[Vision2020] Letter 8 from Dave Barber in Nicaragua: newspapers and politics

[Louise Barber]

Letter 8 / February 27, 2007

Dedicated especially to Steve [Barber, who teaches government in
California], and to Kenton Bird who wants me to bring Nica newspapers back
to Idaho.

 

The dinner to welcome me, arranged by the alcalde [mayor] , included a
journalist, Jose Palacios, who took all the photos previously sent of this
event. He knows a little English but not much.  Next Monday I took my
illustrated dictionary for him to see, at his office in the alcaldia [city
hall].  He didn´t seem to have a newspaper to work for, and since he locates
at the mayor´s office, I assumed that he was really a publicity man for the
mayor.

            But it turns out he does have a newspaper.  He reports on this
area, VECarmen and adjoining municipios, for a 2-year old paper called HOY,
which is trying to compete with the established papers NUEVO DIARIO and LA
PRENSA.  I´ve seen only one edition of HOY, which is evidently not sold
here, only in Managua.  It was the issue, last Wednesday, in which my photo
with Alba, at the cena [dinner], appears, with a very short article, which
says that I am here to build hermanamiento [brotherhood] between VEC and
Moscow, ID, and that the sister city organization in Moscow wants to help
with the schools.  Then it says that this relationship began in 1986, which
is right, and then that it was broken in 1990--absolutely wrong--and is
being reestablished now.

            So we know that it´s not only Moscow and Lewiston papers that
can get things wrong.  He never formally interviewed me, and I don´t know
where he got the broken-connection idea--perhaps from my bad Spanish,
perhaps from his poor English.  (But I´d have no reason to bring up
1990--that was the year Violeta Chomorro defeated Daniel Ortega.)

            HOY is different from the other two papers.  It costs 3 cordobas
(17 cents) to their 5.  It is slightly smaller and much splashier.  It looks
like what you find at the checkout counter.  No articles in depth, lots of
red borders and color photos.  Clearly HOY is pointing to a different
audience:  it´s the paper for nonreaders.

            LA PRENSA and NUEVO DIARIO are pretty impressive.  They
sensationalize too -- like the TV stations they are very attentive to
explosions at fireworks factories, car accidents, and murders.  A recent
front-page headline dealt with a grisly murder of a lawyer-poet, killed with
three different knives -- their sizes carefully described.  Highlighted also
was the visibility of the corpse´s internal organs.  Still, these papers do
in-depth work, articles, editorials, special features.  I haven´t figured
out just where they stand politically, but both have been very critical, on
some days, of the Ortega government, which seems to be sinning in two
particular ways.  First, some think it has been skirting and evading laws
and regulations in its effort to get its program going.  Some are outraged
at the government´s perceived contempt for law; others figure that, well,
the Sandinistas have been out of power for 16 years and they´re out of
practice, and besides, they are in a hurry and they´ll settle down.  The
other problem involves the government´s dismissal of hundreds of government
workers.  To critics this is abrasive behavior that violates Ortega´s
campaign slogan of WORK, PEACE, AND RECONCILIATION.  Ana and Mario, however,
think this is just how new governments operate, and the people being
dismissed were political appointments to begin with and shouldn´t expect to
be kept on by a new administration.  M&A think Ortega is trimming a bloated
bureaucracy.  But the papers are full of conspiracy stories about power
struggles within the administration to force out certain officials etc.

            The papers also love to seek cracks in the Sandinista government
and especially between the Top Two Sandinistas, Ortega and his wife, Rosario
Murillo.  He has given her a major government post, prompting outcries of
illegality.  And when one of her favorites was sacked, the papers construed
a split between husband and wife. 

            Recently in the NUEVO DIARIO a writer approvingly -- and
evidently surprised at himself -- put Ortega in the group of 'soft'
radicals, heads of Latin American governments who are willing to work with
the capitalistic system and who are genuinely trying to strengthen
democracy.  The same writer detests the 'hard' radicals like Hugo Chavez and
Evo Morales, and of course their godfather Castro.  Not long ago La PRENSA
had two interesting articles.  One reports on a Gallup poll checking on
Ortega´s first month in office; it found his approval rate was at 61% -- not
bad for a man who got only 38% of the vote.  People also approve of
Rosario´s influence, and 54% think Ortega will leave the country in better
shape than he found it (the second time around).  Only 12% consider him a
hopeless communist.  The other article is about the government´s affirmation
that the Holocaust really happened and it´s important always to remember it.
This may seem curious, but “What´s his Name” the Iranian president visited
here the week of Ortega´s inauguration in January and there were rumors that
he was pressuring the government to deny the Holocaust.  And also for some
reason Nica´s UN ambassador had missed a vote concerning the Holocaust.  So
the government was clarifying where it stood.

            Mario offers another perspective on Nica politics.  When Ortega
instituted a military draft in the mid-80s, to fight Reagan´s Contras, Mario
was drafted -- in 1987 when he was 18.  He was never in battle (the fighting
was not in this area but in the north) but was an army cook in Managua, but
he recalls how tough those times were.  Inflation was over 1000%, I think
way over that.  Food was strictly rationed. This was all the result of the
war and American embargoes and such.  Mario is no fan of Reagan, but he does
think the war had one good effect, which was that without it, he believes,
Nicaragua would have taken the route of Cuba to a totally managed state.

            Nobody is afraid of that now -- except that 12%.  And the
newspapers seem a positive force for stability; so does the political
opposition, which sounds like a loyal and not destructive opposition, so far
as I can figure.  Nica is supposed to have one of the freest presses in
Latin America, and it looks free enough to me.  True, the people here, at
least in this rural area, hardly seem to know that newspapers exist.  I may
be hearing wrongly, but it sounds like, at THE store in town that sells
newspapers, I am renowned as THE newspaper customer.  But obviously someone
else is reading.  It is probably no accident that this particular store is
within a block of the mayor´s office, where HOY´s periodista also has his
office.

            But now that I´ve been buying papers, Mario and Ana have been
reading them.  And Mario, a few days ago, saw an employment ad in the paper
and showed it to nephew Roberto, just out of college and looking for a job.
Roberto got an interview out of it; no news on the result, but it goes to
show that newspapers have varied uses.

            Recent news.  Some American company has found OIL in an area
south of here, on land, raising the possibility of oil within the territory
of Villa El Carmen.  Drug traffickers, repulsed in their efforts to carve a
route for drugs up the Nica Atlantic coast -- because the locals there
proved tougher than the drug lords -- are now trying to create a route along
the Pacific coast, that is, through here.  With all that demand up in the
old U. S. of A., it´s easy to see why they care.  The concern is the
corruption of judges and the police, etc.  Evidently Nica is a lot less
corrupt than other nations along the route.

            Enough.  But since power outages forced three writings of parts
of this letter, do read it.

Dave

 

 


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