Abigail Hernández (left) appears at a press conference with journalist Wendy Quintero, a member of Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua at the headquarters of the Nicaragua Nunca Más Rights Collective. CREDIT: José Mendieta / IPS

By José Mendieta
MANAGUA, Mar 5 2024 (IPS)

Almost six years after the outbreak of the April 2018 protests, there are no signs left in Nicaragua of the violence that reigned in those days. There is no graffiti on walls or banners with demands or opinions against the leftist regime that has ruled the country since 2007.

Nor are there newspapers or opinion programs or debates on radio and television, let alone press conferences or public rallies."The Ortega and Murillo regime's repressive mechanisms have escalated to dramatic and unimaginable levels. A simple opinion issued on social networks or a criticism of the regime could land you in jail or exile." -- Martha Irene Sánchez

The city of Managua, the capital, is always bustling and active, with markets and shopping malls open at all hours; traffic is usually disorderly and police patrols roam the streets and avenues at all times.

At noon every day, on all radio and television stations, the tired, quiet voice of Vice President Rosario Murillo is heard giving the government’s news, social achievements and propaganda messages such as phrases of love and praise to God.

The program, which has no specific name, is broadcast from Channel 4, the historical property of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the ruling party, to which the other state media are linked. The private media outlets controlled by the presidential family are also connected, together with dozens of radio stations and portals on social networks.

It first emerged in 2007 as “a message from comrade Rosario, from the Communication and Citizenship Council of the People’s President.”

“Here we are, on Valentine’s Day, with love, friendship, and for us, love and peace, because it is with love and in peace that we can walk ahead, move forward, building the future of all, a fraternal future,” she said on Feb. 13.

Murillo has been Nicaragua’s vice president since she was appointed in 2016 by her husband, President Daniel Ortega, the veteran former guerrilla who has been in office since November 2006.

Murillo is also the regime’s spokesperson and the only authorized voice, among the population of 6.7 million inhabitants of this Central American country, who can speak publicly and freely about anything. No one else can do so.

Freedom of expression in Nicaragua is one of the most repressed and abused rights, said journalist Abigail Hernández, director of the Galería News platform.

Journalist and former political prisoner Lucía Pineda Úbau, together with Martha Sánchez, take part in a protest by Nicaraguan journalists exiled in Costa Rica. CREDIT: José Mendieta / IPS

Her opinion, tellingly sent via an encrypted messaging application, is based on experience: three years’ exile.

“The media and journalists are a good thermometer for measuring the quality of freedom of expression,” Hernández told IPS.

“When we have less and less access to sources of information, when they limit us from reporting from the streets, when we can’t take photos or videos freely, when we can’t do our work inside the country, it reveals that there is no freedom of expression,” she said.

She is part of a generation of 242 journalists who have had to go into exile since the 2018 protests, which began against Social Security reforms and ended in a bloodbath provoked by military and police forces, with more than 355 civilian deaths, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Journalist Martha Irene Sánchez, director of the República 18 platform, holds similar views, also expressed from exile.

“The scenarios for exercising freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Nicaragua have not improved since 2018; on the contrary, we are encountering more and more hostility,” she told IPS.

She is also a member of Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN), a union organization that emerged after the protests and all of whose members went into exile.

“The Ortega and Murillo regime’s repressive mechanisms have escalated to dramatic and unimaginable levels. A simple opinion issued on social networks or a criticism of the regime could land you in jail or exile,” Sánchez said.

A forum for the presentation of the report on freedom of expression and press freedom in Nicaragua, released in September 2023 in San José, Costa Rica. The panel included journalists from Nicaragua from the Connectas platform, including FLED director Guillermo Medrano, (second-right). CREDIT: José Mendieta / IPS

She cited the example of Victor Ticay, a local journalist in Nandaime, a municipality in the northwestern department of Granada, who went out one day to cover a procession during the Catholic Holy Week of 2023.

The event had not been authorized by the police, whose agents interrupted the religious ceremony and Ticay filmed the parishioners running away from the patrol cars through the streets of the town.

He was arrested, charged with treason and spreading false news and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Guillermo Medrano, director of the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED), explained to IPS that between 2020 and 2021, the Nicaraguan regime passed a series of laws criminalizing the practice of journalism and freedom of expression.

A study that FLED released in September 2023 in San José, Costa Rica, a country bordering Nicaragua and the center of the country’s exile community, documented 1329 press freedom violations, mostly perpetrated by state agents in the 2018-2023 five-year period.

The actions were taken against 338 Nicaraguan journalists and 78 media outlets, between April 2018 and April 2023.

They included the police intervention of several media outlets such as 100% Noticias, Confidencial, Trinchera de la Noticia, Radio Darío and La Prensa, the last newspaper circulating in Nicaragua until August 2022.

According to Medrano, the Special Law on Cybercrime, passed in October 2020, provides for prison sentences for the use of information “which in normal democracies should be freely accessible to citizens and the public.”

In theory, the main objective of this legislation is the prevention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of crimes committed by means of information and communication technologies to the detriment of natural or legal persons.

The press freedom advocate also pointed out that the Ortega-Murillo administration, which controls all state institutions and branches of power, as well as the security forces, established the Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace, effective since Dec. 22, 2020.

This law gives discretion to judges and prosecutors in terms of the crime of “treason”, which orders the banishment and denationalization of the accused, as well as life imprisonment through a reform of the penal system.

More than 180 people have already been prosecuted under these laws and at least 22 journalists were stripped of their citizenship and banished in 2023.

“Under these laws, freedom of speech and the press has become a high-risk constitutional right for those who exercise it within Nicaragua,” Medrano denounced.

A report by the regional organization Voces del Sur says that Nicaragua ended 2023 with new forms of repression and threats to press freedom applied through banishment, confiscations, illegal detentions and harassment and surveillance of the families of journalists working in exile.

The outlook, the report warns, is of greater silence about social issues.

Nicaraguan journalists conduct interviews under risk of persecution or criminalization, denounced several reporters in San José, Costa Rica, in August 2023. CREDIT: José Mendieta / IPS

According to the report, between 2018 and the end of 2022, 54 media outlets disappeared, including 31 radio stations, 15 television channels and eight print media outlets. Of that total, 16 media outlets were confiscated, including La Prensa, the country’s main daily newspaper.

“Sources, even under conditions of anonymity, are harder and harder to find, and the saddest thing is that the State, through its officials, continues to be the main victimizer of citizens’ rights of expression and journalists’ press rights,” Medrano complained.

The non-governmental Human Rights Collective Nicaragua Nunca Más, made up of human rights defenders and activists in exile, states that the Ortega-Murillo administration “has carried out an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression in this country.”

The organization reports that of 28 resolutions of precautionary measures for journalists in Latin America, which have been issued since 2018 by the IACHR on freedom of expression, 15 have been issued for Nicaragua.

However, it says that “none of the precautionary measures” have been complied with by the State and, on the contrary, harassment against the targets has increased.

