desde nicaragua

The politics of trash

The scenes inside this city’s dump are heart-wrenching but hardly unique to any poor, developing country: humans quietly scavenge for metal and plastic to sell, burning piles of trash send clouds of soot into the sky and children with sun-tinged hair chase one another with bare feet and dirt-stained faces.

It’s the commotion at the entrance of this wasteland called La Chureca that demands notice. There, a few dozen Chureca residents form a human blockade in protest of what say is the theft of Managua’s best garbage by city employees, and a threat to their livelihoods.

“All we want is our daily bread,” said 50-year-old Carlos Bermúdez, who says city-paid trash collectors keep discarded metal and plastic to sell for themselves. “In this country, everybody is needy, but we’re the neediest.”

But like so much in this poorest of Central American countries, divisive politics are never far from the picture: The fight over garbage has become usurped as a weapon in the internal Sandinista party battle between President Daniel Ortega and the capital city’s mayor, Dionisio Marenco, who fell out of his party’s favor months ago.

Ortega supporters and the Churequeros stationed at the dump's entrance blame Marenco for not ensuring his city employees refrain from siphoning off the best trash. Marenco, who has been scrambling to find a short-term alternative trash dump site, also signed off on a project with Spain’s International Cooperation Agency to close La Chureca, build a recycling center and relocate the families.

But that's not what the protesters say they want. They want to continue living and working "in dignity." They want the mayor to reprimand the city employees. They want their trash back.

I asked an old man with bright eyes whether he could call picking through trash a dignified life. Didn't he see education or a better job as a possibility? Why not demand that instead?

"This is a dignified life because we survive. We have no other alternative," he told me.

This from a great Inter Press story published last week:

Cirilo Otero, a sociologist who heads the Centro de Iniciativas de Políticas Ambientales (Environmental Policy Initiatives Centre), said the protest is an excellent opportunity to put an end once and for all to the slum in the dump and provide the families with a better life.

"The problem is not going to be solved by dumping ‘better’ garbage so that these people have something to live off of," he commented to IPS. "The solution is to move them out of there, train them in some trade, and insert them into a healthier and more productive life."

"Pulling them out of there would save the lives of many of those kids, who are dying every day from eating contaminated food," he said.

But politics will probably keep that from happening. I'm afraid they're directly responsible for the conflict, as well. This is why:

I met two sorts of people in the dump — those like Isabel,a 54-year-old woman who gave birth inside of the dump without medical assistance four years ago, and those like José, whose face and hands were clean and sat beneath a shade tree at the entrance.

Isabel worked, picking through trash during the protest. She has four mouths to feed, and she told me she doesn't understand what the protest is about.

Hers is one of about 150 families who lives at La Chureca.

José said there was no good garbage to pick through, and so he needed to protest. I pointed to his enormous belly, and asked what he was eating, how he could afford to eat if he wasn't working. He squirmed a little as I kept asking, and tried to turn the tables. Eventually I learned that several "concerned compañeros" had made private donations to them. He would not say what political party they were from, and insisted it has nothing to do with personalized politics.

I wish I could write more but I have to finish packing for Venezuela. I'm off in the morning for two weeks, Caracas then Cuzco. I just want to leave clear that the essence of this story, despite whatever heartless politics are behind it, remains desperately clear:
    Things in this place are so bad that poor people are fighting over trash.

On trash and dumps

In local news, folks who live in and live off of Managua's garbage dump this morning signed an agreement with the city to end a stand-off with trash collectors.

 

The Chureca workers sift through trash to sell plastic and paper goods to resell as recyclables. (See a Youtube video of La Chureca here.)

They said trash collectors though were taking the best garbage before dumping it and cutting into their potential earnings.

On Monday, the Chureca workers blocked off the dump's entrance to trash collecting trucks, which led to the collapse of the city's collection system and forced it to use other municipalities' sites.

Now, having reached an agreement in their favor, La Chureca workers are allowing the dump trucks back into the dump. City workers who don't follow the agreement will be sanctioned.

Diplomatic Crisis in South America

As Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa seeks the backing of other Latin American leaders, (he plans to stop in Managua Thursday), the Organization of American States reaffirms today that Colombia violated its neighbor country's sovereignty by killing a FARC leader there this weekend.

