WFP NEWS, NOTICIAS AND SALUDOS INFORMATION

This update is a way for us to share with you important announcements, a news summary and analysis of happenings in Nicaragua, and update you on returned delegate actions.

CONTENTS

1. ANNOUNCEMENTS
2. NEWS SUMMARIES
3. ACTION UPDATE
4. SALUDOS FROM THE NICARAGUA TEAM

************************************

• Call the Nicaraguan Desk in the U.S. State Department at 202-647-3559 and the Bureau of Western Hemispheric Affairs Chair Thomas Shannon at 202-647-5780 and tell them that as an American citizen, you are against your tax dollars supporting interference in Nicaragua's politics. Tell them to ensure that Ambassador Paul Trivelli's work in Nicaragua does not threaten the sovereignty of the Nicaraguan people or its political institutions.
• Learn about U.S. intervention personally on a special Elections Observation Delegation from October 29-November 8, 2006! Please contact Ellen Gabin at egabin@adelphia.net, (978) 546-7230, or (978) 281-1548; or Beth Kubick at etkubick@earthlink.net or (603) 672-1630. For more information, please visit the Witness for Peace website at www.witnessforpeace.org.
• Get in-depth information about debt issues by taking part in a Witness for Peace/Jubilee USA debt focused delegation to Nicaragua. The delegation will take place from November 11-19. For more information contact Neil Watkins at 202-783-012 or neil@jubileeusa.org.
• The Witness for Peace Nicaragua team also focuses on the root causes of immigration. If you would like to lead a delegation focusing on the root causes of immigration write Betsy at betsy@witnessforpeace.org.
• The Nicaragua program has open delegation slots for the Fall and Winter. If interested, please contact Betsy at betsy@witnessforpeace.org.

Elections: US Ambassador intervenes in Nicaragua's democratic process

The 2006 elections have been described by many as the most unpredictable since 1990, perhaps ever in Nicaraguan history. This is owed to the fact that for the first time since 1990, there are four candidates running, each with a chance of winning. Although several candidates usually run for president, there are usually only two electoral alliances that form that are considered competitive. This year, in addition to FSLN candidate Daniel Ortega, who is running for the fourth time since the end of his presidency in 1990, and José Rizo, candidate for the other major party, the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC), there are two new candidates, both who left these two respective parties to run on independent tickets. Former Managua mayor and former FSLN member Herty Lewites, also a businessman, is the candidate of the Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo, a political party founded as a departure from the FSLN in 1995. Former PLC member and businessman Eduardo Montealegre is running under an alliance called the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance/Conservative Party. For most of the last year former PLC-member Antonio Alvarado was also considering running as candidate outside of the PLC, but in the last minute he accepted the invitation to run as Vice-President under the PLC’s internally elected candidate José Rizo.

So, what do these splintered parties mean for Nicaraguan politics, and more specifically, for US intervention? Many analysts predict that these four candidate elections may mean that the results of the elections won’t be determined in the first round, which requires 40 percent of the popular vote to declare a winner (or as low as 35% of the popular vote if the winner has at least five percent margin over the second-place candidate). It also means that the United States faces more challenges in ensuring the election of a candidate favorable to the United States. With Montealegre running against PLC Candidate Rizo, there is no guarantee that either will garner enough votes to win. More simply put, this is the first year in many that analysts predict that Daniel Ortega stands a chance of returning to power, a possibility to which the United States has long stated and demonstrated its opposition, stating that he is “undemocratic” and that it’s “impossible to imagine a worse regime than Ortega’s”. This possibility is of course tempered by the emergence of Lewites’ candidacy, but with the PLC also divided, it’s the best opportunity that Daniel Ortega has had to return to power since 1990.

