In this space the Nicaragua Network will post links to recent important and/or interesting English language articles on Nicaragua or by Nicaraguans in the publications of other organizations.

From the web page tortillaconsal.com:

Nicaragua : the progress made by the FSLN government in terms of infrastructure is transforming the country

By Karla Jacobs
23rd June 2010

When the FSLN government came to power in January 2007, it inherited a country whose infrastructure was on its knees. With few exceptions transport services had been neglected with roads, bridges, ports throughout the country left, literally, to rot, during the three previous neoliberal governments.

To read more, click here.

From the Revista Envio July 2010

The Contradictory Legacy of the Sandinista Agrarian Reform

Thirty-one years after the triumph of the revolution some traces can still be found throughout the country of the Sandinista government’s agrarian reform. Some are set in boiling lava; others are no longer visible, just footprints in the sand… What did this project achieve? What are its contradictions? How many things were right, how many were mistakes? How much of it was paternalistic? What legacy remains of the agrarian reform, for good or for ill?

By José Luis Rocha

To read more click here.

Photo shows the Sandinistas headquartered at Hoyt’s house.

On the Occasion of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution
By Katherine Hoyt
[Hoyt is National Co-Coordinator of the Nicaragua Network]

Right after Bayardo [Dr. Bayardo Gonzalez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua] and I were married in 1967, my father had told us, “When ‘comes the revolution,’ you send us the kids!” At that time, the Somoza family looked well-entrenched in power with no revolution in sight and we certainly had no kids. But, of course, the revolution did come and we did send the kids.

To read more click here.

Worker cuts cane in a burned field in western Nicaragua.  Photo: Mike Elliott.

[The Nicaragua Network has received this important alert from the New Haven-Leon Sister City Project. We urge you to take action!]

Urgent: Add Your Voice….Support 700 Workers, Community members
in Chinendega and Leon, Nicaragua

Many workers and community members have been organizing for years to trying to get fair treatment from Nicaragua Sugar Estates (NSEL), a large sugar producer in the states of Chinendega and Leon in northwest Nicaragua, where many of them work or have worked until they became too sick. In March, they filed a complaint with the IFC/World Bank for a $55 million dollar loan made to NSEL in 2006 and are trying to get the IFC/World Bank to apply its own environmental and labor standards to the loan – and to NSEL.

You can support their struggle AND increase IFC/World Bank accountability.
(more…)

Alliance for Global Justice (of which the Nicaragua Network is a member project) has for the second year in a row received a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent evaluator of charities.  

Here is what Charity Navigator wrote to the AGJ the first year: “Charity Navigator salutes your charitable efforts. Receiving four out of a possible four stars indicates that your organization excels, as compared to other charities in America, in successfully managing the finances of your organization in an efficient and effective manner. This rise in your rating is an exceptional feat, especially given the economic challenges many charities have had to face in the last year.”

To read more click here.

Click Here to Donate Now!

At 5:45am on Sept. 4 Hurricane Felix hit the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) of Nicaragua as a category five hurricane, causing devastation in the region’s capital Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) and at least 75 other communities.

Puerto Cabezas has a population of over 63,000. The majority of inhabitants lived in wooden houses and makeshift homes which were highly vulnerable in the face of a category five hurricane. Reports from many of the small villages of Miskito Indians accessible in normal times only by canoe, are still unknown at this time. Over 500 soldiers were sent to the region by the Ortega government the afternoon before the hurricane hit to coordinate the evacuation of the people of town of Bilwi and neighboring villages and communities to buildings more secure than their houses. According to preliminary reports, however, less than half the population of Puerto Cabezas was willing to leave their homes. (more…)

A plan for the intelligent management of water and the re-greening of Nicaragua ’s watersheds

In this action plan, please find:
1) Introduction to the deforestation and water crises in the Global South
2) Outline of the project to address these crises in five departments in Nicaragua
3) What you and your local committee can do to help!

2006-7

1) Introduction to the deforestation and water crises in the Global South

Water is the very fount of all life; forests are its essential counterpart. Yet, all over the planet, rivers are dying, water-tables are falling, lakes are being contaminated, forests torn down. As always, it’s the peoples of the Global South who pay the heaviest price for the northern countries’ unsustainable lifestyle. And no southern country pays more heavily than Nicaragua , much of which is fast becoming a desert, threaded through with dying rivers and wrack-thin cattle. (more…)

Land Grabbing in the Pearl Cays - What you can do to stop it

Peter Tsokos, Greek-born, U. S. -based entrepreneur [a different, U.S.-born, Peter Marcos Tsokos, also sells real estate] is perpetrating an insufferable land grab on the Pearl Cays, seven small islands off the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. He and his customers are damaging the Cays’ environments, brutalizing local people, and wreaking havoc on islands that do not legally belong to them.

The Case Against Tsokos

Peter Tsokos and his buyers have:
-Occupied lands that the Nicaraguan constitution and autonomy law guarantee to local indigenous communities
-Verbally harassed and physically attacked local indigenous people, environmental workers, and government officials.
-Disrupted efforts to protect and monitor the endangered Hawksbill sea turtle.

See what you can do to stop Tsokos land grabbing. (more…)

• A Florida-based company, the Phenix Group, is planning a 470 kilometer long pipeline to carry foreign oil across Nicaragua, beginning at the indigenous community of Monkey Point on the Caribbean Coast.
• The Phenix Group hopes to get World Bank funding for their project that would cut a swath through the World Bank sponsored Meso-American Biological Corridor.
• Phenix CEO Rick Wojcik falsely claims to have a letter from the Monkey Point community signed by local nurse Pearl Watson, who says she has not seen or signed any such letter.
• Watson predicts oil spills, destruction of fisheries and says, “People [in Monkey Point] live on the fishing and producing of the land. What benefit will we get from losing our sea goods, losing our wildlife?”
• The recently passed indigenous lands demarcation law obliges Phenix to fully inform and consult with indigenous peoples with traditional rights to the land in the path of the pipeline.

(more…)

Please take a few minutes to help defend the land rights of Nicaragua’s Miskito, Mayagna (Sumu), Rama, Garifuna, and Creole peoples. Letters are needed to encourage the Nicaraguan government to respect its own Constitution, the 1987 Atlantic Coast Autonomy Act, and international treaties that recognize indigenous land rights, by passing the proposed Indigenous Lands Law.

Read more and learn what you can do to help. (more…)