Hey, I am currently in Berlin on a minor holiday away from Central America, and then this stuff happens! I phoned the Honduran embassy here, but they were not quite sure which side they were on yet, and the Nicaraguan embassy asked me if I could try to help them get their statements out to the big media.
I do not particularly care about the legal situation much more than many other aspects of this, but the reporting on this has been equal also in many other European countries, and so I thought I would translate and repost this Norwegian response to the allegations that are made:
I do not particularly care about the legal situation much more than many other aspects of this, but the reporting on this has been equal also in many other European countries, and so I thought I would translate and repost this Norwegian response to the allegations that are made:
01/06: European elections
I was first asked to send them a video of myself speaking, however it seems that they did not manage to put it all together that way.
Anyways, a very un-traditional, but interesting way of trying to convey a political message. If you know German, watch it. If you can vote in Germay, vote for us!
Anyways, a very un-traditional, but interesting way of trying to convey a political message. If you know German, watch it. If you can vote in Germay, vote for us!
04/03: Two small video items
While working hard on my thesis and another project for the Nicaraguan ministry of agriculture, I've also found a little time to go visit some of the productive countryside here in Nicaragua.
As part of that, I've made these two tiny videos together with Jason Glaser from the La Isla Foundation.
Sugarcane burning in Chichigalpa
The smoke from the annual sugar cane burning contains gases that are everything but healthy for those living around.
We interview the local headmaster of a school. And interestingly, he tells us that the burning of the cane is not the worst thing of living around the sugar cane fields.
English
Spanish
See also the discussion here.
9 year old girl working in Estelí
We picked up a group of workers at a tobacco farm in Estelí, Nicaragua and gave them a ride. One of the three was a nine year old girl. And the owners of the farm are, to our knowledge, Cuban-Americans residing in Miami, Florida.
The three explained to us that the father of the family was making 7.50 USD/week, and therefore had no choice but to send his daughters to work. The nine year old is working eight hours a day, six days a week, earning 50 US cents an hour. She does not have time to go to school.
English
See also the discussion here.
Both of these have been taken with a regular handy cam, so the sound quality is marginal. But both have been subtitled. You may have to enable that manually in the lower right hand corner of the video.
As part of that, I've made these two tiny videos together with Jason Glaser from the La Isla Foundation.
Sugarcane burning in Chichigalpa
The smoke from the annual sugar cane burning contains gases that are everything but healthy for those living around.
We interview the local headmaster of a school. And interestingly, he tells us that the burning of the cane is not the worst thing of living around the sugar cane fields.
English
Spanish
See also the discussion here.
9 year old girl working in Estelí
We picked up a group of workers at a tobacco farm in Estelí, Nicaragua and gave them a ride. One of the three was a nine year old girl. And the owners of the farm are, to our knowledge, Cuban-Americans residing in Miami, Florida.
The three explained to us that the father of the family was making 7.50 USD/week, and therefore had no choice but to send his daughters to work. The nine year old is working eight hours a day, six days a week, earning 50 US cents an hour. She does not have time to go to school.
English
See also the discussion here.
Both of these have been taken with a regular handy cam, so the sound quality is marginal. But both have been subtitled. You may have to enable that manually in the lower right hand corner of the video.
04/12: A Sandinista pig
I wrote this story some two-three months ago, originally in German, then translated to Danish and then to English. I was trying to find a place to get it published in paper form. But the information is likely a bit to obscure for anything mainstream, and no normal person reads the academic journals (and in addition I would need to throw a whole bunch of aca-gibberish on there before anyone would take it). I was busy with all kinds of other things and just about forgot about it. But I noticed this list of the Top 100 anthropology blogs (worldwide?) with this blog being listed (sorry, but I don't think that list is to be taken serious, really) and that this blog still receives a few hundred hits daily (despite almost no new content for a year). And so I just thought this might be as good a place as anywhere to put it. So please, enjoy. And if you need the German or Danish version for anything, please contact me!
