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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 77 | Noviembre 1987 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
CANADA AIDS WAR REFUGEESOn August 30, the Nicaraguan Red Cross and UNICEF signed an agreement to channel $650,000 from the Canadian government to the peasant resettlements in and around Nueva Guinea in Nicaragua's war-torn Region V (Boaco, Chontales and central Zelaya). The project expects to assist some 25,000 people, particularly women and children, during the next two and a half years. Canada's government will also provide technical assistance.
Agop Kasayan of UNICEF said the project's main goal is to assist the families in resolving daily problems. He said the program will be worked out in the spirit of the recently signed Esquipulas II accords.
In April and early May, the Nicaraguan government relocated hundreds of peasant families from south of La Guinea, where they were subject to constant contra harassment, to land near Nueva Guinea. In May and June, responding to the surprising success of the program, over 500 more families voluntarily joined the relocation program, originally intended for 600 families. Two of the new cooperatives that form part of the program were attacked by counterrevolutionary forces in late August.
HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE
OPENED ON ATLANTIC COASTThe National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights is opening a branch office in Puerto Cabezas, on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast. The office will assist in the repatriation of indigenous peoples returning to Nicaragua from refugee camps in Honduras.
The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), with aid from the Nicaraguan Social Welfare Institute and the Nicaraguan Red Cross, currently operates an "air bridge" between Puerto Lempira, Honduras and Puerto Cabezas to facilitate in the repatriation efforts. Dorotea Wilson, one of northern Zelaya's representatives to Nicaragua's National Assembly, said that more than 4,000 Miskitus have returned to Nicaragua with UNHCR assistance to date.
RED CROSS ASSISTS
AMNESTY PROGRAMThe Nicaraguan Red Cross, through its regional offices throughout the country, has announced that it will assist those Nicaraguans who wish to take advantage of the amnesty offered by the Nicaraguan government since late 1983. "We want this movement to reach every last corner of the country," commented Red Cross President Gonzalo Ramírez, recently named alternate member of the National Reconciliation Commission formed as part of the Esquipulas II accords.
Ramírez said the Red Cross is prepared to respond to the various needs that will surely be generated as people come back—including food, medicine, clothing and housing. The Nicaraguan Red Cross maintains close ties with Red Cross offices in Honduras and Costa Rica, and Ramírez said they expect to coordinate actions with those homologous committees.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America