TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2012

Nicaragua News Bulletin (May 15, 2012)

1. IMF mission completes work in Nicaragua
2. US Ambassador says waiver “very difficult”
3. Police report back on meetings with citizens
4. Transportation strike ends
5. San Juan River highway before Costa Rican court
6. Literacy comes even to remote areas
7. Mayorga explains Sandinista government economic program
8. Condega to get maternity waiting home

1. IMF mission completes work in Nicaragua

The technical mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visiting Nicaragua for two weeks finished its work on May 10 with Marcelo Estevao, chief of the mission, saying that the country's economy was well managed and that the IMF was happy with the country's economic indicators. The team met with representatives of the executive branch, the National Assembly, private business, unions, universities, and think tanks to evaluate performance under the past IMF agreement and decide on policies that will best make the economy grow further, according to Estevao.

The IMF mission, according to reports, recommended reforms to Nicaragua's Social Security system, increasing the age of retirement from 60 to 65, and requiring more years of payment into the fund in order to receive benefits, up from 14 to 28 years. “You have to control the benefits and increase the contributions; we talked about all the possibilities of one and the other, but there is no other way out,” he said. Central Bank President Alberto Guevara said that the system was created years ago when life expectancy was lower. “We are going to be discussing this in the coming weeks,” Guevara said. Leaders at the Jose Benito Escobar Sandinista Workers Central said that they were opposed to the measures while accepting that negotiations between workers, businesses and the government would have to take reality into account in any reform. Currently, 600,000 formal sector workers pay into the Social Security system. At the same time, 134,296 retirees receive benefits. The IMF proposed to the government that it press harder with its policies to reduce the informal sector which includes about 70% of workers who receive no benefits under the system. Hector Ponce, taxi driver, said that the taxi cooperatives and others should formalize their sectors and pay into Social Security. Then there would be more people paying into the system and no need to make these drastic changes, he said.

Estevao said that, while the IMF recommended a review of whether it was good policy to assign 6% of the national budget to the nation's university system, this was a decision that had to be made by Nicaraguans, not by the IMF. He noted that Nicaragua has a deficit in primary education. A group representing university students immediately came out against reducing the amount budgeted for the universities. James Chamorro, president of the National Union of Students of Nicaragua (UNEN), decried the proposal to use part of the 6% assigned by the constitution to the universities for K-12 and technical education. A declaration from the group called the IMF mission “representatives of imperialism” and “enemies of free higher education.”

Sources said that the IMF mission was also concerned about the stability of the flow of assistance from Venezuela if there should be political changes there. Estevao said, “It is a concern that we should have.” Members of the IMF team met with Venezuelan Ambassador to Nicaragua Maria Alejandra Avila who, according to the Informe Pastran, told them that there would be no alteration in the flow of petroleum under special payment conditions. (Informe Pastran, May 8, 11; El Nuevo Diario, May 12, 14; Radio La Primerisima, May 13)

2. US Ambassador says waiver “very difficult”

New US Ambassador Phyllis Powers used her first public appearance, an address to the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce, to threaten the Sandinista government with a cut-off of US aid. She told the assembled businessmen, “To be honest with you, the persistent lack of fiscal transparency, the inability of the Nicaraguan government to take concrete actions to resolve the invasions of properties of US citizens and especially the grave irregularities of the electoral process this past year, and the absence of indications that they are doing anything to improve conditions this year, makes the decision to approve the waivers very difficult.” US aid is dependent on these waivers by law.

The invasions of property referred to by Powers probably are complicated disputes over beach properties in which US citizens are evidently involved. Interestingly, Powers did not mention the resolution of disputes over property confiscated during the revolutionary years of the 1980s which the US usually uses to threaten Nicaragua with a cut off of aid each year. Each July 31 the Secretary of State must certify that Nicaragua is “making progress” to resolve the property claims, most of which were from people who were Nicaraguan when their property was confiscated. Because of the difficulty in resolving the few remaining cases, which include notorious members of Somoza's National Guard, Nicaragua has offered to submit them to international binding arbitration and this may be the reason Powers did not mention these cases.

