Nicaragua News Service Published by the Nicaragua Network Education Fund March 31 - April 13, 1996 Vol. 4, No. 14 Due to the fact that the Nicaraguan government was closed for Holy Week and Nicaraguans spend the week either attending church services or at the beaches, there was no News Service last week. We resume with Vol. 4, No. 14 this week. Major news stories for the two week period April 13th, 1996: 1. Drownings mar Holy Week in Nicaragua. 2. Church bombers strike again. 3. Farmers announce new march. 4. Santa Rosa defendents found guilty. 5. AID signs contract with Ministry of Education. 6. Momotombo threatens surrounding region. 7. US would suspend all aid if elections were canceled. 8. Assembly votes new president for Supreme Electoral Council. 9. Assembly passes 6% law. 10. President's daughter to run for National Assembly. 11. Workers protest pardon for ex-owner of match factory. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Drownings mar Holy Week in Nicaragua. The traditional Nicaraguan vacations of Holy Week were marred by tragedy last week when a total of 62 people died. Forty died from drowning. (Barricada, April 8) 2. Church bombers strike again. In the first attacks against churches since Pope John Paul II's February visit, a medium-sized bomb exploded at 10:00 p.m. Holy Thursday at the San Augustin Religious Center located two kilometers outside of the city of Leon. No one was injured. Another bomb exploded the day before in Zambrano, also near Leon. The police are investigating the attacks. (Barricada, April 8) 3. Farmers announce new march. Small, medium and large farmers are preparing another march against the economic policies of the government, "which are drowning us," according to Amilcar Navarro, a national leader of the Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG). The protest will be scheduled to coincide with the visit of a mission from the IMF. The mission will be arriving soon to evaluate the government's progress in fulfilling its commitments under ESAF (structural adjustment) agreements it has signed with the IMF. More than 20,000 farmers will march on the presidency to protest the lack of agricultural credit and high interest rates. (Barricada, April 8) 4. Santa Rosa defendents found guilty. The Spanish citizen Miguel Antonio Larios, and three Salvadorans, members of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL) of El Salvador, were found guilty last week of being responsible for the explosion three years ago of an arms cache in the Santa Rosa neighborhood of Managua. The explosion took place on May 23rd, 1993. Only two of those accused were actually present at the trial; the others are not in custody. The public trial lasted 23 hours. A sentence will be announced at the end of the week. (La Prensa, April 13) 5. AID signs contract with Ministry of Education. US ambassador John Maisto and Minister of Education Humberto Belli signed a contract last week for a project to be carried out by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), represented organizationally in Nicaragua by the Center for Education for Democracy. The project will train primary and secondary school teachers in civics and social formation. Maisto declared that those teachers will become the "pillars of democracy" in Nicaragua. (La Prensa, April 3) 6. Momotombo threatens surrounding region. A tremor of 3.5 on the Richter scale caused a major alarm last week at the geothermal energy plant located on the slopes of the Momotombo Volcano. During one twenty-four-hour period last week, another 500 microtremors were recorded in the area. Workers at the plant have requested immediate evacuation and the president's office has declared a period of alert. (La Prensa, April 12) 7. US would suspend all aid if elections were canceled. US Ambassador, John Maisto, stated last week that all US aid to Nicaragua would be suspended if the coming October elections were canceled for any reason. The US diplomat made this declaration after his participation in a meeting between the Nicaraguan government and other donor countries. Maisto reaffirmed that the US government would donate 6.8 million dollars towards the financing of the elections. (La Prensa, April 13) 8. Assembly votes new president for Supreme Electoral Council. The National Assembly last week elected Rosa Maria Zelaya to be the new president of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE). 63 members voted for her, none against. She replaces Mariano Fiallos who resigned recently in protest against the 1996 electoral law. Zelaya has been Executive Director of the CSE and was supported for the position by the FSLN, the MRS, and the out-going president, Fiallos. The same day Fernando Silva, a member of the National Assembly, was elected to be the fifth member of the Supreme Electoral Council. Augustin Jarquin Anaya was elected Comptroller General of the Republic. Immediately after the vote, the new officials were sworn into their offices by Cairo Manuel Lopez, president of the National Assembly. The election of the officials was the product of intense negotiating between the FSLN, other Assembly leaders and the government, in the person of Emilio Pereira. 9. Assembly passes 6% law. Four months after the student demonstration of December 13 in which a university worker and a student were killed by the police and another student had to have his leg amputated as a result of police brutality, the National Assembly passed a bill authorizing 6% of the national budget for the universities as specified by the constitution. President Chamorro, however, will probably veto the bill this week alleging that it is against the spirit of the "framework law" agreed to by the National Assembly and the Executive last year. (Barricada, April 14) 10. President's daughter to run for National Assembly. Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of President Violeta Chamorro, and wife of Antonio Lacayo, presidential candidate, announced last week that she will be running for the National Assembly on the slate of the National Project political party founded by her husband. Chamorro stated that her decision to run comes from the conviction that women must take the political and social position within the country that they deserve. (La Prensa, April 14) 11. Workers protest pardon for ex-owner of match factory. The workers of "La Fosforera" match factory are protesting the possibility that Pedro Ortega Macho, former part owner and manager of the factory, might be pardoned by the National Assembly for several crimes that he is accused of committing. Ortega fired 148 workers after they had been awarded the opportunity to buy the factory by the government. When the workers refused to leave, he called in the police to remove them. Although there is a warrant out for his arrest on charges of embezzling from the factory, and selling contraband matches thus avoiding $250,000 in customs duties, he has not spent a day in prison, according to the workers. (Barricada, April 10) 12. FSLN and MRS attend Socialist International meeting. Members of both the FSLN and the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) attended the recent Latin American meeting of the Socialist International (SI) in the Dominican Republic. Tomas Borge, recently elected president of the Foundation of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America (COPPPAL), attended for the FSLN. Borge said that the FSLN supported the participation in the SI by the MRS, which was formed last year by former members of the FSLN. The meeting passed a declaration in support of the newspaper Barricada which has been threatened with an impoundment of its facilities by the Ministry of Social Security because it is behind in Social Security payments for its workers. Because many other entities are much further behind and no action is being taken against them, the FSLN considers the threat of impoundment to be political and a violation of freedom of the press. Borge reported that the FSLN may be admitted as a full member of the SI at the next meeting. After the SI meeting, Borge, along with Gladys Baez and Rita Fletes attended the Third Cuba Solidarity Congress in Havana. (Barricada, April 10)