A Sandinista pig
Blanca Nella is a poor woman. She lives on the island Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua in the Central-American country of the same name.
In this country, the socialist Nationalist Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power through a revolution in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, the country had to fight counterrevolutionary insurgencies financed by the Unites States with the help of Cuba and Eastern Europe. At the national elections in 1990, the Sandinistas lost, and for sixteen years the country was ruled by three neo-liberal governments, until the FSLN won the presidential elections in the fall of 2006. Daniel Ortega, who was elected president once already during 1984–90, now rules the country.
This is the story of a person who witnesses these times.
Nella would like to receive a pig from the government, but unfortunately she doesn't have enough land to grow the food for it. Now that Ortega is president, there is such a program, called ‘zero hunger’.
The program is directed towards women and consists of a cow, a pig, a rooster, five hens, the building of the housing for cow and pig, seeds and food for the first few months as well as training in how to treat the animals. Altogether this is supposed to have a value of 1,500USD and the producer agrees on giving back 300USD of the income to other projects in the area, such as micro-credits.
Blanca Nella and her son are full of hope for Daniel Ortega's programs
A Sandinista pig
Blanca Nella is a poor woman. She lives on the island Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua in the Central-American country of the same name.
In this country, the socialist Nationalist Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power through a revolution in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, the country had to fight counterrevolutionary insurgencies financed by the Unites States with the help of Cuba and Eastern Europe. At the national elections in 1990, the Sandinistas lost, and for sixteen years the country was ruled by three neo-liberal governments, until the FSLN won the presidential elections in the fall of 2006. Daniel Ortega, who was elected president once already during 1984–90, now rules the country.
This is the story of a person who witnesses these times.
Nella would like to receive a pig from the government, but unfortunately she doesn't have enough land to grow the food for it. Now that Ortega is president, there is such a program, called ‘zero hunger’.
The program is directed towards women and consists of a cow, a pig, a rooster, five hens, the building of the housing for cow and pig, seeds and food for the first few months as well as training in how to treat the animals. Altogether this is supposed to have a value of 1,500USD and the producer agrees on giving back 300USD of the income to other projects in the area, such as micro-credits.
Blanca Nella and her son are full of hope for Daniel Ortega's programs
This is a campaign I started a little over a month ago. And yes, I happened to take the initiative, but the fact that the name wasn't very well chosen was something many people had been thinking about before. Basically, it's this Danish company that's taking over a piece of property that had belonged to the army previously and builds a Danish school on it for 70 million Euros, and everybody gets all excited about how great they are. The problem is just that the company doing it is the shipping giant MAERSK and it's named after their founder Arnold Peter Møller, who died in the 1960s. Now this guy and this company happen to have a history on earning their money on wars (selling arms to the Nazis and earning high profits on services to the Pentagon in connection with the Iraq war) and using union busting tactics against their workers.
The A.P.Møller-school of today might be the Gilberto-Soto-school of tomorrow.
Just in terms of numbers If they were to pay the same tax percentages for their oil exploration in Denmark to the Danish government as private companies have to pay to the Norwegian government, that would amount to 6 Billion Euros more in tax income from today until 2045. But the queen, and the Danish minister of education thank them so much for giving 70 million!
When I first wrote this, I wasn't aware of several points that appear in the final version. That is because the first ten people signing it had a say in the contents of it, and several of them added things I didn't have a clue of.
Arnold Peter Møller -- weapon producer for the Nazis -- is now being honored with a school named after him.
The reaction in the borderland has been like it would be anywhere in Soviet Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall: the newspaper Flensborg Avis refused to print it with the argument that the fond paying for the school had been "giving a lot of money to Southern Schleswig in the last couple of years". Other people employed by the Danish institutions either were told that they could not sign such a thing or they were afraid of signing it due to past reaction from the system. The text was allegedly also spread in the intranet of the teachers down there. One guy went as far as calling me six times on my Nicaraguan cell phone and some 20-30 people sent me hate mails of various kinds. A reporter from Flensborg Avis went on and on in Facebook forums, trying to find some or other problem with the text. Unfortunately for him, he just revealed thereby that his investigative skills weren't all that developed.
