Rosario Murillo said that the National Police would continue holding citizen security assemblies in neighborhoods throughout the country. She said that the priorities listed by families at the assemblies held in Managua included reducing robberies, controlling the sale of alcohol, more police patrols, better attention at police stations, and improved response to emergency calls. The assemblies, organized by neighborhood family councils, are also being held in areas far from the capital, she said, mentioning San Rafael del Norte, Wiwili, Condega, Palacagüinam Waspam, Rosita, Bonanza, Kukra Hill, and Laguna de Perlas. Murillo listed the areas in which security is being increased: patrols around schools, parks and bus stations; traffic enforcement; vigilance at tourist attractions, religious celebrations, and sports events; crack down on cattle theft in the countryside; programs for at-risk youth; regulation of liquor sales; and crack down on drug dealers. She noted, “We are one of the most secure countries on the continent and, God willing, we will strengthen our indexes of citizen security with all of this work we are carrying out based on our model of faith, family, and community.”

In Jinotega, police began enforcing the plan for increased citizen security. Police Commissioner Martha Duarte said that, “Many motorcyclists run races at night and we have located those sectors in order to apply the law in all its force.” She added that, over the weekend, eleven motorcyclists had been detained for driving while intoxicated, driving without a license, riding without a helmet, and carrying too many passengers on a motorcycle. They will have to complete a course on traffic safety before they can get their motorcycles released.

Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes said that the assemblies were positive because many neighborhoods had high crime rates. He stated, “It is always important to get close, to listen to the concerns of the population; but not only listen but provide solutions.” He called on citizens to help when a neighbor is a victim of a crime noting that some people see another person being assaulted and do nothing to help. He also said that it was important to address the violence in the north of the country where three members of an armed band died in January in an incident in Pantasma involving a bomb in a backpack. “I believe that there must be other forms of struggle that are not with weapons and killing people if we are going to achieve progress and development for our country,” he stated. (Informe Pastran, Feb. 24, 25, 26; La Prensa, Feb. 25, 26; Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 24)

2. Government decrees minimum wage increases

For the second year in a row, representatives of the government, business, and labor were unable to reach consensus on this year’s minimum monthly wage increase for ten sectors of the economy. The only agreement reached was to increase the minimum wage for workers in the small business sector by 9.8%. For the other sectors, the government had to establish the increase by decree. Luis Barbosa of the CST-JBE federation said that the failure of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) to appear at the last negotiation session showed “arrogance” and a desire to return to the days when owners decided wages, even when they violated the law. The unions proposed an increase of 20% for the agriculture sector and increases of between 12% and 14% for the other sectors, while business insisted on raises of no more than 9.5%. Wages for workers in the free trade zones are negotiated separately.

At a press conference, Labor Minister Alba Luz Torres announced the raises for the different sectors of the economy. Salaries in the agriculture sector will rise by 11.48% and in other sectors by 10.98%. The raises will take place in two stages with the first going into effect on March 1, and the second on September 1. On Sept. 1^st, the minimum monthly wage for agriculture workers will rise to US$120 per month (plus food); for manufacturing workers US$162; workers in the fisheries industry US$183; workers in the mining industry US$216; small handicraft and tourism industries US$130; electricity, water and transportation US$220; construction US$270; central government US$150; and community, social, and domestic services US$168.

COSEP leaders said that the raises will benefit workers in the formal sectors of the economy but will have a negative impact on workers in the informal economy who will have to pay higher prices for the goods they buy. The COSEP communique also noted that employers this year must pay another percentage point into social security for workers while the payment from workers was not increased. Roberto Gonzalez of the Sandinista Workers Central (CST) said, “We expected that this adjustment would be according to the law which bases the increase on the economy and inflation and which would give us 11%; so we are content.” (La Prensa, Feb. 27; Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 27; Informe Pastran, Feb. 16; El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 28)