“And that reveals to us the seriousness of the problem of a small country with disproportionate and unacceptable restrictions on fundamental freedoms,” said one of the agency’s advocates, on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

These complaints find no responses within Nicaragua, because with the exception of Murillo, no one is authorized to answer, but can simply repeat the official discourse: “Nicaragua lives in peace and security.”

A year since Nicaragua spiralled into a socio-political crisis, human rights leaders have called on the country to refrain from violence and uphold the human rights of its citizens. Credit: Eddy López/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2019 (IPS)

A year since Nicaragua spiralled into a socio-political crisis, human rights leaders have called on the country to refrain from violence and uphold the human rights of its citizens.

In light of blatant, persistent human rights violations, United Nations agencies and human rights groups have urged the Nicaraguan government to halt its brutal crackdown on its citizens.

“Throughout the last year, the government of President Ortega has brutally and repeatedly repressed anyone who dares to stand up to his administration. The Nicaraguan authorities continue to violate the rights to justice, truth and reparation of hundreds of victims, while also preventing civil society organisations and international human rights monitors from working freely in the country,” said Amnesty International’s Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“This has got to stop,” she added.

“Violations…coupled with the lack of accountability for unlawful excesses by members of the security forces, have stoked rather than reduced the tensions in the country,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.

After thousands took to the streets to protest controversial social security reforms in April 2018, demonstrations were quickly met with violence by state security forces and pro-pro-government armed groups.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, over 300 people have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and 2,000 arrested.

The Central American country has also since banned all protest and censored media in order to prevent any government criticism.

In December, Nicaraguan police raided TV station 100% Noticias and arrested station director Miguel Mora and news director Lucia Pineda Ubau, both of whom are being held on charges of “inciting hate and violence.”

At least 300 others, including human rights defenders, face charges of terrorism.

The High Commissioner particularly expressed concern over reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including recent reports of authorities beating and using dogs and tear gas on detained protestors in La Modelo prison.

Government police and shock troops besiege a protest by medical students trying to organise on Sept. 12 in the city of León, 90 km west of Managua. Credit: Eddy López/IPS

As major protests are expected to mark the anniversary of the start of the crisis later this week, many fear another violent reaction.

The targeting of dissidents and protestors have prompted a massive exodus as an estimated 60,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries, including Costa Rica.

Among those seeking asylum are students, opposition figures, journalists, doctors, human rights defenders and farmers.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), many families are taking extreme measures to cross the border after being persecuted or receiving threats making it “overwhelmingly a refugee flow.”

After several attempted attacks and being informed that he was wanted “dead or alive,” Manuel left his banana plantations and fled to Costa Rica with his pregnant wife Andrea and their two children.

“We lived with the anxiety of not knowing when they would break into the house to get us…I’m sure if I go home they will hurt me,” Manuel told UNHCR.

Taking great lengths to avoid police, Manuel took a small boat along the Pacific Coast while Andrea walked through a back route of muddy fields with the children.

While they are now safe in the neighbouring country, Manuel and Andrea’s children are still haunted by their last days in Nicaragua where they were hunted by gun-carrying men in uniform.

“My youngest son hugs me every time he sees the Costa Rican police because they look like the officials who attacked us. He hugs me and says that he takes care of his daddy,” Manuel said.

While the Nicaraguan government and the opposition Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy negotiated two pacts, including one on the release of detained protestors, the agreements have still yet to be implemented in its entirety and further negotiations have stalled.

“The fact that the negotiations have come to a standstill and the Government is not honouring the agreements reached so far, is undermining the possibility of establishing a genuine inclusive dialogue to solve the serious social, political and human rights crisis facing the country,” Bachelet said.

“A solution to the crisis must address the institutional flaws and strengthen the rule of law…it is of paramount importance that a thorough and transparent accountability process is established to ensure justice, truth and reparations, as well as a clear guarantee of non-repetition,” she added, highlighting the need to put victims of human rights violations at the heart of negotiations.

Guevara-Rosas urged the government to respect the public’s rights including the right to assembly, stating: “The Nicaraguan government must put an immediate end to its strategy of repression and release all the students, activists and journalists detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly….the brave people of Nicaragua will not be silenced.”

Presentation of the Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Prize for Excellence in Journalism by the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation on Jan. 9 in Managua, where a report was also launched on the harsh repression of journalism in 2018. Pedro Joaquín Chamorro (1924-1978) gave birth to a journalistic dynasty in Nicaragua. Credit: José Adán Silva/IPS

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jan 15 2019 (IPS)

Eight months of social and political crisis in Nicaragua have hit the exercise of independent journalism in the country, with 712 cases of violations of the free exercise of journalism, one murdered reporter, two in prison and dozens fleeing into exile, in addition to several media outlets assaulted by the security forces.

A report by the non-governmental Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, called “2018 Year of Repression against Press Freedom in Nicaragua”, published on Jan. 9, states that between April and December there were 712 violations of press freedom and the exercise of journalism.

Guillermo Medrano, author of the report, told IPS that the study reflects that journalism has become a high-risk profession in Nicaragua, “to the extent that journalism has been officially criminalised by charging two journalists who criticised the government with terrorism.”

Medrano refers to journalists Lucía Pineda and Miguel Mora, press director and owner of the television news channel 100% News, respectively.

They were arrested on Dec. 21 at the station’s headquarters and later charged with “provocation” and “conspiracy to commit terrorist acts”.

Before they were arrested and were incomunicados for several days, sympathisers of Daniel Ortega’s government filed a report against Pineda, Mora and other journalists from the channel at the Public Prosecutor’s Office, accusing them of “promoting hatred” because of their critical editorial line.

Their families and lawyers have not been able to see the journalists, who are to be tried later this month. The TV station was shut down, its signal taken off the air and its accounts and assets seized by the authorities.

The arrests of the two journalists triggered protests by international human rights and press freedom groups.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement backed by 300 leading journalists from around the world condemning the arrests and demanding their prompt release.

The document also includes a strong condemnation of the Nicaraguan government for the assault and seizure of the newsrooms of the Confidencial magazine, the Niú website and the television programmes Esta Semana and Esta Noche.

The magazine and TV programmes belong to journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro and the Dec. 14 seizure marked the beginning of Ortega’s last, radical offensive against independent journalism.

Apart from the criminalisation of the two journalists, the report details that a reporter was killed in April, at least 54 have been exiled because of threats and political persecution, and 93 were beaten and injured.

In addition, 102 media outlets and journalists were censored, 21 suffered judicial harassment or investigative processes and 171 have faced different forms of intimidation.

A policeman guards the closed building of the Confidencial magazine and other digital and television media owned by Carlos Fernando Chamorro, which was seized by the Nicaraguan police on Dec. 14. Credit: Jader Flores/IPS

“It’s a situation we haven’t seen since the years of the Somoza (dictatorship), not even during the contra war against the United States. It’s terrifying,” writer Gioconda Belli, president of the Nicaraguan chapter of PEN-International, told IPS.