In the past six months, US officials have repeatedly interfered in Nicaragua’s politics to develop candidates opposed to the pact between Arnoldo Aleman and Daniel Ortega, and to encourage the unification of candidates representing opposition to Daniel Ortega and Herty Lewites. The pact between Aleman and Ortega, which began in 2002, intensified last year with the removal of immunity for many of President Bolanos’ key figures. The United States opposed the pact and the alliance between the formerly US-supported PLC and the FSLN. This was evidenced by the visit of Robert Zoellick, in October of 2005, in which he used the economic prowess of the United States as a threat, publicly threatening the withdrawal of $100 million in aid designated for Nicaragua from the Millennium Challenge Account, as well as the threat of not allowing Nicaragua to enter in CAFTA, if it did not take steps to end the pact. Other policymakers, such as Congressmen Dan Burton, also visited Nicaragua, vowing that Nicaragua would not have a healthy relationship with the United States until the pact was broken. They formalized this position by the passage of HR 252, a bill that vowed US taxdollars to go towards “promoting democracy”; in other words, in defeating the pact.

In the early months of 2006, as the political parties in Nicaragua came closer to the deadline to register alliances, the US Embassy in Managua has been stepping up its rhetoric and actions to ensure the defeat of Daniel Ortega. In April, US Ambassador Paul Trivelli sent a letter to the PLC and to other non-FSLN parties (with the exception of Lewites), offering U.S. funding for primaries among those parties. When the PLC refused to drop its candidate, Trivelli then met with presidential candidate Montealegre, praising him as the “anti-pact” candidate, just short of an endorsement from the influential US Ambassador. Trivelli has also continuously angered Nicaraguans from all sides of the political spectrum by his constant commenting on the Nicaraguan political process, including stating that a “shamelessness meter” was needed to keep track of Nicaraguan politics. Meanwhile, Daniel Ortega’s relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has prompted statements by the US, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Director of Intelligence John Negroponte, that it will be monitoring very closely Nicaragua’s elections. In late April 2006, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged Nicaraguans to vote against Daniel Ortega.

For all of these reasons, Witness for Peace has decided that this year, monitoring the US’s influence in elections is of utmost importance. WFP will continue to defend Nicaragua’s right to sovereignty and its right to its political processes, free of U.S. intervention.

Take action! Learn about U.S. intervention personally on a special Elections Observation Delegation from October 29-November 8, 2006! Please contact Ellen Gabin at egabin@adelphia.net or (978) 546-7230 (w) (978) 281-1548 or Beth Kubick at etkubick@earthlink.net or (603) 672-1630. For more information, please visit the Witness for Peace website at www.witnessforpeace.org.

Call the Nicaraguan Desk in the U.S. State Department at 647-3559 and the Bureau of Western Hemispheric Affairs Chair Thomas Shannon at (202) 647-5780 and tell them that as an American citizen, you are against your tax dollars supporting interference in Nicaragua's politics. Tell them to ensure that Trivelli's work in Nicaragua threatens the sovereignty of the Nicaraguan people or its political institutions.

Trade: CAFTA hits the ground in Nicaragua

In the past 6 months, developments in the spread of the US-backed ¨free trade¨ model have been discouraging but hope remains that organizing can put a halt to the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA).

The passage in the U.S. Congress of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) by one vote in the middle of the night on July 27, 2005 was followed up by its disappointing ratification in the Nicaraguan National Assembly on October 10. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic have all ratified the free trade agreement as well, despite sometimes violent protests. Only Costa Rica has not yet signed on to the agreement.

Originally, U.S. government representatives planned for a January 1, 2006 start date for all DR-CAFTA participatory countries. However, on December 31, 2005 the U.S. announced plans to postpone CAFTA implementation until participatory governments passed domestic legislative reforms that the U.S. viewed as necessary measures in order to proceed with the implementation process. The result has been a staggered implementation, with each country coming on board once its government has successfully passed the required set of laws. CAFTA became effective on March 1 in El Salvador, the first of the participatory countries to complete this process. Before CAFTA could enter into effect in Nicaragua, the National Assembly—the legislative branch of the Nicaraguan government—had to pass a set of 5 bills dealing with intellectual property rights, patent and brand-name protection, anti-bribery and illegal tapping of telecommunications channels. The National Assembly passed these bills into law in March enabling CAFTA to go into effect in Nicaragua on April 1, a start date shared by Honduras. While Guatemala and the Dominican Republic have both ratified CAFTA, both governments are still working on making the required changes that would allow them to proceed to implementation.

