Nicaragua News Service July 2 - 8, 1995 Vol. 3, No. 28 by Coleen Littlejohn Major news stories for the week: 1. Jimmy Carter mediates at conference on property. 2. Protesters abandon National Assembly building. 3. Arnoldo Aleman under pressure. 4. "Framework Law" and Constitutional amendments finally published. 5. Fiallos suggests changes in Electoral Law. 6. AID conditions agricultural aid. 7. President of Boer Baseball Team killed in accident. ________________________________________________________________________ 1. Jimmy Carter mediates at conference on property. Former President of the U.S. Jimmy Carter was in Nicaragua last week to participate in the first conference on the Nicaragua property conflict. Carter, who was accompanied by former President of Belice George Price and by advisors Robert Pastor and Jennifer McCoy, was received by President Violeta Chamorro. The two day conference was held at the Montelimar Beach resort. The participants included National Assembly members, heads of political parties, leaders of unions and popular organizations and private sector business representatives as well as Chamorro government officials. The conference was sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and by the Carter Center Division for Democracy in Central America and the Caribbean. According to Carter, his main motivation was to contribute to the bettering of relations between Nicaragua and the United States. The US government is still demanding that the claims of US citizens for return of confiscated property be resolved. The Nicaraguan government says that over 300 cases have been settled since January of this year but there is still the question of the claims of those who became US citizens after 1979. At the end of this month, President Clinton must decide if the procedures being implemented in Nicaragua fulfill the requirements in the Henry Gonzalez-Jesse Helms amendment. If Nicaragua fails the test, foreign aid from the US may be cut totally. According to an article in Barricada last Thursday, July 6th, the FSLN and the leaders of the popular organizations were able to come to a consensus with other sectors vis a vis respect for and protection of those benefited by the transformations in property ownership under the previous (Sandinista) government. According to the article, basic agreement was reached at Montelimar on the following points: - a law should be passed that would protect those who possess "solvencias" (certificates establishing an unblemished right to a piece of property) against evacuations. For those who do not have these certificates, the cases will be settled in court but the execution of the sentence will be left to the Executive and Legislative branches. - that those unjustly confiscated should receive immediate and fair compensation via funds made available from the privatization of state enterprises such as TELCOR. This process will be supervised by a Mixed Commission of members of the National Assembly, confiscated persons and others. - that those who received large houses or mansions should pay the tax register value of the house to the government in order to receive their deeds and that the government should hand that money over to the former owners. Inhabitants would have two years to pay. - that the existing laws should be enforced and that when necessary, international arbitration should be used to settle difficult cases. That arbiter will be the International Dispute Center of the World Bank. In order to follow up on the agreements made at Montelimar, a Commission was formed made up of three government ministers, three members of the National Assembly, and one delegate each from among those who were confiscated, from the Community Movement, the Farmers and Ranchers Association (UNAG), UNAPA and UPANIC. This commission will meet within 10 days with the head of the UNDP mission convening the meeting. Most sectors spoke favorably of the agreements reached in the Montelimar Meeting with the exception of the delegate of the Association of Confiscated Persons, Frank Rizo, who called for the immediate returning of all properties included those affected by Decrees 3 and 38, which were used to confiscate Somocistas. The National Conservative Party member and its legal advisor, Julio Icaza Tijerino, were also opposed to any type of indemnification. Daniel Ortega, Secretary General of the FSLN, stated that the agreement to form a follow-up commission was important and would help to resolve the protests at the Central American University (UCA) and the National Assembly. Rene Vivas of the FSLN National Directorate also stated that the agreements were positive in that most sectors recognized the legitimacy, the justice, and the social content of the revolutionary government's program, especially the process of agrarian reform. (Barricada, July 5, 6) 2. Protesters abandon National Assembly building. Almost immediately after the seminar on property held at the beach resort of Montelimar, the President of the National Assembly Luis Humberto Guzman called for the protesters to leave the National Assembly chamber so that the Assembly could get back to the tasks at hand. Guzman, in an interview given to Barricada, stated that now that the institutional crisis in the government had been resolved, the Assembly could start to resolve other pressing problems such as the property question and the democratization of agricultural credit. Guzman emphasized that the demands of those occupying the Assembly were just but that to resolve them it was imperative that they leave the building. The peasant farmers who were holding the building left the next day. (Barricada, July 6) 3. Arnoldo Aleman under pressure. Over a thousand sanitation and other municipal workers, organized by the top echelon of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) took