The New Nicaragua: Lessons in Development, Democracy, and Nation-Building for the United States (PSI Reports)

The New Nicaragua

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The New Nicaragua Lessons in Development, Democracy, and Nation-Building for the United States

Steven E. Hendrix

PSI Reports

PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

Copyright 2009 by Steven E. Hendrix All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hendrix, Steven E. The new Nicaragua : lessons in development, democracy, and nation-building for the United States / Steven E. Hendrix. p. cm. — (PSI reports) Includes index. ISBN 978-0-313-37958-1 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-37959-8 (ebook) 1. Democratization—Nicaragua. 2. Nation-building—Nicaragua. 3. Nicaragua—Politics and government—1990- 4. United States—Relations—Nicaragua. 5. Nicaragua—Relations—United States. I. Title. II. Title: Lessons in development, democracy, and nation-building for the United States. JL1616.H46 2009 320.97285—dc22 2009025512 13 12

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Preface Introduction

vii ix

1. Getting Up to Speed on Nicaragua (June 2005) 2. Welcome to Managua (July 2005)

1 11

3. Jumpstarting Rule of Law (August 2005) 4. Preparing for the March and November 2006 Elections (September 2005)

15 19

5. Zoellick’s Public Diplomacy and a Disaster in Waspan (October 2005)

27

6. International Collaboration and Turkeys (November 2005) 7. Movimiento por Nicaragua (December 2005)

33 37

8. A Welcome for USAID Electoral Help and Partying with Herty, Eduardo, and Jose Antonio (January 2006) 9. Land of El G€ ueg€ uence and the Boiling Frog (February 2006)

41 51

10. Atlantic Coast Regional Election (March 2006)

57

11. We Ponder What Just Happened and Welcome Visitors from Washington (April 2006)

71

12. One Step Forward, One Step Back (May 2006)

73

13. Electoral Preparations at Full Speed (June 2006) 14. Breaking the Silence (July 2006)

79 91

15. The OAS Engages (August 2006)

99

vi

CONTENTS

16. Working to Advance Transformational Development Even on the Eve of the Election (September 2006) 17. The Final Stretch (October 2006)

107 121

18. The Election and Its Aftermath (November 2006)

145

19. Refocusing (December 2006) 20. President Ortega (January 2007)

161 171

21. The New Ortega Administration Begins to Show Its Stripes (February 2007) 22. Drip, Drip, Drip Meets Wiley Coyote and Road Runner (March 2007)

181 195

23. David Hallengren and Brett Favre (April 2007) 24. Information Access (May 2007)

211 227

25. Toward Sustainability in Counterweights and Democracy (June 2007)

239

26. Postlude Reflections: Why Ortega Won and Democratic Counterinsurgency

245

Select Bibliography Index

257 259

Preface

Steven E. Hendrix led democracy promotion efforts in Nicaragua for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2005 to 2007. He was the Rule of Law Officer for the American Bar Association (ABA), International Section, and served on its Administration Committee and Council (2003-2008). He is a Senior Fellow with DePaul University School of Law and continues to work with USAID. This book reflects the private opinion of its author and does not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the U.S. government or USAID or any other entity. Only open source, nonclassified information was used in preparing this book. This book examines Nicaraguan political development from 2005 to 2008 through the lens of the author’s experience leading democracy development programs with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Since the 1980s, the U.S. and Nicaraguan governments have been at odds, during the Sandinista government, Iran-Contra, and continuing to today. However, a major shift in the U.S. government’s approach and how the local actors themselves are behaving has been little noticed. The question is no longer ‘‘left versus right.’’ It is really about ‘‘right versus wrong.’’ Given American interventions dating back to the 1920s, the relationship between Nicaragua and the United States has an interesting historical past. But Nicaragua is also a case study for a larger regional context that includes Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Cuba. This book examines developments in Nicaragua and places them in this broader context. At the same time, the book documents how successful democracy promotion programs can take place under highly stressful conditions. While academics and the popular press reflect skepticism over whether

viii

PREFACE

nation-building is possible, the book documents not only that it is possible, but also that it can be very successful if undertaken in a serious way, an example of smart power in foreign policy, without recourse to military action. International human rights and solidarity groups on the left may be shocked at how the Sandinistas have betrayed their historical roots. Furthermore, there is a widespread assumption that the Americans intervened in the 2006 election to support a particular candidate. That did not happen. In addition, there is a growing body of academic literature, largely theoretical and selective, that tries to say that democracy promotion is seriously flawed. For example, Jeffrey D. Sachs hardly even mentions democracy promotion in his book The End of Poverty. Other works, including Tom Carothers’ Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve and the General Accounting Office’s Foreign Assistance: U.S. Democracy Programs in Six Latin American Countries Have Yielded Modest Results, do not capture the nuance and complexity of development contexts. This book presents a different perspective regarding one of the most complex cases of all: Daniel Ortega’s new Nicaragua.

Introduction

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted ‘‘The real challenges we have seen emerge since the end of the Cold War—from Somalia to the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—make clear we in defense need to change our priorities to be better able to deal with the prevalence of what is called ‘asymmetric warfare.’’’ Smart power will be more and more important in the future. At the same time, however, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) combined have only about 6,600 professional Foreign Service officers— less than the manning for one aircraft carrier strike group. If foreign policy is to be more effective, we need to staff up on diplomacy and development or live with the consequences. The need to sustain democracy around the globe is pressing. In 2007, Freedom House reported a decline in democratic values around the world for the second year running, the first time that has happened. There was a ‘‘profoundly disturbing deterioration’’ in the global picture with reversals across thirty-eight countries. U.S. foreign policy has a role to play in how we respond to these challenges. The U.S. Government’s work in Nicaragua showcases the use of American ‘‘smart power’’ in action. Diplomats and development experts work together to make the world a better place, consistent with democratic values. In Nicaragua, they worked to build, strengthen, and deepen democracy and governance institutions. They helped the media, civil society, and law schools to become participants in the process with ownership of the results. They helped local governments to play a more active role. They were building a new vision, a new possibility with the Nicaraguan people. Nation-building has gotten a bad rap from places like Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. But just as close legal cases make bad law, those unique cases in

x

INTRODUCTION

development, where billions of dollars and military invasion are involved, fail to illustrate what is really at stake when international donor agencies try to promote democracy and economic development in a difficult setting. Seldom will troops ever be sent. Much more likely are cases like Nicaragua, which must rise or fall with pennies of foreign aid, based mainly on the creative efforts of dedicated people on the ground and the interest of ordinary citizens in demanding improvements for their country. In these more routine cases, promoting democracy is possible and cost effective, and we can do it (and in fact are doing it) in many places around the globe at once, but it is never easy. Promoting democracy in practice is never the same as promoting democracy in theory, just like war in practice is never like theory. This book provides a firsthand account of working to build democracy in Nicaragua. The material tracks current events known in the media, the tools used, when they worked and, most importantly, when they did not. This book underscores why targeted development assistance can be as much a part of national security as diplomacy or the military; it details how this is so and how development and diplomacy can become synchronized. Not since the Roman Empire has any military force been as dominant on the battlefield against every possible opponent as the United States is now. Consequently, America’s opponents will not challenge the United States in military combat—which actually takes away a major advantage we have in national security unless we can plug the hole with something else. That makes development, diplomacy, and international collaboration all the more critical, as Secretary Gates noted. The case of Nicaragua is instructive in that these other tools were the ones in the development ‘‘toolbox’’ when U.S. interests took a hit in Nicaragua in the last several years. Even in cases of armed conflict, clear military superiority does not necessarily translate into post-conflict operations including stabilization or reconstruction. So again, the development toolbox comes into play as a critical part of national security. Nicaraguans may be surprised at how often, where, and when they benefited from or were influenced by American foreign assistance. American politicians and political parties could also benefit from the lessons presented. In an age of global conflict, diplomacy and development go hand in glove. That interaction is complex and fascinating, and that is the crux of this story. Americans think we spend a substantial amount on foreign assistance. Many think we spend twenty, thirty or forty percent of our national budget. In fact, what we provide in foreign aid through USAID is about one-half of one percent of the national budget. We are near the bottom in per capita giving among the world’s industrialized countries. Still, that money can be effectively invested to produce real results in terms of improving the lives of people around the world and preserving democracy. What monies we do have for development often track our political objectives. In the 1980s, Central America was a top concern, and billions flowed. That dried up with the collapse of the Berlin Wall when the giant sucking sound meant all the available funds would go to Eastern Europe. At the end of the 1990s, Plan

INTRODUCTION

xi

Colombia put the Andes back on the map for foreign aid with a billion dollar program to fight the drug war. But since September 11, 2001, the clear preference for assistance has been the Middle East. We are closing missions in Eastern Europe (or ‘‘graduating’’ them from assistance) and moving as much as possible to the Middle East, in particular to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Central America is an historical footnote from the 1980s. It is not going to get the kind of resources flowing to these other places. USAID in effect represents the ‘‘boots on the ground’’ for nearly all of the places where America has an interest, but where we are not going to send troops and invade. Diplomats can engage in dialogue, have conversations and meetings, and report back to Washington. USAID is all about doing things—getting something done you can kick. Obviously, diplomacy can help us get things done, but we can also do things that American diplomacy cannot do. In many cases, where politics gets in the way, we can walk in as ‘‘technical’’ people, make a case for reform on its technical merits, and still get the job done. That is development at its best. Many people think USAID is part of the State Department. In fact, USAID is its own independent and separate agency, headed by an administrator. Under the George W. Bush administration, the USAID Administrator was ‘‘dual-hatted,’’ serving also as the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Assistance, reporting to the Secretary of State. This hybrid situation means USAID and State maintain their own separate budgets and personnel systems, but there is a lot of cross-pollination between the two in terms of policy and strategy. Historically, USAID and State each maintained separate strategy and planning documents, with USAID working for a development agenda and State on a diplomatic level. With the Bush administration, these converged. Another distinction between the military, State Department diplomacy, and what USAID does involves the time horizon. Everyone says they are looking for the long term, but if you look at strategic planning at State, time horizons are often for a year or two. In some cases, they are only for months at a time. The military often plans in terms of six-month tours. USAID’s work is often measured in years and in some cases, decades. We proudly say we are working for institutionalized, sustainable development. Each institution has a role and a personality, and I think that is actually a strength in how we go about our work. The Ambassador presides over the entire ‘‘U.S. Mission,’’ and the Ambassador’s job is to make sure it all comes together. A ‘‘U.S. Mission’’ is anyone working for the U.S. government in a particular country—whether they work for the State, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, or Homeland Security Departments, or USAID. Everyone together is the ‘‘Embassy,’’ and all fall under the authority of the ‘‘Chief of Mission’’—in Nicaragua’s case, the U.S. Ambassador. In the political context, Nicaragua is a hard, difficult case. It suffers from endemic and systematic corruption and poor governance. But it is not unique. Bolivia, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, and Ecuador are all countries that present challenging situations. Similar cases are found in Asia (North Korea, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh), Africa (Zimbabwe, Darfur and