According to the writer, the regime of Ortega, a former Sandinistaguerrilla, “has surpassed the horrors of the dictatorships of the past that Latin America remembers” by targeting peasant farmers, students, feminists, religious sectors and, finally, journalists and the media.

“He has committed the atrocity of accusing journalism of terrorism; he has kidnapped and prosecuted two journalists, Miguel Mora and Lucía Pineda, as criminals; he has assaulted newsrooms and confiscated private media outlets, such as the Confidential,” she denounced.

In addition, “now he wants to strangle La Prensa by denying it paper,” Belli warned.

The newspapers with the largest circulation in Nicaragua, La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario, both opposition papers, have reported that their paper reserves will be exhausted in a few months and that the customs authorities are blocking imports of raw material.

A small newspaper, Q´hubo, published by ND Medios, closed down in December due to a lack of paper.

The building where the Confidencial magazine operated was taken over by the National Police, after the legislature eliminated the legal status of several non-governmental organisations.

The government links the media to the Centro de Investigaciones de la Comunicación, one of the nongovernmental organisations whose legal status was repealed along with eight others on charges of “fomenting terrorism.”

However, Chamorro stated that both the office building and the censored media outlets belong to the company Invermedia and Promedia and have no relation whatsoever with the NGO that was shut down.

Carlos Fernando Chamorro (C), in the middle of a group of fellow journalists, filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic of Nicaragua on Dec. 19 regarding the seizure of Confidencial and other media facilities and equipment by the police five days earlier. Credit: Jader Flores/IPS

The raid and the confiscation of their equipment and facilities were, he denounced, “a direct attack against journalism and private enterprise.”

Arlen Cerda, editor-in-chief of Confidencial, who was granted precautionary protection measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), said the publication is the victim of an “unprecedented” escalation of repression against modern-day Nicaraguan journalism, while he said its journalists planned to continue reporting, “even with their fingernails.”

“In the raid, the equipment, files and databases were taken away, we didn’t have a roof over our heads in order to work,” he said. “But also from the beginning we have maintained the firm conviction that we will not be silenced, and that we will do everything possible to continue to provide quality material to our public.”

In crisis since April

Ortega, 74, ruled the country between 1985 and 1990 as leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which defeated dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. After the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, he was also a member of the government junta.

The current crisis in this Central American country of 6.4 million people began in April 2018, triggered by a controversial social security reform that was later withdrawn, revealing broad discontent with the government.

The protests, led by university students, lasted until July, and according to the IACHR, 325 people were killed during the unrest, mainly at the hands of police and irregular forces organised by the government.

The government puts the number of casualties at 199, and blames “terrorist groups attempting to mount a coup d’état.”

Voices in exile

Luis Galeano, director of the program Café con Voz, which was broadcast on the 100% Noticias channel, left the country in December after the government issued an arrest warrant against him for “fomenting terrorism.”

“The accusations are absurd, they seek to silence critical voices, but they won’t succeed, because we as journalists are going to continue reporting from anywhere, from exile, from prison, from social networks, from clandestinity, from everywhere,” he told IPS from Miami.

Journalist Jeniffer Ortiz, director of the digital platform Nicaragua Investiga, told IPS that she left the country because of direct threats against her for her journalistic work.

“I have been away from Nicaragua for a couple of months. I left because of the constant threats and sieges of our house. They were also sending us messages through the social networks,” she said from San José, Costa Rica.

She said that due to the increasing repression, many of her sources stopped talking to her media outlet which, added to the economic crisis and threats, forced her to continue her work from outside Nicaragua.

“We are now in exile aware that our colleagues there are finding it increasingly difficult to do their work because of threats. The sources are afraid, and from here we can continue our work and contribute to the daily flow of information that people are asking for,” she told IPS.

Credit: Jader Flores/IPS

By Edwin Huizing
Jul 24 2018 (IPS)

Just 40 years after the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, a severe crisis grips Nicaragua. Most Nicaraguans want nothing more than to see President Daniel Ortega, who has been in office now for eleven years, disappear from the political scene.  Hivos, headquartered in The Hague, believes the Netherlands should use its membership in the UN Security Council to prevent a civil war and bring about a peaceful transition.

Since the protests against President Ortega started in April this year, at least 273 people have died and 2,000 have been injured, according to the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS). And the number of victims grows every day.

Edwin Huizing, Executive Director at Hivos

The opposition to Ortega comes from many corners: students, workers, pensioners, the Catholic Church and not least, women’s groups fighting for a more just society. The government’s heavy-handed repression of the protesters also affects journalists and human rights defenders supported by the Netherlands and Hivos. For example, employees of the human rights organization CPDH were arrested. Journalists from the online magazine Confidencial have been mistreated, threatened and robbed of their cameras and telephones.

In the weekend of July 13, Ortega’s supporters – a mix of government officials and militias – besieged a Catholic church where some 200 students had sought refuge after the protests at their university turned violent. Thanks to fifteen hours of mediation by high-ranking clergy, the students were given safe conduct to leave. But by then, there were already two dead and ten wounded.

According to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), abuse, torture, kidnapping and murder are the order of the day. In its unusually harsh report, the Commission clearly points to the state as partly responsible. If the protests against Ortega continue to spiral out of control, a civil war could break out.

A global trend of government oppression

Nicaragua exemplifies the current trend of governments that are increasingly suppressing activist citizens, critical journalists, human rights defenders and NGOs.

Dutch foreign policy, with its emphasis on “the ring of instability around Europe,” migration and economic commitment is far too limited in this light. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok’s recent letter about strengthening the Netherlands’ diplomatic network does not even mention the words “human rights”. Its emphasis on economic diplomacy and cuts in spending on diplomatic posts comes at the expense of promoting human rights.

But foreign policy must be about more than migration from Africa and growth opportunities for the Netherlands. The Dutch government’s Coalition Agreement has allocated 40 million euros for strengthening our diplomatic network. Part of this should be directly destined for Nicaragua, and for Central America, which is threatening to become a forgotten region.

Credit: Jorge Mejía Peralta

There must be an end to the violence and impunity

Together with Sweden, currently chairman of the UN Security Council, the Netherlands can bring these human rights violations in Central America to the attention of the UN Security Council, starting with the crisis in Nicaragua. There must be an end to the violence and impunity, for which disarmament of paramilitary forces is crucial. There needs to be an independent international investigation into the killings and other crimes that will bring those responsible to justice. International delegations (e.g. EU parliamentarians) should visit Nicaragua to act as the eyes and ears of the international community and thus increase the pressure on the government to cease its repression and start a transition to free elections, under international supervision.

Riding a wave of hope back in the 1980s, many Dutch people – including NGOs – supported the Sandinista movement. Let them now declare in no uncertain terms that Ortega has not proven to be any better than his illustrious right-wing predecessors.

International political action is urgently needed as the crisis in Nicaragua rapidly escalates, possibly into civil war.

