NICARAGUA BRIEFS

Envío team

POST-EARTHQUAKE

After April’s earthquake crisis, described as a “complex event not easy to understand” by Wilfried Strauch, a German scientist who works with the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies, the institute announced that it now has 15 more seismic stations, 8 stations sensitive to low-intensity tremors and 25 accelerographs to be installed in areas where the quakes happened. Following the April 10 earthquake, which registered 6.1 on the Richter scale, a commission of national and international scientists established that the three that had registered over 6 on the Richter scale and the hundreds of aftershocks were caused by five different faults, three near the Momotombo Volcano and two at the bottom of Lake Xolotlán, also known as Lake Managua. The first quake caused landslides in the Momotombo crater, and throughout May aftershocks continued to be detected around both that volcano and the Apoyeque Volcano, considered the biggest risk for Managua. One consequence of the crisis was heightened awareness of the defects in many constructions in the capital. According to the Nicaraguan Chamber of Construction, 80% of Managua’s houses were built with no technical supervision. Meanwhile, 54% of the 1,203 people polled in a national survey by CID Gallup said the April quakes were a “warning from God,” a percentage that rose to 70% among people with only a primary education or less.

NICARAGUA IN GENEVA

Nicaragua’s government appeared before the Working Group of the United Nation’s Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 7 for the second Universal Periodic Review by other countries of its compliance with human rights. The first review in 2010 lasted an hour, after which the government received 109 recommendations from 44 countries. Four years later it was verified that it had failed to comply with 68 of them. This time the session went on for three hours and the 77 countries that “reviewed” Nicaragua made 209 recommendations. The government only accepted 152, among them the creation of a favorable environment for free and fair elections and the improvement of conditions in prisons. Of the remainder it rejected 31 on the grounds of “sovereignty.” These included the reinstatement of therapeutic abortion and adherence to the International Criminal Court. It agreed to submit the review of the other 26 to consultation, among them assuring full freedom of expression and strengthening the judicial system.

TORTURE IN PRISONS

A delegation of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment spent nine days in Nicaragua in mid-May visiting some 15 prisons in the national penitentiary system. According to the Ministry of Government, Nicaragua’s inmate population is 10,569 people, 575 of them women and 306 foreigners. The UN delegates were given full access to the different prisons and spoke with both government officials and human rights organizations. In their final report on May 16, they stated that “the situation of persons deprived of their liberty in Nicaragua is extremely worrying,” unusually strong language that indicates the seriousness of what they found. For some time prisoners’ relatives and human rights organizations have charged that in addition to overcrowded conditions and deteriorated infrastructure, torture is practiced, a claim the government has repeatedly denied.

THE CARTER CENTER ON THE CSE

On June 2, the Carter Center in the United States released a statement regarding the April 9 reelection of most magistrates on Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), which it called “unfortunate.” The communiqué states that “under the leadership of its recently reappointed electoral authorities (except for two new members) the image and credibility of the CSE, together with the standards governing democracy and elections in Nicaragua, have degenerated significantly in the wake of the confirmed fraud perpetrated in the 2008 municipal elections…. On Nov. 6, 2011, this same CSE organized and held the least transparent national election in Nicaragua in the last 20 years, the results of which have proven to be impossible to verify… particularly with respect to proper allocation of seats in the National Assembly….” It ended by asking the international community to “make sure it keeps its eyes on the status of democracy in Nicaragua in order to encourage and facilitate the return of free, fair, and transparent elections with widely-accepted results… as a first step toward building and strengthening the rule of law and the democratic institutions that this country so deserves and needs.”

NICARAGUAN SCHOLARSHIP
STUDENTS IN VENEZUELA

In the final days of May, 222 scholarship students who had been studying at the Latin American School of Medicine in Caracas, Venezuela, returned to Nicaragua in various groups without having completed their six-year course. Although everything indicates that they were sent back due to Venezuela’s economic crisis, Nicaraguan government officials refused to give any explanations. The students followed suit, fearing that admitting the economic hardships they suffered because of cuts in the stipend included in the Venezuelan scholarship could see them barred from reinsertion into Nicaragua’s public universities to finish their studies.