The second waiver is to a law passed by Congress in 2008 giving the US the right to judge the “fiscal transparency” of countries that receive aid. That waiver should have been granted by the administration in March but it apparently was not given. In spite of Power's concerns, the International Monetary Fund expressed its satisfaction with Nicaragua's handling of its economic affairs. (See above.)

Powers said that the economic relationship between the two countries is “of great importance to both States” and that the US would continue to “help” Nicaragua regardless of whether the waivers are issued but what this “help” would consist of is unclear. She said her mission is “to work hand in hand with all Nicaraguans to build a better economy, strengthen democratic institutions, maintain stability and promote the rights and aspirations of all citizens to participate in a vibrant democracy.” (La Prensa, May 11; El Nuevo Diario, May 11; Informe Pastran, May 11)

3. Police report back on meetings with citizens

On May 8, the National Police reported back about the Campaign of National Reflection carried out in 170 local assemblies around Nicaragua with community members to learn about their primary concerns with reference to issues of security in their neighborhoods and communities. The next round of national consultation will be with farmers around the country where representatives of relevant government ministries will listen to small, medium and large-scale producers.

President Daniel Ortega said at the gathering, “We must strengthen the ties between the people and the Police and those meetings should be repeated because the more united we are the stronger we will be in the battle against crime, drug trafficking and organized crime, all of which are expressions of savage capitalism.” He added that against the poison of savage capitalism “we are putting forward a model of citizen participation.” Ortega explained that, when the Sandinistas returned to government in 2007, they found the majority of police stations in bad conditions and many without even one police car. Head of the National Police Aminta Granera said that now 75% of all stations have at least one vehicle. Ortega added, “This year, God willing, we will complete that remaining 25% so that each station will have a means of transportation, which will still be insufficient.”

Deputy Director of the Police Francisco Diaz said that among the concerns of the population expressed in the gatherings around the country were domestic and sexual violence. This situation, he said will not improve simply with preventive and investigative actions by the police. There has to be work in families and communities led by coordination between the police and other governmental social offices. Diaz said that only in recent years has a strategy of crime prevention with a community focus been put in place. Other community concerns were the sale of liquor and drugs in local communities, juvenile delinquency, robberies, environmental crimes, and cattle rustling, depending on the region.

Granera said that the homicide rate for Nicaragua is 12 per 100,000 per year, the lowest in Central America. There is substantial variation within Nicaragua, however, between the 2.2 homicides per 100,000 in the Department of Carazo to 42 per 100,000 in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region. While the number of homicides was down from 13 per 100,000 in 2011 to 12 per 100,000 in 2010, the number of traffic death went up 7.4% from 613 fatalities in 2010 to 840 in 2011. “These are deaths that we can prevent,” Granera said. She reported that during 2011, the police confiscated seven tons of cocaine and US$5 million in cash, arrested 3,300 people involved in international narcotics trafficking, and rescued 196 victims of human trafficking.

Granera said that the citizens' assemblies will continue every three months to evaluate progress and problems as a shared responsibility. She also announced that four new units will be set up to combat domestic violence, juvenile delinquency, trafficking in precious hardwoods, and drug trafficking, including border security. (El Nuevo Diario, May 8; Radio La Primerisima, May 8, 9; Informe Pastran, May 9, 14)

4. Transportation strike ends

Nicaragua's big rig truckers announced the end of their work stoppage after reaching an accord with shipping companies which would raise their fees for the loads they haul from US$1.10 per kilometer to between US$1.26 and $1.28. Agreement was reached with 10 of the 15 shipping companies that operate in the country. The transportation strike lasted a full week with an estimated loss to the national economy of US$10 million, according to a business group. Leaders of the various associations of truck owner-drivers said that with the price of fuel, they could no longer survive on the fees they were receiving. (Radio La Primerisima, May 14; Informe Pastran, May 9, 10)

5. San Juan River highway before Costa Rican court

A constitutional court in San Jose, Costa Rica, has accepted a suit by a member of the Costa Rican legislature, Walter Cespedes, against the country's National Highway Council (CONAVI). The suit accuses the government of President Laura Chinchilla of building the 160 kilometer road along the southern banks of the San Juan River without planning, without funding, and without any environmental assessment. When Cespedes asked CONAVI for information about the construction, he was told that it was a “state secret.” Because of lack of funding, the road has been abandoned without having been paved and with the rainy season now beginning in earnest. Environmentalists, both Nicaraguan and Costa Rican, fear catastrophe with enormous quantities of eroded sediment sliding into the river which belongs in its entirety to Nicaragua.