This opinion was originally published here

Excerpt:

The offices of La Prensa, the oldest newspaper in Nicaragua and the leading media outlet critical of the Daniel Ortega administration, has suffered negative economic consequences as a result, as have other opposition outlets. Credit: José Adán Silva/IPS

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Mar 30 2017 (IPS)

During the 161st session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an empty chair across from the OAS Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Edison Lanzas, sums up the Nicaraguan government’s relationship with this issue in the country: absence.

At the Mar. 15-22 meeting of the IACHR, an independent Organisation of American States (OAS) body, only Cuba, the United States and Nicaragua were absent from the debate in the review and complaints session, which in the case of Nicaragua dealt with freedom of expression.

It was the third time this Central American country abstained from participating, which according to experts on freedom of expression and journalism conveys a “disregard” by the government towards the media and journalists, ever since leftist President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007, after governing the country in the 1980s.

Adrián Uriarte, the dean of the social sciences department in the University of Commercial Sciences, said “freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and goes beyond the media.”

The academic explained to IPS a set of indicators he created to determine the degree of freedom of expression in a country.

The first “refers to the exercise of this right in different social areas: home, community, media, school, church, and now social networks,” while the second “has to do with the exercise of this right in public spaces: protests, demonstrations, marches,” he said.

The third involves “a citizen’s right to demand accountability from the government and the powers-that-be, including the media.”"This can be measured by the lack of access to information, zero interviews, zero advertising from the state, control over tax exemptions, and control of social and labour institutions to exert administrative pressure on owners of media outlets.” -- Adrián Uriarte

The fourth relates to “the right to seek and access public information; and the fifth indicator has to do with the exercise of this right in writing, by radio or television, which of course is directly linked to freedom of the press.”

This country “has good grades in the first indicators, in terms of freedom of expression, mostly because in Nicaragua internet use is not yet regulated, and as a result, social networks have become the main new public spaces where citizens exercise their right to freedom of expression,” said Uriarte.

“But journalists and the media are ironically the group that exercises freedom of expression the least in Nicaragua. I would say actually that this is the area where self-censorship is practiced the most,” said the academic.

In Uriarte’s view, the government of Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, who became vice president in January, “has a sectarian vision of freedom of the press.”

“There are public policies aimed at promoting technological development and access to information and advertising for public and private media outlets, but which have ties, according to investigative reporting, to the current administration,” he said.

“On balance, we can say that in Nicaragua those who suffer a lack of freedom of expression are private media outlets not influenced by the state,” said Uriarte.

“The most visible form has been denial of this right,” he said.

This “can be measured by the lack of access to information, zero interviews, zero advertising from the state, control over tax exemptions, and control of social and labour institutions to exert administrative pressure on owners of media outlets.”

“It is also seen in the cancelation of private spaces in local newscasts, removal of technical equipment from local radio stations, which has naturally led to the closure of private spaces of opinion due to a lack of economic sustainability for many journalists.”

Newspaper and radio reporter Juan Rodríguez has experienced firsthand the consequences of being considered an “opposition journalist”.

“In 2007 I was communications and press officer for the Executive Secretariat of the National System for Disaster Prevention and Care, when the Sandinista government came into power and they cancelled my contract with no legal justification. They fired me because they suspected that I belonged to the right-wing media,” he told IPS.

Since then, Rodríguez has got around a series of barriers and a lack of institutional support to make radio programmes, while complaining about political harassment for having headed the independent Association of Journalists of Nicaragua.

Journalist Luis Galeano, director of the local radio and television programme Café con Voz, put it like this: “As a journalist I always work thinking whether tomorrow we are going to be able to go on the air.” His programme, broadcast by a local TV station and a network of community radios, is not yet considered “opposition”, but Galeano is worried that any day now the authorities will apply pressure to remove it from the air.

“I don’t know whether the government will all of a sudden get annoyed with what I say or do in my programme and order its closure, or whether business people are going to request that my programme be shut down, or whether they will pressure the few business people that support the media to stop backing us. The truth is that I live in constant worry about whether or not I will remain on the air,” he said.

Dozens of journalists have complained about the same sense of uncertainty, to Nicaraguan human rights lawyer Juan Carlos Arce with the non-governmental Nicaraguan Human Rights Centre.

Freedom of expression, according to the United Nations, is based on “the freedom to seek, receive and impart information.” In the current situation this right is not guaranteed for individual citizens, collectives or independent journalists, due to a secretive government policy,” Arce told IPS.

According to the activist, the 2007 policy is based on the strict control of public information and manifests itself as a gag order for civil servants.

For Arce, the problem of freedom of expression is exacerbated by government control of the media. This, in his opinion, “runs counter to the government’s obligation to promote pluralism and independence in the media.”

In this Central American nation of 6.2 million people, in 2007 there was only one TV channel and one radio station in the hands of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) , another state-owned station and two other pro-government stations, as well as several others close to the government.

In 2017, according to Arce, more than 80 per cent of the radio stations, TV channels, print media and on-line programmes are under the control of the FSLN, controlled by family members, political operators and like-minded journalists, although some occasionally declare themselves publicly as independent.

“As an advocate, the biggest problem is the lack of information of the institutions and the fact that that many people avoid speaking out because they fear retaliation from the government,” he said.

Arce said the absence of the government in the continental forums to debate on freedom of expression is shown not only by the empty chairs during the 161st session of the IACHR, but also in the countless pronouncements of international bodies on violations of human rights and other universal rights.

To illustrate, Arce mentioned U.N. criticisms in its Universal Periodic Review on Nicaragua in 2014, and other reports issued since 2008 by the U.S. State Department, the European Parliament, the OAS, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the Inter American Press Association, Freedom House, and Amnesty International, among others.

Francisca Ramírez, the head of the peasant movement that is leading the fight against the construction of an inter-oceanic canal in Nicaragua, which has made her a victim of harassment by the administration of Daniel Ortega. Credit: Luis Martínez/IPS

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Feb 24 2017 (IPS)

The unequal battle that small farmer Francisca Ramírez is waging against the Nicaraguan government of Daniel Ortega has become so well-known that people are calling for her security and her rights from the political heart of Europe.

Who is she and why did the European Parliament order Nicaragua on Feb. 16 to protect her life and rights, as well as those of thousands of peasant farmers in the centre-south of this impoverished Central American country?

Ramírez is a 40-year-old indigenous farmer who has lived all her life in the agricultural municipality of Nueva Guinea, in the Autonomous Region of Caribe Sur, 280 km from the capital.

She told IPS in an interview that her family has always lived in that rural area, which was the scene of bloody fighting during the 1980s civil war.

When she was eight, her father abandoned them and her mother had to work as a day labourer, while Ramírez took care of her five younger siblings.

Having survived the U.S.-financed war against the government of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (1979-1990), Ramírez learned agricultural work, got married at 18, had five children, and with the effort of the whole family, they acquired some land and improved their living conditions.

