Ortega
Government Shows Some Response To Civil Society Demands
By Witness for Peace
01 April, 2007
Americas Program
On
January 10, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega delivered his second
inaugural address to an expectant national and international audience.
The first one was in 1984,
after being elected president of Nicaragua's revolutionary government.
Then, he took office amid the lingering euphoria of the Sandinista triumph
and the tumult of the U.S.-funded contra war.
Much has changed in the intervening
years. Headlines in Managua have been filled with speculation as to
what course the Ortega administration will steer, and how the United
States—historic nemesis of Ortega's party the Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN)—will respond.
Will Ortega's government continue recent administrations' acquiescence
to the U.S.-pushed neoliberal model, in order to maintain good standing
with the United States and international donors? Or will it join a growing
list of Latin American countries that are rebelling against the model?
Or will it attempt to do both?
Will the U.S. government
respect the course the Ortega administration sets? Or will it seek to
punish any challenges to its free market framework?
The reality is that the Ortega
administration must consider how the U.S. or International Monetary
Fund might respond to policy shifts. But at the same time, Nicaraguan
civil society is also exerting pressure on Ortega. After 16 years of
watching successive national governments restructure the economy along
the classic lines of the neoliberal economic model, many Nicaraguan
groups are demanding that the model be reformed, while others call for
it to be wholly replaced.
For years, civil society
groups' concrete proposals for change have fallen on deaf ears as the
government insisted on adhering to the U.S. or IMF policies that provoked
popular protest. While the details of policy shifts are difficult to
predict at this early point, the Ortega administration's initial action
and discourse offer some indication that several civil society demands
for change may now be heeded.
Agro-exports vs.
Family Farming
One of the longest-standing
demands has been for the government to invest in Nicaragua's small and
medium-scale farmers. Nicaraguan economist Carlos Pacheco of the Irish
organization TROCAIRE explains how the IMF and World Bank have pushed
Nicaragua, like much of the developing world, to follow an agroexport-led
model of development. This model eliminates subsidies, credit, and other
state support for small and medium producers who do not produce for
export, while fostering greater reliance on imports for Nicaraguans'
own food consumption. The Center for Rural and Social Promotion, Research,
and Development (CIPRES), estimates that 96% of Nicaragua's 233,000
producers are small and medium-scale farmers who are excluded by this
model. 1
Nicaragua's food imports
have risen to US$300 million a year. 2 Throughout the last decade, independent
economists, farming associations, and health organizations have called
on the government to take measures to achieve "food sovereignty,"
warning that such dependency on imports makes Nicaragua more vulnerable
to periods of hunger and malnutrition.
Some of Ortega's preliminary
moves suggest that the government may finally be listening. In his first
days in office, Ortega announced the creation of the Zero Hunger program.
Zero Hunger intends to apply nationwide a holistic farming model that
CIPRES developed in the mid-90's to revitalize small-scale agriculture.
Through its revolving loan program, the model provides small-scale farming
families with livestock, seed, innovative technology, low-interest credit,
and technical assistance for running a farm in which waste is efficiently
reused to minimize costs and maximize production.
Experience has shown that
the CIPRES model has resulted in increased and diversified food production,
which farm families use to meet their own nutritional needs, and to
sell the surplus on the local market. Of the approximately 750 families
that have implemented the holistic farm program in the last six years,
80% percent have achieved financial solvency and paid back their loan.
The average diet of participating families has grown by 25-30% in quantity
and 50% in variety, while the quantity and price of the products they
sell at local markets has also risen significantly. 3
The Zero Hunger program aims
to replicate the CIPRES model by funding the establishment of 15,000
holistic farms a year throughout Nicaragua for the next five years.
4 Gustavo Moreno of Zero Hunger's national technical team hopes that
by directing production-stimulating subsidies to the abandoned small
farming sector, the program may "eradicate hunger and mitigate
poverty" in the countryside. Moreno also predicts that as thousands
of families in the program see food yields and quality increase, Nicaragua
will eliminate the need to import basic foods within five years.
While many organizations
have applauded the government's commitment to the Zero Hunger program,
some have questioned the viability of replicating CIPRES's relatively
small-scale initiative on a national level. Moreno admits this difficulty,
but points out that the vast operation will be administered by several
hundred civil society organizations rather than the state, since the
state does not have the resources to administer the program. Moreno
sees the plans for Zero Hunger implementation as a "sign that the
government wants to work in harmony with civil society."