Meanwhile, the Central American Court of Justice heard opening arguments on May 10 from two Nicaraguan environmental organizations in the case brought against Costa Rica for the same road construction project. Costa Rica does not recognize the Court and no Costa Rican officials appeared for the defense. Court President Carlos Guerra ordered that the case would proceed even in Costa Rica's absence and said the Court would issue an “impartial ruling.” (La Prensa, May 9; Informe Pastran, May 10; El Nuevo Diario, May 10)

6. Literacy comes even to remote areas

Sandinista Youth will begin to teach reading and writing to some 3,000 people in hard-to-reach areas of the Department of Matagalpa this week. This will be followed by work with more groups of 3,000 in “pockets of illiteracy” in the Department of Jinotega and in the Autonomous Regions in coming months. While Nicaragua was declared by the UN to be “illiteracy free” [95%+ literacy] in President Daniel Ortega's 2007-2011 term, isolated areas of the country have illiteracy rates much higher than the national average, Ortega said. He challenged the Sandinista Youth to take on the task of teaching people to read and write “until there's not a single illiterate Nicaraguan.” He called wiping out illiteracy “an historical debt of the Sandinista Revolution.”

The revolutionary government launched the world renowned “Literacy Crusade” shortly after the triumph over the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and taught 500,000 people to read and write. The UN then certified that illiteracy had been reduced to 12%. But, by the time Nicaragua had endured three neoliberal governments from 1990 through 2006, more than one in five Nicaraguans were unable to read and write. Following up on the efforts of Sandinista mayors, the new Sandinista government, with Cuba's help, launched the Literacy Campaign in 2007 using the “Yes I Can” (Yo Si Puedo) literacy program developed in Cuba. The Sandinista Youth organization did a census of remote areas of the country to guide on-going efforts to teach everyone to read and write. (Radio La Primerisima, May 11)

7. Mayorga explains Sandinista government economic program

Economist Francisco Mayorga, Nicaragua's representative to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), told the press on May 8 that the economic model followed by the government of President Daniel Ortega has benefitted the impoverished classes. “The idea of the neoliberal model is that when you invest in the private sector and businesses do well, little by little the benefit will filter down to poor people. The Ortega government rejected that model in 2007 and said, no, we are going to support private investment, but we are going to act directly to alleviate the suffering of humble people, and we are going to start social programs to drive small and medium production,” he said, noting that the government's social programs are for the benefit of those in extreme poverty.

Mayorga praised the growth in the rural economy thanks to social programs such as Zero Hunger and other ALBA-funded programs that have reactivated rural production, noting that thanks to those programs and high commodities prices, the economy of the rural sector has grown for the last four years. He admitted that the urban middle class has yet to see improvement, squeezed between high food prices and low wages, but he noted that that problem is affecting urban populations in the entire world. (Informe Pastran, May 8,)

8. Condega to get maternity waiting home

The Ministry of Health is funding a maternity waiting home in the small town of Condega and soon women with high-risk pregnancies will no longer have to travel to Estelí to give birth. Oftentimes, women cannot go to Estelí because it is too costly for the families or it may be too dangerous for the mother to travel at the end of her pregnancy, especially during rainy season.

Armando Martínez Molina, director of the health center in Condega, underlined the need for maternity waiting homes in small towns, citing the dangers of traveling in the last days of pregnancy. He explained that this is part of the Ministry of Health's initiative to decrease infant and maternal mortality rates. The national government has allocated $43,000 to Condega for the construction of the maternity waiting home. In addition to the investment in the center's infrastructure, Condega health officials will launch an educational campaign to promote the importance of prenatal care, Martínez said.

The maternity waiting home will serve seven rural communities and three Condega neighborhoods, which translates to about 4,000 people. (El Nuevo Diario, May 10)
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