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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 76 | Octubre 1987 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Envío team
"MISSION OF PEACE"The 300-passenger boat "Mission of Peace" recently began transporting passengers between the coastal city of Bluefields and Rama, the town at the inland end of the river. The three-tier boat, built by a small Nicaraguan enterprise specializing in fishing vessels, is intended to provide comfortable and efficient transportation for travelers, who have had to travel in cramped and unpleasant conditions.
In recent years contra forces have been attacked three boats on the Bluefields-Rama route, destroying two of them, in their attempt to cut Bluefields off from its essential link to Nicaragua's Pacific Coast region. The most recent attack was May 1, when an FDN group burned the barge and tug carrying food from Rama to the Bluefields population. A government representative in Bluefields said the boat's name symbolizes the Nicaraguan people's urgent desire for peace.
HONDURAS:
A SOVIET SATELLITE? Only days before Senator Robert Dole was in Nicaragua, reiterating the oft-repeated US attack on Nicaragua's relations with the Soviet Union, Honduras signed its first trade agreement with that country. Reginaldo Panting, Honduras’ minister of business and commerce, said the agreement grants most-favored-nation status between the two countries.
Panting said Honduras is primarily interested in acquiring chemical products and raw materials for its pharmaceuticals industry and hopes to sell the Soviet Union its traditional export products, including coffee, sugar and palm oil. Honduras, one of the US' closest allies in Central America, does not maintain diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
THE GREATEST THING
SINCE HOUSE CALLSIn an effort to respond to the enormous backlog of patients waiting for surgery, a group of doctors at the Bertha Calderón Women's Hospital in Managua recently formed a medical "brigade."
The brigade spends its Sundays doing volunteer surgical duty. In Bertha Calderón Hospital alone, 5,000 people are on the waiting list for opthamological surgery and another 230 needing some kind of gynecological intervention.
According to Dr. Ligia Altamirano, the brigade coordinator, a small group of doctors at Bertha Calderón decided to form the brigade in late April. "I'll tell you," she says, "at first we thought it would be very difficult to involve the other doctors, but now what began as a small thing is a movement inside the hospital."
Since the doctors at Bertha Calderón began their volunteer Sunday shifts, the "movement" has spread to other hospitals in Managua, including La Mascota, the Children's Hospital, and even to a number of other cities around the country, including Boaco, Jinotega and León. A total of 40 medical brigades are now operating in the country.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America