xii

INTRODUCTION

Southern Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, Liberia, Kenya), the Middle East (Iraq, Palestine), and Eastern Europe (Serbia, Kosovo). This book provides a firsthand account of how the democracy promotion process is undertaken. It documents how difficult the process is. Stranger than fiction, there are villains and heroes with a plot that twists with more layers of meaning and understanding than an onion. Democracy is the top Department of State priority for Latin America and the Caribbean, and while I was in Nicaragua, it was the top objective for the U.S. Mission in Managua. But democracy has never been a strong suit in a country plagued by bad governance, from the Somoza dynasty, through the 1980s with Daniel Ortega, and into the 1990s with Arnoldo Aleman. On September 9, 2005, the Organization of American States (OAS) said that ‘‘the escalation of the institutional and political crisis in Nicaragua threatens the country’s democratic governance, the legitimate exercise of power, and the rule of law, with serious social and economic consequences, both now and in the future, for the people of Nicaragua.’’ Poverty in Managua is everywhere. The biggest outdoor dump in Latin America— La Churreca—is located in Managua. Ox carts and bicyclists move in and out of traffic. Beggars are on the streets along with kids who sniff glue to stave off hunger— the huelepegas (glue sniffers), as they are called. Most Americans, when they think of Nicaragua, think of two things—the first is Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas. Ortega himself is an interesting figure. He grew up in Chontales, Nicaragua. There, his mother was arrested by Somoza’s National Guard for having ‘‘subversive’’ love letters. At age 15, he joined the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) guerillas. After attending law school at Central America University, he became more active with the resistance and actually robbed a bank in 1967. He went to El Modelo jail just outside Managua, but he was later released in a prisoner exchange in 1974, after which he fled to Cuba and received revolutionary training. His brother Camilo died in combat against the dictatorship. His brother Humberto went on to become an FSLN military commander. From 1979 to 1984, Daniel was at first the de facto leader of Nicaragua and then the elected president from 1984 until 1990. During those years, Nicaragua received economic support from the Soviet Union and Cuba while the United States supported the opposition, the so-called Contras. In 1990, after his electoral defeat at the hands of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Ortega famously pledged to ‘‘rule from below.’’ The other thing Americans think of when they think of Nicaragua are the Contras. When the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the Contras in 1983, the Reagan administration continued to support the Contras by covertly selling arms to Iran and funneling the cash to the Contras. This led to the ‘‘Iran-Contra Affair,’’ an Iranian ‘‘arms for hostages’’ deal for which National Security Council employee Lt. Col. Oliver North took much of the blame. In 1990, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, funding for the Sandinistas from the old Soviet Union dried up. Ortega was persuaded to hold elections, in part by Jimmy Carter, but also by international pressure and by his own citizens. In part, Ortega agreed to this because all polls showed him winning. As luck would have

INTRODUCTION

xiii

it, he lost to a coalition—the ‘‘National Opposition Union,’’ or UNO—headed by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Chamorro was the figure of national unity, a former member of the FSLN ruling junta, and the widow of the martyred journalist Pedro Joaquın Chamorro, a national hero for standing up to the Somoza dictatorship. Chamorro was the first female head of state in Latin American history and the first woman president of Nicaragua. Americans like linguist Noam Chomsky (on America’s political left) attributed her victory to the threat of a return to violence by the American-backed Contras while author P. J. O’Rourke (on the right) noted how Ortega used government and international resources to back his campaign to no avail. In any case, Violeta Chamorro to this day is remembered as a near saint for having transitioned Nicaragua out of conflict and toward democracy although members of her government at times were corrupt. Following Chamorro, the mayor of Managua, Arnoldo Aleman, was elected, again with a campaign that could be summed up as ‘‘anyone but Ortega.’’ The Sandinistas again put up Ortega as their candidate but lost a second time. After Aleman came Enrique Bola~ nos to the presidency, using the same ‘‘anyone but Ortega’’ approach to defeat Ortega again. All that time, Ortega remained as head of his Sandinista party and then planned to launch yet another campaign to return to the presidency in 2006. This time around, however, as this book will describe, the rules of the game would be radically changed and the playing field dramatically altered. In 2006, the USAID Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Adolfo Franco, testified before Congress that democracy itself in Nicaragua was at great risk due to threats of instability, corruption and ungovernability. Secretary of State Rice made preserving Nicaraguan democracy a top foreign policy priority to stop undemocratic governance from spreading from Cuba through Venezuela to Central America. Nicaraguan President Enrique Bola~ nos warned of an impending coup d’etat, as antidemocratic forces had converged in what was called the Pact in order to generate impunity forcorruption. While democracy in Bolivia and Ecuador was at risk, maintaining democracy in Nicaragua remained a top priority at U.S. Congressional hearings in May and September 2005. In October 2005, the National Security Council (NSC) named Nicaragua, along with several other countries (including Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba), as top U.S. ‘‘Freedom Agenda focus countries.’’ In its assessments of trafficking in persons (TIP), the State Department ranked Nicaragua as ‘‘Tier III vulnerable’’— meaning any further deterioration would result in cutting off assistance. Furthermore, President George W. Bush, via the Evian and Sea Island G-8 Summits, launched the Compact to Promote Transparency and Combat Corruption (Presidential Initiative), to be implemented in Nicaragua mainly by USAID. For persons who work in the Embassy, the U.S. Department of State classified Nicaragua as a ‘‘high threat’’ security posting. The challenge to democracy was clear. The Roman poet Juvenal noted, ‘‘It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.’’ So it is not surprising that Nicaragua has had leadership problems. Per capita income in Nicaragua is $4,211 compared to $9,841 in the

xiv

INTRODUCTION

country on Nicaragua’s southern border, Costa Rica. Eighty percent of Nicaraguans survive on $2 a day, and 45 percent on $1, in spite of the war on poverty that has helped reduce the incidence of poverty since 1993. Twenty percent of the wealthiest Nicaraguans receive 49 percent of the country’s income, while the poorest 20 percent get between 5 and 6 percent of the income. If the U.S. was serious about promoting democracy in Nicaragua, it was clear poverty must be addressed. Nicaragua is a majority Catholic country where that denomination represents about 62 percent of the people. Evangelical Christians make up another 20 percent, 3 percent are fromnon-Christian faiths, and about 11 percent have no religious affiliation. While USAID is a government institution, we work with religious entities often so long as the funding is not used for proselytizing. Also, whether or not USAID is providing funding, coordination with local religious leadership is often an invaluable tool for communicating a message, for encouraging acceptance of a new program, or getting community involvement. From a diplomacy angle, religious leadership is key to influencing political change. In Nicaragua, Bishop Leopoldo Brenes and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo were critical political figures. In spring 2005, USAID asked me to go to Nicaragua to spearhead the U.S. government’s program to help facilitate democracy in that country. This book recounts my experience. For the pennies we spend on Foreign Assistance, and the fraction of that put toward democracy, especially in marginal places like Nicaragua, I believe the American public is getting a smart power bargain, incredible bang for the buck. Our teams work hard and do incredible work. And they are having an impact and changing the lives of people across the globe. My two years in Managua are one example of how dedicated USAID staff everywhere are standing up to make the world a better place. I’m very proud of their work and dedication, and I hope this narrative honors all of them, serving as an example of what they do on a daily basis.

1

Getting Up to Speed on Nicaragua (June 2005)

I had been serving as the acting leader for democracy programs for Latin America and the Caribbean with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for about three years when I was asked to go back to the ‘‘field’’ for two years to respond to the emerging challenge in Nicaragua. In USAID, employees are commonly stereotyped as ‘‘Washington’’ or ‘‘field’’ types. While I was working inside the beltway, I was still called a field type. Basically, this meant that other employees considered me someone who had field experience and, truth be told, would rather be in some sweaty developing country working with peasants trying to improve the lives of ordinary people than pushing paper in DC. The field was where my heart was. I guess that was me. I had worked in Guatemala during its conversion to peace, and I was itching to get back out. Also, like a moth drawn to a flame, I harbored a love for the high-profile adventure postings within USAID. Nicaragua? You bet! The problem with interesting assignments is that they are, well, interesting. Back in the 1980s, the most controversial element of U.S. foreign policy had been Central America and the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega was president then, and his Sandinista political party was in ideological conflict with Washington and the Reagan administration. As a career employee, I was not really committed to any ideological point of view, and several senior government officials took me aside to ask if I understood that I would be advancing U.S. policy, whatever that was, in Nicaragua. In the 1980s, I had been on the Peacemaking Committee of the National Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and we had taken stands on Nicaragua, so I did know exactly what was at stake. As a career civil servant, my job was not to set the policy but to implement it—and that was something I accepted. But I also knew something that many in America did not: the character of the situation had changed radically.

