Nicaragua Network Hotline--January 30, 2008
 
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:18:12 -0600 (CST)


Nicaragua Network Hotline
www.nicanet.org
January 30, 2008 1. ALBA bank founded at Sixth ALBA Summit
in Caracas

2. DEA mission to meet with Ortega in
February

3. Latest information about territorial
disputes with Costa Rica and Colombia 

4. Government allocates millions for public
schools, childcare

1. ALBA bank founded at Sixth ALBA Summit
in Caracas

The Sixth Summit of the Bolivarian
Alternative for the People of Our America
(ALBA), the Latin American and Caribbean
economic, political, social and cultural
integration project, took place on  Jan. 25
and 26 in Caracas, Venezuela. Government
representatives of the four member countries
(Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua) were
accompanied by government representatives
from Honduras, Haiti, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Antigua and Barbados and San Vicente
and the Grenadines. The Dominican Republic
became the fifth country member of the
initiative while the representatives of the
other countries expressed interest in joining
ALBA in the near future.

During the summit, Venezuela and Nicaragua
also signed a bilateral agreement to extend
cooperation between the two nations. As part
of this agreement Nicaragua will export large
quantities of dairy products, meat, beans and
corn to Venezuela in order to reduce the
shortage of this basic products in the South
American country. These products will be
exported within the terms of fair trade as
required by ALBA. Also as part of the
bilateral agreement the two nations expressed
the intention to carry out forestry projects
and projects to guarantee the wellbeing and
security of children and adolescents. 

Speaking at the Summit, Ortega said that the
global capitalist model is in "crisis" and
that the "only option for humanity is
socialism ... the only way to solve the
world's problems is by abandoning the logic
of free trade." 

Perhaps the most significant announcement to
come out of the sixth ALBA Summit was the
founding of the ALBA bank with US$3 billion.
It was announced that the ALBA bank, which
will finance social and economic development
projects in Latin America and the Caribbean,
will be fully functioning within two months.
The aim of the ALBA bank is to break the
region's dependence on the international
capitalist financial institutions.

2. DEA mission to meet with Ortega in
February

John Feeley, head of Central American Affairs
at the US State Department announced this
week that, as requested by President Daniel
Ortega, a mission from the State Department
and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) will
visit Managua in early February to meet with
Ortega and explain in depth the links between
the DEA and the Nicaraguan National Police.
Earlier this month Ortega accused DEA
officials in Nicaragua of paying individual
police officers to carry out favors for them.
"With the pretext of combating drug
trafficking, [the DEA] is corrupting our
police officers," said Ortega at a National
Police event on Jan. 10. 

The allegations were firmly denied by the US
Embassy in Managua in a press statement. It
was denied that the DEA makes any "direct or
indirect" payments to individual police
officers in Nicaragua. According to the US
Embassy statement the DEA's activities with
the Nicaraguan National Police consist of
training, technical and expert assistance and
donations of equipment. 

On Jan. 25, during the Sixth ALBA summit,
Ortega reiterated his distrust of the DEA
saying that after he assumed the presidency
in Jan. 2007 he became aware of a DEA plan to
set up a telephone espionage system in
Nicaragua, a plan which was aborted when
Ortega won the presidential elections in
2006. Ortega said he planned to review the
cooperation agreement between Nicaragua and
the DEA in order to establish a set of clear
rules and regulations for the US agency to
follow within the country. He said a set of
rules and regulations is necessary because
"practically, [the DEA] is occupying
Nicaragua." 

In statements to the Nicaraguan press this
week John Feeley went on to say that during
the meeting with Ortega the DEA mission
planned to discuss the Merida initiative, a
regional security initiative between the US,
Mexico and Central America funded by the US
with the aim of combating drug trafficking,
international crime and terrorism. Ortega has
openly criticized and formally complained to
the US government about how the program is to
be funded. US President George Bush has
requested US$550 million for the first phase
of the program, US$500 million of which is to
go to Mexico and the other US$50 million of
which is to go shared between the Central
American countries. Nicaragua, considered by
Washington as the most secure country in
Central America, is to receive just US$2
million for the first phase of the program,
which Ortega described as an "insult" to the
Nicaraguan army and police force which are
key players in the regional fight against
drug trafficking. 