The conflict has been called the region's "worst diplomatic crisis in years," as Venezuela mobilizes military forces to its Colombian border in support of Ecuador. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe claims his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez is sponsoring genocide by allegedly harboring FARC terrorists; Chávez calls Colombia the "Israel of South America" at Washington's command. (If that's the case, Guardian blogger Matthew Weaver asks, does that make Venezuela the region's Iran?)

While plenty of Western media tend to portray Chávez as a threat to the region, a story from the folks at Venezuelanalysis.com is refreshing. They call Colombia a destabalizing force in South America, saying the attack was planned to deter Colombians from participating in an international protest planned for tomorrow against those tortured, murdered or disappeared by the government and paramilitary forces there.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs speculates on U.S. involvement in the affair, as Saturday's incident seemed to be "carried out at too sophisticated a level by a Colombian military which normally is dismissed as incompetent, corrupt, drug sodden and ill-deposed to risk dangers." The COHA article also discusses the U.S. presidential candidates' rhetoric on Latin America.

Meanwhile, the Washington Office on Latin America recently reported that the U.S.-sponsored intensive aerial herbicide spraying on coca crops in Colombia has "backfired badly" and contributes to the spread of its cultivation to new areas of the country:

"Fumigation is part of the problem," the report says. "The aerial spray operations tend to reinforce rather than weaken Colombian farmers' reliance on coca growing, prompting more rather than less replanting, thereby contributing to coca's spread into new areas of the country."

U.S. aid to Colombia has totaled more than $5 billion since 2000.  As fumigation intensified with an infusion of U.S. funds, officials portrayed the spraying as not merely innocuous to human health and the environment, but as environmentally beneficial because it would inhibit the loss of forests to coca crops. 

In Nicaragua, friends tell me they're placing bets on when Nicaragua will deploy troops in solidarity with its brother countries, Ecuador and Venezuela.

News round-up

Let's see a little bit of the world today.

* In Peru, archaeologists dug up what's believed to be the oldest urban settlement in the Americas. Read the LA Times story here. (There was also a recent Column One in that paper about another ancient ruin in Peru . I'd like to visit Keulep while I'm there in early April, but I think it's too far north from Cuzco and I won't have the time ...)

"The findings in Sechin Bajo, especially in the buried circular plaza, have demonstrated that there is construction from 5,500 years ago," Peter R. Fuchs, a German archaeologist who worked at the site, told the newspaper. "Whoever built Sechin Bajo had a good knowledge of architecture and construction."

Much of the hidden plaza was uncovered this year, and a great deal of excavation remains to be done, Perez said. Relatively little is known about the people who lived there.

The plaza, 33 to 39 feet across, may have been a site for gatherings, perhaps a kind of ceremonial center. It was built of rocks and adobe bricks.

* In Ireland, immigrant families face deportation issues similar to those encountered by undocumented Latinos in the United States. Read this excellent NYT story here:

“Dear justice minister,” George wrote when he was 9. “I heard my Mommy and Daddy whispering about deportation. Please do not deport us.”

“Remember,” he added, “I am also an Irish child.”

Thousands of Irish children face similar risks, living in a country where one or both parents do not legally reside. Their stories find abundant parallels in the United States, where an estimated five million children — including three million American citizens — have parents who are illegal immigrants. New efforts to catch them make fear of deportation a growing factor in American life, the flip side of generous laws that make infants instant citizens.

The battle over the “I.B.C.’s” — Irish-born children — stems from a decade of head-turning change that has brought this island of red-haired Marys and blue-eyed Seans the demographic version of an extreme makeover.

For centuries, Ireland was a racially homogenous land of emigrants. Now it is a multicultural nation of immigrants, whose share of the population, 11 percent, is nearly as high as that in the United States.

* Another NYT story talks about some of the successes in the Venezuelan/Cuban free eye-care program for Latin America's poor, including some 96 people from Nicaragua:

The evolution of the program into a symbol of Mr. Chávez’s political movement across the region illustrates how Venezuela’s leader is intensifying efforts to lift his government’s profile abroad even as he faces criticism at home over social problems.

