Nicaragua News Service Oct. 9 - 16, 1994 Vol. 2, No. 43 by Coleen Littlejohn Major news stories for the week: 1. Al Gore in five hour visit to Managua. 2. Ecology Summit held in Managua. 3. Catholic Church offers solution to AIDS epidemic. 4. Daniel Ortega makes debut in National Assembly. 5. Dengue epidemic provokes health emergency in Managua. 6. New book released on Nicaraguan slang. 7. Drought seriously affecting Nicaraguan food security. 8. Antonio Ibarra discovered in Detroit. _______________________________________________________________________ 1. Al Gore in five hour visit to Managua. U.S. Vice-President Albert Gore came to Managua for a five hour visit last week to make an appearance at the Ecology Summit at which he was accompanied by all of the Presidents of Central America. Gore became one of "President Chamorro's boys," a phrase used to describe the other Central American presidents, all male except for Chamorro. The Managua airport was taken over by U.S. SWAT teams before and during Gore's arrival. The extraordinary security measures involving Gore's visit were grist for the news mill of all the local papers. During his five hour visit, Gore met privately with President Chamorro, attended the inauguration of the Ecology Summit and signed the summit declaration along with the Central American Presidents. The Vice-President, in his 40 minute meeting with President Chamorro, expressed his concern that the question of property rights in Nicaragua still had not been resolved, and cited the specific case of the privatization of TELCOR, the Nicaragua telecommunications network, which supposedly is coveted by ATT of the United States. Emilio Pereira, Minister of Finance, lamented the next day the fact that the National Assembly had not paid much attention to the property bill presented to the legislature. Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Lacayo, added that it was urgent that the law be passed to restore confidence to potential foreign investors. "If the law is passed, investors will say, 'Gee, the situation is not as bad as they say,'" Lacayo asserted. Meanwhile, Luis Alberto Guzman, the President of the National Assembly, stated that the Assembly had not received the bill. He later discovered that it had been introduced a little over a month ago but its title was practically hidden within another piece of pending legislation. Despite the private pressure on the property matter, publicly, the U.S. Vice-President offered the support of the United States for the Chamorro government. That support, however, was not accompanied by any concrete proposals to increase aid or open U.S. markets to Nicaraguan exports. Sources were quoted as saying that the U.S. viewed favorably Nicaraguan progress on human rights and the subjection of the military to civilian control. Antonio Lacayo had expressed to Gore the need for the U.S. to consider giving Central America a special trade status, with arrangements similar to those pacted with Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Gore, however, did not give cause for much hope in that respect but he did promise to present the request to the U.S. Congress. Gore also received a petition from the Association of Nicaraguans Living Abroad who requested that the 300,000 Nicaraguans who live in the United States be granted temporary immigration relief until the economic situation in Nicaragua begins to show improvement. It is calculated that Nicaraguan residents in the United States send more than $200 million to their families yearly, making those payments one of the major sources of foreign exchange for the country. (Barricada, Oct. 12 - 13, La Prensa, Oct. 12 - 13.) 2. Ecology Summit held in Managua The Central American Presidents met in Managua last week to sign an "Alliance Plan for Sustainable Development." Jose Maria Figueres, the President of Costa Rica, who read the official declaration, stated that it was "time to quit tuning the guitar and start to play the melody." Economic themes were the most discussed during the summit, especially the issue of private investment. Ironically, the Summit was symbolically closed by what turned out to be a massacre of small parrots when the President of Nicaragua, in the presence of her colleagues from Costa Rica and Belice and with the presence of the Minister of Natural Resources of Nicaragua, released about 120 small parrots from the side of the active Masaya volcano. However, the parrots, which are from a species which lives in the cracks and craters of the volcano, had never flown before and all simply dropped directly to the molten lava-filled bottom of the volcano and agonized before the eyes and ears of the summit participants. (Barricada, Oct. 14.) 3. The Catholic Church offers solution to AIDS epidemic. The Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Bishops, in a pastoral letter issued last week, called on their faithful to be either faithful in a marriage situation or, if single, chaste, in order to avoid the propagation of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. According to the Bishops, the only "safe sex" available is that of obeying the Sixth Commandment which says not to fornicate and stated that sexual promiscuity is the main reason for the expansion of AIDS. The bishops stated that "chastity and abstinence should be especially practiced by those with that sickness." For the Bishops, it is unfortunate that "in our country, the old forms--condoms, reducing the number of sexual partners and safe sex are the only ways taught to prevent AIDS." The Bishops stated that the Church offers "prayer, confession and frequent Communion for those who need help in obeying the Ten Commandments." (Barricada, Oct. 11.) 