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REPORTS: NICARAGUA |
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'March
of Hungry' Negotiates with Gov't
José
Eduardo Mora
(IPS) - A promise by the Nicaraguan
government to distribute 3,409
hectares of farmland to jobless rural
labourers within the next month and a
half was the first victory scored by
the ''march of the hungry''.
Some 5,000 landless peasants, who are
now camped along the Interamerican
Highway 97 kms north of Managua, set
out for the capital from the central
department of Matagalpa 10 days ago to
demand that the government live up to
the terms of an agreement signed in
September 2002.
In the agreement, reached after a
similar march was held last year, the
government had pledged to provide
plots of land on which the hungry
labourers could grow subsistence
crops, create workfare schemes, and
improve health and education coverage
in Matagalpa.
The economy of Matagalpa, a department
of 6,800 sq kms located 130 kms north
of the capital, was dependent on large
coffee plantations, which began to go
under when international prices
plunged around five years ago.
After initially refusing to negotiate,
the centre-right government of Enrique
Bolaños agreed to engage in talks
with the protesters this week.
Representing the government in the
negotiations are Agriculture Minister
José Augusto Navarro, deputy
ministers for the interior and health
Alfonso Sandino and Margarita Gurdián,
and the director of the Institute of
Rural Development, Sergio Narváez.
Two non-governmental organisations,
the Nicaraguan Human Rights Centre (CENIDH)
and the Office of the Human Rights
Procurator, as well as the Catholic
Church, through Archbishop of
Matagalpa Leopoldo Brenes, will
oversee compliance with whatever
agreements are reached in the talks.
''Getting the Bolaños administration
to agree to negotiate is an enormous
victory for the peasant farmers,
because it had absolutely refused to
listen to our demands,'' Alfonso
Espinoza, the coordinator of the
Association of Rural Workers (ATC),
one of the groups taking part in the
talks, told IPS.
The rural workers are asking to be
assigned land that is now in the hands
of a public agency, the National
Public Sector Corporation (CORNAP), in
order to grow crops.
They are also demanding medicine,
housing, education, jobs, food
assistance and measures designed to
revive production in Matagalpa.
Speaking in Las Tunas, the village
along the Interamerican Highway where
the negotiations are taking place,
Sandino and Gurdián said the
government wanted to keep the rural
workers ''from continuing their march
on the capital by seeking to make the
talks mutually beneficial to both
sides.''
Espinoza underlined that ''Gaining
legal title to land now held by CORNAP
is a thorny issue, but we are
confident that an agreement will be
reached, which would benefit the 2,500
families taking part in the march.''
Women, children and elderly persons
are among the protesters, who have set
up makeshift camps on either side of
the Interamerican Highway, which
Espinoza warned could be blocked if
the talks come to a standstill within
the next few days.
Many of those participating in the
protest are severely undernourished.
Nine children and seven adults died in
last year's march, but no casualties
have been reported so far, said
Espinoza.
On Friday, CENIDH asked the
Interamerican Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) for the adoption of
precautionary measures for 29 children
suffering acute malnutrition, who form
part of the group of protesters.
CENIDH legal adviser Anielka Pacheco
told IPS that in last year's march,
which was held after a number of
people had died of hunger in Matagalpa,
her organisation had asked the IACHR
for the adoption of precautionary
measures for 56 children whose lives
were at risk due to acute
malnutrition.
''Despite having reached this first
agreement (on the distribution of
3,409 hectares of land), we have
perceived little decision-making
capacity on the part of the
government, and its wishy-washiness is
designed to obstruct implementation of
the accords,'' said Espinoza.
The activist said the region of
Matagalpa, where the big coffee
plantations declared bankruptcy five
years ago, has been ''totally
abandoned by the state, which has
neglected to provide support for
agriculture, education, health,
housing and credits.''
Despite the disappointment created by
the state's failure to keep its
promises last year, the rural workers
hope that the current negotiations
will produce significant improvements
for thousands of families who have
lost their source of income due to the
coffee price debacle.
According to ATC statistics, the surge
in unemployment has driven between 50
and 60 percent of families in
Matagalpa to emigrate to other parts
of Nicaragua or to other Central
American countries, especially
neighbouring Costa Rica, where 332,000
Nicaraguans were already living at the
time the 2000 census was carried out.
Edmundo Gutiérrez, one of the CENIDH
representatives who is to oversee
compliance with the agreements reached
in the talks, said the first point
agreed on was a result of ''consensus,
which showed that both sides are
willing to negotiate.''
He added, however, that the
negotiations on the property to be
handed over to the rural workers by
CORNAP and the creation of jobs will
be touchy, which is why the government
has asked for representatives of the
Central Bank, which administers coffee
plantations that have gone bankrupt,
to take part in the talks.
If agreements on those issues are
reached, the result will be local
public works jobs, such as road
repairs and maintenance and clean-up
of agricultural areas, said Gutiérrez.
But he pointed out that those taking
part in such workfare schemes would
only earn the equivalent of around
1.57 dollars a day.
Central American Human Rights
Commission (CODEHUCA) figures show
that Nicaragua has the lowest minimum
wage in the region, 33 dollars a
month, while Costa Rica's minimum
monthly wage of 175 dollars is the
highest.
CODEHUCA statistics also indicate that
in Nicaragua, the second- poorest
country in the hemisphere after Haiti,
39 percent of the population of 5.8
million lack access to clean water.
Studies by the World Food Programme (WFP),
a United Nations agency, have found
that 45 percent of children in
Nicaragua's rural areas are suffering
from chronic malnutrition.
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