2

THE NEW NICARAGUA

All this would have rung true for Mexican novelist Mariano Azuela. Azuela has chronicled the experience of people living through revolution, awaiting its benefits. In Los de Abajo, Azuela told the story of Demitrio Macıas. Macıas is eventually ambushed in the place where, at the beginning of the novel, he and his cohorts ambushed government troops. This circular structure underscores the futility of the revolutionary quest. Revolution in fact unleashes humanity’s vices and fails to achieve its objectives. The novel’s only idealist, Alberto Solıs, is killed in battle. Something of Azuela’s revolutionary Mexico lives even today in Nicaragua as the once inspired political left failed to achieve the dreams and aspirations of their revolution. The revolution lived for a moment and since then, died of its own corruption and arrogance. In the 1980s, the left sided with Ortega while the right tended to support the counterrevolutionaries, the Contras. The tug was between the left and right, or at least that was how it was perceived. But during the 1990s, a couple of things happened. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, elected following Ortega in a supervised election, proved masterful at bringing together the country after a long, seemingly senseless conflict. One of her secrets was looking for common ground. While her husband had been murdered for his criticisms of Somoza, and she herself had served in the original Sandinista junta that ruled after Somoza’s overthrow, she played a card that U.S. President Bill Clinton would later use—moving to the center to capture common ground and create a mandate for change. While she was very successful in this transition and in capturing the hearts of the Nicaraguan people, she tolerated corruption in her own cabinet and in her party. Everybody got their hands a little bit dirty in the Nicaragua mud. But her successor, the former Managua Mayor Arnoldo Aleman, was a much more polarizing figure. I had actually met Aleman when he was Mayor. I was in Nicaragua on a short-term assignment looking at land thefts and how politicians had used influence peddling and outright corruption to steal land that had been confiscated from landed elites and was supposed to have been distributed to the poor. Aleman was a heavyset man. I hardly got a word in edgewise in talking to him. He gave me a robotic diatribe about how the Sandinistas were evil, not to be trusted. He accused Ortega of owning something like 20 homes in Managua alone, registered under different names. Noting that Wisconsin was the sister state of Nicaragua, and Madison was the sister city of Managua, and that I was at the time an employee of the University of Wisconsin, he complained to me that neither the state nor the city had invited him to visit. I am not one who immediately tends toward supernatural explanations of events, but this guy gave me the willies. I felt like I was in the presence of something wrong, something evil. While the American Embassy at the time was supposedly backing him as a candidate to be the next president, my instincts were to get away from him as fast as I could. The guy just struck me as a gangster type. If I had to pick a single word to describe this burly, always smiling politician, it would be ‘‘slippery.’’ I made it a point to avoid him from then on—and we have never met since. And I knew in my heart of hearts that there was no way in hell

GETTING UP TO SPEED ON NICARAGUA ( JUNE 2005)

3

that the state of Wisconsin, the city of Madison, or the University of Wisconsin would ever have anything to do with this guy. Aleman did get elected to office, beating Ortega. In 1998 a disastrous hurricane, Mitch, hit Nicaragua, killing thousands and causing billions of dollars worth of damage. With the influx of relief monies, somehow Mr. Aleman’s economic situation seemed to balloon along with his weight. Transparency International would go on to accuse Aleman of having stolen about $100 million dollars. I wasn’t surprised. Before turning power over to his successor, Enrique Bola~ nos, Aleman did something extraordinary—he reached out and cut a deal (the so-called ‘‘Pact’’) with his arch-political enemy Daniel Ortega in an effort to give himself a measure of impunity for his own massive theft. In past elections against Chamorro and Aleman, Ortega had received about 42 percent of the vote. He was unlikely to ever get 40 percent or more in the future. So Aleman offered to lower the percentage needed to be elected president from 40 percent to 35 percent if the winner also had 5 percent more than any rival. This in effect transformed Ortega from a candidate who statistically had zero chance of ever winning to a strong future candidate. In this new calculus, Ortega was nearly guaranteed a presidency, if not immediately, then in the next election. In exchange, Ortega and Aleman would agree to pack the court, control the legislature between their two parties (the Frente Sandinista de Liberaci on Nacional or FSLN and the Partido Liberal Constitutionalista or PLC), put only their buddies on the electoral tribunal, and continue to control the country without either one being president. While it was actually Juan Peron in Argentina who said the following, it could have been either Ortega or Aleman commenting: ‘‘We are no longer interested in elections except as a means to reach our objectives.’’ With the Pact in hand, Aleman anointed his then vice president, Enrique Bola~ nos, to be the PLC presidential candidate. Bola~ nos beat Ortega in a tight race and entered the presidency. But then, Bola~ nos turned on his former boss and allowed his prosecution on corruption charges. Aleman was eventually convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail—a great day for judicial independence. Or was it? It turns out that the judge in the case was one loyal to Ortega. Ortega had the last laugh! He controlled the legislature, the judiciary, the electoral process, and now, had Aleman at his mercy. And Ortega was set as the heir apparent to the presidency to follow Bola~ nos. The FSLN would control every major branch of government. While the world learned of the excesses of the Aleman theft on a grand scale, the evidence was also clear that the Ortega administration in the 1980s had seen its share of large-scale theft. The land reform largely left the peasants in the cold while FSLN members ended up with very nice housing in Managua. Funny how that works. Many got scholarships to do master’s degrees at prestigious American East Coast universities (Harvard was a top destination). They became the nouveau riche. Nicaraguans wryly called the Sandinista theft the pi~ nata, a reference to the kids’ game where a papier-mache structure is stuffed with candy and broken as the

4

THE NEW NICARAGUA

kids all run after the rewards. Or as the old cold warrior himself, Henry Kissinger, once said, ‘‘Power is the great aphrodisiac.’’ Nicaraguans on the left and on the right were appalled by what they saw. Sergio Ramırez Mercado, former Vice President under Ortega in the 1980s, former presidential candidate, and one of the region’s top literary authors, formed his own party with like-minded persons on the left—the Movimiento Renovaci on de Sandinismo (MRS). The MRS felt that Ortega and company had betrayed the revolution and become as bad and as corrupt as Somoza had ever been. Similarly, on the right, Aleman’s former Finance Minister, Eduardo Montealegre, pulled together a coalition called the Alianza Liberal Nacional or ALN. Curiously, this meant that Nicaragua had ‘‘Sandinistas’’ who were not in the FSLN and ‘‘Liberals’’ not in the PLC. I learned quickly to ditch the shorthand and use the party names instead to avoid confusion. Keep in mind that ‘‘liberal’’ in the Nicaraguan context is used in the classical political sense, not what Americans today think of as ‘‘liberal.’’ In the 1800s, as the term was used, it meant the party dedicated to free market policies and individual rights. It carried with it an entire body of European and Latin American literature going back to the Enlightenment. In this context, Nicaragua’s ‘‘Liberal Constitutionalist Party’’ should be understood as being on the right wing of the political spectrum where Americans might place ‘‘conservatives.’’ In November 2004, the FSLN-PLC Pact moved to get rid of Bola~ nos. As the Council on Hemispheric Affairs put it: On October 7, Nicaragua’s Comptroller’s Office called on the National Assembly to remove President Enrique Bala~ nos from office for failing to disclose the origin of $7 million used in his 2001 presidential campaign. The following day, the country’s two major parties, the conservative Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) and the left-of-center Sandinista National Liberation Front, announced that unless Bala~ nos submitted his resignation, they would move to impeach the 76-year-old president. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega called attempts to impeach Bola~ nos a ‘‘judicial mugging.’’ The Assistant Secretary noted that some people were putting ‘‘the personal interests of a couple of leaders ahead of the national interest.’’ Mr. Noriega criticized the Nicaraguan Assembly’s attempt to remove presidential immunity from Bola~ nos. For his part, Bola~ nos said he would consider any attempt to remove him through impeachment a coup. Noriega added that the Inter-American community would respond forcibly to any such attempt. As Fyodor Dostoevsky noted, ‘‘Tyranny is a habit: it may develop, and it does develop at last, into a disease.’’ By the spring of 2005, the FSLN and the PLC had all the advantages. They were the two major party machines. They controlled all the levers of government except for the limited personnel in the presidency—perhaps a hundred or so employees—under Mr. Bola~ nos’ control. The MRS had a few seats in the

GETTING UP TO SPEED ON NICARAGUA ( JUNE 2005)

5

unicameral legislature and moral authority on the left, but that was about it. Bola~ nos convinced a number of assembly members from the PLC to defect to the ALN, but it was not a significant dent in the PLC’s hegemony. It appeared that all Daniel Ortega and Arnoldo Aleman had to do to get complete control of the country was to await the elections set for 2006. Ortega was far and away the clear favorite to win. Even Aleman’s criminal conviction began to dissolve as he continued to negotiate favors for Ortega and the FSLN. Aleman loathed his jail cell where he was treated like any other convict. He wanted out. I never visited the Modelo prison where Aleman was held, but I have visited other prisons in Nicaragua, and they are no ‘‘club fed’’ (as U.S. federal minimum security prisons are sometimes known). Prisoners lack privacy and much of the time are lumped together. There is no separation of persons who are violent from other offenders. Nearly all are very poor. If I were Arnoldo Aleman, having stolen $200 million from the poor, I would not now want to be put in a single cell block with people from whom I had stolen. Aleman deserved serious jail-time, but this capo could still pull strings. The Pact came to Aleman’s rescue. On July 25, 2005, Judge Roxana Zapata granted the ‘‘regimen de convivencia familiar’’ to Arnoldo Aleman, s sort of compassionate release allowing him to move freely in the Department of Managua. Just three days later, on July 28th, however, Managua’s Court of Appeals for Criminal Matters reversed the trial court’s order. Not to be outdone, on July 30th, Managua’s Court of Appeals for Civil Matters ordered the immediate enforcement of the earlier decision by Judge Zapata. This forced the Supreme Court to rule on this issue. On August 30th, the Supreme Court ruled to enforce Judge Zapata’s July 25th decision, reinstating Aleman’s freedom to go anywhere in the Department. However, Aleman continued to be restricted to his hacienda boundaries under orders by President Bola~ nos’ Minister of Interior (who is also the civilian head of the penitentiary system and the police). In retaliation, on September 22nd, the Assembly, controlled by the FSLN-PLC Pact, lifted the prosecutorial immunities of two ministers of Bola~ nos’ government (including that same Interior Minister). Later that day, Managua’s Court of Appeals appointed a specific judge (juez instructor) to go directly to Aleman’s hacienda to order the penitentiary and police officers there to leave and release Aleman. At about 5:00 p.m. that same day, bowing to the court pressure, the Interior Minister removed all custodial force from Aleman’s hacienda (permitting Aleman’s official release). The Minister really had no option since his immunity had been lifted just hours before by the Assembly. To drive home the point, on September 28th, the Assembly lifted the immunity of two more government ministers: Miguel Angel Garcıa, Minister of Education, and Fausto Carcabelos, Vice Minister of Finance. In Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a strongly worded statement and called for an ‘‘immediate halt’’ to actions that could worsen the political crisis. On September 5, 2005, the leaders of seven Central American and Caribbean countries met at the Managua airport to back Bola~ nos. After an OAS intervention led by Amb. Dante Caputo, Ortega and Aleman called off their

