Nicanet - The Nicaragua Network

Nicaragua Network Hotlines for October 17, 2006

News topics covered in this Hotline include:


Topic 1: US delegation and newspaper ads criticize US Ambassador Trivelli’s intervention

A Nicaragua Network/Quixote Center delegation in Nicaragua last week rejected “interference” by US Ambassador Paul Trivelli in the electoral process of Nicaragua, and members demanded “better behavior” of Trivelli. “The Nicaraguans are the only people qualified to maintain their sovereignty and to resolve their own matters,” affirmed the delegation during a press conference held October 13 at the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH).

The objective of the delegation in Nicaragua was to monitor political interference by the United States, which has served “to intimidate and influence” Nicaraguan voters. Delegation members stated that they will require their government to “stop its intervention in the political process of Nicaragua.” This delegation followed up on an earlier one in June. The June delegation's report can be read at www.nicanet.org.

On Friday full page ads echoing the delegation's findings and signed by over 1100 US citizens and residents appeared in both major newspapers.

The delegation met with representatives of Nicaraguan political parties, non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, women’s groups, university students and the Organization of the American States (OAS). “We asked for an appointment at the Embassy of the United States, but we were denied,” they said.

The US citizens said they were “offended” by the attitude and the acts of Ambassador Trivelli, who has repeatedly threatened Nicaraguans with dire consequences if they elect Daniel Ortega of the FSLN or Jose Rizo of the PLC. “As citizens of the United States, we would have strongly condemned it if ambassadors or officials from foreign governments had made statements like those made by Congressman Dan Burton [who was recently in Nicaragua] or Ambassador Trivelli,” they stated.

In response to the newspaper ad which asked Ambassador Paul Trivelli to keep silent about the electoral process, the US government spokesperson stated, “As Ambassador Trivelli has said many times, we have not given support, nor will we give it, to any specific candidate. We have not financed, nor will we finance, any political campaign. And we’re not going to ask for forgiveness for our efforts to help develop democracy in Nicaragua.” In a press release from the embassy in Managua, the US government said that it is not committed to any of the five presidential candidates, a position that contradicts the declarations of Trivelli and other US officials who have their support for ALN-PC candidate Eduardo Montealegre.

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Topic 2: Election campaign news

Both Eden Pastora, presidential candidate of the Alternative for Change Party and Carlos Mejia Godoy, candidate for vice-president of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) were sidelined last week with kidney stones. Mejia Godoy underwent a medical procedure to remove a kidney stone. Both hope to be back on the campaign trail shortly.

On October 15, the FSLN approved an agreement of “peace and liberty” with a faction of the contras, the enemy of the Sandinista government in the 1980s. The Party of the Nicaraguan Resistance, with some defections, has left the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance-Conservative Party (ALN-PC) headed by candidate Eduardo Montealegre whom the group criticized for “sowing a campaign of fear.” Also last week the FSLN received the endorsement of the Socialist International which held its annual meeting in Managua. The organization, which brings together social democratic parties from around the world, supported the Ortega candidacy because of its promise of “returning to the struggle against poverty in Nicaragua.”

Former President Arnoldo Aleman, leader of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC), expressed his delight at a newspaper column by Oliver North, one of the principal figures of the contra war of the 1980s. North attacked the Bush administration for supporting “upstart” Liberal Eduardo Montealegre instead of José Rizo, candidate of the PLC. Earlier in the week, US Ambassador Trivelli said that North’s declarations were based on an opinion poll that did not exist. North referred in his column to a secret survey taken by the US Embassy that showed Rizo ahead of Montealegre. Trivelli made his statements after presenting the Nicaraguan government with US$621,000 to fight corruption. The money was the product of the sale of a helicopter confiscated in the U.S. that Aleman had bought with Nicaraguan government money.

PLC spokesman Leonel Teller last week accused the ALN-PC of campaign law violations along with members of the Movement for Nicaragua, Let’s Make Democracy, and the International Republican Institute. He accused the Bolaños administration’s ambassador to the United States, Salvador Stadthagen, of lobbying the State Department in favor of Montealegre, saying that among the actions being promoted was the holding of a “prefabricated” poll of 10,000 people financed by the US that would show Daniel Ortega and Montealegre in a tie. “With this poll, they would call on citizens to close ranks around the candidate of the State Department [Montealegre] and ask Rizo of the PLC to abandon the campaign,” said Teller. Teller said that Rizo would not drop out and called on “governments of the north and south,” referring to the United States and Venezuela, to stop interfering in Nicaragua’s internal affairs.

MRS candidates Edmundo Jarquin and Carlos Mejia Godoy last week met thousands of Nicaraguan immigrants in Costa Rica to sign what they called a “clean pact” with them, promising to provide migrants with Nicaraguan ID cards, more consular resources in Costa Rica, and the right to vote. Jarquin stated that if he were to win the presidential contest, he would create a Department of Migrant Labor that would sign bilateral agreements toward documented migration that would secure both temporary and permanent employment for workers. He added that one of his priorities would be to create conditions so that fewer Nicaraguans had to leave the country to find work.