“Those who call Chávez a vulgar populist are wrong,” said Julio Araoz, one of 96 Nicaraguans flown here to correct ailments leaving them partly or completely blind. Before doctors restored his vision in one eye a week ago, Mr. Araoz said he could barely stand to hear Mr. Chávez’s name or that of his ally, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

“Now I salute Chávez and Ortega with profound gratitude and admiration,” said Mr. Araoz, 40, a carpenter from the northern Nicaraguan city of Matagalpa who was suffering from pterygium, a vision-restricting condition commonly found in tropical climates. The procedure, which would have cost more than $1,000 in Nicaragua, cost him nothing here.

* In The Christian Science Monitor, read about where Castro's retirement leaves Chávez:

"Chávez has already achieved a certain level of influence, but with Fidel out of the scenario he becomes the only reference point for the symbol of the leftist revolution," says Alfredo Keller, an independent pollster in Caracas. "But he is trying to build something new, a kind of third world front against the first-world, and has a lot of money to do it."

For now, Chávez says Castro is still the captain of the revolution. "Fidel is not giving up or abandoning anything," said Chávez, who has called Castro his "father." "Fidel always was in the vanguard. Men like Fidel never retire."

* In Brazil, as reported by the BBC, President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva unveils a muli-billion anti-poverty campaign, an addition to the already-existing and controversial Bolsa Familia program:

The initiative, known as "Territories of Citizenship", is meant to help around 24 million people, including rural workers and indigenous communities.

The money, which is part of the existing budget, will be used to supplement 135 policies, involving 15 government departments, that are focused on 958 towns in states across the country.

The government is also promising to finally reach its target in the "Light for Everyone" programme to bring electricity to poor communities.

The areas selected for funding are said to be in the 60 regions of Brazil with the lowest rankings on the UN Human Development Index.

(I just updated this at the Taca store, where I dropped $1,100 on plane tickets. March 27-April 1: Caracas. Then, to Cuzco through April 9. As always, happy for company. Any adventurous takers out there?)

News updates: Ex-contras, deportees and more

Some interesting notes from these parts:

* Last year's return of Daniel Ortega here re-energized at least some ex-Contras in Miami who are now lobbying support from the U.S. government and working with anti-Ortega movements in Nicaragua with former colleagues here.

According to this Associated Press story, a few even "warn darkly" that armed resistance is again a possibility. They say they're worried about the CPCs, which I've written about earlier and have largely disappeared from local news after some typical political circus antics here.

* The increasing crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States is resulting in waves of deportees flooding back to their "home" countries like Mexico and Nicaragua. Many of these deportees grew up in the States and, lacking connections in their countries, are at a bit of a loss for finding work, etc., when they return. (Months ago, I wrote about one such case in Granada.)

"Some of these people are arriving in Mexico's border cities with nothing but the clothes they have on. Many have no family links, no knowledge of the country. They are very vulnerable," said Rolando Garcia, an immigration official working on the new program. "What we want to do, quite simply, is give them a human reception." (TIME)

Anyway, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced a repatriation program to help reintegrate the deportees into society, according to a recent Time Magazine article. The program will organize refuge centers in border cities, transport to hometowns and jobs for the deportees, immigration officials say. Critics however say the program doesn't have much substance (there's nothing for it in the budget) and that Calderón should focus on defending immigrants' rights in the U.S.

* Reacting to recent legal actions taken by Exxon Mobil, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez threatened Sunday to cut off oil supplies to the United States.

A British court issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12 billion in assets, according to recent news reports, after the oil company had gone to U.S., British and Dutch courts to challenge the nationalization by Chavez's government of a multi-billion dollar oil project.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said. "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."    

The threats by Chavez boosted prices, even as analysts downplayed the chances of Venezuela cutting off supplies.

"The Venezuelan president is bluffing, but his well honed rhetoric will help support prices in New York and London nonetheless," said The Schork Report, issued by U.S. trader and analyst Stephen Schork. (TIME)   

Despite this, Venezuela continues to be the U.S.'s fourth-largest supplier of crude oil — supplying some 1.2 million barrels a day, and the U.S. continues to be Venezuela's top trading partner. The threats by Chávez caused a slight tremor in oil prices, which are already affected by continued worries of a recession in the States.

