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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 224 | Marzo 2000 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Nitlápan-Envío team
NINTH SAO PAULO FORUM MEETS IN MANAGUA
The Sao Paulo Forum held its IX Meeting in Managua on February 19-21, with delegates, mainly Latin Americans, from around the world. This body, created in 1989, is made up of leftist parties from 34 countries of the world.
The forum’s final statement, titled the Declaration of Niquinohomo in honor of the birthplace of General Augusto C. Sandino, assassinated 66 years ago on February 21, makes the following reference to Nicaragua’s situation: "The struggle of the Nicaraguan people, who managed to overthrow the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza and build a Popular Sandinista Revolution, makes up a fundamental part [of the left’s heritage]." The document adds that the conquests of that revolution "are being defended today in the conditions and ways that correspond to the current national and international situation." This sentence, so disconnected from Nicaraguan reality, is an indication of the forum’s sterile formalism. While very critical of global neoliberalism, it is incapable of being self-critical about the left’s own problems today.
The FSLN, which hosted this year’s forum, tried to keep the participants from getting any alternative information about the pact it has signed with Alemán’s neo-Somocista government. Nonetheless, several dissident currents within the party—the FSLN Left, the Sandinista Initiative and the Carlos Fonseca Unity Movement—showed up with documentation and their own publications and did their share of lobbying.
BISHOP VALDIVIESO—STILL A ROLE MODEL
On the 450th anniversary of the assassination of Nicaraguan Bishop Antonio de Valdivieso at the hands of the landowning Contreras brothers, the Dominican Order of Preachers to which Valdivieso belonged has asked the Vatican to initiate the steps for beatifying the continent’s first martyred bishop. In the presentation of their motives, the Dominicans said, "We believe that although the beatification of the bishop adds nothing to his saintliness, it would be a public recognition of his worthy life according to the gospel and an example for God’s people in Nicaragua and other places who view Monsignor Antonio de Valdivieso as a dedicated follower of Jesus of Nazareth and a genuine martyr. Even though he knew from repeated threats against him that his life was in danger and that those threats were made because of his love for the poor, he refused to abandon his diocese or remain silent or pact with the enemies of truth and justice."
ALEMÁN’S PROBITY STATEMENT MISSED A FEW THINGS
Also on February 21, President Alemán handed in his declaration of probity to the Office of Comptroller General’s Superior Council, the collegial body now directing this state auditing institution. Former Comptroller General Agustín Jarquín had demanded this information a number of times, but the President repeatedly refused to provide it.
The declaration does not respond to the information requested, since it only covers the period in which Alemán was mayor of Managua. It does not include the increase in his holdings after three years in the presidency, especially the recent purchases of land and other properties acquired by his family in various parts of the country, including the famous "La Chinampa" hacienda. Jarquín, now just one of the five Superior Council members, stated that the incomplete information merits the Comptroller’s Office continuing with the administrative suit that Jarquín had earlier initiated against President Alemán due to anomalies detected in the accumulation of his wealth.
NEPOTISM ALIVE AND WELL IN NICARAGUA
María Fernanda Flores de Alemán, the new First Lady, assumed the chair of the Social Cabinet on January 10, thus bumping Yamileth Bonilla, who heads the Secretariat of Social Action, from a task that legally corresponds to her post. The ministries comprising the Social Cabinet are Education, Health, the Family, and Agriculture and Forestry, together with the Technical and Social Action Secretariats. Flores firmly defended her right to occupy this post on the grounds that she is the wife of the President and used the formality of "coordinator" instead of "director" to dissemble a decision that not only overrides the law, but is unconstitutional because of its nepotistic character.
ANOTHER STATE BANK CLOSES
Alleging irregularities in its performance, the Superintendence of Banks decided to definitively close down operations of the Popular Credit Bank. This was the last remaining state bank after the total disappearance of the State Development Bank (BANADES) and the "capitalization" (read privatization) of the Nicaraguan Investment and Commerce Bank (BANIC), an operation that the comptroller general’s office questioned for its lack of transparency. Nicaragua’s Constitution establishes that the state must guarantee the functioning of banks and other state financial institutes as mechanisms for promotion, investment and development, directed especially toward medium and small producers. The only state lending option that now remains for such producers is the Rural Credit Fund, which is both insufficient and inefficient.
NEW MUNICIPALITY, NEW NAME
Ciudad Sandino could get a name change now that it has officially been designated a municipality. Many of the area’s residents want a patron saint to celebrate in an annual fiesta, so there is a move to name the new municipality San Francisco Javier, which would also fit in nicely with the Liberal Government’s anti-Sandinista bent.
UNITED STATES WANTS TO MOVE FASTER ON DRUG TRAFFICKING
Oliver Garza, the current US ambassador in Nicaragua and a former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) official, signed a new agreement in early March to support the national police in its battle against drugs. At the signing, Garza expressed his government’s concern about increased drug trafficking in Nicaragua; the urgent need for Nicaragua to sign the International Treaty to Fight Against Drugs, which would allow US patrol boats to operate in the waters of Nicaragua’s continental shelf; the need to reform the country’s legal and judicial system to successfully grapple with crimes linked to drug trafficking; and the urgency of Nicaragua signing an extradition agreement with the United States. Around the same time it was announced that a US mission will visit Nicaragua to assess the country’s capacity and effectiveness in dealing with drug trafficking on both its Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
THE REGION FLOWS WITH CONTAMINATED WATER
At the end of February, SOS Environment, an environmentalist organization headed by Kamilo Lara, presented the Central American Parliament with a plan to conserve the region’s environment. The area in question covers 400,000 square kilometers and is home to 30 million inhabitants and 10% of the Earth’s biodiversity. The report accompanying the project proposal states that 76% of the region’s wastewater is untreated, which causes severe damage to the underground and surface water sources. As a result, contaminated water transmits 80% of the illnesses in the region and one Central American child dies every 22 minutes due to water-borne illnesses. According to the report, Nicaragua would need to invest US$4.275 billion in the next five years to mitigate the ecological damage it is suffering.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America