Ortega, who governed the country in that period, after overthrowing the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, returned to power in 2007. In January, he started a third consecutive term of office, after winning widely questioned elections where the opposition was excluded, supported by a civil-military alliance which controls all the branches of the state.

Ramírez was happy with her life until 2013. “They told us over the radio that they were going to build a canal and I thought that it was a very important thing because they said that we were no longer going to be poor,” she said.

Then, gradually, the news started to change her perception of the project to build the Great Nicaraguan Canal linking the Atlantic and the Pacific, granted in concession to the Chinese group HKND in 2013, and she started to ask questions that nobody answered.

One day, bad luck knocked on her door: delegations of public officials who her community had never seen before, accompanied by members of the police and the military, escorted delegations of people from China who made measurements and calculations about the properties of the farmers.

“The route of the canal runs through your property and all of you will be resettled,” they told her.

Law 840, passed in 2013 to give life to the over 50-billion-dollar mega-project, which she was barely able to understand with her three years of formal schooling, was very clear: they would be paid for their lands a price which the state considered “appropriate”.

So the resistance began. “At first everybody was happy, we thought that at last progress was coming, but when overbearing soldiers and police officers started to show up, guarding the Chinese, the whole community refused to let them in their homes and we started to protest,” she said.

Since then, she said the official response has not varied: repression, harassment and threats to farmers who refuse to give up their land.

Ramírez said that she became an activist in the National Council in Defence of Our Land, Lake and Sovereignty, a civil society initiative to organise the peasant movement to defend their lands and rights.

She started marching behind the rural leaders who led the first demonstrations against the canal.

One of the many demonstrations by small farmers who came to Managua from the southern Caribbean coastal region to protest the construction of an inter-oceanic canal that would displace thousands of rural families and cause severe environmental damage. Credit: Carlos Herrera/IPS

Later on, the leaders were arrested, threatened, intimidated and repressed by the police and military, and Ramírez unexpectedly found herself leading the demonstrations in 2014.

Her leadership caught the attention of the national and international media, human rights organisations and civil society.

Soon, the peasant marches against the canal became a symbol of resistance and more people joined, turning the movement into the most important social force to confront Ortega since he took office again 10 years ago.

The peasant movement against the canal “is the strongest social organisation that exists today in Nicaragua. Within any movement, an authentic and genuine leadership emerges, and that is what Mrs. Ramírez represents,” sociologist Oscar René Vargas told IPS.

The president “is aware that the movement is the most important social force that his government is facing,” he said.

The admiration that Ramírez arouses, with her ability to organise and lead more than 90 demonstrations in the country, has irritated the authorities.

More than 200 peasant farmers have been arrested, about 100 have been beaten or wounded by gunfire, and the government has basically imposed a military state of siege in the area, where it refuses to finance social projects, according to the movement.

Police checkpoints along the entire route to Nueva Guinea and military barricades in the area give the impression of a war zone.

Ramírez has not escaped the violence and harassment: her house has been raided without a court order, her children and family persecuted and threatened by intelligence agents and police officers, her belongings and goods that she sells, such as food, confiscated and damaged, and she has been accused of terrorist activities.

One of the latest episodes occurred in December 2016, during a visit to Nicaragua by Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary-General Luis Almagro, to discuss with Ortega the allegations of attacks on democracy.

To keep Ramírez and other leaders of the movement from meeting with Almagro, police convoys besieged the community and repressed members of the movement, she said.

They partially destroyed the main bridge out of the area, and suspected members of the movement’s Council were held at military checkpoints.

They even confiscated Ramírez’s work vehicles, used them to transport troops and later damaged them, according to Gonzalo Carrión, from the Nicaraguan Human Rights Centre.

“Ortega’s government has visciously mistreated Francisca Ramírez and the farmers who follow her. Her rights have been violated, from the right to protest to the right to freedom of movement, and we fear that they will violate her most sacred right: to life,” Carrión told IPS.

Walking along footpaths in the dark and crossing a deep river, where she almost drowned, Ramírez got around the military cordon and travelled, disguised and hidden in a truck, to Managua, where she was able to meet with Almagro on Dec. 1, 2016 and tell him of the abuses to which her community had been subjected for refusing to give up their lands.

On Feb. 16, the European Parliament issued a resolution condemning the lack of protection for human rights activists in Nicaragua, putting a special emphasis on the case of Ramírez, and lamenting the deterioration of the rule of law and democracy in this country.

The members of the European Parliament urged “the national and local police forces to refrain from harassing and using acts of reprisal against Francisca Ramirez for carrying out her legitimate work as a human rights defender.”

“Francisca Ramirez is a victim of abuses by the police in the country aiming at risking human rights defenders’ security and livelihood,” the European Parliament denounced.

“Ramírez, coordinator for the Defense of the Land, the Lake and Sovereignty, was in Managua to file a formal complaint over acts of repression, violations of the right to free circulation, and aggression experienced by several communities from Nueva Guinea on their way to the capital city for a peaceful protest against the construction of an inter-oceanic canal, projects which will displace local farmers activities and indigenous people from the premises of the construction,” the resolution states.

While the government remained silent about the resolution, social activist Mónica López believes that it represented a victory for the rural movement.

“Without a doubt, the resolution is a social and political victory for the peasant movement against the canal, a condemnation of Nicaragua, and a global warning about what is happening against indigenous peasant movements in Nicaragua,” López told IPS.

The government asserts that the canal project is moving ahead, although a year has passed with no visible progress, and it maintains that it will eradicate the poverty that affects more than 40 per cent of the 6.2 million people in this Central American country.

The FSLN’s election campaign in Nicaragua has consisted of placing giant billboards displaying images of its candidates, President Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo. Credit: Oscar Navarrete/IPS

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Nov 3 2016 (IPS)

In the midst of unusual political tension and apathy, Nicaraguans will go to the polls on Sunday Nov. 6 to vote in elections marked by the absence of the main opposition force and international election observers.

The governing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) dominates the country’s public institutions, in alliance with the main economic powers and backed by the police and military.

The leftist FSLN is the lone major party in the elections. And this is the party’s seventh consecutive nomination of 70-year-old former Sandinista guerrilla leader President Daniel Ortega, and his third run since he won the 2006 elections with 38 percent of the vote.“There is no election spirit, people are not talking about the process, there was no debate among candidates, there are no proposals for solving the most pressing problems that the country faces, the electoral authorities have had no credibility since 2008.” -- José Dávila

The opposition argue that the modification of the constitution by the judicial and electoral authorities to allow indefinite presidential re-election was illegal.

If Ortega wins, as projected by the polls, he will govern until 2021, completing 15 consecutive years in power since taking office in 2007.

He had already governed the country between 1979 and 1990, after the FSLN revolution overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza, the last of the Somoza dynasty. In the 1980s the country was rocked by the war waged against the government by the U.S.-armed and -financed “Contras”.

Political scientist José Antonio Peraza told IPS “we have not experienced a political situation as serious as this one” since the FSLN and Ortega lost their political and military power in the 1990 elections, following a decade of civil war.