4. Daniel Ortega makes debut in National Assembly. In his inaugural speech to the National Assembly upon taking possession of his seat in the legislative body, Daniel Ortega called for a national dialogue to discuss the principal problems of the country, including the question of property, the reforms to the present Constitution and the current economic crisis. Ortega assumed his seat in the National Assembly following instructions given by the Sandinista Assembly last month, a decision which removed Sergio Ramirez from the Assembly after four years of functioning as FSLN chief in the legislature. Ortega indirectly recognized the authority of Dora Maria Tellez, recently elected by the majority of the FSLN deputies to be the FSLN head in the Assembly. Ortega stated that: "I have not come to dispute a place in an already existing leadership structure; I am the Secretary General of the party.... I come to fight for the unity of the FSLN and look for the consensus necessary to resolve the principal problems of the country." Reactions to Ortega's call for a national dialogue from government officials and leaders of the right were not positive. Foreign Minister Ernesto Leal stated that the dialogue was taking place in the National Assembly and not in the street and Arnoldo Aleman, mayor of Managua and Gilberto Cuadra, president of COSEP, both commented that Ortega's proposal came "too late." (Barricada, Oct. 12, 13.) 5. Dengue epidemic provokes health emergency in Managua. The Ministry of Health declared a medical alert last week in Managua because of the alarming number of cases of dengue fever reported in the public health centers over the last two weeks. This latest epidemic is considered one of the most virulent of the last several years, especially in those neighborhoods which border Lake Managua. Eight deaths have been reported so far. Malaria is also on the rise in the capital area. The Ministry of Health has resumed some fumigation of the areas near Lake Managua but sufficient funding for gasoline, personnel and vehicles has not been available. 6. New book released on Nicaraguan slang. A Nicaraguan psychologist and a Spanish architect from Catalan, have recently published a book entitled "Popular Nicaraguan Vocabulary" for those who want to learn the latest in Nicaraguan slang. The book includes over 4,000 words and phrases invented by Nicaraguans which do not appear in official dictionaries. The two authors, Chantall Pallas and Joaquim Rabella started their study in 1985 and said they still had over a thousand words to check out. But the authors decided that it was better to publish now considering that the process of discovery of new words could be never-ending. (Barricada, Oct. 13.) 7. Drought seriously affecting Nicaraguan food security. According to a recent report from the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation, the drought this rainy season in Central America will seriously affect the region's food security, especially in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Central America lost over $160 million in basic grain production in the first planting season of the 1994-1995 agricultural cycle. The losses will force the Central American countries to use precious foreign exchange to import basic food products in 1995. El Salvador was the most affected country, with losses of over $48.3 million. The government of that country has issued an emergency decree which included special emergency job creation programs for those who lost their crops, as well as special credit restructuring plans for farmers. Nicaragua's losses were calculated at $28.4 million, especially in bean and corn crops in the departments of Chinandega, Leon, Esteli, Matagalpa and Madriz. Costa Rica was the least affected country with a $1.8 million loss in areas close to the Nicaragua border. (La Prensa, Oct. 10.) 8. Antonio Ibarra discovered in Detroit. The discovery that ex-Vice Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Ibarra Rojas is in Detroit, Michigan, was reported in the daily newspaper Barricada, the same newspaper that found him in Cochabamba, Bolivia, over two years ago. Ibarra is wanted in Nicaragua for the embezzlement, in 1992, of over one million dollars in emergency funds. He is also now wanted in Bolivia for trying to bribe members of the Bolivian Supreme Court in an successful effort to avoid his extradition back to Nicaragua. Ibarra had disappeared from Bolivia at the end of August of this year. He has a U.S. passport but it is still not clear how he was able to leave Bolivia and enter the United States without immediate detection, given his notoriety. In Detroit, Ibarra was discovered by people with a long history of working in solidarity with Latin America when he applied for a job as youth director with the Catholic Archdiocese. Members of the Organization in Solidarity with Central America (OSCA) called Francisco Campbell in Nicaragua who contacted the daily Barricada. When his identity was discovered, Ibarra was staying with a progressive priest in Detroit who has in the past given sanctuary to Salvadoran refugees. He was reportedly doing "a great job" as the youth director. Ibarra has refused to talk with reporters by phone and says the furor is all a Sandinista plot. He is reportedly trying to legalize his stay in the U.S. He had told the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Office that his wife would be teaching at a Detroit university and would join him within a few months. It was his resume indicating he had left Nicaragua in 1979 and returned in 1990 and listing high-level positions in Nicaragua in the early 1990's that had provoked suspicion at the CYO. The CYO job pays a relatively low salary for someone who has served in high government positions. In Managua, sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the government of Nicaragua will ask the U.S. government for official certification that Ibarra is in that country in order to initiate extradition proceedings against him. President Violeta Chamorro confirmed that information as she left for a meeting in Jamaica. Ibarra is rated by INTERPOL as "a very dangerous international delinquent." (Barricada, Oct. 15, 16, 17 and OSCA in Detroit.)