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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 393 | Abril 2014 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Envío team
TUMARÍN HIDROELECTRIC PLANTAn agreement of understanding between the Brazilian consortium Electrobras – Queiroz Galvao and CHN of Nicaragua was finally signed on March 21 for construction of the Tumarín hydroelectric dam in Apawas in the northern Caribbean, using the waters of the Río Grande de Matagalpa. The construction has been halted for years, but the megaproject is now projected to go on line in 2019. The total investment is US$1.1 billion with the Nicaraguan government providing 10% of the financing. It hasn’t been made clear if the agreed cost for a kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by Tumarín will reduce the price of energy in the country. FSLN treasurer and vice president of Albanisa, Francisco López, attended the signing, although the government has denied that ALBA resources are participating in this project. COSEP President José Adán Aguerri celebrated the decision, saying that “Tumarín will put Nicaragua on the map in the energy sphere to the same degree that Guacalito de la Isla has done in the tourism sector.” Guacalito is an exclusive super-luxury hotel built by the powerful Pellas Group in the beaches of Tola, Rivas, inaugurated in January 2013. It has already been visited by famous celebrities.
INTEROCEANIC CANALIn a letter dated March 11, Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources Juana Argeñal told the Humboldt Center that her ministry won’t analyze or appraise the environmental feasibility study for the construction of the interoceanic canal through Nicaragua being prepared by the company Environmental Resources Management (ERM). That information came in an answer to the center’s request for details of the process being done by ERM. Argeñal explained that an environmental feasibility study is different than an environmental impact study, and that the canal concession law leaves that study in the hands of the company granted the study. The Center explained that an environmental feasibility study only looks at business reasons while an environmental impact study evaluates the possible harm to the environment and plans mitigation measures. Jaime Incer Barquero, the presidential adviser for environmental issues, who was never consulted by the presidency about the canal project, reaffirmed his position this month: if it was the Chinese concession holder HKND that contracted ERM to do the studies, that single fact “biases the result.” He predicted that ERM’s conclusions would be “more one of pleasing than of expressing reality.”
At the end of March, a delegation of three Russian legislators visited Nicaragua. One of them, Mijail Emelyanov, declared that Russia has “a great interest and all the possibilities for investing in constructing the canal.” Days earlier, indigenous and Afro-descendent leaders of Nicaragua’s Caribbean region expressed their position about the canal to the 150th period of sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, having been invited by the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH). Representing the Rama and Kriol Territorial Government, its president, Santiago Thomas, denounced the mega-project because “it will upset the social, spiritual and cultural dynamic of these peoples given that 40% of their territories will be affected” by what he referred to as an “expropriation” and because the area’s indigenous communities will end up isolated from each other. In the same session, Lottie Cunningham, director of the Center for the Justice and Human Rights of the Coast, denounced the environmental disasters that the government-granted mining concessions are causing in the rivers and water sources of the Caribbean. She also denounced the effects that the construction of the Tumarín hydroelectric dam will have on the area.
ALBANISA WIND ENERGYOn March 11, President Daniel Ortega inaugurated a new wind energy generating plant built in Rivas with Venezuelan cooperation resources. His government baptized it the “Camilo Ortega” plant after the President’s brother, killed during the insurrection in 1978. The plant, which cost US$90 million, will generate 80 megawatts. It is another piece of the powerful Albanisa consortium, fed with Venezuelan resources that have been effectively privatized by the Ortega government. With this new plant Albanisa now provides 333 megawatts to the national energy market, a full third of Nicaragua’s installed capacity of some 1,000 megawatts. The country currently consumes an average of 550 megawatts of energy. Albanisa is quickly getting very heavily involved in electricity generation using renewable energies such as wind.