* Despite earlier optimism, deforestation continues in the Brazilian Amazon. So it's back to the drawing board for officials "to figure out what went wrong and how to tackle monumental problems like endemic lawlessness and land disputes, which have long stymied governments," according to a McClatchy News Service story.

* Finally, Andres Oppenheimer writes about Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's allies in Miami's Cuban exile community, and his views on issues like undocumented immigration and farm subsidies.

* * * * *

I added a link to the Media Accuracy on Latin America's site, which I learned about last month from the LANR blog. This initiative from the North American Congress on Latin America seeks to "foster public discourse by offering more pluralistic views on events unfolding throughout the hemisphere." On the site, you can find criticism of news coverage from this part of the world, "highlighting reports in which news outlets have simplified, overlooked or distorted critical facts as well as reports in which the media fails to connect relevant U.S. policy to developments in Latin America. MALA also offers background information on economic, political, and societal issues, as well as other resources for journalists, students, and the public at large to better understand the complexity of events in the region."

As a side note, I'm strongly considering a trip to Venezuela at the end of next month, in time for the Inter American Press Association's meeting in Caracas. These folks (who are funding my stay here) highly criticize Chávez for limiting press freedom and had the audacity to invite him to speak at the conference. We'll see whether he accepts.

Anyway, does anyone have friends in Venezuela?

In the news, again and again

I think Stephen Kinzer (for The (UK) Guardian) is the first to report on the newest U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua. "Rather than finding an ambassador to Nicaragua who could begin this assignment with experience as a conciliator," he writes, "the Bush administration has chosen one who some Nicaraguans will see as stained in blood."

The choice? Robert Callahan, who worked under John Negroponte in Honduras during the civil war here in the 1980s:

In Nicaragua, where I'm now visiting, many people have all but forgotten the civil war that tore their country apart in the 1980s. Sandinistas and former contras have long since reconciled. President Daniel Ortega, the symbol of Sandinista power, has a vice-president who was a contra.

The same has not happened in Washington. From senior political figures like vice president Cheney to policymaking bureaucrats like Eliot Abrams, former supporters of the contras hold important positions in the Bush administration. They are still fighting the contra war. At every opportunity, they try to make the point that they were on the right side.

That is now happening again.

Kinzer's piece is even more intriguing when you read  "Huckabee, Ortega, and Iran" by Scott Sullivan of The Conservative Voice. He suggests Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee will ask Bush to stop Iran's "takeover of Nicaragua" in order to get ahead in Florida's Jan. 29 primary:

Iran is developing close economic and military ties with Nicaragua and President Daniel Ortega, according to detailed reporing that is ignored by State, Defense and CIA. Secetary of Defense Robert Gates and Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman do not travel to Latin America and do not comment on Iran's takeover of Nicaragua. Likewise, the Republicans in Congress -- under White House pressure to bypass the Nicaragua-Iran connection --also remains silent.

Does this mean Huckabee wants to use Nicaragua's relationship with Iran to rally the militarists who helped create the Contrarevolution here in the 1980s?

History is a hard thing to forget for some people.

Then you have this story  and wonder whether the US doing like Daniel Ortega and talking of both sides of its mouth. Here, the CEO of the Milenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) says that the U.S. agency can and will work with President Daniel Ortega despite ideological differences. MCC CEO Ambassador John Danilovich writes in his blog:

"The compact with Nicaragua offers a vehicle by which the U.S. government, through the generosity of the American taxpayer, can engage constructively with Nicaragua on an issue that matters to all of us: the reduction of poverty through economic growth in an environment of political stability."

After this, you can read in the Latin Business Chronicle about a Freedom House report that finds that Nicaragua is following Venezuela down a trend toward less freedom, while Haiti is improving and the rest of Latin America largely remains the same.

"Among the major challenges is Chavez's drive to export his authoritarian brand of socialism to the rest of Latin America," the organization says. "Thus far he has largely failed in this endeavor. Although politicians who claim to admire Chavez won presidential races in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua in  2005 and 2006, none will be able to count on a similar oil-based revenue windfall to implement unsustainable economic policies, and at least in Bolivia and Nicaragua,more formidable opposition forces exist to challenge executive power."