In his view, this electoral process is not only unusual due to the electorate’s lack of interest, but also “because the political system has been structured for the elections in such a way that the only options left are the governing party and five or six small parties authorised by the electoral tribunal in view of their slim chances of winning.”

“The FSLN made sure to remove any real political options, disqualifying the chief opposition party and replacing it with a pro-government group, with unknown candidates and no proposals for change,” said Peraza.

In August, the electoral tribunal banned the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) – the main opposition party that heads a coalition against the FSLN – from participating in the elections. It also dismissed 28 liberal deputies from Nicaragua’s congress, who acted as a counterweight to the Sandinista majority.

In addition, in a move that has caused much concern that the country will end up under another dictatorship and governing dynasty, Ortega named his wife, Rosario Murillo, as his vice presidential running-mate, and placed his children in strategic public posts.

“Many adversaries to the party are calling the process an electoral farce and I honestly cannot disagree with them in disregarding this situation as illegitimate. The FSLN vetoed outside monitors from overseeing the elections and removed the main opposition parties,” said the political analyst.

Recently Ortega partially reversed its ban on outside monitors, accepting a team of observers from the Organisation of American States (OAS).

The administration also “controls the electoral structures accused of election fraud since 2008 and uses the power of the public institutions to campaign with state resources,” said Peraza.

IPS sought an opinion within the FSLN’s campaign team, but received no response to the request for an interview in over a week.

José Dávila, a political analyst and election monitoring expert, told IPS that in the more than 100 elections that he has observed and studied in different countries around the world in the last 20 years, he has not seen an election like this one.

“There is no election spirit, people are not talking about the process, there was no debate among candidates, there are no proposals for solving the most pressing problems that the country faces, the electoral authorities have had no credibility since 2008,” when the opposition and observers denounced fraud in the municipal elections.

“The campaign has only been seen in government media outlets and there has not been a single formal communication to the people about how the election is going.”

Dávila said that if he “had to compare it with other electoral processes, I would say that this election looks more like the grey processes carried out in Eastern Europe during the Cold War or the polls in Cuba, where there is no real opposition to the government party.”

International pressure

According to Dávila, there are other elements that turn the process into a “pressure cooker” similar to the atmosphere seen during the 1980s crisis.

“The United States has denounced political irregularities committed by Ortega’s government in Nicaragua and is threatening to pass a law to cut loans to the country if the aspects that Washington questions are not resolved,” said Dávila.

He was referring to the threat posed by the Nicaragua Investment Conditionality Act (NICA), which was passed unanimously Sep. 21 by the U.S. House of Representatives, and now has to make it through the Senate before being signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The initiative aims for Washington to veto any loan programme or grant for projects in this Central American country, alleging that the government in Managua violates the human and political rights of Nicaraguans.

Nicaragua, a country of 6.1 million people, 47 percent of whom are poor, depends on international aid and soft loans to sustain its economy.

A U.S. blockade would cost Nicaragua 250 million dollars annually in loans according to the World Bank, at a time when its main ally, Venezuela, is in crisis.

For similar reasons, the OAS requested a dialogue with Nicaragua to address complaints by human rights organisations, political parties and civil society institutions.

The government has accepted the proposal and an OAS commission will participate in a dialogue with government authorities, political parties, media and civil society organizations, planned for the day before elections.

“In a political maneuver, the government is attempting to legitimate its electoral process, while its adversaries will take advantage of the opportunity to show all the anomalies and institutional abuses by President Ortega’s government, and I can’t see the OAS’ current authorities endorsing a dubious electoral process like the one that is taking place in Nicaragua,” said Dávila.

Unlike other elections when political parties campaigned in public squares and toured through the main cities, this year there were just small rallies held by groups that support the government and demonstrations by the opposition to protest what they call an “electoral farce.”

Against this backdrop, six national political parties and one regional will be running in the elections for president, vice president, national deputies and representatives to the Central American Parliament, with the government urging people to participate and the opposition calling on voters to abstain, in order to make a statement on the illegitimacy of the elections.

In the polls, the FSLN has 60 percent support.

The party first emerged as a political-military movement in July 1961, to overthrow the Somoza family that governed Nicaragua since the 1930s. It seized power in 1979, following a bloody civil war that then continued until 1990.

President Daniel Ortega (standing a right) at the Sixth National Sandinista Congress, held June 4, which unanimously proclaimed him the Sandinista Party candidate for president of Nicaragua for the seventh time in a row. On the high rise building, Nicaraguan revolutionary hero Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934) is depicted in silhouette. Credit: La Voz del Sandinismo

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jun 23 2016 (IPS)

The seventh consecutive nomination of Daniel Ortega as the governing party’s candidate to the presidency in Nicaragua, and the withdrawal from the race of a large part of the opposition, alleging lack of guarantees for genuine elections, has brought about the country’s worst political crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990.

President Ortega, a 72-year-old former guerrilla fighter, has been the elected head of this Central American since 2007, and is seeking reelection in the general elections scheduled for November 6. If he wins his term of office will be extended to 2021, by which time he will have served a record breaking 19 years, longer even than that of former dictator Anastasio Somoza García whoruled the country for over 16 years.

He is standing again this year in spite of already having served two consecutive terms as president, thanks to a ruling by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)-controlled Supreme Court (CSJ).

The CSJ determined in 2011 that an article in the constitution banning indefinite reelection was a violation of Ortega’s right to be a candidate. Thus the highest court in the land struck down the constitutional ban against immediate reelection of serving presidents who have served out their term of office.The future situation “will depend on the opposition’s power to create instability in the electoral system, after announcing its official withdrawal from the contest.” - Humberto Meza

Ortega’s electoral hopes were further boosted on June 15, when the opposition National Coalition for Democracy (CND) was elbowed out of the race: their most promising leader, Luis Callejas, was dropped as a presidential candidate.

Earlier the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) cancelled the legal status of the leadership of the Independent Liberation Party (PLI), the largest member of the Coalition, and handed over PLI representation instead to a political faction supportive of the FSLN.

In the view of the opposition and other domestic movements, these measures have undermined the country’s democratic institutions and cast a shadow of doubt over the validity of the elections themselves.

Social scientist Nicolás López Maltez, a member of Nicaragua’s Academy of Geography and History, said that the way Ortega has pursued his presidential aspirations is unparalleled in Central America in the past 150 years.

“He has been a candidate in seven consecutive elections since 1984. He lost in 1990, 1996 and 2001; then he won the elections in 2006, 2011 and is now an official candidate for 2016,” López Maltez told IPS.

Ortega first came to power in 1979 when FSLN guerrillas ousted the last member of the Somoza dynasty of dictators who ruled the country with an iron fist for 43 years.

He was the coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction, the provisional government (1979-1984) installed by the Sandinista rebels following their victory against Anastasio Somoza Junior. Ortega stood for president for the first time in 1984 in the first elections called by the Sandinistas and was elected for the five-year term 1985-1990.

