Nicaragua News Service February 26-March 4, 1995 Vol. 3, No. 10 by Coleen Littlejohn Major stories for the week: 1. A reform of the reforms? FSLN calls for dialogue. 2. Humberto Ortega embarks on first civilian mission. 3. Teachers go on strike. 4. Evangelist preacher fills national stadium. 5. Nicaragua beats Cuba in baseball. 6. Preparations made to begin national census. 7. Costa Rica to continue deporting illegal Nicaraguans. 8. Negotiations soon on Nicaraguan foreign debt. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. A reform of the reforms? FSLN calls for dialogue. Last week newspaper readers were given a break from the daily headlines announcing impending doom due to the power struggle between the Executive and the National Assembly over exactly which Constitution is legal: that of 1987 or that which was amended two weeks ago in a marathon session of the National Assembly. According to the local papers, the two sides are analyzing, less publicly, the options available to them in order to come to an agreement on a process of "reform of the reforms" or amendments to the amendments. As a result of the impasse between legislative and executive branches, Vice-President Virgilio Godoy offered his services to fill the power gap but others of the extreme right, such as Mayor of Managua Arnoldo Aleman, were suspiciously silent, giving reason to think that they believe themselves to be the principal beneficiaries of the political differences between the Nicaraguan center and left. Meanwhile, in a speech to the nation, the Secretary General of the FSLN, Daniel Ortega, repeated the party's proposal for a broad national dialogue in order to achieve an immediate agreement to resolve the problems between the Presidency and the National Assembly. (Barricada, Feb. 28) 2. Humberto Ortega embarks on first civilian mission. Humberto Ortega, recently retired as head of the Nicaraguan army, has begun his new career as peacemaker and spent his first two weeks in retirement in a series of meeting with President Violeta Chamorro, National Assembly President Luis Humberto Guzman and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo. According to Ortega, only a political agreement between the Executive and Legislature can solve the problems which have arisen around the publication of the amendments to the Constitution. When questioned about his role in the negotiating process, Ortega declared, "I am only making clear the need for dialogue at the highest levels between the two powers of the state. I have sensed that both sides are receptive to the idea of coming closer together as far as positions go, and to sit down to negotiate." Barricada, March 4, El Nuevo Diario, Feb. 27) 3. Teachers go on strike. True to their word, the two largest teachers unions of the country, ANDEN and the CNEN, began a nationwide strike which by the end of this week will be affecting the majority of the nation's public primary and secondary schools. The strike is expected to be supported by 80% of all teachers by the end of this week despite the threats of the Ministry of Education (MED) that after three days, teachers participating in the strike will be fired. From the first day of the strike the Ministry of Education has been publishing want ads in all the local newspapers looking for recruits to replace the teachers who will be fired. As the strike intensified, the unions called for a series of popular marches in the principal cities outside Managua. Over 1,500 teachers, joined by sympathetic parents, marched in Masaya last week and 600 did the same in the town of Jinotepe. The Minister of Labor, Francisco Rosales, in an interview with Barricada, declared that he was not ready to declare the strike illegal because the required mediation sessions still have not taken place in order to find a negotiated solution. Rosales promised to make contact with the Ministry of Education and the striking union leaders. He declared, "We going to mediate with the MED and the teachers so that the strike won't be declared illegal and that there won't be people sanctioned. I hope to convince Minister Belli so that this conflict can be resolved by dialoguing and that calmness prevails." At this time there are conflicting views as to what percentage of the nation's teachers are on strike. Official propaganda, backed up by reports in La Prensa, state that only 5% of all teachers are supporting the strike and that when these people are fired for insubordination, the Ministry will have cleaned out the system of troublemakers. Other newspapers, such as Barricada and El Nuevo Diario report that support for the strike is picking up nationally as corresponds to the initial planning of the strikers to build up the movement slowly to increase pressure daily on the Ministry of Education. Meanwhile, the two striking unions have challenged the Ministry of Education to name a verification committee to travel around the nation and document the exact strength of the strike. (Barricada, March 4) 4. Evangelical preacher fills national stadium Over 50,000 people from all parts of Nicaragua filled the national baseball stadium last week to hear words of comfort and to find cures from their illnesses and possible miracles from the words of Brother Benny Hin, a 40 year old evangelical preacher of Greek origins who presently lives in Orlando, Florida. According to Rev. Sixto Ulloa, member of the organizing committee to receive Brother Hin and former FSLN representative in the National Assembly during the Sandinista government, hundreds