Still, despite some (unfortunately very uninformed) criticism I and we received so far, I am sure that in a few decades the call will come to fruition in some form or another. Here you can read it in four languages:
The A.P.Møller-school of today might be the Gilberto-Soto-school of tomorrow.
Just in terms of numbers If they were to pay the same tax percentages for their oil exploration in Denmark to the Danish government as private companies have to pay to the Norwegian government, that would amount to 6 Billion Euros more in tax income from today until 2045. But the queen, and the Danish minister of education thank them so much for giving 70 million!
When I first wrote this, I wasn't aware of several points that appear in the final version. That is because the first ten people signing it had a say in the contents of it, and several of them added things I didn't have a clue of.
Arnold Peter Møller -- weapon producer for the Nazis -- is now being honored with a school named after him.
The reaction in the borderland has been like it would be anywhere in Soviet Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall: the newspaper Flensborg Avis refused to print it with the argument that the fond paying for the school had been "giving a lot of money to Southern Schleswig in the last couple of years". Other people employed by the Danish institutions either were told that they could not sign such a thing or they were afraid of signing it due to past reaction from the system. The text was allegedly also spread in the intranet of the teachers down there. One guy went as far as calling me six times on my Nicaraguan cell phone and some 20-30 people sent me hate mails of various kinds. A reporter from Flensborg Avis went on and on in Facebook forums, trying to find some or other problem with the text. Unfortunately for him, he just revealed thereby that his investigative skills weren't all that developed.
Still, despite some (unfortunately very uninformed) criticism I and we received so far, I am sure that in a few decades the call will come to fruition in some form or another. Here you can read it in four languages:
Update: In the final count, the FSLN ended up with winning a grand total of 105 city governments. The liberals continue to claim it was fraudulent, but in the Supreme Election Commision (CSE) there were three Sandinistas and three representatives of the liberals. The liberals also ended up voting for accepting the results in Managua and León. One of them came out against Montealegre publicly, saying the former candidate for mayor had ulterior motives. The liberal party has expelled its three members of the CSE, claiming they had sold themsevles to the FSLN. Ortega mentioned in the victory speech, that the Carter Center and the OAS had told him after the elections in 1996, that they couldn't permit new elections in Nicaragua, although the elections were fraudulent. If that is true, it means that the Sandinistas were kept out of power for an additional ten years after winning the elections. That likely explains why Ortega decided not to let them monitor this time around.
Nicaragua once again is on the verge of chaos. Municipal elections were held on the 9th of October, and these were largely won by the Sandinistas (FSLN). In 91-94 out of 146 cases, the FSLN managed to win the majority. That is slightly more than last time, with a difference of around 4 counties. However, the elections were something somewhat extraordinary.
This video I took in León a week after the elections:
Nicaragua once again is on the verge of chaos. Municipal elections were held on the 9th of October, and these were largely won by the Sandinistas (FSLN). In 91-94 out of 146 cases, the FSLN managed to win the majority. That is slightly more than last time, with a difference of around 4 counties. However, the elections were something somewhat extraordinary.
This video I took in León a week after the elections:
When former minister of education of East Germany, Margot Honecker, received a medal for her help here in Nicaragua in the literacy campaign in the 1980s as part of the celebrations of the revolution on July 19th, I tried everything I could to get an interview with her. I also got through to all the officials and the spokespeople of president and ministry. Unfortunately though, in the end she declined.
Nevertheless, my search for possible questions cause enough stir around my friends in Germany that I was contacted in connection with this group trying to find their old class mates from a cadre school in East Germany. The Nicaraguans who had participated had for security reasons not used their real names and had never talked about where they where from.
