Nicaragua News Service Nov. 5 - 11, 1995 Vol. 3, No. 45 [This memo includes some stories from the week of October 29 - November 4, 1995, as promised in our last memo.] Major news stories: 1. Mystery epidemic identified as bacteria-caused. 2. TELCOR union proposal avoids privatization. 3. Community Movement vows to defend Community Centers. 4. Union leader accused of misuse of funds. 5. Argentine assassin of Anastasio Somoza D. captured in Mexico. 6. Trans-isthmian railroad termed environmental disaster. 7. Maquiladoras increase work day in free trade zone. _____________________________________________________________________ 1. Mystery epidemic identified as bacteria-caused. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control identified the mysterious disease that has caused the death of at least 18 people in Nicaragua as leptospirosis. A representative of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) cited by IPS stated that the bacterial infection leptospirosis is "not rare" in the Americas and in Asia but that it usually attacks the liver and kidneys. In Nicaragua, however, it provoked serious hemorrhaging in the lungs, drowning victims in their own blood. According to Associated Press, President Violeta Chamorro ordered antibiotics rushed to the northwestern department of Leon, about 65 miles northwest of Managua. She also announced the disbursement of $380,000 in aid in addition to $127,000 in emergency funds already sent to the region. AP quotes Robert Howard of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Disease as saying that leptospirosis "can be fatal particularly in the very young and elderly." He added that the disease is spread through contact with the urine of pigs, rats, cats and other mammals, and by exposure to the urine of an infected person. Howard said outbreaks occur most frequently after heavy storms and flooding. Nicaragua has been suffering from severe flooding during this rainy season. At the beginning of the year, according to IPS, the Pan American Health Organization attributed the resurgence of apparently controlled diseases to the weakening in public health programs in the region and to the deterioration in potable water and sewage systems during the 1980's. The symptoms had confused the experts at first. Health workers and scientists from the World Health Organization, PAHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and from Cuba all converged on the town of Achuapa to examine victims of the disease and obtain scientific samples to discover its cause. Over 1,800 people in this small town 60 miles northeast of Managua had contracted the disease and President Chamorro had declared a state of health emergency in the country the week before the cause was discovered. (IPS, AP) 2. TELCOR union proposal avoids privatization. Organizations as politically diverse as UNAG (Union of Farmers and Ranchers) and COSEP (Superior Council of Private Enterprise) and the Bond-holders Association have asked the National Assembly to consider a new proposal from the Workers Federation of TELCOR (Nicaragua's telephone and postal service). The union has presented to the National Assembly an alternative proposal to the much-debated privatization of that state-owned company. Under this new proposal, the government would not privatize TELCOR but rather would obtain a long-term loan from an international financial institution such as the Inter-American Development Bank for $150 - 220 million with TELCOR assets as collateral. The money would be used to guarantee the value of the bonds given as compensation to confiscated property owners. The profits of TELCOR, estimated at $20 million per year, would pay off the bonds over a period of nine years. Then those same profits would pay off the loan from the multi-lateral bank. TELCOR, according to the union, is the second most up-to-date telecommunications system in Latin America and a profit-making company. "There is no need to privatize TELCOR," General Secretary of the TELCOR unions said in the meeting with National Assembly leaders. Economist Adolfo Acevedo assisted the unions with the technical aspects of their proposal. Sandinista deputy Nathan Sevilla said that the FSLN supports the union proposal. FSLN National Directorate member Bayardo Arce stated that the demands for TELCOR privatization come from outside Nicaragua, from "the IMF and World Bank and their much-proclaimed gospel of the free market." The government remains determined to privatize 50% plus one share of TELCOR and use the money raised to redeem the bonds issued to the former property owners. Critics, however, say that the sale of TELCOR would produce $200 million and redeem only 30% of the bonds in circulation. The government claims that it will have to pay out a total of $650 million in bonds to compensate those unjustly confiscated by the Sandinista Revolution. Nathan Sevilla said, however, that the government has not demonstrated that all those who have received bonds truly have a right to compensation. It has not been revealed which of the bond-holders were in debt to the national financial system, for example. Many may have been affected by Revolutionary Decrees 3 or 38 which confiscated the properties of the family of the dictator Somoza and the closest associates of the dictatorship. (La Prensa, Oct. 31; Barricada, Oct. 28, 31, Nov. 1) 3. Community Movement vows to defend Community Centers. Enrique Picado, National Coordinator of the Nicaraguan Community Movement, has warned that his organization will defend its 400+ community centers around the country by putting "the masses in the streets" if necessary. In cities such as Leon, Masaya and Esteli, the local community center is located in a mansion that belonged to a rich Somocista who now is demanding the return of that property. The majority were built on lots assigned to the Community Movement by local mayors