"School Autonomy"
vs. Free Education
One week after the kickoff
of Zero Hunger, Nicaragua's new Minister of Education Miguel de Castilla
struck another blow against the neoliberal framework by declaring the
end of "school autonomy." School autonomy, a public education
structure consistently foisted on developing nations through IMF structural
adjustment programs, calls for most decision-making responsibility to
be transferred from the government to each school's staff, teachers,
students, and parents.
School autonomy also requires
that the responsibility for covering costs, such as school maintenance
and repairs, be transferred from the government to parents through the
imposition of monthly fees. Teachers' associations, economists, and
human rights organizations alike have named school autonomy as part
of the reason that approximately 1,075,000 school-aged children—over
half of Nicaragua's school-aged population—did not attend primary
or secondary schools last year.5
De Castilla has vowed to
make public education free again by employing independent school monitors
to ensure that students are charged no fees. While many groups support
De Castilla's goal, they also ask how the Ministry of Education will
get the extra money required to cover the expenses that parents previously
financed through monthly fees. According to Nicaraguan newspaper La
Prensa, the amount that autonomous schools accrued in parental contributions
in one month during 2004 exceeded the Education Ministry's school maintenance
budget for all of 2006. 6
In past years, the IMF imposition
of a cap on Nicaragua's public spending, in addition to the government's
refusal to redistribute funds, has precluded civil society's pleas to
divert more resources to the education budget. According to Mario Quintana,
national liaison for the Coordinadora Civil (Civil Coalition) that brings
together over 600 civil society organizations, "Funding education
that is accessible to the population will not happen right away. Having
enough money in the budget to fund education would mean a full revamping
of national priorities, and would involve renegotiation with the IMF."
As the new administration
now begins talks with the IMF, groups like the Coordinadora Civil anxiously
wait to see if the government will successfully negotiate more education
funds or once again be restrained by an IMF-imposed ceiling for social
spending.
Privatized Water
vs. Water as a Human Right
De Castilla is not the only
recent governmental appointment to reflect civil society critiques of
neoliberalism. In January, Ortega conveyed a clear message by choosing
Ruth Herrera to head Nicaragua's public water utility, ENACAL. As the
co-founder and director of the Nicaraguan Consumers' Defense Network,
Herrera has served as a de facto spokesperson for the widespread movement
against the privatization of Nicaragua's public services.
At the urging of the IMF,
which has traditionally conditioned its aid on privatization of services,
Nicaragua sold public electricity distribution in 2000. In 2001 it partially
privatized its telecommunications industry by selling 40% to Megatel,
and then sold off the remaining shares to America Movil in 2004.
While electricity privatization
was sold on the premise of cheaper rates, better service, and wider
coverage, since 2000 the country has seen rate hikes, power outages
lasting up to 4-12 hours daily, and dismal coverage in rural areas.
Last August, as neighborhood organizations organized refuse-to-pay campaigns
against the Spanish private electric company Union Fenosa, the Comptroller
General declared that the company's contract should be nullified for
non-compliance.
Herrera has been vocal not
only in condemning the outcome of privatized electricity distribution,
but also in denouncing quiet attempts to privatize water distribution.
Along with her Consumers' Defense Network colleagues, she filed a Supreme
Court appeal to halt the implementation of an Inter-American Development
Bank loan to partially sell the water distribution service. Herrera
helped draft a General Water Law that, if passed, would ensure indefinite
public ownership of ENACAL, and lambasted the outgoing ENACAL management
for intentionally mismanaging the company as a pretext to privatize.
Many analysts, including
the Consumers' Defense Network itself, consider Herrera's appointment
to ENACAL as a sign that the Ortega administration intends to respect
overwhelming civil society sentiment to keep Nicaragua's water in public
hands.
Investment Incentives
vs. Workers' Rights
The appointment of Jeaneth
Chavez as Minister of Labor is another move seen as a response to civil
society pressures. Chavez, in addition to co-founding the Consumers'
Defense Network with Herrera, has also worked to defend labor rights
for much of her life as a labor lawyer. Miguel Ruiz, International Relations
Secretary of the CST-JBE, a confederation of maquila (offshore assembly
plants) unions, notes that Chavez "has been a legal adviser not
for big business, but for workers."