Overall, Latin America is largely governed by parties of the center-left or center-right that have demonstrated a commitment to the electoral process, freedom of expression, and a broad range of civil liberties, Freedom House says. 

Freedom House, we should note, has been criticized for receiving most of its funds from the U.S. government, and prominent US government officials reside on its board, most notably neo-conservatives.

Finally, a Miami Herald article that I helped put together about how Hugo Chávez's "largess" in Nicaragua is perceived here.

All of the sudden, Nicaragua is hot again.

Danny likes the Peace Corps?

Apparently so. President Daniel Ortega met last night with the director of the U.S. volunteer agency, which was created by Kennedy in 1961 as part of the Alliance for Progress. He only had good things to say about the Peace Corps, surprising because of how rarely U.S. policy pleases him.

Well, that and the fact the agency pulled out of Nicaragua after the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, and didn´t return until after the Sandinistas left power in 1990. (The following president, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, invited the Peace Corps back into the country and they´ve been here since.) 

"I want to express that we´re very pleased with and value that attitude of the thousands of young North Americans who participate in these programs in 74 countries," Ortega said, adding that current in-country volunteers can expect the full support of the Sandinista government.

Expect to read more aboout this in the coming days. Sorry for the hurried post; busy day and busier evening to follow. Cheers.

"Wait a minute. I know these people ... "

Yesterday, President Daniel Ortega announced that regardless of what the National Assembly or courts say, he will go ahead and install the controversial Citizens Power Councils (CPCs) as a national cabinet.

He said if the Assembly continues to paralyze his work, "I would be obligated to govern by decree."

This alarms people.

The CPCs will be "formalized"  on Friday during a massive rally at the Plaza de la Revolución, Ortega said.

"We're going to newly install all of this legally ... in such a way that if they erase (veto),
we will again write the law, and that's how it's going to be: They erase the CPCs, we will
re-install them; whoever comes and tells the Assembly that no, I the following day will dictate another law that yes, and that's how we're going to be." (Radio Primerísima, FSLN outlet)

Last week, the National Assembly had vetoed Ortega's plan to make the CPCs an official arm of government. An appellate court later overturned the veto, and the Supreme Court was expected to follow with a decision.

To opponents, the CPCs are another name for a Sandinista volunteer group that existed during the first Sandinista administration, the Sandinista Defense Committees. The CDSs are often remembered for serving as neighborhood spies to government, pointing out dissenters in the community.

Of course, we must remember the context in which the CDSs existed: the civil war of the 1980s, a Counter Revolution funded by the U.S. government.

These new CPCs, under the direction of First Lady Rosario Murillo, operate in neighborhoods to "exercise direct democracy," according to the government. (Check out this January speech by Murillo that talks about this and creating consciousness and citizenry.)

Ortega's opponents don't want the CPCs to receive and/or distribute government resources because the groups are politicized. Who will know for sure whether the CPCs are only helping out Sandinistas?

So far, the government is crediting the CPCs with a lot of good work. Yesterday afternoon, they were even credited for ending the blackouts. Sounds weird? Well it is:

According to the energy minister, Ortega made the decision of "zero blackouts" after CPC members solicited the FSLN secretary's office on Monday, asking to end the energy rationing, motivated by the start of "la purísima" (a religious holiday) prayers, “so that one way or another, those of us who begin to celebrate "la purísima" no longer have darkness." (El Nuevo Diario, my translation)

And last week the CPCs helped with Enabas' discounted bean sales throughout the capital.

My friend and I were walking to in his (working-class Grandada) neighborhood  the other day when we passed by a huge group of people talking in front of a house. They were talking about education, politics and what the community needs.

Are these the scary CPCs? I ask myself.

"Wait a minute," my friend says. "I know these people. These are my neighbors."

I ask an older man what's going on, and he warmly invites us to join the discussion. The meeting is to elect the neighborhood's CPC representative.

Let's hope they don't get too politicized. They seem to have promise.

citizens power councils

I went to a nice government event yesterday, offered to write a story about it for La Prensa and this morning it made the front page.