ALBANISA FORESTRY OPERATIONIndependent Liberal Party legislative representative Armando Herrera and Elizabeth Enríquez, a colleague from the indigenous party Yatama, charged in mid-March that ALBA Forestal, another Albanisa business, is leveling forests in the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, which has been designated Heritage of Humanity. Armed with photos and videos of what he saw, Herrera, who made a work trip through Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean area, including the mining town of Siuna, said that in only three hours in that town he counted a hundred flatbed trucks loaded with lumber go by on their way out of Bosawás, none of which was detained by the Police or the Army at any control post, although Army Chief Julio César Avilés insists that the Army “doesn’t coordinate” with ALBA Forestal. Enríquez seconded Herrera’s charge, insisting that this exploitation leaves “no benefit whatever for the indigenous communities” that own those territories. The two state institutions responsible for such matters, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA) and the National Forestry Institute (INAFOR), have provided no information about the exploitation ALBA Forestal has been engaged in for several years. In the same days it was learned that the government will reform Law 290 to put INAFOR under the direct control of the presidency of the Republic.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAYOn March 8, some thousand women of varying ages, organizations and areas of the country congregated in the center of Managua for their annual march. This year they planned to celebrate the achievements obtained through women’s rebelliousness. The plan, for which the organizers had applied and received a police permit, was to march to the Rubén Darío traffic circle, where a stage had been set up for a music festival. When the women were within a block of the traffic circle, they came up against some 30 policewomen in anti-riot gear blocking their way. Further back, dozens more riot police, men this time, made sure they couldn’t pass. On the traffic circle itself, women wearing pro-government t-shirts and waving FSLN flags had been posted to celebrate the “restitution of rights” the Ortega government has guaranteed women.
Days later, the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) denounced what it called this “outrage” to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, describing it as “an evident sign of the government’s true gender policy, given that it lauds the approval of laws that favor women’s human rights in its speeches but doesn’t tolerate the expressions of women who criticize it or have an agenda that can’t be dominated by its power.”
SEXUAL ABUSEAccording to CODENI, the coordinating body of NGOs that work with children, an average 22 cases of sexual abuse occur daily. The Movement against Sexual Abuse (MCAS), however, believes that as alarming as this figure is it is conservative because it’s based only on charges that reach the institutions. Lorna Norori, one of the leaders of the MCAS, also reported that information it has gathered shows that 87% of the sexual abusers are close to the victims’ families and that girls between 10 and 13 years of age are the most frequent victims.
RUSSIAN MILITARY BASE? In late February the Russian RT television network reported Russian Defense Minister Sergéi Shoigú as saying his government was “negotiating” the installation of Russian bases in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. Shoigú told the Russian agency RIA Novosti that Russia was “planning to expand its permanent military presence outside its borders” and spoke of “being close to signing relevant documents.” In Nicaragua, Foreign Minister Samuel Santos avoided referring to the issue and Army Chief Julio César Avilés denied the project’s existence. Russia’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Nicolay Vladimir, said at first that he knew nothing of the negotiations but later clarified it had nothing to do with bases but rather would be “supply points” for Russian troops to take on water, food and fuel. US Ambassador Phyllis Powers declared that her country isn’t “worried” about that possibility, while President Ortega has kept his silence.
“TALCAZO” CASEIn mid-March, the “Talcazo” case became one of the country’s hottest topics of conversation. On February 22, a police patrol car had tried to stop Milton González, who was riding a motorcycle with no license plate and wasn’t wearing a helmet, but González took flight. When he was finally caught and his backpack searched, it was found to contain five bullets and a packet containing 1,569 grams of white powder shown in a field test to be cocaine. González was arrested for drug trafficking, but his case was quashed by Judge Julio César Arias for lack of evidence, claiming that two more tests done by specialists in the Police Crime Lab, reputed to be the best in Central America, had found the powder to be only talc. The Supreme Court president backed Arias’ ruling. As it turns out, González is a brother of the boxing champion “Chocolatito” González, who dedicates his fights to President Ortega and appears in the ring wearing t-shirts with government slogans. The case has further deteriorated the credibility of the Police, the Public Prosecutor’s office and the judicial system as a whole.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America