Ruiz sees the appointment
of Chavez as a response to years of pleas from unions and human rights
groups to curb rampant labor rights violations in Nicaragua's notorious
maquila sector. Angel Avalos, the recently-fired secretary general of
a union in a Granada-based maquila, lists the most frequent abuses in
the maquilas as repression against workers who join or form unions,
unhygienic and unsafe working conditions, physical and verbal aggression,
denial of maternity leave, and failure to provide legally-mandated health
insurance. Despite the persistence of these violations, CAFTA now prioritizes
maquila sector expansion as the neoliberal path to job growth and overall
development for Nicaragua.
Irela Aleman, a labor lawyer
with the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, expects that as more maquilas
enter Nicaragua under CAFTA provisions, Chavez will take a firm stance
in bringing factories into compliance with Nicaraguan labor law. Chavez
has indicated publicly that she will do so by more rigorously inspecting
the plants and more assertively citing violations to be corrected. However,
when past Ministry of Labor officials have attempted to enforce Nicaraguan
law and persuade factories to rehire illegally busted unions or pay
debts to workers, factories have publicly threatened to leave for countries
with laxer labor codes.
Fearing significant job loss,
the Ministry of Labor has often succumbed to factory threats and allowed
violations to continue unchecked. Ruiz and Aleman hope that Chavez will
be able to insist on compliance with labor law but still avoid factory
flight. Currently, Aleman does not foresee factory flight, arguing,
"So long as workers' wages remain low, the maquilas will stay."
Yet, wages themselves may
become a point of contention in the near future. In late January, Gustavo
Porras, head of the National Workers' Front (FNT), proposed that the
minimum wage be doubled, given that the current cost of living is more
than twice the average minimum wage of 1400 córdobas, or $77,
per month.
Chavez agreed that "the
minimum wage is really behind in relation to the cost of living,"
and later announced that the minimum wage would be negotiated in coming
weeks. 7 If a significant wage increase is adopted, and enforced by
Chavez, the longevity of Nicaragua's maquila sector could hang in the
balance. The minimum wage issue may reveal whether the new Ministry
of Labor will jeopardize maquila investments for the sake of fair remuneration,
or if it will continue offering foreign investors a supply of cheap
labor.
While nothing is certain
about the direction of this new government, it merits attention that
within the first week of taking office, the Ortega administration announced
the end of the IMF-pushed school autonomy policy, the launch of a program
to revitalize small-scale farming, and the appointments of an anti-privatization
activist to head the public water utility and a labor rights activist
to lead the Labor Ministry. At the same time, these policy shifts are
not the brainchild of any one politician or political party. They are
the result of a growing civil-society consensus, backed by mounting
public pressure, that the U.S.-promoted neoliberal model has only further
impoverished Nicaragua.
The U.S. government and the
IMF have so far chosen to refrain from commenting on the initial moves
of the Ortega administration, waiting for more concrete evidence of
the path the new government plans to take. As that evidence becomes
known, Witness for Peace will continue to monitor the responses of the
U.S. government and IMF in hopes that they maintain the restraint exercised
over the last two months.
Will the development initiatives
of Nicaragua's civil society finally be respected? Or will outside interference
once again attempt to quash Nicaragua's proposals for its own development?
We hope and advocate for the former.
Endnotes
CIPRES. "Los Pequeños
y Medianos Productores Agropecuarios en Nicaragua." June 2006.
Moreno, Gustavo. Programa Hambre Cero. Personal Interview. 7 February
2007.
Villanueva, Rider. CIPRES.
Personal Interview. 12 February 2007.
Moreno, Gustavo. Programa
Hambre Cero. Personal Interview. 7 February 2007.
Pérez, Arlen. "Un
Millón Fuera de Aulas." La Prensa. 31 January 2006. 9 February
2007.
www-ni.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2006/
enero/31/nacionales/nacionales-20060131-15.html.
Pérez, Arlen. "Anuncian
Fin de Autonomía Escolar." La Prensa. 8 January 2007. 9
February 2007.
www-ni.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2007/enero/08/
noticias/nacionales/166093.shtml. This statistic assumes
that each autonomous school student was charged a monthly average of
10 cordobas, or $0.55.
Cerda, Arlen. "Propuesta
de FNT Traería Desempleo." La Prensa. 29 January 2007. www-ni.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2007/enero
/29/noticias/nacionales/170119.shtml.
Witness for Peace is a politically
independent, grassroots organization that educates U.S. citizens on
the impacts of U.S. policies and corporate practices in Latin America
and the Caribbean (www.witnessforpeace.org),
and publishes analysis through the IRC Americas Program at www.americaspolicy.org.
Click
here to comment
on this article