Nicaragua Network

1. Nicaragua asks for climate justice at Paris meeting
2. SICA meets but with no resolution of Cuban migrant question
3. HKND announces postponement of major canal construction until end of 2016
4. Women march to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
5. Debt relief savings turned to poverty reduction
6. More renewable energy from cane waste; workers still dying from kidney disease
7. Free internet reaches 70 municipalities
8. Telica volcano explosions diminishing

1. Nicaragua asks for climate justice at Paris meeting

In support of a position of climate justice, Nicaragua is saying that it will not present a program of voluntary reductions in carbon emissions at the climate talks currently underway in Paris, according to President Daniel Ortega’s public policy adviser Paul Oquist, who represents Ortega at the conference. Oquist said, “We are not going to present an INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) list because it would kill the concept of historic responsibilities and replace it with that of voluntary responsibilities.” He noted that Venezuela had not presented its INDC either even though 183 of the 195 nations represented at the conference have done so. He said that the United Nations has determined that the voluntary reductions are not sufficient to keep average world temperatures at less than 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels and would permit a rise of between 2.7°C and 3.5°C with potentially catastrophic results. “We are in conversations,” he said, “with countries which have not presented their INDCs and with others that have presented them but are alarmed with the results” including India, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and El Salvador.

Nicaragua proposes as an alternative that the UN establish levels of emissions and impose reduction mechanisms on the countries responsible for the greatest emissions along with a system of compensation for the countries that are already suffering the consequences of global warming. The “climate justice” position establishes greater responsibilities for developed countries and mandates assistance for other countries to enable them to confront climate change as they develop. Nicaragua is responsible for only 0.03% of global emissions and has moved from using 25% renewable energy to 52% currently, showing the way for other countries.

Victor Campos of the Humboldt Center in Managua said, “The government has said that they are supporting a position of climate justice and that seems to us to make sense. It must put forward the principle of common responsibilities based on national capacity. The question is whether the proposal can achieve consensus and obtain the ambitious commitments from the other countries.” According to the 2015 report of the environmental group German Watch, Nicaragua ranks fourth, after Honduras, Myanmar, and Haiti, in the world among countries most affected by extreme climatic events (including storms, floods, cold and heat waves, and landslides) between 1994 and 2013 with 49 events. (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 30, Dec. 1; Informe Pastran, Nov. 30)

2. SICA meets but with no resolution of Cuban migrant question

The meeting of the Central American Integration System (SICA) on Nov. 24 in San Salvador was unable to reach an agreement on the question of the several thousand Cuban migrants who want to reach the United States but are now congregated in Costa Rica because of Nicaragua’s refusal to let them pass. The foreign ministers attending the meeting agreed only to support “the principle of self-determination” for each country to make its own decision about whether to allow the migrants, who have traveled with the help of migrant smugglers from Cuba to Ecuador and then by land through Colombia and Panama to Costa Rica, to cross their territories. The SICA members resolved to ask the International Organization for Migration for assistance to improve the conditions of the migrants in Costa Rica.

Denis Moncada, Nicaragua’s deputy foreign minister, said at the meeting, “The government of Nicaragua demands that the government of Costa Rica take measures to remove from our border all those whose presence encourages new violent acts.” On Nov. 15, hundreds of Cuban migrants tried to push their way across the Nicaraguan border from Costa Rica. Moncada continued: “The government of Costa Rica has created and manipulated this crisis in a way that ignores the causes and responsibility of the United States in encouraging an insecure, undignified, disorderly, and illegal migration that affects Cuba and is now affecting the Central American region.” The Nicaraguan government statement accused Costa Rica of using the situation to “legitimize the US policy of wet foot, dry foot that the United States designed and maintains as part of the blockade against Cuba that has been denounced and condemned by the entire world” The “wet foot, dry foot” policy of the US does not allow Cuban migrants picked up at sea to enter the US but allows those who make it to US soil to acquire legal immigrant status. The Nicaraguan government said it would “not lend itself to legitimizing illegal policies that cause damage, suffering, and economic loss to human beings, entire families, and the government and people of Cuba and the region.” 