6

THE NEW NICARAGUA

dogs, and attempts to impeach Bola~ nos were suspended. But they would retain the case on the back burner as a sword of Damocles that could be brought back to bear if they ever needed to blackmail Bola~ nos down the road. Why did the Pact back down? Was it OAS pressure? My own best guess was that the Pact would have continued to harass Bola~ nos, but then something sudden and tragic intervened. Jorge Bola~ nos, 49-year-old son of the President, died suddenly in Miami on July 27, 2005. The tragedy gripped Nicaragua, and in a Catholic country, some political actions go too far when a family has already suffered too much. Public opinion would not have allowed continued harassment of Bola~ nos by the Pact. That is why they backed off. But I noted clearly that the action was suspended but not removed. Ortega and Aleman retained the threat for the future, making Bola~ nos a lame duck from that day onward. Bola~ nos became, in effect, a government in opposition. The Aleman corruption case illustrates how dysfunctional the Nicaraguan justice system really is. Nicaragua inherited a politicized judicial system from the Sandinista government of the 1980s. Incredibly, at this time, many of the judges lacked law degrees. Judges had been picked because they were loyal to the Sandinista political party, rather than because of their academic accomplishments or commitment to the rule of law. Corruption was pervasive and continues to be so. A slow, bureaucratic, inquisitorial system, where all documents and legal process were converted to lengthy legal forms, and where witnesses, defendants, and victims never appeared before a judge, was the norm. To say the least, the greatest challenge was to develop independent, transparent courts and government institutions that could create the environment of stability and trust needed for economic investment and growth. Without even the shadow of the rule of law, the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) would be a nonstarter. Obviously, turning around this situation will not happen overnight. On the contrary, it will require a generational shift to reverse 500 years of corrupt judicial practice. Nevertheless, USAID has been catalytic in promoting an entirely new legal framework for Nicaragua, a foundation for a functioning democracy and economic development. As a direct result of USAID activities, a major structural adjustment and realignment has begun. Nicaragua enacted and is implementing a new Criminal Procedures Code. It also enacted an Arbitration and Mediation Law, along with a new Judicial Career Law, and is in the process of approving a new Criminal Code, again all with USAID technical support. Unfortunately, Nicaragua simply has more to do to reform its justice sector than nearly any other country in the region. Across Latin America, countries have had relative stability in their legal institutions. With independence, courts and prosecution simply passed from the Spanish to local authorities, but the institutions remained. Similarly, although there have been radical changes in government, and even coups, the justice system has largely remained intact. Not so in Nicaragua. As a result of the Sandinista revolution, old institutions were abolished and career employees fired. In their place came appointed judges

GETTING UP TO SPEED ON NICARAGUA ( JUNE 2005)

7

and prosecutors whose main qualification was FSLN party affiliation. By 1990, the decimation was nearly total: only ten percent of local judges even had law degrees. No other comparable Central American country—not El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, or Panama—experienced such a complete destruction of its ability to administer justice. In contrast to Nicaragua, at the end of the American Civil War, General Grant’s signing at Appomattox allowed Confederate soldiers to return home with their gun and horse. After World War II, General MacArthur allowed the Japanese Emperor to continue on the throne, maintaining the Japanese civil service so that the government could continue. But in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega deinstitutionalized the civil service, an act unseen in the various Latin American revolutions, which largely left the civil service intact even after radical change. Consequently, Nicaragua had even farther to go just to get back to where it started. Due to the overpoliticization of institutions including the Courts and Public Prosecution, from time to time, USAID has taken the position to withdraw from providing assistance, rather than continue to support inept, corrupt administration, with support returning only when (and to the extent) management changed. When I arrived in Nicaragua in July 2005, we had suspended assistance. Even today, USAID programs there are very targeted and focused on specific reform efforts, rather than the broad institutional reform USAID has done elsewhere. At times since 1992, USAID has completely cut off funding for all government institutions, preferring to generate demand for reform than work with corrupt leadership bankrupt of political will. While it sounds cliched, justice reform really is a long-term process. And again, Nicaragua has the distinct disadvantage relative to its neighbors. USAID/El Salvador began its rule of law reform program in 1984; Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia began in 1986. Nicaragua began in 1993. By way of comparison, democracy funding in El Salvador was $146 million from 1992 to 2002 (the bulk of which was rule of law). In Nicaragua, it was $88 million, about a third of that going to elections and the balance split among local governments and municipalities, civil society, and the Assembly, with only a fraction left for rule of law. The most glaring problem with Nicaraguan justice is its lack of independence. This is so serious a problem that it cannot be said that Nicaragua functions under the rule of law. All important judicial sector organizations are controlled by political parties. It is impossible to become a judge without political connections or personal connections with a Supreme Court justice. Once appointed, it is understood that judges will respond to the wishes of their sponsors. Cases brought without political support languish in the courts. Independence is both an internal and external problem within the court system. Judges report directly to Supreme Court justices in charge of courts in geographic regions and are subject to interference, usually not resisted, both from party operatives and Supreme Court justices with administrative clout over them. Senior officials in the Public Ministry and Procuraduria also respond primarily to political

8

THE NEW NICARAGUA

party mandates, which has resulted in low public confidence in the integrity of the justice system. Criminal impunity is a problem in Nicaragua’s politicized justice system. In part, it is a result of the immunity attached to senior government and Assembly deputy positions, but in general, it is because of political party interference in the justice system and citizens’ tolerance of that interference. USAID’s activities with civil society and journalists have been an important contribution to achieving goals, particularly after the U.S. government suspended most assistance to the courts in November 2003. The assistance to the courts had been suspended because it was thought they were too corrupt to work with. Instead, public oversight groups were mobilized to propose legal reforms, to support important legislation, and to inform the public about new laws and how to access government legal services. As I got up to speed on Nicaragua and its political ins and outs, President Enrique Bola~ nos came to the State Department in Washington on July 13th to sign the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Compact for Nicaragua. I had a chance to witness a bit of the unfolding history up close and meet one of its most important actors. My son Daniel borrowed my sport jacket, and we got him into the State Department and went to the signing together. At the ceremony, he met with Nicaraguan Ambassador Salvador Stadhagen and President Bola~ nos. The MCA had been set up as an additional foreign assistance package for infrastructure in the Leon and Chinandega Departments of Nicaragua. I was honored to be included in this event. My son, 13 at the time, thought it fun that waiters in tuxedos asked if he wanted champagne. But I was taken with Enrique Bola~ nos’ direct, simple, whatyou-see-is-what-you-get manner. I thought that this man might really want to leave the country a better place for his grandchildren. Salvador Stadhagen, Nicaragua’s ambassador to Washington, called me later on my cell phone as I was getting medical clearances to depart to the post. Stadhagen was one of the educated elite in Nicaragua and had served in each government since Ortega left office. In the early 1990s, he had gotten a grant for a civics education program for Nicaraguan high schools to teach democratic values. He wanted to see me as soon as possible. We got together July 22nd for lunch. He was concerned about what his country was going through and graciously briefed me on the lay of the land and his take on politics. I was very grateful for the comprehensive orientation and overview. As in my earlier meeting with Enrique Bola~ nos, I thought Salvador also wanted to see genuine change for the better in his country and was looking for help. In Nicaragua, the president and vice president are elected by a nationwide, popular vote to serve a five-year term. The candidate from the political party or alliance that obtains at least 40 percent of the valid votes, or 35 percent with a 5 percent lead over the second place candidate, will be elected. If none of the candidates reach these percentages, the two candidates with the highest number of votes will face a run-off.

GETTING UP TO SPEED ON NICARAGUA ( JUNE 2005)

9

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, ‘‘There is nothing I love so much as a good fight.’’ I, too, looked forward to rolling up my sleeves and joining the fray. My parting advice came on June 21st from Neil Levine, the head of USAID’s anticorruption unit in Washington, who had previously served as the deputy director for Central America. When he heard I was going to Managua, he laughed and said, ‘‘Everything has already been tried in Nicaragua, and none of it has worked. So no matter what you do, you can’t mess it up.’’ Neil is one of those guys with a great sense of humor that also reflects something of reality. Besides, I never want to judge a guy with season tickets to the Washington Nationals too harshly. I knew I had my work cut out for me.