He lost the 1990 elections which marked the climax of a civil war in which armed opposition to the Sandinista revolution received political and military pressure from the United States.

According to López Maltez and other analysts, Ortega has taken control of all government branches, and is therefore practically assured of victory at the ballot boxes in November.

If this happens, then by 2018 Ortega will become the longest serving president of Nicaragua, outlasting the terms in office of liberal former general José Santos Zelaya (1893-1909) and Anastasio Somoza García (1937-1947 and 1950-1956) who each served for 16 years and a few months.

The Somoza dynasty wielded absolute power in Nicaragua from 1937 to 1979. Three members of two generations of this family – or their puppet allies – perpetuated their oppressive and corrupt dictatorship for 43 years.

Pollsters agree that President Ortega enjoys wide social support and the confidence of by groups such as private business and the police and military corps.

In May, M&R Consultores published survey results indicating that 77.6 percent of respondents backed Ortega, and 63.7 percent of voters said they would cast their ballots for his socialist FSLN party.

“Over the last 15 years several Latin American presidents have overturned the myth, previously regarded as incontrovertible by political scientists, that the region’s presidents enjoy high approval levels when they enter office, but high disapproval levels when they leave,” the head of the M&R consultancy, Raúl Obregon, told IPS.

In his view, there are several reasons why Ortega is one of the exceptions to the rule.

In the first place, he said, Ortega’s prospects are enhanced by the fading of popular fears that the FSLN would cause another war if they were returned to power, a fear much played upon by the opposition in the 1990, 1996 and 2001 election campaigns.

Secondly, he said, Ortega has followed sound macroeconomic policies and this is recognised by both domestic and international organisations.

The rolling out of social projects for poverty reduction has benefited the most vulnerable members of society.

Rightwing parties governed the country between 1990 and 2007, but they have now been torn apart owing to internal conflicts, and they have lost influence among the electorate.

“They are out of touch with the problems and needs of the people. They talk politics while the population wants to hear proposals to solve their main problems, namely unemployment and lack of access to basic necessities,” Obregón emphasised.

Thirty-eight percent of Nicaragua’s 6.2 million people live in poverty, according to international organisations. The 2012 electoral register identifies 4.5 million registered voters.

Despite the picture painted by the polls, opposition politicians accuse Ortega of manipulating the laws and institutions in his favour to ensure the outcome of the election and secure his continued grasp on power.

Opposition sectors claim the results of municipal elections in 2008 and of the 2011 general elections were fraudulent. Observers from the U.S. Carter Center and from the European Union observers/ said they lacked transparency.

This year a number of civil society organisations and other institutions, including the private sector and the Roman Catholic Church, have asked Ortega for greater political openness and for international observers to monitor the elections to guarantee fair play.

But in May Ortega decided not to invite international or local electoral observers, whom he referred to as “shameless scoundrels.”

After that came the move against the PLI leadership, followed in June by the engineering of the disqualification of the candidate nominated by the CND coalition, an umbrella group for the main opposition forces.

CND leaders said they were abandoning the contest in order to avoid being involved in an “electoral farce.”

These events rang alarm bells at international organisations as well as for the secretary general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, a native of Uruguay.

Humberto Meza, who holds a doctorate in social sciences, said that Ortega’s stratagems to perpetuate himself in power “will drastically affect the legitimacy of the elections,” no matter how high his popularity rating.

The Supreme Court “is condemning a vast number of voters to non participation in the electoral process,” he told IPS.

The aftermath, in Meza’s view, “will depend on the opposition’s power to create instability in the electoral system, after announcing its official withdrawal from the contest.”

“Nicaragua is polarised. Many people are critical of but remain silence for fear of official reprisals,” he said.

Democratic institutions are fragile now to an extent not seen since 1990, Meza said.

However, “democracy has plenty of other options for self-nurture apart from the voting mechanism,” he said. “Apparently a large sector of the opposition is placing its hopes in these alternatives.”

Meza said the concern expressed by the OAS secretary general and any pressure exerted by the international community, led by the United States, were unlikely to have “much impact” on Nicaragua’s  domestic crisis.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez. Translated by Valerie Dee

The Las Canoas lake in Tipitapa, near Managua, dries up every time Nicaragua is visited by the El Niño phenomenon, leaving local people without fish or water for their crops. Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

The spectre of famine is haunting Nicaragua. The second poorest country in Latin America, and one of the 10 most vulnerable to climate change in the world, is facing a meteorological phenomenon that threatens its food security.

Scientists at the Nicaraguan Institute for Territorial Studies (INETER) say the situation is correlated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a weather cycle that periodically causes drought on the western Pacific seaboard and the centre of the country, in contrast with seasonal flooding in the north and the eastern Caribbean coast.

Crescencio Polanco, a veteran farmer in the rural municipality of Tipitapa, north of Managua, is one of thousands of victims of the climate episode. He waited in vain for the normally abundant rains in May and June to plant maize and beans.

Polanco lost his bean crop due to lack of rain, but he remains hopeful. He borrowed 400 dollars to plant again in September, to try to recoup the investment lost by the failed harvest in May.

If the rains fail again, it will spell economic catastrophe for him and the seven members of his family.

“In May we spent the money we got from last year’s harvest, but with this new loan we are wagering on recovering what we lost or losing it all. I don’t know what we’ll do if the rains don’t come,” he told IPS.

His predicament is shared by thousands of small producers who depend on rainfall for their crops. Some 45 kilometres south of Tipitapa, southwest of Managua, campesino (small farmer) Luis Leiva regrets the total loss of three hectares of maize and squash to the drought.

Leiva sells his produce in the capital city’s Mercado Oriental market, and uses the profits to buy seeds and food for his family. Now he has lost everything and cannot obtain financing to rent the plot of land and plant another crop.

“The last three rains have been miserable, not enough to really even wet the earth. It’s all lost and now I just have to see if I can plant in late August or September,” he told IPS with resignation.

Rainfall in May was on average 75 percent lower than normal in Nicaragua. According to INETER, there was “a record reduction in rainfall”, up to 88 percent in some central Pacific areas, the largest deficit since records began.

Based on data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), INETER has warned that the drought could last until September.

The nightmare is affecting all farmers on the Pacific coast and in the centre of the country. Sinforiano Cáceres, president of the National Federation of Cooperatives, a group of 300 large farming associations, expounded the sector’s fears to the inter-institutional National Board for Risk Management.

“We have already lost the early planting (in May), and if we lose the late planting (in August and September) there will be famine in the land and a rising spiral of prices for all basic food products,” he told IPS at a forum of producers and experts seeking solutions to the crisis. There is a third crop cycle, in December, known as “apante”.

The country’s main dairy and beef producers raised their concerns directly with the government. Members of the Federation of Livestock Associations and the National Livestock Commission told the government that meat and milk production have fallen by around 30 percent, and could drop by 50 percent by September if the ENSO lasts until then, as INETER has forecast.