Nicaraguan international law expert Mauricio Herdocia added that the Nicaraguan government considers that any solution to the migrant crisis must “include recognition of the human rights of our fellow Central Americans who are [also] seeking to get to the United States” and have no special privileges. Another expert Manuel Madriz Fornos said, “Costa Rica, if it wanted, could help the Cuban migrants travel by air or by sea to Mexico or even to the United States… but instead insists that they go by land and that they pass through Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.”

However, Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez insisted that, “The ideal, the most practical, the simplest in terms of cost and logistics is for the migrants to go by land.” He added, “Costa Rica asks that all the countries involved let the thousands of Cubans stranded at the border transit through their countries.” He said his country proposes a series of measures for the orderly documented movement of the migrants with protection against smugglers and illegal traffickers. (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 24, 25; Informe Pastran, Nov. 24, 25)

3. HKND announces postponement of major canal construction until end of 2016

The HKND Company, which holds the concession to build a shipping canal across Nicaragua, announced on Nov. 24 that major construction on the project will not begin until the end of 2016, noting that the design of the canal was being fine-tuned in accordance with the recommendations contained in the environmental and social impact study conducted by the British firm Environmental Resources Management (ERM) and recently approved by the government. The report recommended several further studies which the company is carrying out.

International media outlets such as the British dailies The Guardian and Financial Times expressed skepticism about the canal based on the postponement of major construction and posed questions about the financing of the project. Canal Commission spokesperson Telemaco Talavera told the Financial Times, however, that the project has not been held up due to lack of financing but for technical reasons based on the environmental study. He said that the resources for the canal were available. Bill Wild of the HKND Company told the Financial Times that the project is proceeding in accord with best international practices and added that, now that the environmental impact study has been approved, institutions such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank will be able to support the project.

On Nov. 19 and 20, two meetings were held in Managua that included discussion of the canal. The Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences held a workshop at the Central America University at which Jerald L. Schnoor, an environmental engineer at the University of Iowa, said, “Nicaragua needs the intervention of international scientists in order to arrive at a more complete and integral consensus on the canal.” In apparent dismissal of the 14 volume study by ERM he stated that “up until now there has not been a complete and integral study” of all the possible implications of the construction. At the Twelfth Central American Geological conference, Stan Wholleg, director of operations for CSA Global, explained the geological studies recommended by ERM that his company is doing from the air of the risks along the route of the canal. Next, he said, will be to put measures into place to mitigate those risks.  (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 24; Informe Pastran, Nov. 18, 23, 27; The Guardian, Nov. 27)

4. Women march to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

On Nov. 25, hundreds of women from 40 organizations marched in Managua to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The women demanded more effective enforcement of the Law against Violence toward Women, also known as Law 779, which was passed in 2012. Reyna Rodriguez of the Network of Women against Violence said that so far this year 51 women have been murdered in Nicaragua. Rodriguez said, “With this gathering, we are reaffirming our commitment to the struggle for human rights, saying ‘no’ to femicide, and ‘no’ to the criminalization of therapeutic abortion.”

Commissioner Erlinda Castillo, national head of the network of police stations for women and children, said that her office put the number of women murdered in Nicaragua this year at 64, a number that may turn out to be lower than 2014 but which is still of concern. She said that the stations receive between 400 and 420 reports each week from women about violations, including physical and psychological violence and noncompliance with child support.

In related news, a study carried out in the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2015 within the network of government maternal waiting homes (casas maternas) in the El Tuma-La Dalia area of the Department of Matagalpa by ten non-governmental organizations found an alarming number of pregnant girls and adolescents. The study reported 52 pregnant children, girls between the ages of 10 and 14 years of age, as well as 529 pregnancies in girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 19. Marisol Hernandez, of the Center for Educational Services in Health and Ecology, said that very few of the cases of pregnant girls are treated as crimes and few perpetrators are brought before a court. The girls have to leave school and work to support the child, she said, adding that the communities often use mechanisms to protect the aggressors who may be relatives such as stepfathers or uncles. The organizations are working with community leaders to raise consciousness about the issue and prevent these crimes. (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 24, 25, 26, 27; Informe Pastran, Nov. 25)