FORESTRY INSTITUTE
CHANGES BOSSES

On May 14, the National Assembly established that the National Forestry Institute (INAFOR) will move from the Ministry of Agriculture to be directly under the control of the presidential offices. According to the head of the FSLN’s legislative bench, which has an absolute parliamentary majority, INAFOR’s priorities will include defending the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve and reforesting the area around the route chosen for the Interoceanic Canal. Lumber mafias allegedly linked to both the executive branch and the Army have been engaged in the wholesale cutting down of trees in Bosawás.

FERTILITY RATE
STILL DROPPING

According to the latest Demographic and Health Survey (ENDESA), which covers the 2011-2012 period, Nicaragua’s fertility rate for women between 15 and 49 years old decreased from an average of 2.7 children per woman in the 2006-2007 survey to 2.4. This drop is more significant considering that the average in the early nineties was 4.6. The latest ENDESA indicates that some 80% of women use birth control methods, compared to 54.5% at the start of the nineties.

INTEROCEANIC CANAL

After a four-month silence, Wang Jing, the Chinese businessman awarded the interoceanic canal contract in Nicaragua, told the Reuters news agency that the canal will cost US$10 billion more than the $40 billion originally predicted, although he still offered no clue as to who would invest that amount of money. There was speculation in early May about Russia’s participation in the construction, when Russian Foreign Minister Serguéi Lavrov announced that “our state companies and institutions will be familiarizing themselves with the [canal concession] document to evaluate whether Russia should join the negotiations, which companies from several countries have already begun.”

In Managua, the Grand Canal Authority announced that the environmental and feasibility studies will be ready at the end of June or in July. The most visible aspects of this megaproject in Nicaragua are groups of Chinese technicians who, without saying a word, invade the properties of farmers in the departments of Río San Juan and Rivas, the two ends of the canal, to take measurements, mark off sections of land and analyze soil and rock samples.

Meanwhile, the 2014-2018 Economic and Financial Program presented by the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN) forecasts an economic growth of between 4.5% and 5%. Interestingly, the BCN does not include in its calculations the effects the canal construction would have on the economy even though the government has announced it will be underway by the end of this year.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

The 162 women’s police stations run by the National Police around the country each receive a monthly average of 60 charges of domestic violence from women. There’s no reliable documentation on how many of these charges get to the courts or how many of the accused men go free. The Network of Women against Violence agrees with these figures and expresses regret that the women’s police stations, set up originally with international cooperation funds, now lack the budget to promote adequate education in the communities to help end violence against women. According to the organization Catholics for the Right to Decide, 40 women have been murdered so far this year, at least 20 of them in their own homes by partners, former partners or other relatives; another 27 survived attacks.

NEW POLICE LAW

In June the majority of the National Assembly’s governing party members pushed through the new Law of the National Police despite opposition by all other Assembly members. Even though the National Police (PN) is the state institution in the most daily contact with the population, the bill was only consulted for an hour and a half and with just one independent civil organization—the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policies (IEEPP)—as a mere concession. With this law, the President, who has already gained legal control over the Army, will now also directly control the other armed institution of the State. In both cases, the current commanders will remain legally in their posts indefinitely, due not only to their professionalism but also to their direct loyalty to their new boss. Several things in the new law are worrying, among them the ambiguous concept of “obedience” to the President and the fact that the volunteer police—who already exist and cover almost half of the territory, where the PN isn’t installed—will now need the endorsement of the governing party’s neighborhood and community structures. Also worrying is that the law prohibits “natural or legal persons” from conducting “private investigation activities that could violate constitutional rights, intimacy and personal privacy.” While this sounds perfectly healthy on the face of it, it could be interpreted to affect the investigative journalism so critical to the denunciation of corruption cases.

DROUGHT ANNOUNCED

The Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies (INETER) released a forecast on June 8 that heralds a difficult year for the country: due to the climatic phenomenon known as El Niño, there will be scant rain up to September, leaving only two more months of the traditional rainy season. By that time, drought will be felt in a large part of the national territory. Assuming the forecast comes true, it will cause problems in agriculture, livestock raising and the daily life of the majority of the population.

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