Nicanet - The Nicaragua Network

Nicaragua Network Hotlines for May 10, 2006

News topics covered in this Hotline include:

Topic 1: Doctors’ Attempt to Occupy Ministry Results in 88 Arrests and 20 Injured

88 members of the Pro Salary Doctors Federation were arrested and at least 20 were injured after armed police used force to prevent protesting doctors from entering the Ministry of Public Finance at midday on May 5. Police used batons and tear gas against the doctors in what was the most dramatic confrontation between public forces and civil protesters in recent years. Two representatives of the Nicaraguan Center of Human Rights (CENIDH) were also injured by police when they tried to prevent members of the doctors federation being arrested. CENIDH Director Gonzalo Carrión, who was dragged along the ground by a police officer, said he was present at the protest with the aim of “preventing the doctors’ actions provoking police violence.” He described the police reaction to the doctors’ attempt to enter the building as “brutal” and “repressive.”

A small group of doctors including the federation’s leader Elio Artola had entered the Public Finance Ministry building during the morning. When shouts of “they are going to kill us” and the sound of glass being shattered were heard from inside the building the doctors protesting outside tried to push past dozens of armed police to gain access to the ministry building. It was at this point that the police used tear gas and began their attack. Doctors who resisted arrest were hit with police batons. Once the majority of the doctors outside had been arrested and driven off in police vans the members of the smaller group inside the building were brought out by armed officers and also taken away in police vans.

According to Artola, who was not arrested, the doctors’ goal was to pressure the Minister of Public Finance Mario Flores into signing an agreement to raise doctors’ salaries by 43.25%, an agreement he claimed had been all but finalized on May 3 but which government ministers had not yet signed. “We planned to occupy the building until we received a positive response from the government,” said Artola. “We are tired of the government’s indifference and decided to step up the pressure.”

Mario Flores claimed that while inside the ministry building the group of doctors had ripped telephone lines out of the walls and hit several members of staff including the Vice Minister of Public Finance Juán Sebastián Chamorro as well as “practically taking us hostage along with representatives of the international donor community” (with whom the minister was holding a meeting at the time of the doctors’ occupation). Flores announced the ministry had formally accused the doctors of physical violence against personnel and damage to the property.

Executive President of CENIDH Vilma Nuñez described the accusations against the doctors as “absurd.” According to Nuñez government authorities across Latin America have begun using the strategy of “repressing and criminalizing social protesters.” The doctors’ federation meanwhile announced a formal complaint against the police and the President Enrique Bolaños, who they believe gave the order to suppress the demonstration. CENIDH also announced plans to make a formal complaint against the police, although she said CENIDH “holds President Bolaños solely responsible for the police actions.”

Also on May 5th the leader of the Federation of Health Workers (FETSALUD) Gustavo Porras announced a full and indefinite strike in all hospitals and health centers until the 88 doctors detained by the police are released. “We condemn the government’s repressive actions and express our solidarity with our colleagues in the Pro Salary Doctors’ Federation.”

The four doctors taking part in a hunger strike, meanwhile, have begun to suffer from dizziness and other symptoms. Psychiatrist Luis Santiago del Palacio (who was the first doctor to begin the hunger strike on Apr. 25) is reported to have fainted several times on May 4. While their strike has not gained sympathy from members of central government, several influential figures have expressed their concern about the situation including Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, and FSLN leader Daniel Ortega. Both men visited the four hunger strikers on separate occasions and made calls to the government to find a solution to the crisis as soon as possible. Ortega described the doctors’ demands as “just” while Obando y Bravo said he hoped the “government would be flexible” in the negotiations “because the doctors have been flexible in their demands.”

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Topic 2: Bolaños Decrees Economic Emergency Due to Widespread illegal Timber Logging

President Enrique Bolaños made a surprise announcement on May 3 when he decreed a state of economic emergency in four departments (Northern and Southern Atlantic Autonomous Regions, RAAN and RAAS, Nueva Segovia and Río San Juán). The emergency has been created as a result of what the President described as “indiscriminate exploitation,” logging, commercialization and exportation of Nicaragua’s principal forested areas.

When a state of emergency is declared a number of rights guaranteed by the Constitution are suspended. In this case six articles of the constitution will not apply to police and army actions for the next 180 days. Bolaños ordered the armed forces to capture and detain any person found or suspected of illegal timber logging in the four above mentioned departments. The decree has been sent to the National Assembly for its swift ratification and the secretaries of the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have been notified of the move.

Bolaños, who is not normally associated with campaigns to protect the environment and natural resources, said “We are degrading the resources our children and grandchildren will need. ... There is indiscriminate exploitation of our forests. This decree will put a stop to illegal logging [for the next six months] until we understand more about who is doing it and how.”

Critics say this is a move with the political aim of damaging the image of the FSLN, representatives and associates of which, it is claimed, are involved in illegal logging in the RAAN and RAAS regions. During the week at least five seizures of trucks and boats carrying illegally logged timber were made by members of the police and the army. The most significant was the capture of a vessel carrying 8,000 mahogany trees estimated to be worth around US$7 million.

