Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Nicaragua's De Facto Elections Chief Announces 2011 Poll, Ex-Contras Form Nicaraguan Resistance Party to Challenge Ortega
Nicaragua has escalated its border row with Costa Rica, which focuses on a dredging operation carried out by the government of President Daniel Ortega in the San Juan River. Under international law, the river belongs to Nicaragua, but Costa Rica enjoys navigation rights. A week ago this past Friday, San Jose alleged that Sandinista revolutionary hero Eden Pastora, who heads up the operation, illegally entered Costa Rican territory, accosted a rancher, asserted Nicaraguan sovereignty over the ranch, and then dredged a chunk of the man’s land into the river.
Yesterday, Costa Rican Security Minister José María Tijerino revealed that members of the Nicaraguan army had been spotted on Isla Calero, a piece of land on the Costa Rican side of the San Juan. Tijerino added that pictures and video reveal a Nicaraguan flag has been placed on the property. The flag is located on the same property, known as Finca Aragón, where trees were cut down and sediment deposited by the Russian-built Nicaraguan dredge.
“A flyover this morning above Isla Calero revealed the presence of Nicaraguan troops in national territory, Costa Rican territory,” Tijerino explained, adding:
There is a Nicaraguan flag and tents belonging to the Nicaraguan army. ... Because of this, the National Police will reinforce its presence in the zone to protect national territory. Costa Rica, which doesn’t have an army, is looking for a solution to this conflict through diplomatic channels. We are looking for a solution that, if possible, will not further aggravate the situation.
Last week, the Costa Rican government lodged a formal protest with the Nicaraguan ambassador and dispatched up to 90 heavily armed police officers to the patrol the border. Smarting from the accusations, Nicaragua’s acting foreign minister, Manuel Coronel Kautz, fired off a diplomatic note to San Jose, protesting apparent incursions by Costa Rican “troops” on Nicaraguan soil. Kautz bristled:
Our government rejects the incursion in past days of Nicaraguan territory by two armed officers of the OIJ [Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Organization], who were arrested during border monitoring activities and returned to Costa Rican authorities.
Nicaragua, respectful of the principle of International Law, will continue with the cleanup work in the river and will protect the borders and sovereignty of Nicaragua.
Notwithstanding Managua’s rhetoric, Costa Rica does not have “troops” per se since it disbanded its army after the Second World War, a fact that President Laura Chinchilla tersely pointed out afterwards. However, around 60 officers of the national police, some armed with M-60 machine guns, are stationed at the community center and elementary school in Barra del Colorado, a small town in the northeast corner of the country. Costa Rican Coast Guard boats are patrolling the mouth of the San Juan River, which flows into the Caribbean Sea.
While the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border row, like Managua’s tiff with Bogota over maritime rights in the Caribbean Sea may seem like a “tempest in a tea cup,” these developments are worth monitoring. Nicaragua’s past/present Marxist dictator is closely allied with Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela, as well as other Communist Bloc states like North Korea, Syria, Libya, and Iran. There is every sound reason for believing that Ortega may purposely enflame tensions in Central America to legitimize Venezuela’s massive, Made-in-Russia arms procurements, as well as Russia’s pledge to modernize Cuba and Nicaragua’s Soviet-vintage militaries.
Meanwhile, on October 28 the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front continued to flout Nicaragua’s constitutional order when craven party hack Roberto Rivas, de facto president of the Supreme Electoral Council, convoked general elections for November 6, 2011. Though Rivas’s term in this capacity expired four months ago, gridlock in the National Assembly has prevented the election of new magistrates. Rivas clings to his post by citing Ortega’s decree last January extending the terms of 25 top judges and magistrates. Nicaragua’s political parties have one week to submit their paperwork to participate in the electoral process and until March 18 to present their candidates.
Tellingly, Rivas made the announcement only to Sandinista-controlled media outlets during an event closed to independent media. Rivas, a close confidant of KGB asset Ortega, did not clarify the conditions under which international observers will be allowed to observe the electoral process. In fact, in recent statements to the local press, Rivas warned that foreign observers who criticize Nicaragua’s electoral process, “Will be put on the first plane back to their own country.”
“It’s paradoxical that the same people who are responsible for the [municipal electoral] fraud of Nov. 9, 2008 are convoking a new electoral process,” remarked Carlos Tünnerman, spokesman for the civic group Movement for Nicaragua, to The Nica Times. “The people of Nicaragua have to be aware of that.” Tünnerman cautioned that the convocation of elections could be a “trap” laid by Ortega to disqualify parties that refuse to participate in an election that many consider fraudulent from the get-go. “Of course we are going to participate in the electoral process,” protested Roberto Ferrey, president of the Nicaraguan Resistance Party, which represents the interests of the former US-backed Contra rebels.
In September, the White House for the first time ever named Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras as major transit hubs for drug trafficking. Army-less Costa Rica lacks the resources to combat the traffic. Several months ago, the US Treasury also identified two Costa Rican businesses as money laundering fronts for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which supplies 90 percent of the cocaine sold on US streets. The companies Agropecuaria San Cayetano de Costa Rica Ltda and Arrocera El Gaucho Ltda are owned by a “FARC financial associate,” Jose Cayetano Melo, revealed the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control in a June press release.
In 2008, Costa Rica’s Security Minister Fernando Berrocal resigned after insinuating possible links between FARC and some Costa Rican politicians. Decades ago, from the 1960s through the 1980s, admitted diplomat Melvin Saenz in an article posted this year on the website of Chinchilla’s National Liberation Party, “Costa Rica was a rest stop and medical rehabilitation location for Colombian rebel groups, including the FARC. They would interact with people in this country, not just the [left-wing] Popular Vanguard and Socialist Party but the [moderate] National Liberation too.”
“However, the tone has changed,” comments Alex Leff at the Global Post, “Today it’s faux pas to discuss FARC friends in most [Costa Rican] circles.” FARC is accused of infiltrating other countries in Central America, especially the dense jungles of southern Panama, where the guerrillas have exchange gunfire with Panamanian police patrols.
The Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel is also suspected of being active in both Costa Rica and Panama, which may be one reason why anti-drug units unearthed a rare cache of illegal weapons in the home of a Guatemalan-born sociology professor. In May, Panamanian police arrested Professor Vinicio Jimenez, who teaches at the Chiriqui Regional University, following the raid on his residence. Police seized 47 assault rifles, 24 machine pistols, 487,000 rounds of ammunition, and almost 4,000 grenades. Pacific Coast province Chiriqui borders southern Costa Rica. Guatemala is home to violent drug gangs like Mara Salvatrucha.
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