Moreover, the National Union of Farmers and Livestock Owners said that over a thousand head of cattle belonging to its members have perished from starvation.

It also warned that the price of meat and dairy products will rise because some livestock owners are investing in special feeds, vitamins and vaccines against diseases to prevent losing more cattle on their ranches.

The agriculture and livestock sector generates more than 60 percent of the country’s exports and earns 18 percent of its GDP, which totalled 11 billion dollars in 2013, according to the Central Bank of Nicaragua.

In the view of sociologist Cirilo Otero, head of the non-governmental Centre for Environmental Policy Initiatives, a food crisis would have a particularly severe economic impact on a country that has still not recovered from a plague of coffee rust that hit plantations in Nicaragua and the rest of Central America over the last two years.

“Thousands of small coffee farmers and thousands of families who depended on the crop have still not been able to recover their employment and income, and now El Niño is descending on them. I don’t know how the country will be able to recover,” he told IPS.

According to Otero, if ENSO continues its ravages for the rest of the rainy season, thousands of families will suffer from under-nutrition in a country where, in 2012, 20 percent of its six million people were undernourished, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

“Producers do not know how to mitigate the effects of climate change, nor the mechanisms for adapting to soil changes. Unless the government implements policies for adaptation to climate change, there will be a severe food crisis in 2014 and 2015,” he told IPS.

The government has set up commissions to monitor the phenomenon, as well as information meetings with farmers and livestock producers.

The authorities have also expanded a programme of free food packages for thousands of poor families, and are providing school meals for over one million children in the school system, as well as a number of small programmes for financing family agriculture.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega ordered urgent imports in June of 20.5 million kilograms of beans and 73.5 million kilograms of white maize to supply local markets, where shortages were already being felt. The government’s intention is to lower the high prices of these products while hoping for a decent harvest in the second half of this year.

The price of red beans has doubled since May to two dollars a kilogram, in a country where over 2.5 million people subsist on less than two dollars a day, according to a 2013 survey by the International Foundation for Global Economic Challenge.

One of the projected routes for Nicaragua’s interoceanic canal. Credit: National Assembly

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

A five-century wait could come to an end when the Nicaraguan government grants a concession this year to a Chinese company to build a canal between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, despite local protests and international scepticism.

On Thursday, the single-chamber legislature gave fast-track approval to a controversial law that paves the way for the start next year of construction of a rival to the Panama Canal. The 100-year concession will go to the Hong Kong-based Chinese company HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Ltd. (HKND Group).

The company was selected by the government of leftwing President Daniel Ortega to build the massive canal at an estimated cost of over 40 billion dollars.

But many voices in Nicaragua have called for greater transparency in the bidding process for the construction project that will bring to life a dream that has been cherished in this Central American country since the Spanish conquistadors first arrived.

One of the main criticisms is that the state of Nicaragua would grant complete rights over the canal for 50 years, with an option for another 50 years, to a company that was set up in October 2012 and established a holding company in the Cayman Islands that same year.

The Chinese company’s director, Wang Jing, is chairman of the Beijing-based Xinwei Telecom Enterprise Group, which was awarded a 300 million dollar telecommunications contract in Nicaragua in 2012. But Xinwei is at least four months behind in the investment pledged under the contract.

Construction of the canal is slated to begin in May 2014, and is expected to take 10 years. The feasibility studies are not yet ready, but according to the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government, a London-based firm has been commissioned to carry them out.

The first legal step was taken in July 2012, when at Ortega’s initiative parliament passed the “law for the construction of the interoceanic canal” by a mixed public-private company.

The state would hold a 51 percent stake, and the remaining 49 percent would be in the hands of investors, which could be countries, international bodies, individuals or companies.

HKND plans to build the canal across 190 km of land, while 80 km of the route would go across Cocibolca lake. The canal will be 150 metres wide and will serve larger ships than the Panama Canal.

The project has the firm support of the Ortega administration, which sent the bill – the “special law for the development of Nicaraguan infrastructure and transportation involving the canal, free trade zones and associated infrastructure” – to the legislature on Jun. 5 for fast-track treatment.

The bill approved Thursday modifies the original “law for the construction of the interoceanic canal”, modifies the projected route, and grants the concession exclusively to the Chinese investors.

It also establishes that Nicaragua gives up any claim to or sovereignty over the concession for up to 100 years.

The text was approved by 61 votes in favour, 25 against, and one abstention, after a heated three-hour debate. But the opposition lawmakers withdrew immediately during the separate votes for each one of the law’s 25 articles, to protest what they considered insufficient debate on the bill.

The construction project approved by the new law includes the canal, two deep-water ports, an international airport, a “dry canal” freight railroad, a series of free-trade zones, and an oil pipeline.

Initial estimates indicate that the canal will have the capacity to handle 450 to 500 million metric tonnes of freight a year and ships of up to 250,000 tons that are 400 metres long, 59 metres wide, and with a berth-side depth of 22 metres.

By comparison, the Panama Canal can currently handle vessels 260 metres long, 32 metres wide, with a beam of 19 metres – a size known as Panamax. But the expansion project now underway will double the capacity of the Panama Canal by 2015.

The new law grants 100 percent of the shares to the Chinese investors and establishes that the transfer to Nicaragua will be gradual, starting 10 years after the canal begins to operate. Nicaragua will receive 10 million dollars a year until all of the shares have been handed over a century later.

The business chamber and investors in Nicaragua support the government’s plan, albeit with some reservations. But it is staunchly opposed by the rightwing opposition and Sandinista dissidents, as well as environmentalists.

Eduardo Montealegre, head of the opposition legislators, told IPS that Ortega and his officials were “selling out the country” with the broad concessions granted to foreign investors that, he said, hurt Nicaragua’s current and future interests.

Constitutional lawyer Gabriel Álvarez told IPS that the concession of the project to Chinese investors violated the constitutional article on national sovereignty, and left the country vulnerable to local or international legal action.

Biologist Salvador Montenegro, director of the Research Centre for Aquatic Resources of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, told IPS that any construction project involving Cocibolca lake endangered biodiversity, and Central American society as a whole.

The 8,624-km long lake in southwest Nicaragua is the region’s largest freshwater reserve.

The government’s secretary of public policies, Paul Oquist, dismissed the demands by environmentalists and politicians and anticipated that after construction of the canal started, GDP would grow 10.8 percent in 2014 and 15 percent in 2015, compared to the current four to five percent.

The government projects that GDP will climb from 10 billion dollars today to 24.7 billion dollars in 2018. But without the construction of the canal, GDP would stand at 14.9 billion dollars in 2018.

Ortega informally discussed the idea of the canal with U.S. President Barack Obama at the May 4 summit of presidents of the Central American Integration System in Costa Rica.

The initiative has not drawn official reactions, either positive or negative, from Nicaragua’s Central American neighbours.

Only Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli congratulated Nicaragua for the plan and offered it technical assistance.