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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 377 | Diciembre 2012 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Envío team
NICARAGUAN JOYPart of the November 26 message from the Communication and Citizenship coordinator reverberates with celebrations of The Hague court ruling and the three-noun slogan she’s chosen for Nicaragua in 1913: Blessed, prospering and victorious. In her message she says: “What a Joy it is to be Nicaraguan, to be in Nicaragua and to live in Nicaragua in these Golden Days... [Nicaraguan poet Rubén] Darío prophesied these times: The Golden Dawn of the People! We’re living in Christianity, Socialism and Solidarity. And celebrating these New Days… Blessed, Prospering and Victorious! Blessed and with the Protective Mantle of God and the Blessing of God and the Virgin Mary, and Victorious! That’s how we are in our Homeland, thanks to the Nicaraguan Spirit of Unity, of Roots. Because, Thanks be to God, we’re deeply rooted in our Nicaraguan-ness. All this is a Fortress... Blessed, Prospering and Victorious! So much truth in those three Blessed words, in those three Prodigious words! They let us breathe, inspire us with Strength and to be increasingly more Powerful in all we do, because we know that we are in the Hands of Our Lord God; and with his Protective Love, making more and more Miracles in our Nicaragua.” (These messages come out daily in their written version and are capitalized as above.)
HUNGER IN LATIN AMERICAAccording to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s latest report on the state of food and nutrition security in 2012, the Latin American countries with the greatest famine are Haiti (44.5% of the population), Guatemala (30.4%), Paraguay, (25.5%), Bolivia (24.1%) and Nicaragua (20.1%); and the only countries to eradicate it are Chile, Cuba, Uruguay and Venezuela. The report explains that while Latin America reported higher economic growth rates than the European Union and the United States between 2011 and 2012, “the distribution of wealth shows very high levels of inequality compared to other regions of the world,” attributing the famine of some 174 million Latin Americans to this inequality. The report also addressed the overweight problem, pointing out that over 20% of the adult population in most countries is obese: significantly higher in Mexico (33%), followed by Venezuela (31%), then Argentina and Chile (29%).
NEW LAW ON HIV-AIDS On November 28 the National Assembly passed a new HIV and AIDS law for the Promotion, Protection and Defense of Human Rights. It did not take into account any of the more than two dozen proposed changes in the bill’s wording and some of its concepts coming out of a forum held in Managua the previous week in which 67 civil society organizations interested in the issue analyzed the bill.
CARIBBEAN COAST ASSEMBLYAn assembly attended by delegates from 300 Caribbean communities was held on October 26 and 27 in Bilwi, capital of Nicaragua’s North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN). Backed by the 300 representatives, the indigenous leaders who called and chaired the meeting asked the central government to not continue letting Yatama, an essentially Miskitu regional political party, speak for all Caribbean indigenous peoples. Yatama was created in 1987 as an amalgam of several armed indigenous organizations on the coast, including Misurasata, which had originally formed in late 1979 as an indigenous social organization. When Yatama laid down its weapons in 1989, it first functioned as an indigenous social organization again but was later required to register as a political party so it could continue running in elections under the new electoral law.
Led without interruption by Brooklyn Rivera, dating all the way back to his days as a founding leader of Misurasata, Yatama allied with the FSLN in 2006 to run the regional government in the RAAN and as Yatama is not eligible to run in national elections, Rivera won a post as an FSLN representative in the National Assembly. The coast assembly also petitioned for the start of a dialogue so this region can achieve real autonomy. Hazel Law, a Miskitu lawyer and activist and one of this movement’s main spokespeople, stated that “YATAMA will continue to exist as a party, but can’t continue speaking for indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples, whose democracy is traditionally community-based.” According to Rivera, the movement against his leadership is supported by government officials because the FSLN is seeking to disband YATAMA.
CLIMATE CHANGEResearch by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), in alliance with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the International Maize and Wheat Center (CIMMYT), presented in Managua in early November estimates that the mean annual temperature could increase by one degree in 2020 and by 2 degrees in 2050. This, in addition to the drastic reduction in rainfall, would cause a reduction of 17-50% of Central America’s corn and bean harvests, two basic foods in the regional population’s diet.
CELL PHONESAn International Telecommunication Union report ranked Nicaragua fifth in the growth of land lines and cell phones in Central America in 2011. But Nicaragua, which has now hit six million inhabitants, already had 4,534,000 active cell phones last year. Despite how expensive these phones are here compared to the rest of the region, one of the reasons three out of every four Nicaraguans had one was the give-away promotions by Claro and Movistar, the two mobile phone service providers. Between 2006 and 2011, cell phone growth rose 319%, from 33.15 to 81.9 phones for every 100 people. In contrast, land line use remained stable. In that same 2006-2011 period in which 3,026,215 cell phones were activated, only 39,756 new land lines were installed.
THIRD WOMAN ANGLICAN PRIESTOn November 24, Sturdie Wyman Downs, the bishop of the Anglican Church in Nicaragua, ordained Arlen Johanny Lovo Doña as priest for the San Francisco Church in Managua. The third woman to be received into the Anglican Church priesthood in 2012, Lovo Doña celebrated her first Mass on November 25. Reverend José Luis Vega, spokesperson for the Anglican Church, explained that this decision was made “in fulfillment of Lord Jesus’ mission, who came to Earth two thousand years ago to bring dignity to marginalized women.” And, he added: “We fortunately have a Christ who dignified women in Jewish society, which was 100% machista, with women having to walk one step behind men. Priests and religious couldn’t speak with women on the street. Jesus broke that pattern.” Unfortunately the news hasn’t hit the Catholic Church. Last month Roy Bourgeois, the US activist Maryknoll priest, was excommunicated by his order for speaking out on behalf of ordaining women.
CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEXAccording to a study measuring perceived corruption in Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, presented in Tegucigalpa by International Transparency in mid-October, Nicaragua has the worst rating by a hair: 2.5 on a scale of 0 (very corrupt) to 10 (very transparent). Other countries were rated as follows: Honduras and the Dominican Republic tied at 2.6, Guatemala 2.7, Panama 3.3, El Salvador 3.4 and Costa Rica 4.8. In the previous study, done in 2010, Nicaragua was in the second worst place with a 2.7 rating.
CHILD LABORAccording to the Ministry of Labor, 300,000 children are working in Nicaragua, mainly
in agricultural work in rural areas. The ministry declared its intention to eradicate child labor by 2020.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America