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2

Welcome to Managua (July 2005)

Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset noted, ‘‘The health of any democracy, no matter what its type or status, depends on a small technical detail: the conduct of elections. Everything else is secondary.’’ On November 5, 2006, Nicaraguans would elect a new president, a vice president, and all members of the National Assembly and the Central American Parliament. If there were no clear presidential winner, there would be a run-off election on December 20, 2006. In the meantime, I needed to do what I could to support the long-term development mission of USAID in democracy with the rule of law and transparency. I was being sent to Managua to stand up for what was right. Or was I just charging a windmill? I thought about Colonel Travis at the Alamo in what is today San Antonio, Texas. He had 185 or so soldiers, mainly volunteers and irregular militia. He stood up to General Jose Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, the dictator of Mexico, with perhaps 5,000 battle-experienced professional army with long-range artillery. Among Travis’ men were Davy Crocket and Jim Bowie. In time, I would learn that I had such heroes on my team too. But unlike Travis, if things went really badly in Nicaragua, I would just go home. The members on my team, almost all Nicaraguan nationals, would have to live with the results of our actions. My heart went out to them. I would stand and fight with them. But we were not about trying to get one side or the other to win. We really didn’t care who won. It was not about ‘‘right or left’’; it was all about ‘‘right and wrong.’’ While no analogy works on all levels, there was something else haunting to me about the notion that we were at the Alamo: In Texas, the reinforcements never arrived. After September 11, 2001, U.S. foreign policy was firmly fixed on the Middle East and the war on terror. Latin America was, to say the least, on the back burner. U.S. foreign policy wonks may think Latin America deserves a lot of attention, but the Washington Post and the American public were focused elsewhere.

12

THE NEW NICARAGUA

We were not going to get the megabucks or the hoards of assistance reminiscent of the 1980s. Like the volunteers at the Alamo, we had to make our stand, come what may, against all odds, and without reasonable hope of relief. When you work for the State Department or USAID, and you work overseas, you usually go with your entire family unless the Foreign Service assigns you to an ‘‘unaccompanied post’’ like Iraq, Sudan, or Afghanistan. Nicaragua was a highthreat post for crime, but it still welcomed families. We had lived in Guatemala before, and by all accounts, the crime situation in Guatemala was significantly worse. But we would still have to remain on guard and take ordinary precautions. I am married. My wife Julia is a lawyer, but her real love is teaching. She had taught school in Guatemala when we lived there and was thinking about seeing what options there might be in Nicaragua. I also have three kids: Daniel is the oldest; Susana, the middle child; and John, the youngest. Sammie and Meow (the cats) and Goldie the Dog were also part of the entourage. When I first traveled to Nicaragua in 1992, I was struck by how Managua was unlike any other capital city in Latin America. While the downtown was leveled with the 1972 earthquake, the place looked pretty much the same 20 years on. I thought to myself that this must be the only capital city in the world where, at rush hour, to escape traffic, you could go downtown! Managua basically remained in ruins. Government ministries were relocated to suburbs and outlying areas. There was no planning or organization. It was pure sprawl. Streets had no name. This fact led my son Daniel to conclude that the U2 hit song must have been inspired by Managua. I reminded him that San Jose, Costa Rica, also was a city where streets had no names. He still thought it had to be about Nicaragua. Who would sing about San Jose? Upon arrival ‘‘at post,’’ all employees, and often their family members, meet with a security officer at the Embassy who explains the precautions that will be required while ‘‘under the authority of the Chief of Mission.’’ The Chief of Mission, in our case, was the Ambassador. If an employee, or any member of the employee’s family, does not follow the security rules, the employee can be sent packing home. In our case, we were familiar with security in Guatemala and so easily adapted. We would need a security alarm for our house. There were standard warnings about drunk drivers, political protests, and home invasions. Mainly it was a course in common-sense self-help measures to stay out of trouble. Unlike some countries, there were few restrictions on movement. The security office did not want us to go to the Eastern Market due to the risk of getting mugged. We were also told not to go to the Atlantic Coast unless it was for a job-related reason and we gave advance notice to the security office. Otherwise, everything seemed very reasonable. Another way the government helps employees in the Foreign Service is to provide them with housing while in country. In this sense, it is like the military. When our troops go to Iraq, we don’t expect them to find their own housing and pay for it. They are not there by choice—even if they voluntarily enlisted. They are there in service to our country. The same goes for the Foreign Service. Many of us have

WELCOME TO MANAGUA (JULY

2005)

13

homes in America, and we continue to pay mortgages and other expenses even while living overseas. Because the government pays only to move a very modest amount in weight to another country, and for some amount in storage, employees and their families arrive at post with only limited possessions. So having a house and modest furniture provided is a great benefit and one less major headache for someone arriving in a new country to serve America. Even better, an Embassy ‘‘community liaison office’’ is charged with, among other things, welcoming new employees to post and assigning ‘‘social sponsors’’ to help them adjust to the new surroundings, make new friends, and begin to discover the new city. Smart organizations know that if they can accelerate how new employees make transitions, then these employees will become effective producers in the office sooner. The fly in the ointment in our case was that, due to a bureaucratic error, no housing had been set aside for us. That same error meant that the community liaison office gave us no social sponsor. So when we arrived on July 27th, we were taken to a temporary house while USAID began to decide what to do with us. Without a social sponsor, we weren’t really sure what to do or where to go. More to the point, because our only car was still being shipped, even if we knew where to go, we had no way to get there. The kids predictably were bored. While I got to go to work and have human interaction, Julia was locked at home with the three kids; basic furniture; 5 forks, knives, and spoons; 5 plates; a couple of skillets; and little else. Walking around to get to know Managua was a nonstarter. First, Managua is hot and humid. In July, every day is in the 90s if not over 100 degrees. Most days it rains torrentially. Second, there are very few sidewalks, which means pedestrians walk mainly in the street or in the muddy dirt on the side of the road. Third, there are not many places to walk. The downtown area was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1972. While relief poured into Nicaragua with popular figures like Roberto Clemente and Bianca Jagger, a lot of that never made it to the people. Anastacio Somoza, the dictator at the time, walked off with a major share. The city center was never rebuilt, and much remains in ruins to this day. So my family basically stayed at home under a de facto house arrest. So much for the glamorous life of a diplomat. While it probably meant zero to my kids, our temporary house had some redeeming values. It was across the street from the home of the former Vice President, Jose Rizo, who already was a top precontender for the presidency on the PLC ticket. The temporary house was also a very short ride to my office, perhaps ten minutes. And it had a great view of Lake Managua and a local volcano. While our house was the very essence of middle-income America, if we think about how the majority of Nicaraguans live, we lived in the lap of luxury, with running water, electricity, and a phone. As the Democracy Team Leader, my job was to supervise the U.S. response to threats to democracy. In a situation like this, someone told me that I should make sure we ‘‘had no Lutherans on our team.’’ I asked why. My friend explained that I would need a team who believed that their very salvation depended on their

14

THE NEW NICARAGUA

works. Luther preached ‘‘faith alone’’ gets you into heaven. If we wanted to succeed, we would need the ‘‘good works.’’ While I winced at the misstatement of Martin Luther’s theology, I understood the point. We needed a team committed to the task—zealots willing to do what it took to make sure that democracy triumphed against all odds. I got exactly what I needed. My team would include Danika Walters, the only other American, who was dedicated, smart, and energetic. She was a former State Department democracy officer who had worked in Colombia and Costa Rica. Danika had that ‘‘Peace Corps ethic’’ and drive of wanting to help and do her very best for the Nicaraguan people. She was also a Californian surfer who could make a great margarita and a fantastic mother and spouse. Luıs Fernando Ubeda was a former forced conscript into the Sandinista army who became a Nicaraguan lawyer. He spoke Russian and was on the tarmac as Shevardnadze landed in Managua at the end of the Cold War to tell Daniel Ortega that Soviet assistance was ending and that it was time to make peace with the Americans. While Jimmy Carter gets a lot of the credit in history books for convincing Ortega to allow elections, I suspect it was that visit by Shevardnadze that had a big impact, and Luıs was part of that moment. Luıs had worked for USAID almost from the first days it reopened offices in Managua after the Chamorro victory in 1990. Luz Marina Garcıa had studied in the United States and had experience working with the local business school. Selma Tijerino was an expert in elections, having studied in Spain and Costa Rica, and having worked previously with the Organization of American States (OAS) in Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, and elsewhere. Aurora Bola~ nos and Lucıa Llanes provided an administrative backbone to our office. All shared the same vision of making Nicaragua a better place for all Nicaraguans and ensuring that their children inherited a country that respected democratic principles. They were an incredible team, and I felt humbled by their commitment and sacrifice on behalf of their country. Having just hit the ground, I got my first immediate challenge: While serving a twenty-year sentence for fraud and corruption, former President Arnoldo Aleman was granted medical parole, entailing a release from house arrest on Monday, July 25th. The judge granted the release based on Aleman’s medical condition (stress, obesity, and diabetes). The conditions of his release allowed him to travel freely in the Managua metropolitan area and nationally with permission. Aleman would have to report to prison authorities every two months, could not leave the country, and was forbidden from frequenting bars and casinos. But for all intents and purposes, he was free. The FSLN party quickly issued a press release directly blaming the United States, in particular Ambassador O.P. Garza, for Aleman’s release. The U.S. Embassy subsequently issued a press release to clarify the facts by denying any involvement and accusing the Sandinistas of orchestrating the release and then blaming the United States to cover their actions. Welcome to the world of Nicaragua!

