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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 375 | Octubre 2012 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Envío team
MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL DANGERThe Humboldt Center, a Nicaraguan environmental NGO, unveiled a study in September warning of the environmental dangers involved in the construction of “Bolívar’s Supreme Dream.” This mega-project of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), which includes an oil refinery, a transoceanic oil pipeline and a petrochemical complex, was first promised by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2007, but is still in its initial phases. The study states that the refinery “could potentially have the greatest environmental effect of any engineering work ever constructed in the country and was not sufficiently consulted with interested sectors and the surrounding population.” It argues that “the mega-project implies the occurrence of inevitable environmental risks to the marine, coastal and land ecosystems of Nicaragua’s Pacific central area given its fragility and the area’s high risks associated with natural threats (earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, etc.).” It notes that “the area where this industrial complex will be situated is very close to a highly seismic area which has had at least 7 epicenters in the past 10 years.” The study also warns of the risk of spills due to the huge volumes of hydrocarbons that will be processed (140,000 barrels a day) and believes that the mega-project will increase the country’s dependence on hydrocarbons, which contradicts the expressed will of the Ortega government to change the country’s energy grid.
NICARAGUA WILL HAVE ITS OWN
COMMUNICATION SATELLITELaureano Ortega Murillo, a representative of Pro Nicaragua, a state agency created to attract investment in the country, has announced that in three years Nicaragua will launch Nicasat, its own tele-communications satellite, much like Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar, built by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation and launched in 2008 from Chinese territory. On September 28 of this year, Venezuela sent its second satellite into space from China, this time an observation satellite named Miranda. Nicaragua’s satellite will cost $300-350 million and will be built by the same company, which also built and helped launch one for Bolivia last year.
Economist Adolfo Acevedo commented that in addition to the purchase raising the public debt, “the reality is that we’re going to have a satellite even though we still don’t have the capacity to keep our roads maintained, and still have serious problems with school and housing infrastructure and getting drinking water and sanitation to all the country’s communities.” In contrast, COSEP president José Adán Aguerri celebrated the announcement of the satellite because it will allow Nicaragua to improve its competitiveness. Asked about the debt the country will acquire, he said, “It’s the cost that development entails.” It was also announced that another Chinese company has been set up in Hong Kong to invest in another of Ortega’s mega-projects, the Grand Interoceanic Canal, whose cost is currently calculated at $30 billion.
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS UNITTwo years ago, the passage of Law 735, the Law of Prevention, Investigation and Prosecution of Organized Crime, ordered the creation of the Administrative Unit of Seized, Confiscated or Abandoned Goods. While it has been calculated that in ten years those goods have totaled $500 million, President Ortega has apparently not had the political will to create this unit.
He has, however, moved on naming the director and deputy director of the controversial new Financial Analysis Unit (UAF), tasked with tracking down the laundering of money from organized crime. Ortega appointed Army Major General Denis Membreño and National Police Commissioner Major Aldo Martín Sáenz Ulloa, respectively. One of several controversies surrounding the new institution is that it is chaired by the President himself, unlike any other similar institution on the continent, where the executive leadership is technical, not political. COSEP President José Adán Aguerri, one of the early critics of the UAF, said that the designation of the two military officers “sends a calming signal because those chosen represent two a-party institutions.” Other sectors, however, perceived it as a perturbing signal, fearing that the “militarization” of the UAF could facilitate it being used at Ortega’s discretion as an instrument of political persecution. Some 50 retired top-ranking members of the Army and Police are currently occupying important posts in the government and in ALBA businesses in Nicaragua.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America