In the short time since CAFTA became effective in Nicaragua, several U.S. corporations have pledged to invest in the country. Unfortunately, most of these investments have been in the Free Trade Zone sector, where several U.S. businesses plan to build textile production factories known as maquilas—factories infamous for labor abuses and low worker salaries. Nicaraguan civil society groups still maintain that CAFTA will negatively affect Nicaragua’s vulnerable agriculture sector which is comprised mostly of small and medium producers who are grossly unprepared to compete with U.S. producers.

Witness for Peace Nicaragua will be working with partner organizations in the U.S. and Nicaragua to monitor and document the effects of the CAFTA implementation. Education and action planning will focus on CAFTA, but also look ahead to the next piece of the free trade puzzle: the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) between the U.S. and Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which is currently being negotiated. Initial negotiations have concluded in Colombia and Peru, but negotiations with Ecuador came to an abrupt halt on May 15 when the U.S. responded to Ecuador’s ousting of U.S. oil company, Occidental Petroleum, by canceling AFTA talks. No further negotiations with Ecuador are planned. AFTA is harshly opposed by many groups in all three Andean countries and the U.S. who view AFTA as just another continuation of the failing neoliberal model which is being spread in chunks, beginning with NAFTA, then CAFTA and aiming toward the ultimate goal of a hemispheric trade bloc called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This process is currently stalled! However, continued action is necessary to maintain the pressure on government representatives to stop the spread of unfair trade policies.

To learn more about AFTA, click here: http://www.witnessforpeace.org/pdf/FacesofColombiaFTAfinal.pdf.

Debt: Despite debt cancellations, debt continues to shackle Nicaraguans

Debt and International Finance Institutions continue to play a major role in Nicaragua despite the recent debt cancellations.

Debt Cancellation

At the G8 conference in July, the G8 decided to unconditionally cancel all of the debt of countries that have reached the completion point of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), a group of 18 countries that includes Nicaragua. Many debt solidarity activists around the world saw this decision as bittersweet. While there is reason to celebrate that 18 countries are in the process of having their World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) debts completely cancelled, it is upsetting that fulfilling HIPC is the benchmark for debt cancellation. HIPC, despite claiming to be ¨good news for the poor” of the world, imposes IMF requisites that often include budget cuts, trade liberalization, and privatizations. In Nicaragua, HIPC meant, among other things, the privatization of the country's electrical system and a tripling of electrical prices.

Since Nicaragua has reached the completion point of the HIPC initiative, Nicaragua's external debt of 827 million dollars owed to the World Bank and the IMF is in the process of being cancelled. This debt relief, however, does not free Nicaragua from external debt. In January, almost immediately after the cancellation of the IMF debt, Nicaragua signed another accord with the IMF that not only obliges the Central American country to continue its indebtedness to the IMF, but also compels Nicaragua to enter under another set of IMF reforms, which include spending caps on public sector salaries.

Moreover, a large percentage of Nicaragua's remaining external debt is owed neither to the IMF nor the World Bank, but to other lenders such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Nicaragua presently has a debt to the IDB of over 1.3 billion dollars. The IDB is an international financial institution similar to the World Bank that loans money for different projects. Like the IMF and the World Bank, the country that yields the most power in the IDB is the United States. At the annual meetings of the IDB in April, action on the proposal to cancel the debt owed by Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras, Guyana, and Haiti, was postponed. Concerns were raised at the meetings that IDB debt relief would endanger the financial stability of the institution forcing member countries to increase their annual dues. There is hope, however, that the G8 will decide at its annual summit later this year to cover the costs of IDB debt relief.

Water Privatization in Nicaragua

In 1999 the IDB approved a $13.9 million loan to Nicaragua to “modernize the management of water and sewerage services.” As a contingency for over $600,000 of the loan money, the IDB required that Nicaragua contract a private multinational company to perform some of the public water industry’s service and management responsibilities. The loan text further states that “the service/management contract represents the first step. . .with the aim of creating more favorable conditions for privatization at the national level.” Civil society groups protested the proposed privatization, and in 2003 the Nicaragua National Assembly passed Law 440 as a moratorium on the sale of any component of the public water industry.

