Nicaragua Network

1. Five police officers killed in Bluefields
2. International briefs: Cuba, Texas execution, Costa Rica, FIFA crimes
3. Wall Street Journal skeptical of canal finances
4. Three opposition coalitions form with eye on 2016 elections
5. Nicaragua addressing drought and climate change
6. Chikungunya and dengue attacking at once

1. Five police officers killed in Bluefields

Five National Police officers were killed in an isolated area in the municipality of Bluefields on Aug. 15 by members of a criminal band who attacked them and freed one of their members who had been detained by the officers reportedly for grave domestic violence. Both the police and army are pursuing the killers. The officers who died were Santo Sevilla and Roberto Granados, along with volunteer policemen Wilber Gonzalez, Jorge Gonzalez and Wilbert Lopez. The men were from Kukra Hill, El Tortuguero Managua, and Juigalpa.

Government Communications Coordinator Rosario Murillo said that the families were being brought to Managua where their fallen relatives would be honored by their fellow officers on Aug. 18. Aminta Granera, Head of the National Police, said that the band has been involved in cattle theft, extortion, murder and robbery and added that five of their members were arrested in July and are awaiting trial in Nueva Guinea. She said that the murder of the five police was likely in reprisal for those arrests. (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 16, 17, 18; Informe Pastran, Aug. 17; La Prensa, Aug. 18)

2. International briefs: Cuba, Texas execution, Costa Rica, FIFA crimes

Speaking about the re-opening of the US Embassy in Cuba and the Cuban Embassy in the US, Nicaraguan Vice-President Omar Halleslevens said “We can’t but celebrate the fact that they are taking the first steps toward healthy, frank relations such as should exist in today’s world.”  He added, “We are happy that the United States under the leadership of Barack Obama has taken that route along with our Cuban friends toward this policy of opening that they have been developing.” Historian Aldo Diaz Lacayo said that the reestablishing of diplomatic relations between the two nations was a triumph for the Cuban revolution and will be classified as a success for Obama if the blockade ends and the Guantanamo base is returned to Cuba. However, radio broadcaster and former presidential candidate Fabio Gadea condemned the action saying, “Cuba is a slave island.” He added that neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush would have done this. Jose Adan Aguerri, president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), noted that while in certain areas, such as tourism and cigars, the opening to Cuba would mean greater competition for Nicaragua, Cuba also is a market of eleven million people who could be interested in Nicaraguan products. He said that a trade mission of Nicaraguan businesspeople is being planned for a visit to Cuba before the end of the year. (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 14; Informe Pastran, Aug. 14)

As the date of his execution in Texas approaches, Nicaraguan Bernardo Tercero has asked to see his son Franklin Moises who has applied for a visa at the US Consulate in Managua. Tercero is scheduled to die on Aug. 27 for the killing of a man during a robbery at a dry cleaners that went wrong. Tercero has appealed to President Barack Obama for clemency but experts have told the family that the state of Texas, not the federal government, has control over the case. Managua Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes also forwarded a petition to Pope Francis asking him to intervene with the Texas panel that could commute his sentence to life in prison and President Daniel Ortega has written to President Obama. However, none of these measures has borne fruit so far. (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 16)

Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis said on Aug. 17 that no dialogue with Nicaragua is appropriate at the moment. “We have the border conflict in the zone of Isla Calero (called Harbour Head by Nicaragua) where Costa Rica maintains that there was a territorial invasion by Nicaragua and on that subject no dialogue is possible; we have to wait until the International Court of Justice issues its ruling on the dispute.” Meanwhile, Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez told the San Jose daily La Nacion that migration from Nicaragua had increased this year over last year. He noted, “If you look at the consulates in Managua and Chinandega and compare the total number of visas given in the first half of 2014 with the first half of 2015, you notice an increase of 7,000 visas.” He said for 2015, that was an average of 2,800 per month with the majority of applicants between 18 and 25 years of age. He said that the reasons for the migration probably continue to be the same including unemployment in Nicaragua and higher salaries in Costa Rica for both skilled and unskilled jobs and he added, “There are other elements that we could study in depth such as, for example, family reunification.” (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 17; Informe Pastran, Aug. 17)