Poster currently hanging around most of León
Nevertheless, my search for possible questions cause enough stir around my friends in Germany that I was contacted in connection with this group trying to find their old class mates from a cadre school in East Germany. The Nicaraguans who had participated had for security reasons not used their real names and had never talked about where they where from.
Poster currently hanging around most of León
12/07: El choque entre MRS y CUUN
This is really just to try it out, but a lot more should be coming henceforth. I'm running around Nicaragua with this really nifty camera/microphone combination, and although I have some 13h of footage, the editing situation has been pretty crummy and I have had to put the various bits and pieces of software together myself to get a working toolchain.
However, this ended up being used in Nicaraguan national TV by two stations. It's some footage I took the other day, when a political party, the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista and the students at the UNAN university clashed together here in Leon the other day. For the MRS, the militant Dora María Telléz had planned to speak at the university that day, and simultaneously the students decided to take over the university for the day in protest against the late payment of scholarships. The MRS recently lost its license to run in the upcoming local elections, and have therefore been calling the country a dictatorship. When students blocked the entrance on June 29th, they again expected for the president and his FSLN-party to be behind it all.
Confrontation between MRS and CUUN
However, this ended up being used in Nicaraguan national TV by two stations. It's some footage I took the other day, when a political party, the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista and the students at the UNAN university clashed together here in Leon the other day. For the MRS, the militant Dora María Telléz had planned to speak at the university that day, and simultaneously the students decided to take over the university for the day in protest against the late payment of scholarships. The MRS recently lost its license to run in the upcoming local elections, and have therefore been calling the country a dictatorship. When students blocked the entrance on June 29th, they again expected for the president and his FSLN-party to be behind it all.
Confrontation between MRS and CUUN
31/05: Survived the hurricane
I'm still in Leon, and we have 25000 evacuated people here. roofs blown off, etc.
I was actually here in my room, preparing the conference of a political party in Norway. The storm was pretty bad, but suddenly the lights went out, and about 10 mins later some of the other living here knocked on the door, advising me to get out an into the kitchen, as a giant Mango-tree looked like it might fall and smash my room.
So I stood in the kitchen for a while (a few hours). The kitchen is halfway outdoors, and so I secured the door leading out with a refrigerator. When the wind started dying down, I walked out and around town. That surely wasn't very safe, but I needed food. Most trees on the way had fallen, and so had a lot of the electrical installation. In addition, the streets were flooded, and people were running everywhere quite frantically.
I was actually here in my room, preparing the conference of a political party in Norway. The storm was pretty bad, but suddenly the lights went out, and about 10 mins later some of the other living here knocked on the door, advising me to get out an into the kitchen, as a giant Mango-tree looked like it might fall and smash my room.
So I stood in the kitchen for a while (a few hours). The kitchen is halfway outdoors, and so I secured the door leading out with a refrigerator. When the wind started dying down, I walked out and around town. That surely wasn't very safe, but I needed food. Most trees on the way had fallen, and so had a lot of the electrical installation. In addition, the streets were flooded, and people were running everywhere quite frantically.
I recently went to Northern Ireland, to the city of Belfast. The Left has generally supported those pro-catholics, who are working for a united Ireland as a part of a national liberation struggle from London rule. I decided to interview representatives of progressive parties on either side on the issues that socialists should really care about -- social issues -- to see how different they really are in their day-to-day politics in these current times of peace. This is the last of three parts, in which I conclude after having interviewed Hugh Smyth from the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and Paul Maskey from the socialist Irish-republican Sinn Feinn party.
Local demands against profit rather than alliance with one EU-country or another can be seen in Belfast as well.
So there we go. I interviewed a representative of a progressive party on either side of the divide, and their answers were remarkably similar.
Local demands against profit rather than alliance with one EU-country or another can be seen in Belfast as well.
Let us review their answers once more:
PM: Paul Maskey (Sinn Fein)
HS: Hugh Smyth (HS)
housing:
HS: not opposed to rich apartments, but percentage needs to be affordable
PM: not against private houses, but more social housing