and other governmental institutions. Many of the previous owners of these properties want them returned as well. Housed in the community centers are day care centers for 20 thousand children, women's clinics, training centers, etc. "All of these centers fulfill a social function in their communities," stated Picado. "All should be defended against the attempts to dislodge them made by the government, by judges, by the police, or by the old owners themselves, because the neighborhoods cannot give up these services," Picado emphasized. (Barricada, Oct. 28) In a related story, La Prensa reports that Managua Civil Judge Oswaldo Medrano has protested that he was the victim of death threats from members of the Community Movement when carrying out an eviction order in the 14th of July Neighborhood of Managua. The family occupying the house refused to turn it over to what the judge called its "legitimate owners" and he himself was threatened with death by an armed member of the well-known "Anti-Eviction Brigades" of the Community Movement. The threats were later repeated on the radio, he added. According to Judge Medrano, the worst part was that the threats against him were made in the presence of three police officers from Station Five of Managua who refused to arrest the Community Movement activist. Medrano denied that the judges are carrying out massive evictions against persons who benefited from laws 85 and 86 as some radio stations have maintained. (Laws 85 and 86 were passed in March of 1990 to protect the urban land reform of the Sandinista Revolution.) He said that the evictions were the product of sentences handed down by the courts. 4. Union leader accused of misuse of funds. Ronaldo Membreno Caldera has been suspended from his position as Secretary of the Sandinista Workers' Central (CST) after being accused of misusing $456,000 in training funds from a Swedish non- governmental organization. Membreno maintains that all the money was spent legitimately in payroll, building improvements at the Pekin Guerrero training center and other places as well as in vehicle repairs, per diem for leaders traveling abroad and other expenses. However, CST General Secretary Lucio Jimenez presented to the press the report of an audit by Peat Marwik which said that Membreno had been unable to present the supporting documents necessary to prove his claim. Membreno, in turn, accused Jimenez of stealing the receipts. (Barricada, Oct. 31; El Nuevo Diario, Oct. 31; La Prensa, Oct. 31) 5. Argentine assassin of Anastasio Somoza D. captured in Mexico. President Carlos Menem of Argentina has announced the capture in Mexico of Enrique Gorriaran Merlo, leader of now extinct Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP) and of the commando that assassinated former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Asuncion, Paraguay, in 1980. A Mexican government spokesperson said that Gorriaran had been expelled because he was traveling with a false passport. Gorriaran has been Argentina's "most-wanted man" since he led the attack on La Tablada Military Regiment in the outskirts of Buenos Aires in the 1970's. (Barricada, Oct. 31) 6. Trans-isthmian railroad termed environmental disaster. The so-called "Dry Canal," a megaproject expected to cost around $300 million dollars was described on a recent panel as a threat to the environment and to a great number of archeological sites by Jorge Espinoza, Director of the Nicaraguan Anthropology and History Institute, and by Juan Jose Montiel, Director of the Conservation and Development Foundation. A consortium of Belgian, English, Spanish, Chinese and Taiwanese companies has been talking with President Chamorro about constructing a high-speed trans-isthmian railroad to carry international freight across Nicaragua from Monkey Point on the Caribbean side of the country to Rivas on the Pacific side. Government representative Cesar Aviles declared that "the criticisms of the project are based on ignorance," although he congratulated the panelists for a "brilliant exposition." The panelists countered that their information had come from the government itself. Montiel pointed out the disaster would be guaranteed because Nicaragua has no law protecting the environment; the bill which would do this has been tabled in the National Assembly for two years. The route of the canal, he explained, would go directly through 286,000 hectares of tropical rain and dry forests, destroying the Chacocente Refuge, and affecting Tisma Crater Lake, Mombacho Volcano, Apoyo Crater Lake and others. It would also directly affect thirteen large rivers and numerous streams. Supporters of the railroad predict that it will bring over 30,000 new jobs to Nicaragua and increase the national income. Workers supposedly would be needed to work on the highspeed freight railroad itself and at the two free trade zones at either end. Feasibility studies have not yet been made, however, to estimate the increase to gross domestic product that would be brought to the country by the railroad. (Barricada, Oct. 31) 7. Maquiladoras increase work day in free trade zone. Since the 16th of October the work day at the Taiwanese assembly plant (maquiladora) in Managua's industrial free trade zone has been increased to 16 hours, according to an internal memo presented to the press by Daniel Figueroa. Figueroa was fired from his job at the plants after he protested about the conditions under which the employees were forced to work. Under the new work rules, Figueroa said, workers must work from 7:00am to 10:00pm Monday through Friday and from 7:00am to 6:00pm on Saturdays. He added that the extra hours are not voluntary but rather required of the workers. He said that if a worker earns $100 dollars in extra hours during a particular month, he or she is not paid in full, but rather the overtime pay is lowered to $70 dollars. (Barricada, Oct. 31)