Nicaragua Briefs

Envío team

DROUGHT AND HUNGER

On January 22, the agriculture and forestry minister announced that the government would create technical teams, including officials of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program, to evaluate the impact of an ongoing drought on some 30 municipalities in northern and central Nicaragua. The El Niño current—present in Central America during last year’s rainy season—caused a severe drought starting in mid-2009, which is predicted to continue until May 2010. Weeks before the government admitted the problem, the Civil Coordinator warned of the starvation threatening at least 25,000 families in those areas.

NICARAGUAN ARMY IN HAITI

A Nicaraguan army brigade of 40 doctors and search and rescue experts, directed by Army Civil Defense Chief Mario Perezcassar, was in Haiti from January 15 to 26 providing aid to the people there in the wake of the devastation caused by the earthquake that had hit 3 days earlier. The Nicaraguans—which included two female doctors—rescued five women and one man, performed 2,695 operations and orthopedic procedures, attended 2,225 general cases, 183 internal medicine cases and 1,525 pediatric cases. The brigade also gave out tons of food sent by the Nicaraguan government to the victims. What happened in Haiti brought back memories of the earthquake that flattened most of Managua in 1972. This reminder led to the following calculations: if an earthquake of the same magnitude were repeated in Nicaragua’s capital, which is built over several fault lines and without adequate planning, 25% of the houses would be destroyed, leaving an incalculable number of victims.

MRS OPPOSES AMNESTY FOR
ALEMÁN AND MONTEALEGRE

On February 2, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) announced that its two National Assembly representatives would vote against the amnesty bill favoring Arnoldo Alemán and Eduardo Montealegre, promoted by more than 50 representatives from Liberal benches such as the PLC and the We’re Going with Eduardo Movement. In a communiqué on the subject, the MRS argued: “For Orteguismo, the law is valid for extorting, repressing, distributing impunity or corrupting. It is also valid for releasing drug traffickers. But Nicaraguans in general have no legal security for their liberties and civil rights. In these conditions, whatever its scope or content, an amnesty is no solution to the serious political and institutional problems facing Nicaragua, because Orteguismo will use i
ts old astuteness, manipulating its puppets in the Public Ministry and Supreme Court to annul or completely countermand the aims pursued with the amnesty. Approving amnesties for common crimes does not contribute to the aim of rescuing democracy, a rule of law and institutionality in the country. The only political attitude that can restitute the guarantees and rights of Nicaraguans and open space for a decent future is assuming firm and courageous positions in response to the abuses of Orteguismo...”

DIABETES EPIDEMIC

Diabetes, the chronic, incurable disease popularly known in Nicaragua as “sugar,” is currently the primary cause of death in the country, although no one wants to admit it, and could become the most serious and deadly national epidemic in the next 20 years. According to official data, between four and five out of every ten patients admitted to public hospitals or who request consultations in health centers suffer renal or ocular complications or gangrene in their lower extremities, all of which are provoked by diabetes. The president of the Nicaraguan Diabetes Foundation calculates that half a million Nicaraguans suffer from diabetes, which results from genetic factors and an inappropriate diet, although he believes that a third of them don’t know it due to the lack of identifiable symptoms before it has reached an advanced state.

WHO REALLY BOUGHT CHANNEL 8?

On January 14, Carlos Briceño, the former owner of Telenica Canal 8, confirmed its sale after weeks of negotiations in which the operation was denied. Briceño said he could not reveal the buyers or their corporate identity for reasons of onfidentiality. Thirteen days later, on the last of his nightly news programs on that channel, Carlos Fernando Chamorro explained that the government had bought the channel with money from Venezuelan cooperation (see a reprint of his statement in this issue). The following day Rafael Paniagua, Venezuela’s representative in ALBANISA, a mixed state enterprise (51% Venezuelan and 49% Nicaraguan) in charge of investing the profits from Venezuelan oil sales to Nicaragua and whose businesses in Nicaragua are reportedly administered discretionally by President Ortega, confirmed to El Nuevo Diario that ALBA bought the channel for an amount that could be in the neighborhood of $10 million. Given that the law prohibits foreigners from controlling over 50% of the shares of a communication medium, Paniagua’s declarations caused consternation in the government, which released a brief communiqué denying that ALBA had bought Channel 8. As of February 5, Channel 8’s programming had not changed very much, although Chamorro’s “Esta Semana” and “Esta Noche” programs had been replaced with interviews and reports about government projects in a program anchored by journalist William Grigsby.

PHOTOS WITH FIDEL

In January, after a lot of speculation about a significant image vacuum, the Nicaraguan presidency released a series of photos showing Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro together for the first time since Fidel Castro’s illness and retirement from government. The photos were taken at two different moments: in April and December of last year. Rosario Murillo, Raúl Castro and Dalia Soto, Castro’s wife, appear in the April photo session, and several of Ortega and Murillo’s children and grandchildren appear in one of the December photos. In several of those from April, Castro can be seen using a wheelchair with an attached writing table.

MRS OPPOSES AMNESTY FOR
ALEMÁN AND MONTEALEGRE

On February 2, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) announced that its two National Assembly representatives would vote against the amnesty bill favoring Arnoldo Alemán and Eduardo Montealegre, promoted by more than 50 representatives from Liberal benches such as the PLC and the We’re Going with Eduardo Movement. In a communiqué on the subject, the MRS argued: “For Orteguismo, the law is valid for extorting, repressing, distributing impunity or corrupting. It is also valid for releasing drug traffickers. But Nicaraguans in general have no legal security for their liberties and civil rights. In these conditions, whatever its scope or content, an amnesty is no solution to the serious political and institutional problems facing Nicaragua, because Orteguismo will use its old astuteness, manipulating its puppets in the Public Ministry and Supreme Court to annul or completely countermand the aims pursued with the amnesty. Approving amnesties for common crimes does not contribute to the aim of rescuing democracy, a rule of law and institutionality in the country. The only political attitude that can restitute the guarantees and rights of Nicaraguans and open space for a decent future is assuming firm and courageous positions in response to the abuses of Orteguismo...”