NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5448

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
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Subject: NICANET HOTLINE -- 07/27/92
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/** reg.nicaragua: 100.0 **/
** Topic: NICANET HOTLINE -- 07/27/92 **
** Written  9:10 am  Jul 28, 1992 by nicanet in cdp:reg.nicaragua **
            NICARAGUA NETWORK HOTLINE ** 202-544-9360

                         July 27, 1992

You have reached the Nicaragua Network Hotline recorded Monday,
July 27, 1992.   To reach our office, call: 202-544-9355.

Topics covered in this hotline include: Organizing continues to
pressure State Department to release Nicaraguan aid; Bus driver
and ex-army officer protests turn violent; Comptroller General
cites Lacayo in corruption probe; and, July 19 celebration
exceeds expectations.

The State Department continues to hold up release of $116 million
in appropriated aid to Nicaragua.  Disbursement of the aid was
originally blocked by Wisconsin Congressman David Obey.  Obey has
long since released his hold, but the State Department continues
to use the aid delay to pressure the Chamorro government to cave
in to demands of the US and Nicaraguan right-wing to reverse
Sandinista land reform, purge Sandinistas from the army and
police, and privatize the banking system.  Deputy Majority Whip
Martin Sabo (D-5th, MN) has written a letter to Secretary of
State James Baker calling for the immediate release of the aid.
Sabo, who is on the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees,
is asking other members of Congress to sign on to his letter.  We
encourage you to call your Congressional representative
immediately and ask her or him to sign on to Sabo's letter.

The continuing hold on aid contributes to an attitude growing in
many segments of Nicaraguan society that the suffering caused by
two years of US and international lender imposed structural
adjustment policies is not resulting in the expected economic
recovery.  The social consensus which resulted from national
dialogue talks in mid-1990 is coming unraveled as people go
hungry and jobless and see no end in sight to their suffering.
Last week students protesting inadequate university budgets
continued to march, erect barricades and burn tires.  Bus drivers
in Managua who work for the Ministry of Transportation struck
over the creation of competing private bus routes.  And 2,000
newly laid off army officers demonstrated to dramatize their
demand for treatment equal to their previously laid off comrades.
With employment and underemployment continuing at 60%, the former
officers understand that there is virtually no chance that they
will be able to find a job.  The army lay-offs bring Nicaragua's
armed forces down to 18,500, far less than most of the armies in
the region and only slightly larger than Costa Rica which
allegedly has no army.  Nicaraguan soldiers are paid only about
$50 per month and even a captain's salary is only $250 a month.
The demonstration turned violent when the former soldiers came to
the support of bus drivers who police were trying to prevent from
marching to the headquarters of the Sandinista Workers Central
(CST).  Over the afternoon of July 20 and the next 24 hours,
several civilians and at least 40 police were wounded, 7 of them
seriously, and 7 children were hospitalized due to tear gas.  The

confrontations were serious and unfortunate.  They do show, by
the fact that the police did not kill anyone and suffered high
casualties themselves, that they have not yet been turned into a
repressive force in spite of US pressure.  The former officer's
demands remain unresolved, but the seriousness of the clashes did
cause the Transportation Ministry to undertake serious
negotiations with the bus drivers which led to a settlement of
the bus strike.

Also last week Comptroller General Guillermo Potoy, a protege of
National Assembly President Alfredo Cesar, issued his report on
government corruption. He accused Minister of the Presidency
Antonio Lacayo of hindering his investigation.  Potoy found a
"presumption of penal responsibility" against former government
official Antonio Ibarra and 21 other government employees
including 5 UNO members of the National Assembly.  Potoy, who is
president of Cesar's Social Democratic Party (PSD), also accused
Lacayo of "presumed administrative responsibility" and even being
a "co-author" of Ibarra's alleged misuse of funds and called for
Chamorro to fire him.  The issue involved concerns the alleged
bribery of National Assembly members of the so-called Center
Group of UNO parliamentarians who voted with the FSLN to uphold
Chamorro's veto of Cesar's property bill which would have
expropriated properties given to thousands of Nicaraguans under
Sandinista land reform.  There is little doubt that a good deal
of money changed hands as Chamorro and Cesar contested over
Cesar's property bill.  The allegations of corruption by UNO
government officials dwarf allegations against Sandinistas in the
so-called pinata.  The present controversy should be seen
primarily in terms of the on-going efforts by Cesar to wrest
effective governing control from Chamorro and Lacayo.  The
bribery charges began soon after the revelation that the CIA
spent $600,000 in an illegal covert operation to influence the
1990 election.  Those funds were channeled through Cesar and
Potoy and if proven, could cost Cesar his seat in the National
Assembly.  Ibarra, who got his position through Cesar, was one of
the most sticky fingered officials in government.  Ibarra, in a
statement notarized by the Nicaraguan Counsel in Miami where he
fled when allegations of corruption first became public, stated
that Potoy and other PSD leaders had offered to clear him if he
would implicate Lacayo in the scandal.  And, one of the accused
UNO delegates in the Assembly, Andres Robles while denying that
he accepted a bribe accused Cesar as being the one who tried to
bribe him.  Chamorro was unmoved by the call to fire Lacayo,
telling reporters if Lacayo goes, "Violeta goes too. I say
publicly now that I am not substituting him."

While the UNO coalition was swallowing its own tail, 45-50,000
Nicaraguans filled the Plaza of the Revolution on July 19 to
celebrate the 13th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution.  The
crowd even outstripped the expectations of the organizers. One
Sandinista leader told a reporter, "This time you can't say we
brought them here in state vehicles." Daniel Ortega asked the
crowd if they want a police force "professionalized" by the

United States so that it acted like the Los Angeles Police
Department.  The answer was a resounding no! At the time of the
July 19 celebration, the third meeting of the Latin American
leftist political parties and movements involved in the "Sao
Paulo Forum" was underway in Managua.  The meeting included
representatives of 60 political parties and movements and 23
observer delegations from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America
working to develop positive alternative to the failed neo-liberal
economic policies promoted by the US and international lenders.
While the UNO forces supported by the US continue to mire
themselves in corruption and fratricide, the FSLN continues to
search for solutions to the suffering of the poor majority of
Nicaraguans.

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: [phone].

** End of text from cdp:reg.nicaragua **