3. Opposition and Sandinistas commemorate anniversaries

The Violeta Chamorro Foundation and the group Hagamos Democracia held an event on Feb. 25 to mark the 25^th anniversary of Chamorro’s election as president of Nicaragua over then-President Daniel Ortega on Feb. 25, 1990. Foundation director Cristiana Chamorro said, “The people of Nicaragua mobilized to say… enough to ten years of Sandinista dictatorship,” adding that the same could happen today “because the Nicaraguan people have surprised us.” Opposition political parties and civil society organizations attending the event agreed that Feb. 25 should be proclaimed “Democracy Day.” At the gathering were leaders of the Independent Liberal Party, the Constitutional Liberal Party, the Christian Democratic Union, the Conservative Party, and the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) along with civic organizations. Some political actors who were members of the UNO coalition were not present at the UNO remembrances or even remarked upon, including Chamorro’s vice president Virgilio Godoy of the old PLI, Conservative Miriam Argüello, and Christian Democrats Luis Humberto Guzman and Azucena Ferrey. And the MRS leaders in 1990 were, of course, members of the defeated Sandinista government. Splinters of several of the opposition parties the previous day had signed a unity agreement, inspired, they said, by the UNO coalition of a quarter century earlier. They were the PLI, the Ramiro Sacasa Constitutional Liberal Movement, and the PLC Crusade for Unity.

To mark the occasion, Informe Pastran brought together a group of public opinion analysts who examined the differences between the political climate then and now.  The experts noted that the fear among the populace in 1990 that a Sandinista victory would bring a continuation of war and economic crisis has been transformed into a general sense of optimism and confidence in the desire of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to bring better conditions of life to Nicaragua’s people. This, they felt, would mean that the Ortega-Murillo duo could continue to win elections until at least 2021 independent of which of them occupied the top spot. (Informe Pastran, Feb. 24, 25, 26; La Prensa, Feb. 25; El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 26)

Meanwhile, on February 26 and 27, Sandinistas marked the 37th anniversary of the 1978 uprising in the indigenous Monimbo neighborhood of Masaya against the Somoza dictatorship and the 32nd anniversary of the 1983 death in combat against the contras of 23 young reservists at San Jose de las Mulas in the Department of Matagalpa. In his speech in the Plaza of the Revolution the evening of Feb. 27, Ortega lashed out at the version of democracy under the governments before the 1979 revolution saying, “How can that be democracy—a country with 60% illiteracy and with the land concentrated in a few hands?” He added that it was against those injustices that revolutionaries fought at Monimbo and in all of Nicaragua prior to the revolutionary triumph. However, Roger Arteaga, president of Hagamos Democracia, said that Ortega’s “concept of democracy is atrophied; it isn’t balance of powers, citizen liberty, freedom of expression and respect for the constitution.” (Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 26, 27; Informe Pastran, Mar. 2; La Prensa, Mar. 1)

4. Water supply threatened by deforestation

Permanent cloud formations encircling Nicaragua’s highest mountains, such as in the Dipilto-Jalapa Reserve, contribute much of the water needed by agriculture in the surrounding areas. In healthy “cloud forests”, water, rather than falling, condenses on trees and other prolific cloud forest vegetation. The runoff provides low land rivers and streams with water throughout the year. Jaime Incer Barquero, Nicaragua’s most famous environmentalist, warned that the effects of climate change, exacerbated by deforestation will create much drier conditions for the people in the region. “In the night, when the mountains are covered with clouds, that is when water is formed as dew. When the mountains are deforested, very little dew is formed. All the people who live along this road (Ocotal-Jalapa) are going to endure dry seasons that are very dry, even more so with climate change,” Incer said.

The Dipilto-Jalapa pine forest was logged by a foreign company in the 1940s for export and has since suffered further gradual deforestation due to the advance of the agricultural frontier into previously forested land. Also, an infestation of southern pine beetles in 2002 destroyed half of the pine forests of the Segovias [Madriz, Nueva Segovia, and Esteli], some 32,000 hectares.  Much of the forest decimated by pine beetles has regenerated naturally.

Much of the permanent deforestation is due to coffee farmers expanding their farms and planting varieties of coffee bushes that do not require shade.  While the Segovias have plenty of “protected areas,” the protection is more theoretical than real. Deforestation continues along with the parallel diminishment of the diversity of plant and animal species, some of which are endangered. Nueva Segovia has 41,200 hectares of protected area, Madriz has 8,870, and Esteli has 43,201. Experts say that deforestation in the high elevation areas causes strong surface runoff during the rainy season, with the resulting danger of landslides and depriving the agricultural zone of water flows during the dry season. In October 2014, the government issued a decree lifting the ban on commercial cutting of pine trees in the entire country for a year. In Nueva Segovia alone, 10,000 permanent employees, not counting furniture makers, depend on the logging industry for jobs. (El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 27)

