Nicaragua Network Hotline -- August  14, 2007
 
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:09:19 -0500 (CDT)


Nicaragua Network Hotline www.nicanet.org August 14, 2007 Topics
covered in this Hotline include:

1. Lula promises to support his "dear friend" Ortega in resolving
energy crisis

2. Nicaragua and Haiti join PETROCARIBE

3. Indigenous peoples demand respect of their ancestral rights

4. US Tax on cigars "will cause mass unemployment in Central America
and Caribbean"

Topic 1: Lula promises to support his "dear friend"

Ortega in resolving energy crisis

On Aug. 7 the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva arrived
in Managua for a 24 hour official visit.

During the trip he held two meetings with President Daniel Ortega
as well as took part in the forum of Brazilian and Nicaraguan
businessmen which coincided with his visit.  He also met with
president of the National Reconciliation Committee, Cardinal Miguel
Obando y Bravo.

During Lula's visit, which he said he undertook to "express his
solidarity" with his "dear friend" Daniel Ortega, the two presidents
signed an agreement of bilateral collaboration between Brazil and
Nicaragua.

The document includes a series of agreements on foreign policy,
trade, energy, health, education, agriculture, tourism and sports.
Lula also promised that his government would support the Nicaraguan
government programs which aim to reduce poverty, hunger, social
exclusion and illiteracy. "You can be certain that in Brazil,
Nicaragua has a strong ally," said Lula, "an ally which won't impose
its own vision." Lula invited Ortega to visit Brazil before the end
of the year to continue to discuss the details of the bilateral
agreement.

Although few details of the projects to be carried out with Brazilian
support were given, there was much emphasis on the role Brazil will
play in resolving the Nicaraguan energy crisis. During a press
conference given at the Sandinista party headquarters, Lula said
his government would finance hydroelectric projects and also help
Nicaraguan businessmen to increase the production of biofuel from
sugar cane. "Without energy, we cannot talk about economic growth,"
he said.

Several media outlets had predicted that Ortega and Lula would be
unable to form a joint position on the production of biofuels given
Ortega's recent criticism of initiatives in Latin America to produce
ethanol from corn. About this matter Ortega said "we have no
discrepancy with Lula ... our discrepancy is with Bush, who has
come up with the absurd initiative of producing ethanol from corn."
Ortega went on to say that to produce ethanol from corn in Nicaragua
would be a "crime" and would put the nation's food security at risk.

On the same topic Lula said that "the biofuel policy of each country
must be adjusted to the reality of that country, ... each country
must make its own sovereign decision."

At the same press conference Lula and Ortega expressed the will of
both their governments to fight against organized crime and terrorism
"in all its forms." "We condemn the terrorist attacks on the twin
towers," said Ortega, "but we also condemn the US invasion of Iraq."
The two presidents expressed their concern about the continued
application of measures to reinforce and strengthen the US embargo
on Cuba.

They went on to make a commitment to work towards making world trade
just saying that currently world trade is under the "tyranny of
global capitalism."

Finally, Ortega announced that Brazil had canceled 95% of the
US$405.9 million debt Nicaragua has with that country.

Lula's visit and the parallel forum of Brazilian and Nicaraguan
businessmen were seen as positive by representatives of the Nicaraguan
private sector.

President of the Chamber of Commerce Jose Adan Aguerri said he felt
encouraged by Lula's promises of "concrete solutions to the energy
crisis." Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) president
Erving Kruger said he felt "enthusiastic" and "very satisfied" with
the outcome of the meeting of Nicaraguan and Brazilian businessmen
in which Lula also participated. Several right wing deputies also
expressed their approval of Lula's visit saying it was encouraging
that he had not come to impose his own ideas on Nicaragua.

Topic 2: Nicaragua and Haiti join PETROCARIBE

On Aug. 11 Nicaragua and Haiti became the two newest members of the
energy integration initiative, PETROCARIBE, at the third summit of
the organization in Caracas, Venezuela. PETROCARIBE was founded in
2005 with fourteen members - Venezuela, Antigua and Barbados, the
Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Granada,
Guyana, Jamaica, San Cristobal and Nieves, Santa Lucia, Suriname,
San Vicente and the Grenadines. The initiative commits the Venezuelan
state oil company PDVSA to sell between 120,000 and 200,000 barrels
a day of oil and its derivatives to each member country under
preferential payment conditions.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened the meeting saying that,
as a result of the PETROCARIBE initiative, the nations of the
Caribbean will have not face energy problems for at least the next
100 years.