According to the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, Julio Rocha, former president of the Nicaraguan Football Federation and a former member of the board of the International Football Federation (FIFA), has agreed to be extradited to Nicaragua to be tried for money laundering and other crimes related to a major bribery scandal in which seven current and former FIFA officials were arrested in Switzerland in May. Charges have been filed against him in the Sixth Criminal Court in Managua. Nicaragua’s head prosecutor Ana Julia Guido said that, since Rocha is Nicaraguan, his crimes were committed in Nicaragua, and he has expressed his wishes for his case to be heard in Nicaragua, “We expect that Switzerland will give us the opportunity to try him here.” Because the charges against the total of 14 officials were first filed in the United States, the US would have to agree to waive extradition to allow Rocha to be tried in Nicaragua.(Informe Pastran, Aug. 14; El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 14, 18)

3. Wall Street Journal skeptical of canal finances

In an Aug. 9 article in the Wall Street Journal otherwise filled with gratuitous biased comments, Mary Anastasia O’Grady presented some interesting observations on the finances of the proposed shipping canal across Nicaragua. She writes: “Canal proponents say Nicaragua will have a comparative advantage over Panama because its canal will have wider lanes to accommodate a new generation of container ships. Yet the economics of shipping suggest that demand for a Central American passage for the larger vessels is unlikely to materialize. Extra-large container ships bring goods from Asia to West Coast ports in the U.S., where the cargo is unloaded and moved by railroads and trucks to the American heartland. But Asian cargo ships that transit the Panama Canal for the Eastern Seaboard make multiple ports of call, from Halifax to Miami and the Gulf Coast. Many of these ports cannot accommodate the largest container ships anyway, so the demand for taking them through the canal is not there. If the demand materializes in the future, Panama has the option of building a fourth, wider set of locks at a fraction of the cost of Nicaragua’s canal. If HKND [the company with the canal concession] has revenue projections that differ from this analysis, it isn’t sharing them.”

O’Grady does not write the canal off, however. She says, “The Chinese government denies it is behind the concession held by HKND. But with more than $3.5 trillion in foreign reserves, it’s the logical candidate to foot the bill. Beijing has been flexing its geopolitical muscles in the Americas for more than a decade.” (Informe Pastran, Aug. 11; Wall Street Journal, Aug. 9)

4. Three opposition coalitions form with eye on 2016 elections

Three opposition coalitions formed by political parties and, in some cases, non-governmental organizations, have formed in Nicaragua with an eye on the November 2016 general elections. The Democratic Unity Coalition, which held its formal inauguration on June 25, held an assembly in Matagalpa on Aug. 15 to talk about the primary elections it hopes to organize to select candidates for president and for National Assembly seats. This coalition, brought together by the group Hagamos Democracia and, according to Informe Pastran, supported by US government funded organizations [most likely including the International Republican Institute which has funded Hagamos Democracia in the past], is composed of the Conservative Party, the Citizen Action Party, the historic Independent Liberal Party, the Christian Socialist Party and other groups.

The National Coalition for Democracy, headed by the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) was also in Matagalpa on Aug. 15 to set up a board for that department which would join boards already set up in the departments of Rivas and Chinandega. Saturnino Cerrato, whose New Alliance Christian Party (PANAC) recently received authorization from the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) to organize as a party, stated that he was joining the Coalition. PLI President Eduardo Montealegre said, “The current government has not been able to advance in the solution of the most serious problems of Nicaraguan society, many of which it has made worse.”

Meanwhile, former President Arnoldo Aleman of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) held a press conference on Aug. 12 to announce the formation of the Republican and Labor Liberal Alliance (Alianza Liberal Republicana y Sindical). At his side was Noel Vidaurre, a Conservative who has expressed his desire to run as the presidential candidate of the alliance. Vidaurre said that the alliance would pressure the international community to obligate the Nicaraguan government to permit true national and international observers for the 2016 elections and not just the election “accompaniers” that the CSE has allowed in recent elections.

And, in related news, an analysis published in the magazine Envio notes that “In spite of the discredit accumulated by Arnoldo Aleman, which has severely affected the PLC, this party with its rural roots continues to conserve its base and [political] machinery and, because of that, a certain electoral power. It [the PLC] is less divided than the PLI in spite of the crises through which Aleman has pulled it with his twisted political trajectory.” The analysis goes on to say, “The original PLI, the one of Virgilio Godoy, had urban roots. The current PLI is an artificial creation of Eduardo Montealegre.” The article adds that the origin of the current PLI has given rise to divisions and Montealegre been trying to revive his leadership with “speeches using a rhetoric of catastrophe.” The Envio writers note that the votes that opposition candidate Fabio Gadea received in 2011 had as their solid base the rural roots of the PLC and that Gadea and the PLC conserve much of that support in wide areas of the countryside. (Informe Pastran, Aug. 12, 14, 17; Revista Envio, Aug. 2015)