5. Economic briefs: Coffee, tourism, Social Security

Coffee exports rose in value by 179% and in volume by 79% in the first quarter of the 2014 harvest compared to the same period in the previous harvest, according to the Center for Export Procedures (CETREX). A contributing factor was a rise in price on the international market to an average of US$177 per hundredweight compared to the same period for the 2013-14 harvest when the price averaged US$113 per hundredweight. CETREX reported that Venezuela and the United States were the principal buyers of Nicaraguan coffee. The outbreak of coffee rust affected the two previous coffee harvests in Central America, according to Julio Centeno of the “Let’s Harvest More Coffee” Project. In Nicaragua 37% of coffee groves were affected while in El Salvador the figure was 70%. His project is assisting 6,000 small growers in Nicaragua and 2,000 in El Salvador to improve the productivity of their coffee.  (Radio La Primerisima, Mar. 2; Informe Pastran, Mar. 2; El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 26)

Final figures for 2014 show that tourism brought in a record US$445 million during that year, an increase of 6.8% over 2013. Tourism Minister Mayra Salinas said that she hoped that 2015 will exceed the record of last year when 1.329 million foreign tourists visited the country, an increase of 8.2% over 2013. She said that the Ministry was carrying forward initiatives to obtain good results for the traditional April vacation period. She spoke at a fair in Managua highlighting offerings of micro, small, and medium tourism businesses. (Informe Pastran, Mar. 2; El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 1; La Prensa, Feb. 28)

Economist Geovani Rodriguez raised an alarm about the Nicaraguan Institute of Social Security (INSS), saying that its expenditures for current pensioners exceed its capacity and it is using up capital saved for future retirees. He said, “This lack of liquidity is an ulcer that, if it is not taken care of in time could have consequences such as the deterioration in the savings of the insured to the degree that it could turn into a financial problem of national significance.” However, Alonso Silva, who represents the Superior Council on Private Enterprise on the INSS board of directors, said that he is confident that the figures will improve as they begin to reflect new income from the increase in the quota paid by employers. Economist Adolfo Acevedo said that even the government’s payments on a debt to the INSS that dates back to the time of Somoza will not be sufficient because those payments are in bonds and not cash. The INSS needs to pay regular pensions plus the additional seniors who now, after many protests in the streets, get a small pension from the INSS even though they did not pay into the system for enough years to qualify. (Informe Pastran, Mar. 2; La Prensa, Feb. 25)

6. Cuban trade delegation identifies 50 areas of interchange within ALBA

A Cuban business delegation visited Nicaragua and identified 50 products of potential trade value between the two member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Peoples of Latin America (ALBA), a cooperative trade agreement. Presidential economic advisor Bayardo Arce said that the products were identified during an interchange after the delegation met with representatives of cooperatives, medium sized industries, producers, exporters, and government institutions. Cuban Vice-Minister of Industry Eloy Alvarez Martinez said that Cuba is interested in the creation of industrial infrastructure, inputs for the tourist sector, rehabilitation of health centers, and technical and professional training. Roy Rogers Obaya said that Cuban industry offers medical equipment for hospital use, an area in which Cuba is a leader. Other Cubans offerings were agricultural machinery and machinery for food processing. A trade mission from Nicaragua will travel to Cuba in the coming days to continue the talks. Minister of Development, Industry, and Trade Orlando Solorzano said, “We have to hurry because there are changes, important changes, coming in international trade that we have to prepare ourselves for by strengthening our productive and commercial capacity together. We speak of complementary production.” (El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 2; Informe Pastran, Feb. 25)

7. Fluoride treatments lead off National Day of Oral Health

The Ministry of Health on Feb. 25 initiated a National Day of Oral Health for approximately 829,000 primary school students throughout the country. The day began with what will be a total of 16 fluoride mouthwash treatments this school year with the goal of cavity prevention. Health officials made it clear that fluoride alone will not suffice and trained students in tooth brushing skills, recommending brushing three times a day, and healthy eating. Oral health training in rural areas is also planned. In other health news, government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo reported that 31,000 babies have been vaccinated against measles and 3,945 cases of chikungunya have been diagnosed in the country. She said that 30,000 people in Chontales, Jinotega, Carazo and Managua have participated in intense health workshops. (Radio La Primerisima, Feb. 25)