According to Chavez, Venezuela "is going to share this wealth [of
petroleum] like Christ shared bread and fish."

At the end of the summit a Treaty of Energy Security was signed by
the representatives of member countries. This treaty includes the
agreements that the Petroleum Belt of Orinoco (one of the largest
oil reserves in the world) will be exploited by the member countries
of PETROCARIBE, that oil refineries will be constructed in the
member countries, and that a gas distribution system will be built
to supply natural gas to the different countries of the region. It
was also agreed that energy saving measures should be promoted
within the region such as the mass installation of energy saving
light bulbs as has already taken place in Venezuela and Cuba.

A Political Declaration was also signed during the summit meeting.
This document states that the member countries of PETROCARIBE
consider a stable energy supply to the Caribbean as a fundamental
element which will permit social, economic and political integration
within the region.

The declaration also states that PETROCARIBE is being carried out
as a parallel initiative to the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas (ALBA), an initiative of the Venezuelan, Cuban, Bolivian,
and Nicaraguan governments which promotes Latin American integration
based on social justice, fair trade and solidarity.  Finally it was
announced that the next summit meeting of PETROCARIBE will take
place in Nicaragua towards the end of the year.

Topic 3: Indigenous peoples demand respect of their ancestral rights

On Aug. 9, International Day of Indigenous Peoples, the Nicaraguan
indigenous communities demanded respect from the government and
from society in general of their ancestral rights. Representatives
of the ascendancies of Xiu-Sutiava (Leon), Nahoa- Nicarao (Rivas),
Chortega-Nahua-Mange (North), Cacaoperas (Matagalpa) and the Caribbean
coast of Nicaragua attended the forum. The forum, which was called
"Indigenous Community Coexistence and the Rebirth of Ancestral
Knowledge," was organized by the Association for Promotion and
Defense of Indigenous Rights in Nicaragua (APRODIN).

Among the demands iterated at the forum were that measures be put
in place to ensure the respect and recovery of traditional ancestral
medical practices, the full recognition of indigenous communal land
rights and the right to administer and manage the natural resources
of communal lands, greater access to health care, the creation of
a multi-ethnic education system and that the birth register be
updated in indigenous communities.

The President of APRODIN Rita Medina said that "the indigenous
people of America want to recuperate that garden of health which
we have lost." This can only be done, she said, "by understanding
our health through our own cosmovision." Medina went on to demand
respect for "our right to our own culture and ideology ...

and to our own form of communal organization, to a healthy environment
and to the management of our natural resources."

Topic 4:  US Tax on cigars "will cause mass unemployment in Central
America"

On Aug. 10 the US Congress passed a law which will permit a new tax
of up to US$10 per cigar to be charged on imports of handmade cigars.
The consequences of the new legislation in the cigar producing
countries of Central America and the Caribbean could be disastrous.
According to economist Alejandro Martinez Cuenca, the new legislation
violates the Dominican Republic and Central American Free Trade
Agreement (DR-CAFTA) by creating a trade barrier on a product
imported to the US from Central America.

Martinez said that in Central America and the Caribbean the livelihoods
of over 3.5 million people are dependent on the presence of the
tobacco industry. Should the tobacco companies be forced to leave
the region (as they would be once the legislation comes into force,
according to Martinez) the resulting mass unemployment, hunger and
misery is likely to cause a sharp increase of illegal immigration
to the US.  In Nicaragua 15,000 people work in tobacco factories
while 30,000 more are employed in the tobacco fields. The majority
of these workers are women with families to support.

The National Assembly is planning to send a group to Washington
during the coming days which, together with delegations from the
other affected Central American and Caribbean nations and their
respective ambassadors in Washington, will lobby the US congress
to revoke the legislation.

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