5. Nicaragua addressing drought and climate change

Two Taiwanese experts, Ju Jia-jeng and Shinne Chen, arrived in Nicaragua on Aug. 16 to evaluate the topography, soils, climate, and principal crops of the country’s so-called “dry corridor” with the goal of preparing an irrigation project for the region. In July, President Daniel Ortega asked Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou to send experts who could work with Nicaraguan counterparts to prepare a plan to present to international financial institutions for funding to improve Nicaraguan crop yields and food security. Ju Jia-jeng said that in each region that they will visit the conditions are different and some will be able to use gravity based irrigation and in others another system will have to be used. Bosco Castillo of the National System of Production, Consumption, and Commerce, said the experts will visit areas in the departments of Leon, Chinandega, Managua, Boaco, Matagalpa, Esteli, Madriz and Nueva Segovia.

Peasant farmers in the dry corridor are losing crops and cattle because of the lack of rain. Reyes Aguilar of Pantasma said that the grass in his two pastures has dried up and his 30 head of cattle have nothing to eat. “This is the first time this has happened,” he insisted, remembering that back in the 1960s there were droughts but there was still pasture and the streams and wells did not dry up. Jorge Rodriguez, who raises cattle near the Honduran border, said many of his neighbors plan to sell their cattle if the rains do not return by the end of August because “they are dying.” He added that harvests of beans and corn are also being lost to the drought.

Large and small coffee farmers are saying that climate change and the El Niño phenomenon are affecting the flowering of the coffee plants in northern Nicaragua. Joaquin Solorzano, a member of the Matagalpa Coffee Growers Association said that, due to the lack of water, the flowering of the coffee is not the best this year which means that coffee beans will be affected with an impact on the harvest of the 2015-16 cycle. CECOCAFEN, a union of coffee cooperatives of northern Nicaragua with 2,500 members, also has stated that its members are affected by climate change and drought just at the point when many were beginning to recover from the coffee rust plague. The Department of Jinotega produces 35% of Nicaragua’s coffee, Matagalpa 28%, Nueva Segovia 24%, and the rest of the country 13%.

Meanwhile, the government announced that it is organizing a training program on climate change for more than 1,200 farmers in the Department of Nueva Segovia. Supported by the United Nation Development Program (UNDP), the training will cover topics such as environmental education, best practices, communication and capacity building to mitigate the effects of climate change. And, last week the government presented a study on Achievements and Challenges of Climate Change Adaptation. The document states that Nicaragua has incorporated issues of climate change as a component of the National Human Development Plan. Among the efforts, the Ministry of the Environment is investing US$60 million in a watershed management project in the dry corridor and the country’s 153 municipal governments are implementing steps to deal with climate change in their territories. (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 16, 17; Nicaragua News, Aug. 12, 17)

6. Chikungunya and dengue attacking at once

On Aug. 17 Nicaragua began a special program that will intensify its efforts to combat the two viruses that are sickening hundreds of people in Nicaragua: chikungunya and dengue. The Health Ministry announced that it is increasing home visits to detect cases of fever and increase fumigation and efforts to clean up standing water where mosquitos lay their eggs. Nicaragua has now confirmed 2,700 cases of chikungunya this year with a total of 5,399 since the first cases were registered in the country in July of 2014. (The disease first arrived in the Western Hemisphere in December of 2013.) However, the number of cases is far below those reported in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. There have been 403 confirmed cases of dengue in the country this year.

Dr. Jesus Marin, an internist, said that, “The great problem that we have right now is that the two epidemics are at the same time: dengue and chikungunya. If it were just chikungunya, the best thing is to administer an anti-inflammatory medicine, but in dengue, that is counter-indicated.” He advised that all patients should see a doctor to find out which disease they have. He added that it was extremely important for householders to eliminate any standing water after each rainfall.

The two diseases have taken the lives of three children since July, two from dengue and one from chikungunya. On Aug. 13, a 22 month old boy died of chinkungunya, the first to die of the disease in Nicaragua and on Aug. 9, a five-year old boy died of dengue in Rivas. Last month an 11 year old girl also died of dengue. (El Nuevo Diario, Aug. 14, 16, 17; Informe Pastran, Aug. 14)