of people were cured by the visiting pastor. According to Ulloa, "many sick people do not have money to seek medical attention and they only have their faith to cure them." Ulloa and the other campaign organizers speculated that the campaign was so successful "because the present chaos and hunger force people to look towards God. Our people are tired of hearing speeches that do not answer their moral and spiritual needs as human beings." (Barricada, March 4) 5. Nicaragua beats Cuba in baseball. One confirmed miracle did happen last week, however, but that miracle took place in a baseball stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and not in Managua, Nicaragua. Nicaragua's all-star baseball team beat the Cuban all-star team, which just happened to be the world champion team, in a 3 to 0 game played last week as part of the preliminary competition leading up to the 12th Pan-American Games. It was only the 11th time in their history that the Cuban All-Stars had been beaten. Of those, eight times had been by Nicaragua: in 1940, 1952, 1972 (with Dennis Martinez as pitcher) and 1976 and then 4 times more in the 1980s. The victory made five column headlines in most of the country's newspapers last week. (Barricada, March 3) 6. Preparations made to begin national census. Pablo Pereira, the Minister of Economy and Development, called upon all Nicaraguans to participate in and support the national census on population and housing that will officially begin on April 23rd and conclude on May 6 of this year. It will be the first time in 24 years that Nicaragua will know with some degree of statistical accuracy exactly how many people are living (and working) within her borders. Fourteen thousand people have been trained to do the survey, the initial results of which should be ready in approximately ten months. A little over half of the cost of the census (about $8 million) will be financed by the World Bank and the UN Development Program (UNDP). (Barricada, March 3) 7. Costa Rica to continue deporting illegal Nicaraguans. The government of Costa Rica declared last week that the presence of thousands of illegal Nicaraguans in their country is not only seriously damaging their economy, but also generating insecurity in the streets and that their presence could "provoke nationalistic and xenophobic feelings within the Costa Rican population." These were the reasons given by the Costa Rican government for continuing the policy of deporting Nicaraguans, the majority of whom are working in subhuman conditions on coffee and banana farms not far from the border between the two countries. "Nicaraguan immigrants mean a constant and growing burden for Costa Rican taxpayers" according to the government, which estimates that illegal immigrants represent 14.3% of the total population of Costa Rica, 3.2 million people. According to Costa Rican immigration figures, 175,000 Nicaraguans have legal residence in that country but another 300,000 are illegal. The Costa Rican government officially denies that the rights of these immigrants are being violated; however numerous human rights violations have been documented by the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) along the Rio San Juan area. According to CENIDH, over 1,300 Nicaraguans were deported from Costa Rica in this past month of February. (Barricada, March 4) 8. Negotiations soon on Nicaraguan foreign debt. The Nicaraguan government renewed its diplomatic offensive with the international lending community last week in an attempt to reduce its $11 billion foreign debt, according to a statement by Vice Minister of Foreign Cooperation Sergio Blandon. An official mission, headed by the chief of that Ministry, Edwin Kruger, will be in Washington this week to try to convince the IMF, the IDB and the World Bank to support the government's proposals to the bilateral donor community. The strategy of the Nicaraguan government is to negotiate the debt in five blocks. The first priority is to achieve an 80% reduction in the $800 million debt to the countries of the Club of Paris (a group of bilateral creditors); followed by the $4 billion debt to the former socialist bloc countries; $1 billion to the rest of Central America; another $1.6 to commercial banks; and the rest with the multilateral lending agencies. The Club of Paris (a group of bilateral creditors) will meet in April to discuss the Nicaraguan proposal. In 1980, Nicaragua's foreign debt was calculated at $2.1 billion but after a decade of war and blockade, that figure rose to $10.2 billion. According to the World Bank, Nicaragua's debt situation is the most difficult of any developing nation. Experts in Nicaraguan and other international financial institutions sustain that Nicaragua must reduce its debt burden to approximately four times the value of its yearly exports, which is now in the range of 300 million a year. Interest payments should be calculated at no more than 13% of those exports, according to the same specialists. Next week a mission from the IMF will arrive in Managua to evaluate the advances of the Chamorro government's structural adjustment policies since 1991. One of the sore points in the discussion will be the fact that the government has not yet privatized the nation's profitable telecommunications system. A commission from the National Assembly gave its approval to a bill introduced by the Executive, but it is doubtful that the Assembly will vote on the bill as long as the issue of the Constitutional amendments is not resolved. (Barricada, March 3)