On October 31st of last year, the Chilean consortium Inecom Invertec took over administrative control of ENACAL, the Nicaraguan state run water company. According to the IDB and the Nicaraguan government, Inecom has the role of a consultant to help ¨modernize¨ Nicaragua's state water company. However, many civil society groups contend that this is an illegal masked privatization and a blatant violation of Nicaraguan Law 440.

Health Strike is finally resolved

In other news, two weeks ago, the Nicaraguan government and the Nicaraguan doctors union Pro-Salario resolved a six-month-old labor dispute over the salaries of public doctors. The dispute led to a doctors´ strike paralyzing the public health system and leaving many impoverished Nicaraguans without health care options. Last week, the doctors were granted a 30% salary increase among other benefits. Many groups including Witness for Peace were critical of the role that IMF spending caps for salaries in the public sector played in the dispute.

For more information on the strike and IMF spending caps you can check out the article ¨Swindling the Sick¨ at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0127-32.htm.

This fall, Witness for Peace will be teaming up on a delegation with Jubilee USA to look at how debt issues and International Financial Institutions impact Nicaragua—for more information contact Neil Watkins at 202-783-0129 or neil@jubileeusa.org.

This past fall and spring have been a busy time for delegates, both for delegates on delegations in Nicaragua and for those returning and engaging in actions to change the policies they’ve learned about in Nicaragua. Below are some highlights:

Members of the July 2005 teen delegation from the Southeast Region have been quoted in a front page article in their local paper. They also visited their representatives to share their views on CAFTA.

Meghan Rego from the October 2005 Villanova University delegation has given a PowerPoint presentation on the benefits of fair trade, written an extended research paper on the reasons for poverty in Nicaragua, and written an article about her experiences for her church. Former delegates continued to meet last year to plan several projects.

Returning delegates from the Witness for Peace Northwest Region Food Security Delegation are currently producing a comprehensive video about the delegation to Nicaragua. They have done a series of presentations about their delegation. Delegation co-coordinator Anne Murray produced a comprehensive report about her findings on food security in Nicaragua, which can be found on the Witness for Peace website; and delegate Mike Nuess made a movie on food security in Nicaragua.

Delegates from the Compass School delegation in December 2005 have done a series of presentations about their delegation at local universities, schools, and organizations, including one at a conference on Poverty and Education at Keene State University. Delegation leader Judy Greenberg will be returning to Nicaragua this year with a group of counselors to put together a program of staff training and counseling for the Los Quinchos, a program of rehabilitation for street children that the delegation visited.

Returning delegates from the Paul Petrequin/Lyn Clark Pegg delegation in March 2006 have given a series of presentations in both Minnesota and Arizona on their experiences. Delegates attended a conference on Sweatfree Communities International Conference 2006. Returned delegates attending the Chandler-Gilbert College in Arizona have begun the process of establishing a United Students Against Sweatshops chapter in their school to make their student bookstore sweat free, have spoken at local high schools about Globalization and Poverty, and have begun community discussions on poverty at their school. Former delegate Tabatha Parker, director of a nonprofit based in Nicaragua, has begun incorporating lessons learned on the delegation into the nonprofit’s medical brigades.

Greetings from the Witness for Peace Nicaragua Team! The current Nicaragua team is made up of Brynne Keith-Jennings, Leslie Cook, Ben Beachy, and Marty Hooper. Ben is ending his second year on the Nica team; whereas Brynne Keith-Jennings, Leslie Cook and Marty Hooper started in Nicaragua in September 2005. Brynne came to Witness for Peace after working for a foundation in Washington, DC focused on funding social justice groups, and Leslie came to Witness after working in a Nicaraguan agricultural cooperative. This is Marty's 3rd year with Witness for Peace previously working on the Cuba team and stateside as the National Organizer for the Cuba campaign. The Nicaragua team would like to hear from you! Please drop us an email at nicaragua@witnessforpeace.org and update us on your life and what actions you have taken to stop unjust U.S. policies.