3

Jumpstarting Rule of Law (August 2005)

I arrived in the office in August 2005 and met with my team. We talked about the political situation and what we were up against. A new boss should instill a sense that success is possible and give the team a vision of that success. But I really wanted to hear from them. After all, it was their country, and they were the experts. How could I help? I asked them, ‘‘How will we know when we are successful?’’ They looked at me like I was from Mars. I asked what our objectives were—and I got a laundry list of activities and projects and outputs—but not anything I could understand as an objective. I realized I was using Washington beltway babble. Ordinary human beings don’t talk about ‘‘indicators of success.’’ I needed to put it in plain English, or Spanish, as the case may be. We agreed to regroup the next day. When the team next met, I told them to set aside all the objectives and program names they were accustomed to talking about. Instead, I borrowed something I had learned from the head of the International Section of the American Bar Association (ABA). Ken Reisenfeld had challenged that entity to: ‘‘Work hard, have fun, make history.’’ That was the new slogan for USAID’s democracy program in Nicaragua. I made them all memorize it—work hard, have fun, make history. I told them that, every day, I wanted all of them to do all three things, simultaneously. I knew they would work hard. They were dedicated. But working with foreign assistance, no one gets rich. Unless you truly loved your job, and thought (again with apologies to Martin Luther) that your riches would be in heaven for your works today, you would not be sufficiently motivated to get this job done, especially given what we were up against. Finally, I wanted everyone to focus on the big picture, the strategic level. They needed to ‘‘make history.’’ Like the soldiers at the Alamo, we were in a special moment in time, given a special challenge against a particular enemy. We were standing up for what was

16

THE NEW NICARAGUA

right. This was history in the making. And we were playing a part. We needed to be humbled by that fact and take advantage of this moment to influence the future of this country. We had another ace in the hole on our side. Incoming Ambassador Paul Trivelli was a career diplomat and one of the most dedicated, hardest working, committed, and ethical individuals I have ever met. He was not about ideology either, but rather about doing what was right for Nicaragua. He recognized that the U.S. support for Aleman in the 1990s had led to massive corruption and mismanagement. He wanted Nicaragua to have a free, fair, and credible election in 2006, and he hoped that Nicaraguans would choose right over wrong. When Paul had earlier headed up the policy and planning office for the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, I was the USAID Latin America Bureau’s acting democracy leader. We worked together on budgets, policies, and programs. I was thrilled to work with Paul again. We worked well together, and I had tremendous respect for him. The U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua had a particularly good team at this point. Peter Brennan, the deputy chief of mission (the DCM, an embassy’s second in command after the Ambassador), had been serving as the charge d’affaires (the acting ambassador) for a good deal of time between Ambassador Trivelli and his predecessor, Ambassador Oliver P. Garza. Peter had a great feel for the country. As a former public affairs officer, he also had great experience with communications and the media. Victoria Alvarado was the Ambassador’s political adviser. She had experience in Iraq and had served earlier as a Venezuela desk officer. Tim Smith had been in Nicaragua for a year already and knew the country backward and forward. He had impressive contacts across the parties, with civil society, and with religious groups. Mark Cullinane was the economics counselor and helped a great deal on trade issues. Together, they worked extremely effectively under the Ambassador’s guidance. The composition of the U.S. Embassy team was closely watched by the local Nicaraguan politicians. Many in the PLC fully expected that, at some point, the United States would back its candidate. After all, the PLC was the only historic, established, and credible alternative to the FSLN. The logic was then that Washington, being allergic to the Sandinistas, would be forced to turn to help the PLC sooner or later. But what was the difference? Aleman and Ortega, along with their parties, had entered into the Pact to split up the spoils of governance. It was planned, organized, political corruption. The PLC and the FSLN were, in every sense, the same thing. Having said that, neither the PLC nor the FSLN were monolithic. Daniel Ortega and Arnoldo Aleman might be shocked to know how many of their Assembly deputies visited the Embassy in private to confess that they were FSLN, but not ‘‘danielista,’’ or PLC, but not ‘‘arnoldista.’’ Ambassador Trivelli wanted the Nicaraguans to decide their future without corruption and pledged to help if he could. In USAID, we are funded by the U.S. government, but we are not the State Department either. However, we realized that we would all be more effective if we all pulled in the same direction. The Political, Economic, and Public Affairs

JUMPSTARTING RULE OF LAW (AUGUST

2005)

17

Sections of the Embassy worked very well with us and collaborated on many activities. On a policy level, we agreed that we were not going to try to pick a winner. We were going to advance free, fair, and credible elections, and fight for the rule of law and transparency in government. My role was to organize my team and use my budget to support this broader strategy. Foreign assistance works best when it can help produce something tangible and measurable. I like to say, ‘‘Show me something I can kick.’’ That is what I was looking for in Nicaragua as I got started. I wanted to identify some efforts we could undertake that would transform the Nicaraguan democracy landscape. One effort I identified right away was the Criminal Code. Nicaragua’s legal system was based on a French civil law model. However, with USAID help, they got rid of a written inquisitorial criminal law system in which victims had no right to witness a trial, the accused could not confront witnesses, and the public thought all was rigged in secret by judges behind closed doors. Under the new system, trials were open to the public, allowed juries to participate, provided a right to counsel, and provided a presumption of innocence. But the substantive criminal law was largely unchanged for a hundred years. The current code dated to the days of Somoza—before human rights, the Constitution, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Inter-American Democratic Charter, or the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. And before the Internet for that matter. The world had changed, but the law had not. Politicians like Ortega or Aleman could take advantage of the gaping loopholes to run the country like a fiefdom. It had to change. Within our democracy team, we had three areas of focus: the upcoming election, rule of law or justice, and anticorruption. USAID used to implement its own programs directly via its employees. But during the 1980s, with emphasis on the private sector, USAID outsourced a lot of its work to nongovernmental organizations, faith-based institutions, international organizations and private firms, depending on what was needed. In Nicaragua, we had one contract to implement our justice reform (or rule of law) programs and another contract to a firm to implement our transparency (anticorruption) program. Luıs Fernando Ubeda oversaw the rule of law contractor, and Luz Marina Garcia oversaw the transparency one. As we settled in, Gustavo Berm udez (husband of Luz Marina Garcıa) extended my son Daniel and me a very special welcome with an invitation to the Presidential Palace on August 22nd. The Nicaraguan baseball team was ready to travel to Cuba for the world baseball championships. President Bola~ nos was presenting them with new uniforms before the media, giving the team a proper send-off. Being big baseball fans, Daniel and I jumped at the chance to meet these sports stars. At the event, we met many of the players and again said hello to the President. Gustavo, Daniel, and I even got a picture taken with the President. It was a very cool evening, the kind of event that made me pinch myself that I had this kind of job. We were very grateful to Gustavo for going out of his way to include us. But what really struck me about this event was what a nice, decent, down-toearth man Enrique Bola~ nos really was, the same impression of the man I took

18

THE NEW NICARAGUA

away when Daniel and I had met him earlier in Washington at the signing event for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. I would see this side of Bola~ nos again later when by chance we met at a local steakhouse, the Tiscapa, and he stopped by to say hello and patted my youngest son John on the head. Toward the end of our tour in Nicaragua, I saw this very human, very humble side again when, at my son Daniel’s middle school graduation, don Enrique again stopped to say hello, and we again got a few pictures with the President. He was always approachable and likable. Even as I got oriented in my new position and got to know my new team, Nicaragua’s political environment continued to churn. In August, Nicaragua’s fragile democracy was hit hard again by two Supreme Court decisions. The first ruling upheld recent constitutional amendments that transfer significant executive powers to the National Assembly, including authority to ratify cabinet ministers and ambassadors and control of public utilities. With this ruling, in effect, Ortega and Aleman would be in a position to control much of the executive branch. Second, the Supreme Court ordered the rehiring of a deputy director of the National Police that President Enrique Bola~ nos had fired. The Embassy issued a declaration deploring the decisions and saying that these actions demonstrate that the judicial system is totally discredited and is ‘‘asphyxiating’’ the Nicaraguan people. In a separate action, but also a the result of the Pact, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) reelected Roberto Rivas, a close confidant of Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, as President of the CSE and Emmet Lang, staunch supporter of Daniel Ortega, as Vice President. The Sandinistas had been courting the Cardinal, and the reelection of Rivas was the result of negotiations with Obando and the PLC. However, Obando’s influence was starting to recede as new Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes started to assume his authority over the Church, appointing leadership that was loyal to him, not Obando. Also, a subsequent law (the so-called ‘‘Ley Marco’’) put constitutional changes on hold until January 20, 2007. The political situation of the country remained tense with the National Assembly threatening to remove President Bola~ nos if he did not carry out recent court orders that upheld constitutional reforms that stripped the presidency of many powers and also lifted Aleman’s house arrest, giving the convicted strongman freedom of movement in Managua. The presidents of Central America held an emergency meeting in September in Managua to support Bola~ nos and civil society groups planned marches in his defense. The FSLN and PLC leadership took countermeasures, using the vote on CAFTA as another way to pressure Bola~ nos. The FSLN called for an anti-CAFTA protest while PLC leaders said there would be no vote on CAFTA until Aleman was released. While anti-CAFTA marches did take place, they did not have a major impact, and CAFTA passed with PLC votes after intense lobbying by the private sector.

4

Preparing for the March and November 2006 Elections (September 2005)

By September, before leaving Nicaragua, U.S. Ambassador Oliver P. Garza declared that the current leadership of the PLC, controlled by Aleman, had turned its back on democratic values. Ambassador Garza accused the PLC leaders of forming an antidemocratic Pact with the Sandinistas that was threatening to return the country to the dark nights of the past. He said the United States would look for and provide support for those Nicaraguans that would give the country a real democratic option. Since then, Ambassador Trivelli reinforced this position, and Deputy Secretary Zoellick’s remarks in early October reiterating the U.S. government’s policy are considered by many to have led to the truce weeks later between President Bola~ nos and the Pact as well as a considerable moderation in the PLC’s position toward negotiations with Montealegre and Alvarado. Over the years, one of the biggest criticisms of USAID’s work in elections has been that we start too late, focus just on the elections process itself, and then quit as soon as the election is over. While this stereotype overstates what USAID has done over the years, there is a grain of truth to it. USAID works with funds from Congress, and it is hard to get funding, year in and year out. Dramatic elections equaled galvanizing events to justify funding even if the development rationale was weakened by not providing institutionalized support on a more sustainable basis. We were committed to mitigating this phenomenon on our watch. This meant getting our elections partners on board as early as possible. While the general elections would not be until November 2006, the Atlantic Coast regional elections were set for March 2006. Many predicted that the major parties would use the Atlantic Coast elections to test out strategies, legal and illegal. We were determined that our assistance would help ensure a clean process.

