Nicaragua Network Hotline

Nicaragua Network Hotline
September 15, 2003

This hotline is prepared from the Nicaragua News Service 
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Topics included in this hotline are: CAFTA Talks in 
Managua; Cautious Optimism as WTO Talks Fail, Mounting 
Anger at Judge?s Decision to Send Jerez Home, Government 
Unveils ?Chimera? National Development Plan, Troops in 
Iraq Ill-Equipped, and, Mountain Leprosy Oubreak

TOPIC 1: CAFTA Talks in Managua; Cautious Optimism as WTO 
Talks Fail

As the World Trade Organization talks crumbled in Cancun, 
US and Central American negotiators gathered in Managua 
for what they expect to be the final round of talks on the 
Central American Free Trade Agreement held in a Central 
American country. The United States is eager to have the 
agreement signed by the end of this year, although the 
same issue of agricultural subsidies that caused the 
collapse of the WTO meeting threatens CAFTA. 

Members of the Another America is Possible Movement 
(AAPM), a broad coalition of peasants?, environmental, 
women?s, workers?, and other organizations, were 
cautiously jubilant about the collapse of the Cancun WTO 
talks. Luis Miranda, one of the movement's principal 
organizers noted: ?Their lack of success in imposing their 
will in Cancun, in multilateral negotiations, will make 
the USA all the more determined to impose their policies 
here, in what are effectively bi-lateral agreements. We 
must be ready. The one good thing the Bolaqos government 
has done during these so-called negotiations is also to 
challenge the US and European farm subsidies. The country 
is already riddled with US products; they know it would be 
suicide for Nicaragua to enter into any agreement which 
lays us completely open to unfair agricultural 
competition.? A demonstration against CAFTA is planned for 
Thursday, September 18th, in Managua.

At the Festival Victor Jara, an open-air concert which 
drew 1000 people to commemorate the 30th anniversary of 
the Pinochet/US coup against Chilean President Salvador 
Allende, ?the first September 11? in 1973, representatives 
of the Victor Jara Cultural Movement, Young 
Environmentalists and others called on people everywhere 
to ?Just Say No? to Coca Cola and the rest of the 
multinationals. One participant exulted, ?Victor Jara (the 
great Chilean songwriter/singer killed in the '73 coup) 
goes on living. Thanks to him, we're all joining Salvador 
Allende in dreaming of not just a Chile, but a world 
where, ?for the first time, every child shall have milk to 
drink, every day.??     

TOPIC 2: Mounting Anger at Judge's Decision to Send Jerez 
Home

An unnamed taxi driver summed up most popular feeling when 
he said, bluntly but succinctly, ?The pig got fat stealing 
our taxes. Now they want us to pay more to let him get 
slimmed down in luxury.? He was referring to the most 
recent controversial ruling handed down by Judge Juana 
Mindez, who suddenly announced that Byron Jerez could go 
home under bond because of health problems. Jerez is 
currently in jail for money laundering and massive state 
fraud, carried out while he was tax director, much of the 
crime committed in cahoots with the then-president and 
Jerez?s long-time associate, Arnoldo Aleman. Like his 
erstwhile boss, Jerez is grossly overweight, and again 
like Aleman, suffers serious health problems in 
consequence. When he was first impounded, nearly two years 
ago, a mixture of disbelief and derision greeted the news 
that he had had a ?gastric belt? fitted, and that it was 
giving him trouble. ?Poetic justice? was the general 
sentiment. 

Now, once again, Judge Mindez put the cat back among the 
pigeons by exhibiting her seemingly one-sided leniency, 
although his actual liberation is contingent on the 
agreement of several other judges. People are particularly 
concerned that this favorable judgment for Aleman?s 
lieutenant implies the former president?s own liberation 
will not be long in coming. This fear was vividly 
expressed by Jaime Morales Carazo, a Liberal 
assembly-member: ?It wouldn't surprise me in the least if, 
one day soon, I come across Jerez, and Aleman too - 
because what's good for the hog is good for the sow - 
sitting in a restaurant, peacefully sipping wine as though 
nothing had ever happened.? Agustmn Jarqumn Anaya, the 
former comptroller-general who first blew the whistle on 
the Aleman administration warns ?this could very well 
signal the end of the ?fight against corruption.??

Another of Ex-President Aleman?s cohorts, the current Vice 
President Josi Rizo Castellon, though previously 
considering resignation, has announced that he will 
continue in his post. He too has been accused of 
maladministration, stemming from his period as Director of 
the Nicaraguan Institute of Municipal Management (INIFOM), 
and an investigation has been opened by the State 
Prosecutor?s Office. President Bolaqos has shown himself 
increasingly angered by Rizo and his ?posturing,? roundly 
declaring, ?There is no co-presidency in this country.?