In other US diplomatic news, last week
Ambassador Paul Trivelli confirmed plans to
leave his post in February. A source  from
the Nicaraguan foreign ministry leaked the
name of the man to become the new US
Ambassador in Nicaragua: Robert Callahan, the
former US spokesman in Iraq. Callahan has
worked extensively with US Ambassador in
Honduras during the Contra war John
Negroponte and is considered as a fierce
anti-Sandinista figure.

3. Latest information about territorial
disputes with Costa Rica and Colombia 

On Jan. 22 the Costa Rican government
rejected Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel
Santos' suggestion that the two countries
settle the dispute over sovereignty of River
San Juan out of court. In a press statement
the Costa Rican Deputy Foreign Minister Edgar
Ugaldo said his government was happy to
continue amiable talks with Nicaragua about
the dispute but that did not mean Costa Rica
was planning to withdraw the case from the
International Court of Justice in the Hague.

In 2005 the Nicaraguan government prohibited
Costa Rican armed police from navigating in
the San Juan River, which acts as the border
between the two nations but belongs to
Nicaragua, prompting the Costa Rican
government to open a case at the Hague
demanding sovereignty rights over the river.

On Jan. 22, leader of the Constitutional
Liberal Party in the National Assembly
Maximino Rodriguez requested that a special
committee be set up to investigate claims
that Costa Rican land owners on the banks of
the San Juan are carrying out construction
work to divert the course of the river so
that it penetrates Costa Rican territory.
Rodriguez said it is suspected that these
landowners have the support of the Costa
Rican government. A National Assembly
committee was set up to investigate the
claims and members of the Nicaraguan Army are
to be sent to the site where the river
diversion work is supposed to be taking
place. 

Ortega accused the Colombian government of
violating the International Court ruling on
Nicaraguan and Colombian maritime borders in
the Caribbean sea. According to the
president, Colombian armed forces have been
intimidating Nicaraguan fishermen and
preventing them from working within the
maritime territory deemed to belong to
Nicaragua in a recent International Court
ruling. In doing so, Ortega went on, Colombia
is "provoking tension which goes beyond
political or judicial tension and becomes
military tension." Ortega said the Colombian
government, with its "expansionist policy" in
the Caribbean sea, is an "instrument" of the
US government. 

Ortega made these statements in Caracas,
Venezuela, at the closing ceremony of the
Sixth ALBA summit. During the same ceremony
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the
Colombian government of plotting to provoke
Venezuela into war under the instruction of
the US government. "I alert the world to the
preparations for military aggression against
Venezuela from Colombia by the US, ... part
of the Balboa operation." Ortega agreed, "the
US is occupying Colombia," he said, "in an
attempt to break ALBA. This is the Empire's
counter offensive, this is the counter
revolution," said Ortega.

4. Government allocates millions for
public schools, childcare

Minister of Education Miguel De Castilla
announced plans to invest over US$17.5
million on repairs and rehabilitation of
school buildings and US$2.8 million on school
furniture during 2008. Among the Ministry of
Education's (MINED) construction plans are
the rehabilitation or complete reconstruction
of five secondary schools and the
construction of a new teacher training
college in Matagalpa. The new schools will
have new classrooms, workshops, computer
labs, science labs, sports facilities and
libraries among other things. 

The MINED aims to make drastic improvements
in school infrastructure and facilities in
schools across the country, said De Castilla,
but has selected just a few to begin with.
"School infrastructure has just as much to do
with the quality of education as curriculum
or teacher training," said De Castilla, this
is part of MINED's "fight to improve the
awful conditions we inherited from the
previous neoliberal governments." 

Also this week, government spokesperson
Rosario Murillo announced plans to reopen the
Child Development Centers that were created
during the first Sandinista (FSLN) government
(1979 - 1990). The centers provided public
day care where the toddlers and
preschool-aged children of poor working or
studying mothers, often single, could be
looked after, educated and fed free of
charge. After the FSLN lost power in 1990 the
Child Development Centers were starved of
funding and, as a result, most have now
either closed or been privatized and charge
too much to be accessible to most women. 

Murillo announced that as part of a
cooperation agreement with the Venezuelan
government about protection of children and
young people, eight centers will be reopened
during the coming year. "We realize that this
does not go far at all in satisfying the
demand, but we must start somewhere." Murillo
also announced plans for programs to support
street children and young offenders as part
of the bilateral cooperation with Venezuela.
The funding of these programs marks an
important step in restoring the social agenda
that gave hope to so many during the revolution.

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