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

To implement our elections program, we decided that we needed two partners. On the one hand, the Organization of American States (OAS) had observed elections across the region and spoke for the inter-American legal system. We wanted the OAS to play a major role, and we wanted the Nicaraguans to see that we supported the OAS; we were not trying to impose any ‘‘gringo solution’’ or back any particular party or candidate. The OAS would observe the election as a neutral third party. Often, the OAS also likes to provide technical assistance to the electoral authorities to help them administer a proper election. However, where a party provides help, there is an incentive to not be critical of the resulting performance that benefited from that help. While the OAS really wanted to play a technical assistance role, we wanted the OAS to be impartial, and more importantly, to be perceived as impartial. So we offered funding to the OAS to help pay for its international electoral observation, but said we would not contribute toward the OAS providing any technical help. At this point, we pledged $1 million to the OAS (although later this amount was increased to $2 million). Knowing that money is fungible, and fearing that the OAS might just go to some other donor (the Europeans? Japan?) and get their money to fund technical assistance, we enjoined our Embassy colleagues and went together to meet with other donors. We explained how we wanted to avoid conflicts of interest. We became a united front, and all agreed that the OAS would lead the international observation but not provide technical help. We did something else differently in Nicaragua than anywhere else in the region with the OAS. In other elections, even previously in Nicaragua, USAID had given its funding to the U.S. representation to the OAS (in the State Department, called the USOAS). The USOAS would then give the cash to the OAS for its programs. But this had several negative consequences. First, the OAS could not be held accountable for how it spent the money. Second, if the OAS gets its money in Washington, the OAS has little incentive to work with the Embassy or USAID in country. We wanted smooth donor coordination. We also wanted to avoid gaps, overlaps, and conflicts among donors. This meant control in the field. Finally, if USAID gives away the money, even to the State Department, it loses that control. I wanted USAID to be responsible for playing the role it is supposed to play. I did not want to see us outsource our responsibilities. We were going to be players in this program, and we were not going to shirk our role. So, for the first time ever, the OAS got its funding for international electoral observation, not from USAID/Washington or USOAS, but from a field mission. This also meant the OAS had to render progress reports and financial vouchers to us in Managua so that we could assure accountability for this effort. If the OAS was not going to provide help or technical assistance to the Nicaraguans, who was going to do it? We needed another partner. The Consortium for Electoral and Political Party Support (CEPPS) coalition provided a logical solution. For people either within USAID, or who work on international issues on Capitol Hill, the ‘‘CEPPS partners’’ are everyday language. IFES (formerly the International Foundation for Electoral Support) has worked all over the world in providing

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governments with technical help in how to run elections. The International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) help political parties and civil society to participate more effectively in elections. Together, IFES, IRI, and NDI comprise the CEPPS coalition. CEPPS became the answer. We signed up CEPPS with a $4.5 million Cooperative Agreement (an amount we later increased). It is worth noting that, in general terms, federal law prohibits USAID from engaging in partisan politics. Given this situation, we could not have used federal money to support a particular candidate or party even if we had wanted to. USAID’s own internal guidance establishes firewalls and policy brakes to ensure full compliance. We went over this policy with our CEPPS partners, and they fully supported this approach, consistent with the same instructions we were getting from Ambassador Trivelli. Our ‘‘package’’ was coming together. Most Americans wonder why their government at times seems slow or bureaucratic, or why they can’t just do things the most direct way. Soon after getting to Managua, I came up against a couple of such constraints. One was procurement integrity. We developed work descriptions for our two grantees—the OAS and the CEPPS partners. And working with our regional grants officer, Annette Tuebner, an absolutely amazing, dedicated, and intelligent procurement official, we began moving the funds and paperwork to get the deals signed up. Another constraint on how we put the program together was that, incredibly enough, USAID was not allowed to speak with certain high level government officials (at least at this point). Congress had given new authority to the State Department to revoke visas of persons who were ‘‘corrupt.’’ The U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua set the record for revoking visas. For example, a good chunk of the Aleman family lost their visas. The Attorney General, Controller General, and some members of the Supreme Court also had visas stripped. This was absolutely not a political process. Revoking a visa required firm evidence of corruption. The individual would be given a chance to rebut the evidence and contest the decision. But in the end, corrupt officials would be punished. Nicaraguans and their press even invented a new word for them—the ‘‘desvisados.’’ Having taken that dramatic political step, logically, the Embassy would not want USAID then to turn around and meet with them to do ‘‘business as usual.’’ My problem in USAID was how to run democracy programs, promote the rule of law, and work to end corruption without talking to the leaders of the very organizations we were supposed to be helping. Ambassador Trivelli inherited this policy from his predecessors and immediately understood the predicament. In the end, he allowed a Solomonic solution. We left the restrictions in place with two exceptions. First, those of us involved with elections would be allowed to go to the Supreme Electoral Council (Consejo Supremo Electoral or CSE), provided it was low key, and if possible, without press. If possible, we would meet with career professional staff rather than the appointed politicians. Second, a similar exception was made for engagement with the court or prosecution or controller general. All of this underscored the fact that USAID was in Nicaragua to help on a technical, apolitical level for the good of the Nicaraguan people.

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

The Ambassador’s decision could not have come at a better time. The CSE was discussing in the local press how it wanted to invite electoral authorities from Latin American countries to observe the Atlantic Coast elections in March 2006. But the CSE did not extend an invitation to the OAS. If we were going to get the OAS involved, we had to talk with Roberto Rivas, the president of the CSE—and also a desvisado. The CSE is comprised of seven magistrates and three alternates. The magistrates and their alternates are elected to five-year terms by the National Assembly. Constitutional changes in 2000 expanded the number of CSE magistrates from five to seven and gave the PLC and the FSLN a freer hand to name party activists to the Council, prompting allegations that both parties were politicizing electoral institutions and processes and excluding smaller political parties. Even as we anguished about how to get the OAS to the table with the CSE, the CSE made a very public move in firing Dionisio Palacios, the head of the unit that produced voter identification cards (c e dulas), under unclear circumstances. The CSE alleged his inadequate handling of the c e dulaci on process. Without CEPPS or IFES or the OAS on the ground and without actually talking with the CSE, it was hard to tell what was happening. We needed to get our partners moving as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we began building bridges with our counterparts. All of this underscored, on a broader level, how we needed to work for transparency, anti-corruption, and effective governance. While USAID has its democracy program, it also funds significant activities in health, education, economic growth, and the environment. Even more broadly, the U.S. Embassy also funds programs in public outreach and commercial engagement. I proposed that USAID get together with the Embassy and integrate all of our efforts in an ‘‘anticorruption strategy.’’ El Salvador had held an ‘‘all-mission retreat’’ to mainstream anticorruption themes across strategic objectives and U.S. mission programs. This exercise was designed to operationalize the USAID anticorruption strategy of mainstreaming anticorruption in all areas of work. I thought we had the opportunity to do something similar in Nicaragua. Eventually, we would undertake such a strategy for Nicaragua. In this same vein, I proposed we do like Bob Woodward and other journalists do: follow the money. I proposed that we hold a regional political party finance forum in Managua to include a major regional political leader as a keynote speaker. What better way to put political party reform on the public agenda? Back in October 2004, while in my prior position as the Acting Democracy leader in Washington, I had coordinated a very similar conference in Lima, led by Ambassador Curt Struble, working with NDI, IRI, IFES, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), and the Asociaci on Civil Transparencia de Per u, along with consultants Patricio Maldonado and Gerardo Berthın (both with Casals and Associates). Issues discussed at this forum including disclosure, enforcement, spending and contribution limits, and public/private financing. I hoped we could do something similar for Managua. While the subject of political parties and campaign finance was an issue, some within USAID and in Washington wondered whether the theme was broad

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enough. Many noted that the problems with political parties went way beyond how they were financed. That was very true. Nicaraguan political parties lacked transparency. Participation was limited to the elite. They were hardly democratic in their structure. I agreed with all this. But my point was that the campaign finance angle was one issue where we could galvanize consensus. It was sexy—and at times, salacious. Civil society and the media would be interested. The issue was how to spark the debate, and my answer was to focus on the financing. By discussing the political party finance angle, we would educate the public about broader issues of political party reform and democratization. Whether we actually delivered on campaign finance regulation was not the point: we needed to engage the public in the debate. Patricio Maldonado, Gerardo Berthın, and Pablo Galarce from IFES had real experience in this. They came to my aid. Gerardo had actually written his doctoral thesis on this topic. All three had helped me pull together the October 2004 event in Chile. With them on my side, we together were able to convince my own institution and the Embassy that this was a viable strategy. I don’t know if they were convinced, but they acquiesced. We had been pulling rabbits out of hats for a number of years, and perhaps our bosses thought they would see what we could do this time. In any case, I knew that part of my audience—in USAID/Washington, the State Department, and the Embassy—was not fully convinced. We would have to produce a public debate, or our credibility would be on the line. At the same time, the Carter Center visited USAID to explore how they might participate in an international electoral observation. The Carter Center had played a role in Nicaragua in the past and sought to re-engage. We welcomed the Carter Center’s involvement and encouraged them to join the efforts. The more eyes on the Nicaraguan election the better, we thought. We needed more people to pressure the Nicaraguan government to ensure a clean election, and the Carter Center’s voice certainly had a persuasive value. On the other hand, some Nicaraguans did not want the Carter Center there. Some remembered how it was Jimmy Carter’s cutting off of assistance to Somoza that led to the Sandinista takeover of their home. Others recalled how the Center blinked and never called foul when the FSLN rigged the electoral results in Granada’s mayoral election in November 2004. But if you really examine any international observer group, including the United Nations, CAPEL, and International IDEA, they have all had successes and failures, and as a community, we have all learned. We had complete confidence that the Carter Center would play a positive role if it wanted to engage. Having been a volunteer with the Carter Center previously myself, I wanted to see the Center involved. However, the Carter Center wanted USAID to pay for its role or at least contribute together with other donors. To that, we declined. Our program was designed for efficiency and simplicity. In the 2001 Nicaraguan elections, USAID made grants to perhaps twenty organizations, some working at cross purposes and with different methods. This time around, my mantra was that we wanted a ‘‘program, not a Christmas tree.’’ I had set up a single grant for international