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Topic 3: Details of “Biggest Fraud in Nicaragua’s History” Could Affect Election Results

The long simmering scandal over half a billion dollars of Nicaragua's large internal debt broke into the open this week damaging the presidential prospects of US favorite Eduardo Montealegre and tarnishing officials in the Bolaños and Aleman governments. Before all is said and done, some of the Sandinista financial sector could be drawn in as well.

The scandal has its roots in the collapse, mostly as a result of fraud, of four national banks (BANIC, BANCAFÉ, INTERBANK and BAMER) during the government of Arnoldo Alemán’s (1996 - 2001). The State took over the failed banks' private debt and issued US$500 million in bonds paying 17% interest.

During the last week, however, evidence which links prominent right wing officials to illegal multi million dollar pay-outs made to financial institutions using the bonds has been published by the national newspapers. The contents of two Central Bank documents, published by El Nuevo Diario, carry the signatures of the bank’s Directorate Board, which included Eduardo Montealegre at that time. The first document, dated Aug. 13 2003 authorizes the payment of a debt of US$13,358,728 which the (by then collapsed) Intercontinental Bank (INTERBANK) had with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) and the Nicaraguan Investment Financier (FNI). Neither of these institutions would have qualified to be paid using the bonds. Furthermore, the National Assembly is the only authority with the right to authorize the use of a CENIS.

The second document, also dated August 13 and signed by the members of BCN’s Directorate Board, authorizes a pay-out of US$10.2 million in “compensation” to the Production Bank (BANPRO) which absorbed INTERBANK when the latter collapsed. The management of BANPRO had previously accepted a government request to reduce the rate of interest on the debt (still being paid by the Nicaraguan government to BANPRO) from 17% to 9%. This 8% reduction of interest rate was hailed by the Bolaños administration as a victory for the Nicaraguan people. It has now been revealed that the full amount which the state would have saved (US$10.2 million) as a result of the interest rate reduction was in fact paid out to BANPRO in a lump sum.

Eduardo Montealegre has refused to give details to the press about these two documents, both of which carry his signature. “This was part of a financial engineering process which helped to reduce the internal debt,” was all he had to say to journalists.

The Comptroller General Office is currently in the process of investigating the scandal. President of the Comptroller General’s Office Guillermo Argüelly Poessy, who has not given details of the investigation, has described the US$500 million internal debt as “a debt based on fictitious circumstances, a debt with has no reason to exist.” Journalists and experts are now trying to decipher whether the bonds were created as part of a conscious effort to commit further fraud by the Alemán administration, or whether they were intended as a solution to the financial crisis but were converted into a tool for corrupt acts.

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Topic 4: Montealegre Refuses PLC Offer

On May 2 the Vice President of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) Wilfredo Navarro announced his party had given Eduardo Montealegre and José Alvarado until May 10 to decide whether or not they would join the PLC coalition. Both men were given the opportunity to accept the offer of running as vice presidential candidate alongside PLC presidential candidate José Rizo. If both men accepted the offer, explained Navarro, the PLC directorate would decide which would be awarded the candidacy. If neither accepted, the candidacy will be offered to a leader of one of the smaller parties already allied with the PLC.

At a press conference on May 6 Montealegre told press he had not spoken to Alemán about the offer “nor am I planning to.” He said his decision not to form part of the PLC coalition had already been made. The press conference he was speaking at was organized to welcome political analyst and vice president of the Liberal International, Carlos Alberto Antaner. Antaner said that a few years ago Arnoldo Alemán represented “hope” for the Liberal movement in Nicaragua but now he represents “the people’s disappointment with the movement.” He went to say that political parties must take change and strengthen themselves so as to prevent the “enemies of democracy” from winning the elections.

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Topic 5: Nicanet's Anti-Election Interference Campaign Moves Forward

In an article published this week on ZNET, Nicaragua Network National Co-Coordinator Chuck Kaufman denied allegations that the Nicaragua Network supports the campaign of former Sandinista Managua Mayor Herty Lewites in the presidential campaign. "We do believe that Nicaraguans would likely be somewhat better off with a victory of either of the candidates of Sandinismo – Daniel Ortega for the FSLN or Herty Lewites of the Sandinista Renovation Movement," Kaufman wrote. He urged people to go to Nicanet's web page at www.nicanet.org to join the campaign to expose and oppose US government interference in the November 2006 presidential election and invited people to join an investigative delegation to Nicaragua June 17-24. The article can be read in its entirety at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=10215.

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This hotline is prepared from the Nicaragua News Service and other sources. To receive a more extensive weekly summary of the news from Nicaragua by e-mail or postal service, send a check for $60.00 to Nicaragua Network, 1247 E St., SE, Washington, DC 20003. We can be reached by phone at 202-544-9355.