rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (06/14/91)
NICARAGUA NETWORK HOTLINE ** 202-544-9360
June 10, 1991
You have reached the Nicaragua Network Hotline recorded Monday,
June 10, 1991. To reach our office, call: 202-544-9355.
Topics covered in this hotline include: FSLN walks out of
National Assembly over UNO vote to drop World Court case; Lacayo
claims victory for economic plan; the continuing struggle over
property ownership; and cotton and coffee harvests full of
uncertainty.
The 39 Sandinistas of the National Assembly have withdrawn
indefinitely from the Assembly after UNO representatives voted 49
to 1 to revoke the law that prevented President Chamorro from
dropping Nicaragua's World Court victory against the United
States. Dropping the World Court case has been a key demand
of the US. The US has been unable to use the World Court against
Iraq due to the Reagan and Bush administrations refusal to
recognize World Court jurisdiction in the Nicaragua case. The
World Court ruled in favor of Nicaragua in 1986 and ordered the
US to pay reparations for the contra war and mining the
Nicaraguan harbors. The losses inflicted by the US on Nicaragua
are estimated at $17 billion.
Calling the decision a "stab in the back for national
sovereignty," former Vice President and leader of the Sandinista
bench in the National Assembly, Sergio Rarmirez led the walk-out.
Ramirez accused the government of "bowing to U.S. pressure."
Former President Daniel Ortega said, "Under no point of view will
we comply with this act of treachery which works against the
stability of the country."
Written into the law was a requirement that it would take a two-
thirds vote of the National Assembly to revoke it.
Constitutional issues and issues of sovereignty or patrimony
require a two-thirds vote. It is unclear to us how the law could
be revoked by 49 of the 92 members of the National Assembly. The
next step could be to take the issue to the Nicaragua Supreme
Court which, although dominated by Chamorro appointees, last
month threw out major portions of Chamorro's decree which
established procedures for returning land confiscated by the
Sandinista government.
Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo held a press conference
congratulating the government on the success of its economic
plan. He claimed an inflation rate for May of 6% which would
translate to an annual rate of slightly over 100% if UNO can keep
the monthly rate of inflation at 6%. Compared to the 1990
inflation rate of 13,000 percent, UNO's economic plan appears to
be working. Lacayo emphasized that any wage increase would
endanger the plan and will not be considered.
The preliminary success of UNO's economic plan has been
accomplished at the expense of the poor majority of Nicaraguans.
During the second phase of the national dialogue, or concertacion
talks now underway, Jose Angel Bermudez, a representative of the
National Labor Front (FNT) stated that the government plan has
had a "grave social cost." Unemployment remains at 50%. 69.4%
of the population cannot satisify their basic necessities.
Nearly a quarter of the population is said by the UN to live in
extreme poverty. Infant mortality has risen to 73 dead per 1,000
live births, health care, free education, agricultural credit to
small and medium farmers, and food subsidies have all been
slashed or eliminated.
The United States, which makes no pretext of having economic
democracy within its own borders, through its control of
international lending institutions, requires Nicaragua and other
countries seeking international loans, to eliminate any vestige
of economic democracy in their own country as a condition of the
loans. The Sandinista model of economic justice, and their fight
to preserve the economic gains won by the poor majority through
the Revolution, remains a valid model not only for the poor
countries of the world but for our own as well.
Consequences are still reverberating after the Nicaraguan Supreme
Court's revocation of portions of Decree 11-90 under which UNO
has been returning property confiscated under the Sandinista
government. Chamorro issued a new decree 23-91 reaffirming the
government's commitment to return confiscated properties and
asserts the validity of "all property returns already physically
made, as long as they were made by a competent authority." The
definition of "competent authority" is unclear since it was the
National Confiscation Review Commission established by decree 11-
90 that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. The new decree
will compensate former owners rather than give them possession of
the property, if the property is now occupied by campesinos.
The struggle over land ownership is far from over. President of
the National Assembly and former civilian contra leader, Alfredo
Cesar Cesar, angrily attacked decree 23-91 and said that
property rights will only be re-established when properties are
physically returned. And the right-wing business council COSEP
has demanded that unless property rights are the first item on
the National Dialogue agenda, they will not participate. The
FSLN has demanded a list of properties already returned and the
Attorney General claims no such list exists. The property issue,
which has been the primary cause of continuing violence in the
countryside will continue into the foreseeable future.
In an amusing turnabout to a situation which is far from amusing,
the former owner of a property now housing the Mexican Embassy in
Managua has applied to have his property returned. Recently the
Mexican ambassador sent a much-criticized letter to the Attorney
General supporting the return of the house now owned by Daniel
Ortega to its former owner.
And finally, the fragility of the economic situation is
demonstrated by Nicaragua's two most economically important
agricultural commodities -- coffee and cotton. Reports are that
the coffee crop this winter has the potential of being the best
ever, but only if the government quickly makes credit available
according to Amilcar Navarro of the farmers and ranchers union,
UNAG. Small scale coffee farmers produce 60% of Nicaragua's
coffee crop. They have used their own money to cultivate and
maintain the crop that will ripen this winter. Unless they soon
have access to credit many will be unable to continue to maintain
their crop. Cotton producers, who are primarily large land
owners are refusing to plant unless the government gives them
more favorable credit. The timing of the gold cordoba
devaluation in March gave cotton growers an incredible windfall
profit, which they then blew by failing to settle a strike until
much of their crop had been destroyed. The government has
reduced its projection of 259,500 acres of cotton to 74,000
acres, but cotton producers are threatening to only plant 52,000
acres and have so-far only applied for credit for a total of
12,000 acres, an all time low. We noticed that Lacayo did not
claim that the cotton growers demands were a threat to the
economic plan as he did of the workers wage demands.
This hotline will be updated next on Tuesday June 18, a day later
than usual. To become a supporter and receive our publications
and mailings, please contact us. The Nicaragua Network's address
is: 1247 E St., SE, Washington, DC 20003; our phone: 202-544-
9355.
** End of text from cdp:reg.nicaragua **