TOPIC 3: Government Unveils "Chimera" National Development 
Plan

This week the Bolaqos administration revealed its grand 
plan for the development of Nicaragua and the reduction of 
poverty. President Bolaqos offered a soberly realistic 
assessment of Nicaragua's current plight. ?Take a look at 
the aerial photos of just a few decades ago, Nicaragua was 
virtually one great forest,? he said. ?Now, we have 
scarcely one third. I'm not in the business of selling 
unreal expectations, we, all Nicaraguans, have to form an 
alliance; an alliance to take Nicaragua forward, with 
changed priorities for the benefit of all. Otherwise, we 
will end up living in a desert.? 

During a marathon three-hour session, the president laid 
out the details of his plan to slow the rate of the 
csrdoba's slide against the dollar from six to five 
percent, send new laws to the National Assembly to 
strengthen the nation's financial system, and shift 
responsibility from the Central Bank to the Treasury 
Department, in the case of any future bank bailouts. 
 Industry, Commerce, and Public Works Minister, Mario 
Arana, further explained that the plan to improve 
?competitiveness? would include direct assistance to 
10,000 small and medium farmers, as well as 2,000 
non-agricultural businesses. ?In all, this investment 
should generate some 70,000 jobs directly, and another 
70,000 indirectly,? he said. ?We are confident that these 
same measures will increase our exports by fifteen per 
cent.? 

However, Josi Adan Silva, writing in El Nuevo Diario, 
summed up the reaction of many observers, saying that the 
plan ?smacked of hunting down a chimera.? With brutal 
frankness, Silva noted that, ?Although the goal is 
laudable, to enable all Nicaraguans to properly fulfill 
their human potentialities, it is built on the sands of 
stark reality: of the thirty-three Latin American 
countries, Nicaragua is fractionally above last place 
Haiti in terms of poverty. The principal obstacle to the 
realization of the development plan will be its financing. 
Most of this will have to come from financial bodies or 
donor nations, all of which have yet to declare themselves 
ready to assist.? 

TOPIC 4: Troops in Iraq Ill-Equipped

The Central American troops currently in Iraq, which 
include just over one hundred recruits from Nicaragua, 
lack some of the basic equipment essential to carrying out 
their tasks effectively, according to leaders of the ?Plus 
Ultra Brigade? to which they have been assigned. Besides 
the Nicaraguans, the brigade boasts another thousand 
soldiers from various other Central American and Caribbean 
countries. Vicente Gonzalez of Spain, logistical commander 
of the unit, said, ?The troops from Nicaragua (102 
persons) and the Dominican Republic (302), deployed in the 
provinces of Nayaf and Al-Qadissiya, lack most of the 
equipment essential to the successful completion of their 
mission. On the one hand, they lack transport vehicles and 
transmission teams, on the other, they even lack boots and 
uniforms.? He said the situation of those troops from 
Honduras (366) and El Salvador (361), who find themselves 
in the dangerous city of Nayaf itself, was, if anything, 
even worse. ?To date,? he continued, ?these soldiers have 
only received 60% of the equipment they were allocated, 
and much of what they have received is worn, old or in 
other ways in bad shape. They too are missing vehicles and 
radios, and even night sights.?

?The delay is due to problems in distribution,? US 
Commander Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez attested, 
while claiming that the units continue normal activities 
and ?are operating in Nayaf as of today.? However, 
according to Plus Ultra?s Spanish commanders, the delays 
have meant that the Central American troops are ?entirely 
dependent on our Spanish forces,? and indeed that the 
Spaniards had been forced to take over some of their 
unluckier colleagues? duties. 

Theoretically, Plus Ultra is due to take over the 
administration of Nayaf on September 21. However, the date 
was not confirmed by the unit?s commander, Alfredo 
Cardona, and most army experts on the ground believe the 
plan to get everything back on course within so short a 
time is ?impossible.? 

TOPIC 5: Mountain Leprosy Outbreak

Despite Health Ministry (MINSA) attempts to play them 
down, local statistics in the northern department of 
Jinotega show an alarming incidence of ?mountain leprosy?. 
The disease, more properly called Leishmaniasis, has been 
diagnosed in at least one thousand six hundred people, 
including many children and even babies. Health Minister 
Josi Antonio Alvarado, made no bones about blaming the 
outbreak on the failure of French company, Avanti, to 
comply with their commitments to Nicaragua. Avanti is the 
world's single source of the anti-leprosy vaccine, 
Glucantime. Alvarado claimed that MINSA had ordered the 
vaccine some four months ago. ?We went directly to 
France,? he explained, ?because, although the company does 
have outlets in Mexico and Brazil, the quality is not so 
good. Vaccines from these countries have caused bad side 
effects. Avanti simply fell down on the order; they 
promised it to us by a certain date, and they did not 
fulfill their promise.?

The vaccine apparently arrived last week, and is in 
process of being organized for distribution. ?5,000 
ampoules are being rushed to Jinotega,? said Juan Josi 
Amador, MINSA Director of Epidemiology, as he himself left 
for the affected region together with a delegate from the 
office of the Advocate for Human Rights. ?Our medical team 
will make a careful assessment of the overall situation; 
the worst cases will be brought back to Managua for 
hospitalization.?
  

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