It's sort of a complicated story, but basically the government is selling beans for cheap to poor people, and using very controversial and new Citizens Power Councils (CPCs) to distribute them. The price for this staple to the Nicaraguan diet more than doubled in the past month, and many families can't afford to eat them anymore.

President Daniel Ortega' political opponents criticize the CPCs because they seem like another name for the Sandinista Defense Committees, which in the 1980s were the "eyes and ears" of the government during the Contra Revolution.

Because of that, the National Assembly vetoed Ortega's plan to make the CPCs an official part of the government. Before that veto was even written into law, an appellate court said CPCs are a constitutional right and overturned the veto. Meanwhile, as the future of the CPCs officially will be decided by the Supreme Court, the Ortegas announced the CPCs will officially go into effect by the end of the month.

I spoke with Juan Ramón Bravo Reyes, president of a large association of farming cooperatives, which are now selling beans directly to consumers through this government program. He's worked with committees, associations and cooperatives since the first Sandinista administration in the 1980s.

He told me that if the CPCs continue with programs like the discounted bean sales, they can be a strong force to protect citizens' interest.

"With the CPCs can begin the solution to their problems, and the inquietudes of the population," he said.
"They can be very useful if they aren't politicized."

* * * * *

Okay, so it's slightly surprising to see your name on the front page of a newspaper in another country. I'm trying to get over shocks. But then yesterday I casually ask my editor whatever happened with a first-person story — a column or essay really — he'd asked me to write about my trip Matagalpa's coffee haciendas.

He tells me it's in the magazine, a beautifully designed, glossy weekly that comes out separately from the newspaper. I buy it. And what do you know — a whole page devoted to the "Opinión" of one U.S. journalist.

* * * * *

Finally, a couple of pictures.

Last week, my friend came into town (err ... country) to visit. We took a bus to Volcán Masaya, walked 6 kilometers up a steep road to the summit. The volcano is active.

Here's Dan at the top.

* * * * *

Finally, I've got a ton of school work to catch up on. Well, by that I mean I have a lot to read. I'm taking a post-graduate history course at UNAN, and the reading/lectures are the kind of stuff you'd (or at least I'd) have trouble understanding in English just because it goes over your (my) head. It's a delightful challenge that it's entirely in Spanish.

back on track

You only feel like you're doing real work here if you go to Managua. Going into the city involves an hour-long bus trip, taxi drivers who love ripping you off and a ton of confusion and lies once you get to your destination.

Today I will do real work. I expect to finish a story I've spent far too long playing around with by tomorrow. It's weird how easy it is not to do work if you don't have a deadline. I think I am going to start paying somebody to yell at me a couple of times a day so I move faster. Anyway, the story compares campaign promises made last year about "zero blackouts" with what is happening today. I'm a little miffed that La Prensa had something very similar to what I'd been working on in today's paper.

Anyway, back to reading the news. From Cox News Service is a story about a different Latin American president's campaign promises vs. reality: Mexico's job promises unfulfilled

Mexico's job challenge is frightening: The country needs about 1.3 million new jobs annually just to make room for young people entering the workforce. That does not account for the estimated 27 million underemployed and unemployed Mexicans, millions of whom have fled across the border in search of work. The maquiladora industry, once considered the panacea for Mexico's job woes, has suffered in recent years as factories moved to China and Central America; it now employs fewer Mexicans than it did in 2000.

And a cool NYT story about remittances on the global scale: Migrant Money Flow: A $300 Billion Current.

Globally, the tally is huge: migrants from poor countries send home about $300 billion a year. That is more than three times the global total in foreign aid, making “remittances” the main source of outside money flowing to the developing world.

Surveys show that 80 percent of the money or more is immediately spent, on food, clothing, housing, education or the occasional beer party or television set. Still, there are tens of billions available for savings or investment, in places where capital is scarce. While remittances have been shown to reduce household poverty, policymakers are looking to increase the effect on economic growth.

Some migrants, for instance, send home money to savings accounts at small bank-like microfinance institutions, which use the resulting capital pool to lend to local entrepreneurs.

Okay, off to Managua. Thanks friends for sending links.