Nicanet - The Nicaragua Network

Nicaragua Network Hotlines for December 19, 2006

News topics covered in this Hotline include:


Topic 1: Peter Tsokos continues to sell Caribbean islands amid challenges

News again emerged last week that Peter Tsokos, who is always described in the Nicaraguan media as a Greek, but who holds U.S. citizenship, has been selling some of Nicaragua’s most beautiful and untouched Caribbean islands over the internet through a Canadian company, Private Islands Online (www.privateislandsonline.com). Tsokos also sells Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast properties through the web from www.tropical-islands.com. Three of the seven Pearl Cays, situated just a few miles offshore and belonging to the Pearl Lagoon municipality, have been sold to foreign buyers recently. The legality of these sales is under question. The Nicaraguan Constitution declares the islands to be national patrimony which can not be sold, and the Autonomy Law declares them to be indigenous communal land which also can not be bought or sold.

At some point during the 1990s Tsokos claims to have bought the islands from the local communities, although a number of community leaders deny these transactions ever took place. Community leader Pearl Watson believes that local communities are “uninformed ... about [the legal status of] communal properties.”
There is an unresolved court battle over ownership of the islands between Tsokos and the Attorney General going through the Bluefields courts. The case was opened four years ago and the court ruled in favor of Tsokos. The Attorney General appealed the decision, however, and the Bluefields Appeals Tribunal has yet to issue its verdict in the case. Tsokos and his attorney Peter Martinez were also implicated in the murder of Francisco Garcia, husband of indigenous rights lawyer Maria Luisa Acosta who was representing indigenous communities fighting Tsokos' land grabs. The judges who dismissed the murder cases were later disbarred or transferred by the Supreme Court for corruption and the issue to reinstate criminal charges against Tsokos and Martinez remains before the Supreme Court.

According to Environmental Ombudsman Lisandro D’Leon, the recent internet sales are “totally invalid.” D’Leon says he is “totally convinced ... [that the tribunal will rule in favor of the government’s appeal]. ... These sales do not make sense, and what is more, at some point in the future we could take legal action against the people who believe themselves owners of the islands because of the huge environmental and ecological disaster they have caused there.”

Attorney Martínez is adamant that the sales are taking place legally. “To question the legality of the deeds of these properties would be to question the National Assembly, the Nicaraguan state and the Comptroller General which validated the sale [to Tsokos] in 1997.” On Dec. 12 an assembly of community representatives and leaders took place in Pearl Lagoon to discuss the conflict. During the assembly a plan of protests and legal action with the aim of retaking possession of the Pearl Cays was adopted.

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Topic 2: Dole Food Company: we won’t pay compensation

The representative of Dole Food Company Inc. in Nicaragua, Humberto Hurtado, has said that the company “won’t pay a single penny of compensation” to the 1,248 former banana workers who won their court case against a number of multinationals recently. Chinandega District Judge Silva Toruño ruled in favor of the workers’ claim that their health had been severely affected by their exposure to the highly toxic pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone on banana plantations during the 1970s ordering the multinationals that exported the chemicals to Nicaragua to pay US$804,210,522 in compensation.

Hurtado described the ruling as corrupt and denied that the pesticides sold by his company had any effect on workers’ health. He went on to quote the 2004 Human Rights Report for Nicaragua which states that “Nicaraguan judges are subject to corruption and political influence.” According to Hurtado “this is proof of the corrupt nature of the Nicaraguan judicial system.” The multinationals have appealed the ruling. The Leon Appeals Tribunal is now considering the case. Of course, corruption in Nicaragua's judicial system is usually in favor of deep pocket corporations such as Dole. It is highly unlikely that the poor victims of Nemagon poisoning, many of whom have been debilitated and unable to work for years, were able to "outbid" Dole for a positive legal decision.

Interestingly, despite adamantly denying that the pesticides have affected workers’ health, Hurtado said that Dole is in negotiations with banana worker leader Victoriano Espinoza and four groups of former banana workers and that an out of court agreement could be reached.


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Topic 3: Assembly passes law to raise doctor’s salaries to Central American average by 2011

In one of its last acts, on Dec. 13 the National Assembly passed a law which will bring the salaries of Nicaraguan public sector doctors up to the average monthly wage of their Central American counterparts. At present a Nicaraguan doctor earns an average of US$400 a month while doctors in other Central American countries earn between US$1,000 and US$3,500 a month. The law would provide annual 30% pay raises between 2007 and 2011 by which time specialists should be earning US$1,600 and general practitioners US$1,100.