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Topic 3: Preparations for Election Day continue

Anonymous telecommunication engineers told El Nuevo Diario last week that the Nicaraguan Telecommunications Company (ENITEL) found serious technical problems during a recent test run of voting data transmission. They said that most zones reported minor problems that can be resolved. However, they said that there were areas where phones did not even have a dial tone because of repeated theft of phone cables for the valuable metal inside. These include the cities of San Marcos and Diriamba in the department of Carazo, and Belen and Rivas in the department of Rivas. The same problem occurs, they said, in parts of Leon, Esteli and the outskirts of Managua. “Today we put up the cables and tomorrow they steal them,” the sources said.

Gustavo Fernandez, chief of the election observation team of the Organization of American States (OAS), said on October 12 that it was urgent that the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) finish distributing voter identification cards. “What we know is that the documents are ready and they have begun to distribute them and they assure us that they will finish within a week,” Fernandez said. He praised the CSE for photocopying the list of voter IDs that had not been picked up in the department of Esteli and distributing that list to the local media and to the political parties. “We have noted the importance of voters picking up their documents and not waiting for the election institutions to deliver them,” he added. The OAS will deploy 200 election observers around Nicaragua.

Fernandez also emphasized the importance of the commitment by electric power generators and distributors to guarantee electricity for the days between November 4th and 11th. President Enrique Bolaños announced agreements with these institutions to assure electricity for those important dates but David Castillo, president of the Nicaraguan Energy Institute (INE), said that the shortages will resume after the elections.

The European Union will deploy 26 observers for the November 5th elections. The 26 will join ten members of a mission that has been in country since September 24th. The EU and the Council of Latin American Election Experts speculated that challenges to the vote count in numerous precincts could result in delays in reporting of results by the Supreme Electoral Council.

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Topic 4: National Assembly leadership promises to end therapeutic abortion

The acting president of the National Assembly, Sandinista Rene Nuñez, last week sent to the Justice Committee a bill that would amend Nicaragua’s Penal Code which for over 130 years has provided for legal abortions in cases where the woman’s life or health were endangered. The changes to the penal code had been requested by the Nicaraguan Catholic Bishops Conference the previous week at the time of a massive march of political and religious figures.

The bill was signed by Rene Nuñez, and the other members of the Assembly leadership. The bill stated that “the person who commits the crime of abortion will be punished with 6-14 years of prison.” News reports noted that there were signs of rebellion, however, in the Justice Committee. The chair of that committee, Noel Pereira, said that the leadership could not promise anything before the committee considered and made modifications to the bill. He contradicted his PLC colleague Wilfredo Navarro who had said that there would be no committee hearings on the bill.

The Nicaraguan Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians protested the proposed changes. Dr. Matilde Jiron explained that doctors have the duty to save the lives of their patients and will be unable to do so in all cases if the legislature complies with the churches’ demand for changes in the Penal Code. Jiron said that Society records show there were about 26 chronically ill women who died as the result of a lack of knowledge of the possibility of a therapeutic abortion between 2000 and 2003.

The Autonomous Women’s Movement sponsored a march of hundreds of women on October 10 in support of therapeutic abortion. In contrast to the massive march of approximately 200,000 people supported by the Catholic and Evangelical churches and all of the presidential candidates except Edmundo Jarquin of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), representatives of this march were not received by leaders or members of the National Assembly.

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Topic 5: People of Paiwas oppose Copalar Dam Project at the National Assembly

The Liberal mayor of Paiwas, José del Carmen Escoto, representing more than 40,000 local people from the municipality of Bocana of Paiwas and its 18 communities, made it known on October 6 at the National Assembly that they are opposed to the construction of the Copalar dam, a hydroelectric mega-project that would leave the entire region covered with water.

The Copalar mega-project consists of constructing dams on the Rio Grande de Matagalpa, with the largest dam being one kilometer wide and 200 meters tall with the capacity to generate 800 to 900 megawatts of hydroelectric power. The project forms part of Plan Puebla Panama and is being promoted by the Nicaraguan government, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), several European and Latin American governments and a number of multinational companies.

Escoto presented the people of Paiwas’ refusal to support the dam before a special committee of the National Assembly which is consulting with the government about reviving the mega-project which was first proposed in the 1970s under the Somoza government as one solution to Nicaragua's severe energy shortage. Escoto told the commission that they “should know the position of the citizens and communities of Paiwas, which I’m expressing, that they’re going to oppose the dam however possible.”

Also appearing before the committee were representatives from a firm that has done feasibility studies on the construction of the dam as well as officials from the National Energy Commission (INE). Raul Solorzano, technical advisor of Energia S.A., which is one consortium involved in the project, said that citizens of the affected communities would be compensated.

Topic 6: U.S. Southern Command troops plan six months in Nicaragua

The United States Army Southern Command plans to send 2,000 US Army Reserve troops to the department of Carazo from January 1 to May 15, 2007, to "build schools and clinics and provide medical services." Major Antonio Nieves, in charge of logistics for the New Horizons program, said “Whenever we go to these countries we try to support local businesses. We use different contractors so that all receive money.” He said that in terms of food products, the program would be purchasing dairy products, vegetables, and fruit. “We want quality,” he said. He also stated that the New Horizons program would need the coordinated participation of the Ministries of Health and Education as well as the Customs Bureau, the legislature and the Nicaraguan army.

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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.