5. Debt relief savings turned to poverty reduction

The Nicaraguan government will allocate over US$120 million in Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) debt relief to poverty reduction in the 2016 general budget. Former Central Bank President Mario Arana explained that Nicaragua negotiated HIPC debt relief in 2004 with the understanding that cancelled debt payments would be used to fight poverty. The debt relief funds amount to nearly US$19 million more than last year. The resources come from money that would have been spent on principal and interest payments in 2016 in the amount of US$37 million to the World Bank, over US$61.4 million to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and other monies to other institutions. The 2016 budget allocates the debt servicing savings to: Ministry of Education, US$14.3 million; Ministry of Transportation, US$16 million; Ministry of Health, US$44.6 million, especially for comprehensive hospital care. The Sandinista government has also allocated from the debt relief a little over US$5 million for the Ministry of the Family Economy with all but US$385,000 going toward food production programs. Finally US$4.5 million will subsidize electricity in economically vulnerable neighborhoods. (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 25)

6. More renewable energy from cane waste; workers still dying from kidney disease

While the business community was announcing the beginning of this year’s sugar cane harvest and the sugar refineries were celebrating the fact that they will produce more renewable energy from cane waste, still another article appeared in an international media outlet about cane workers continuing to die from kidney disease. The food web page munchies.vice.com quotes Lieneke Wieringa, advocacy manager for Fairfood International as saying that workers are paid per ton which invites them to work long days with few breaks to earn a decent income and that because of limited job opportunities many need to earn their living for an entire year during the harvest time. Because workers are laid off when kidney disease strikes, some use fake IDs to go back to cutting cane and get even sicker, Wieringa states. The article focuses on the powerful company Nicaragua Sugar Estates, the makers of Flor de Caña rum, which provides parks and hospitals for the residents of Chichigalpa but these do not prevent the continued deaths of sugar workers in the town.

Meanwhile, the Montelimar sugar refinery announced that during this harvest it will produce approximately 22 megawatts of electricity from the burning of cane waste while the Benjamin Zeledon refinery will produce one megawatt. The Monte Rosa and San Antonio refineries will produce 65 megawatts between them which will bring the total to between 85 and 90 megawatts, more than 15% of the nation’s daily consumption of electricity. Cane growers estimate that their harvest will be down about 20% due to the drought that affected the country for much of the rainy season. The price of sugar on the international market has risen from US$11 per hundredweight in recent weeks to US$15 currently and growers hope to see it rise to US$16. (Informe Pastran, Nov. 25, 30; El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 26; https://munchies.vice.com/articles/the-silent-epidemic-behind-nicaraguas-rum)

7. Free internet reaches 70 municipalities

The National Electricity Transmission Co. (ENATREL) announced that the central parks in 70 municipalities have been now been wired with free wifi internet access out of 80 municipalities programed to receive the connection to the internet. The total does not include Managua where ENATREL plans to wire 39 neighborhoods for free internet access. By the end of the year, ENATREL expects to have brought online 125 parks. The project is part of a plan to bring free internet to all 153 municipalities. (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 24)

8. Telica volcano explosions diminishing

News flash: As this Bulletin is going to press, the Momotombo volcano has erupted, spewing lava down its flanks and ash into the air. You can watch a video here: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2015/12/02/nacionales/1946473-volcan-momotombo-erupcion

While explosions from the Telica volcano diminished in the last five days of November, volcanologist Armando Saballos of the Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (INETER) advised people to stay away. “Compared to earlier in the month, this volcano is exhibiting a clear tendency toward fewer explosions, nevertheless, we are not able to say that the episode has finished. We recommend to the population that they don’t try to access the caldera.” So far, poisonous gas has not been a danger, but Saballos warned that the accumulation of ash on rooftops could endanger some homes, cause respiratory problems, and it could clog drainage pathways to cause flooding.

The 1,061 meter volcano located 112 kilometers northeast of Managua and 30 kilometers northeast of Leon has been active with continuous explosions since Nov. 21. Falling ash has obscured visibility in Leon and Chinandega and forced drivers on the Pan-American Highway to turn on their lights and reduce speed. The Telica Municipal Committee of Prevention and Attention to Disasters (COMUPRED) recorded 20 rural communities affected by ash fall, but only 12 families had to be evacuated. INETER experts have been in place since Nov. 22 and continue to monitor the volcano. (El Nuevo Diario, Nov. 30)