The move was described by Pro Salary Doctors Federation leader Léster Espinoza as “a great achievement for the sector.” Espinoza believes the annual pay raises will bring stability to the sector and prevent further strikes. The legislation was drafted earlier this year during the negotiations between doctors and the Ministry of Health which brought an end to a six month public health sector strike. Earlier this month the Pro Salary Doctors Federation had threatened to call another strike should the legislature fail to pass the law. The law will not benefit the other 24,000 public health sector workers who also took part in the strike earlier this year. A number of Sandinista deputies promised to submit a bill to raise other health sector workers’ pay during the first few months of the next administration.


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Topic 4: Copalar project, described by experts as unviable, will be discussed during next administration

The Copalar dam bill was not passed by the National Assembly before the end of the Bolaños administration as the executive branch had hoped. Early in the week the committee formed especially to analyze the bill asked the National Assembly leadership to freeze the bill’s legislative progress because “the vision of the incoming administration is unlikely to be the same as that of the current administration,” explained the committee’s president Eduardo Mena.

The committee also believes that more time should be given to discuss the bill with relevant sectors and to define the role that the Nicaraguan government will play in the administration of the mega project. The news will be welcomed by Vice President elect Jaime Morales Carazo who last week warned that certain international figures of doubtful reputation are involved in the project and the executive’s push to pass the legislation as soon as possible without taking the time necessary to discuss the bill. Deputy Miguel López Baldizón is also suspicious of the forces behind the push to pass the bill saying “it looks as though the project already has a name and a surname,” i.e. that the project’s investors have already been decided on.

Meanwhile two prominent professionals, one a hydraulic engineer and the other a geologist, have both described the Copalar project as “nonviable” saying the long term effect of the dam will be a social, economic and environmental “mega disaster.” Carlos Laínez, a hydraulic engineer, said it is unnecessary, unwise and very risky for such a small country with so much potential to generate energy from diverse and sustainable sources to be concentrating on a project of this size which will exploit just one resource. He mentioned the socio-economic disasters which resulted from experiments in the production of monocultures in the past such as coffee, cotton and mining.

Laínez believes Nicaragua is in desperate need of a long term and sustainable strategic plan of energy generation which would create the smallest possible environmental impact. While Copalar may produce a significant amount of energy for 50 or 60 years, the repercussions of the environmental and social disaster it will leave in its wake “will be felt forever.” The hydraulic engineer thinks it is likely that the Copalar dam project is the result of a small group of people taking advantage of public concern over the country’s current electrical energy crisis to line their own pockets.

Geologist Martínez, who describes plans for the project as “dangerous,” agrees with Laínez that the Copalar dam project would have disastrous effects saying that a huge area of fertile land and all of that area’s culture and history would be “lost forever” and its people permanently displaced if and when the dam is built. The dam’s construction would also bring about the eventual total destruction of the Río Grande de Matagalpa and all the life that depends on the river for survival.


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Topic 5: Venezuelan generating plants scheduled to arrive on Dec. 20

Emilio Rapacciolli, who will be Energy Minister of President-elect Daniel Ortega’s administration, announced on Dec. 12 that the Venezuelan government is planning to send eight generating plants with a capacity to generate 15 megawatts each to Managua. The first four are scheduled to arrive in the Nicaraguan capital on Dec. 20 and will be used to reduce the electricity deficit affecting the city. The other four will not arrive until June 2007 and will be used in other Nicaraguan cities.

The plants are being sent to Nicaragua as part of an arrangement between the Association of Nicaraguan Municipalities (AMUNIC) and the Venezuelan state oil company (PDVSA) signed last April. Rapacciolli says the plants will be a “great help” in overcoming the “critical” energy crisis being experienced in Nicaragua where over 600,000 homes and businesses have daily power cuts of between four and twelve hours a day.

Rapacciolli warned that the crisis will not be overcome during the first few months of 2007. “Between August and September [2007]” the crisis will be resolved, he said, although he also emphasized the need for strategies to make use of Nicaragua’s vast potential for wind, geothermic and hydro power. Until now, Nicaragua has not had an Energy Ministry. Ortega plans to create this post in light of the energy crisis which has had disastrous effects on the country.


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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.