Nicaragua's President, Daniel Ortega (L), and OAS General Secretary, Miguel Insulza (R) during Central American Integration System (SICA) summit, Managua, Nicaragua, August 8, 2012. Photo: German Miranda/dpa/aa
In an
extraordinary move on the day before the US Senate’s Christmas recess, two
Democrats sided with right-wing Republicans to introduce the so-called NICA
Act which, if passed, would require the US government to veto loans from
international financial institutions to Nicaragua. While it is still a long way
from becoming law, the bill suddenly looks like a more serious threat to that country’s social progress.
The NICA act got support from right-wingers like Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
Republican
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, long hostile to progressive governments in
Latin America, originally sponsored the bill. It was not surprising when it got
support from other right-wingers like Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. But
now Senators Leahy (D-VT) and Durbin (D-IL), who have both been prominent in
challenging US support for the right-wing government in neighbouring Honduras,
have put their names to the NICA Act too.
Why is it
being promoted? Ever since the former guerrilla leader Daniel Ortega won
election for a new term as president of Nicaragua in 2006, he has faced renewed
hostility from the United States, even though of a much softer form than was
the case during the Contra war of the 1980s. His opponents focus continually on
his supposed grip on power, especially after the courts overturned a
constitutional ban on presidents running for second and subsequent turns of
office.
Their frustration intensified when his wife Rosario Murillo became his
vice-president after the last national elections, even though she has been a
key figure in the government from the start.
Most recently, his critics
focussed their attention on the arrangements for last November’s municipal
elections, in which Sandinista mayors were returned in most towns and cities.
It was because of the supposed bias in the electoral process that the proposed NICA Act was conceived, and which it was intended to
address.
The
timing and purpose of the Senate’s support for the bill are both curious.
First, the municipal elections are over, the results were unsurprising and the
Organisation of American States, who observed the polls, concluded that the
outcome was fair even though they had various recommendations for improving the
electoral process (since accepted by the government).
Second, the real
electoral scandal in Central America is in Honduras, where all the criticisms
which Cruz directs at Nicaragua apply in spades, because the November
election there is widely regarded as a fraud, including by the OAS. This has not, of
course, prevented the US government from recognising the outcome because its
ally, current president Juan Orlando Hernández, is the beneficiary (and to be
fair to Senator Leahy, he has been an active critic of Hernández and the
Honduran election.)
Opposition representatives lobbied in Washington in support of the NICA Act, which given freedom of speech in Nicaragua they are allowed to do, but in many countries would have seen them arrested for treason on their return.
Third, no one who knows Nicaragua believes that the
opposition to the Ortega government would have had any chance in elections
anyway: they consistently receive only tiny levels of support in independent
opinion polls compared to the government’s two-thirds or higher. Nor has the
opposition ever had a credible programme other than its opposition to Ortega:
indeed, its own representatives lobbied in Washington in support of the NICA
Act, which given freedom of speech in Nicaragua they are allowed to do, but in
many countries would have seen them arrested for treason on their return.
Of
course, there are political controversies in Nicaragua, not least because of
its planned interoceanic canal. Open Democracy / DemocraciaAbierta has published pieces by Luciana Téllez Chávez, Robert Soutar and
others, arguing that the government has become more authoritarian in trying to
push the project through, criticisms which I have
argued are more to do with a broader frustration with
the failure of opposition politics than with the environmental and human rights
consequences of the canal itself.
But in
any case this is irrelevant to the consequences if the NICA Act became law. It
would mean that the US would vote against loans from international financial
institutions until Nicaragua has, in the US government’s judgement, taken
effective measures to "combat corruption and promote democracy, free speech, civil society
and rule of law". Quite apart from the effrontery and
hypocrisy of the US adopting such a role given its stance on Honduras and
elsewhere, who knows how long this might take?
How does
the Nicaraguan government use the support it gets from international
institutions? One example is a current World Bank project that improves access to health services
and strengthens land rights. Both the World Bank and IMF, where US officials
would vote against future loans, have announced new support packages for 2018
while praising Nicaragua’s effective use of past loans.
Nicaragua was one of the first countries in Latin America to achieve the UN millennium development goals for poverty reduction.
Apart from specific
projects, the Ortega government has used the budgetary support it receives to
reduce poverty, dramatically improve the school system and develop its health
services. Its achievements over the last decade are simply undeniable: for
example, Nicaragua was one of the first countries in Latin America to achieve
the UN millennium development goals for poverty reduction.
Texas
Democratic Vicente González was
the only member who opposed Ros-Lehtinen's bill during floor
debate. He pointed to the fact that few Nicaraguans migrate to the United
States because of its government’s success in tackling poverty, drug smuggling
and wider crime, in contrast to the countries between it and the Mexican border.
Nicaragua is now one of the safest countries in the hemisphere.
"Enacting this bill could have serious consequences in the region,"
González said. "How can we in good consciousness support a measure that
would punish the poorest country in Central America?"