over the mayor's office last week for two days and demanded that the mayor fire his municipal administrative director, Jamileth Bonilla, a demand to which the mayor acceded. Bonilla, who is also a member of the Managua city council, has been a close confidante of the mayor for the past five years. But, as a former member of the Nicaraguan Communist party who did not join the PLC, she has never gained the confidence of PLC party leaders who have generally been jealous of her influence with the Mayor. Aleman was forced to fired Bonilla or face a rebellion at the upcoming July 11 National Congress of the PLC. Bonilla is also being blamed for several administrative anomalies including the fact that although paycheck withholdings have been taken from each city worker's paycheck, the city of Managua owes almost a million dollars to the Social Security system for social security benefits of employees. Meanwhile last week, Aleman flew to Miami for a couple of fund-raising dinners to help finance the party convention. At the lower priced dinner, ($30 a plate instead of $250 for the deluxe version), a Nicaraguan woman named Flor Leets tried to enter without paying and was arrested by Miami police. Her husband, Boris Leets was up until recently a very close associate of Aleman in Miami. A day later in local newspapers, Leets accused Aleman of belonging to the Cuban "mafia" in Miami who were just waiting for him to win the presidency so that they could benefit from the dividends of their connection with him. It is a foregone conclusion that Arnoldo Aleman will be chosen as the presidential candidate of the Liberals for the coming 1996 election. His only real opponent within the Liberal family has been Haroldo Montealegre, president of the Banco Mercantil. In recent days Montealegre has been very critical of Aleman in the pages of La Tribuna, the daily newspaper which is controlled by Montealegre. (Barricada, July 5) 4. "Framework Law" and Constitutional amendments finally published. There was not much popular reaction to the publishing last week of the amendments to the Nicaragua Constitution of 1987 which had been the cause of a fierce battle for power between the Executive and Legislative branches of the country. The "Framework Law," on which agreement was first necessary before the President would promulgate the amendments, was published at the same time. That law is basically a series of agreements as to how the amendments will be implemented, i.e. in some cases, a certain amendment go into effect after January 8, 1997. Some articles of the law are agreements between the two branches of government to do certain things, such as pass a law defining what the role of the Vice- Presidency should be. As of the end of last week, however, there still had been no in-depth analysis published in any of the major Nicaraguan papers as to what the "framework law" actually means. Such an analysis would include a detailed study of the contents of both the amendments and the law. There seems to some agreement, however, that the framework law is not really a law but rather a political agreement and that as such, the law itself could be unconstitutional. There are at present no rumors floating which would suggest that someone or some political party would want to challenge the constitutionality of the law since this would amount to opening a Pandora's box of future political problems which might never be resolved. (La Prensa, July 4) 5. Fiallos suggests changes in Electoral Law. Last week, Mariano Fiallos was re-elected president of the Supreme Electoral Council by a large majority in the National Assembly. This will be his third term as head of the fourth branch of government in Nicaragua. In his first public comments since his re-election, Fiallos stated that, as a result of the Constitutional amendments, it would be necessary to make some changes in the Nicaraguan electoral law. For example, now that the Constitution establishes a run-off election in the case that no one candidate for president gets 45% of valid votes, it will be necessary to hold the first round of elections no later than October of 1996. This will give time for a second round so that the change of government can take place on the 10th of January of 1997. (Barricada, July 4) 6. AID conditions agricultural aid. According to the latest regulations from AID, peasant organizations and cooperatives that wish to participate in training courses in the United States must first assure AID that their land is not land that was confiscated from those who are now US citizens. A condition for the participation of those whose land WAS confiscated from Nicaraguan- US citizens is that they would have to give up their land in a sworn statement. These measures were made known to peasant farmer organizations in a letter signed by Julie Noble, Director of the AID Training Project for Development. (Barricada, July 6) 7. President of Boer Baseball team killed in accident. A tragic traffic accident in Colombia took the life of Miguel Castillo, the president of the champion team of Nicaraguan baseball, the Boers. Castillo was also a long-time militant of the FSLN and was posthumously awarded the Carlos Fonseca medal in gold. At the moment of his death the Nicaraguan baseball All Stars Team, including many Boer team members, was participating in the Pacific League championships. The team's victorious final game against China, played in Cali, Colombia, in memory of Castillo won them first place in that division. The Nicaraguan All Star Team will be playing in the United States and Canada next week. The Team hopes to win a place at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta next year where there would be a good chance of bringing home a medal, which would be a first in Nicaraguan history. (Barricada, July 4)