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

observation with the OAS and put aside other funds for CEPPS to cover the rest of the election process. We had everything covered. In the 1992 Mexican elections, the Carter Center pressured the U.S. government through USAID to give it funding to observe the elections. A friend of mine became the project manager for USAID/Mexico. The Carter Center then had its own command center separate from USAID and the Embassy even though USAID paid the bills. The Center sent out its own press releases without checking to make sure it was on the same page with USAID or the Embassy. My friend was the one who got blamed for the Carter Center’s freelancing, not the politicians who caved under political pressure and forced Jene to write the Center a check on a noncompetitive basis. I didn’t want that fate for myself. I was not saying we needed to control the Carter Center (or any other grantee), but that in this context, we all needed to be on the same page with a single, effective message. Otherwise, corrupt elements within the Nicaraguan government could just play us off against each other and get away with rigging an election. It had happened before. I argued against taking that risk. I argued that ironically, we would probably have more influence with the Carter Center to ensure a common message if we were their peers as opposed to their grantor. I began to realize that this new job required very close coordination with our Embassy. USAID American employees, called ‘‘direct hires,’’ had regular access to the Ambassador. But most of them did not deal at all with democracy issues. On the other hand, I had an elite team, mostly built of Nicaraguan experts. If they had the best information, I wanted them to have access. The Embassy resisted; the USAID culture incorporates foreign service nationals into its programs and relies on them heavily, whereas the State Department traditionally has kept foreign employees more at arm’s length, preferring to rely on its American staff. The Ambassador gave me the green light, and from then on, we had our own weekly meeting with the Ambassador to go over our activities and results, problems, and challenges. I never regretted this, and I think the Ambassador benefited from this direct engagement. Our employees, who had never had this sort of access or exposure, were intimidated at first. But over time, they stepped up and became increasingly better spokespersons for their activities. I was extremely proud of how they blossomed as time progressed. I learned later that my inclusion of foreign service nationals in weekly meetings with the Ambassador became a best practices lesson for newly hired foreign service officers. At the time, it just seemed like the best way for me to get the best performance out of my team. In management, there is an axiom that the person who has the best information should be the one to brief on it. Since the Nicaraguan nationals had the best information, why shouldn’t they speak directly to the decisionmakers? Others warned me that giving my reportees this entree with the Ambassador could mean that the Ambassador would value me less—I would not be the source of the information, and information is power, the logic held. I thought differently. My job was to serve the Ambassador, and this way he got excellent information from my team.

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Even as I was working at this level of detail in my professional life, my family and I were still living in a temporary house. Worse, that temporary house had been pledged to another incoming employee. USAID asked us to move to another temporary location so that it could give the place where we were living to the new employee, including a social sponsor and the full welcome. It was hard to accelerate my transition at work when my personal life remained so ill-defined and out of control. We had no choice but to move to the new location, which was smaller and farther away. It was also located in an entirely new neighborhood, so my family’s sense of geography would also require another adjustment. As far as I could tell, everyone was working hard and promising action to find us permanent housing. We were told time and time again that there wasn’t any available housing in Managua on the rental market that had more than two bedrooms. There did not seem to be any solution on the horizon. My family was not pleased. We ask a lot of families that are willing to leave their homes, friends, and families to move overseas and serve our country. There was a limit to how much I could complain in the office without appearing to be a ‘‘problem’’ employee or labeled as ‘‘high maintenance.’’ It was a frustrating position to be in. About that time, the person in charge of housing actually left the country to attend training. She would be gone for weeks. It looked like we would never resolve our problem. The new temporary location was smaller than the previous one and had only two bedrooms. Julia and I took one bedroom, but I have three children. I did not want my two boys rooming with my pre-teen daughter. If it was a truly temporary situation, we could adapt, just as we might in a hotel. But we did not see any prospect of getting out of this situation. I discussed this with my boss, who said that if we could find a place on our own within the budget and other guidelines, we could submit it to the housing board of the Embassy for consideration. At last, we were empowered to do something about our own situation. My wife met with a real estate agent, and to our pleasant surprise, we found several available and suitable houses. One in particular was located near several other USAID families and had four bedrooms. It needed some security upgrades, which the owner agreed to do, but it was under budget. We submitted it to the housing board, got the administrative approval, and eventually moved in the first week of November. Julia had challenged me to look for a solution so that we could be in a proper house by Thanksgiving. We met that challenge. About this same time, our car and some personal effects were delivered from the United States Our personal life was finally getting better, and we could better transition to our new house and make Managua our new home. Later, I would learn an interesting trivia fact about our house: the former tenants were the presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre and his wife. Julia had pulled a rabbit out of a hat to get us into that place. While I was worrying about things like where I was going to live, President Bola~ nos appointed an ad-hoc commission to go to Washington to publicly denounce the latest political decisions by the Legislature and the Court that stripped powers from the executive branch, lifted the immunity of several cabinet

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

members, and freed Aleman from house arrest. Speaking at a press conference, Ambassador Trivelli said that ‘‘political shamelessness has reached levels never before seen in Nicaragua’’ in reference to the recent actions by the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. He said that these actions sent a ‘‘red alert’’ to the international community that the rule of law was in a very weak position. One of the best moments of my time in Nicaragua was when Ambassador Trivelli, during a separate TV interview, invented an entirely new word in Spanish: the sinverg€ uens ometro, a single word meaning the ‘‘shamelessness meter.’’ He had an uncanny touch for capturing the moment, and for months, Nicaraguans all came up to me and asked whether that was spontaneous or (as they suspected) planned in advance. I asked him that myself, and he maintained that it just occurred to him on the spot while under the camera spray. Could you imagine a U.S. politician on live TV inventing a new English word? Brilliant.

5

Zoellick’s Public Diplomacy and a Disaster in Waspa´n (October 2005)

In the structure of foreign policy, strategy comes from Washington. Embassies and agencies in the field are meant to implement that strategy. And how the message is delivered is called ‘‘public diplomacy.’’ In the first week of October 2005, Nicaragua heard loudly and clearly what the U.S. policy was going to be. The numbertwo person in the State Department, the person just behind the Secretary, is the Deputy Secretary. To underscore Nicaragua’s importance, then-Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick came to Managua. Deputy Secretary Zoellick delivered a strong message to the PLC followers of convicted former president Arnoldo Alema´n that the United States would not support any kind of agreement that would free Alema´n. Zoellick said Alema´n was a criminal and advised members of the PLC to break away from him and his Pact with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. Zoellick also warned that the U.S. government would continue to revoke visas of corrupt officials and that $175 million under the Millennium Challenge Account would be suspended immediately if President Bola~ nos was not allowed to finish his term of office. The Nicaraguan press asked him, point blank, who the United States would support in the upcoming elections. He stated clearly that the United States supports free, fair, transparent, and credible elections. We would endorse no candidate. However, he wanted Nicaraguans to have the best possible government. To that end, he proposed a three-prong test. First, the United States would like to see Nicaragua have a president who was a democrat and who would rule democratically. Since both the United States and Nicaragua were signatories of the InterAmerican Democratic Charter, this could be seen as apple pie. But a number of Nicaraguans interpreted his remark to mean ‘‘not Ortega.’’ Second, Zoellick said, America would like to see Nicaragua have a president who was not corrupt. Again,

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

many Nicaraguans immediately interpreted this to mean ‘‘neither Ortega nor Alema´n.’’ Third, Zoellick noted that America would prefer to see Nicaragua not have a president who is organically or genetically anti-American. While this is a logical aspiration of any two friendly countries, again the interpretation of some Nicaraguans was ‘‘anyone other than Ortega or Alema´n.’’ Despite all the interpretations, the Deputy Secretary did not endorse a candidate or any party. He reached out to representatives of the various parties but kept a distance from the desvisados. One of the more ironic moments of all this was when the press stopped Ambassador Trivelli and put him on the spot about Zoellick’s comments. The press had concluded Alema´n and Ortega were in disfavor, but they wanted to know exactly where to draw the line. If Jose Rizo was the PLC nominee, was he out, too? Ambassador Trivelli did not want to answer with a litmus test or say who was in or who was out. He responded, ‘‘If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.’’ In other words, if you hang out with Alema´n and work with him, then you’re with Alema´n. But by not naming Rizo, Trivelli’s comment gave Rizo the chance to disown Alema´n if he chose to do so, either at that moment or in the future. The Ambassador never said anything negative about Jose Rizo with whom he had been friends since the Ambassador served as Economic Counselor in the Embassy in the 1990s. The Ambassador’s comments played into a perfect storm. While the Ambassador’s Spanish is very good, he is not a native speaker. The Spanish word for duck is ‘‘pato,’’ which in Nicaraguan slang also means homosexual. As it happened, there had been persistent rumors about Rizo’s sexuality. From that day onward, the political cartoons and local pundits anointed Rizo as the ‘‘Pato.’’ Sometimes they now called him the ‘‘Patito’’ or little duck. I know the Ambassador never meant for that to happen. He would never have put a label on anyone to be mean, let alone someone he had known for more than a decade. Ambassador Trivelli was never like that, and I suspect the situation pained him. The Zoellick position in Nicaragua tracked with President Bush’s policy in Iraq. Asked whether the CIA or the Embassy in Iraq was going to pick a candidate to be president, George W. Bush responded, ‘‘We’re not going to pick winners.… Let the chips fall where they may.’’ That was a hard message for a lot of people to hear who wanted the United States to play its traditional role of kingmaker. The British had wanted Bush to back Prime Minister Allawi. But the Bush presidency was not about that in the Iraqi election. Instead, he said he wanted to make sure we were ‘‘doing the right thing.’’ While the Iraq situation and Nicaragua had little else in common, we also wanted this to be about ‘‘doing the right thing,’’ and we weren’t about to make this about ‘‘right versus left.’’ Immediately following the Zoellick visit, Nicaragua’s legislature finally approved the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). Ratification of the agreement had been stalled all year in the legislative branch by the Sandinistas until Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega allowed the vote to take place. La Prensa newspaper had published several articles on investor flight and loss of jobs as the result of the National Assembly’s failure to ratify DR-CAFTA.

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2005)

29

Some analysts claimed Ortega was probably trying to improve his image after repeated criticism by international donors, civil society groups, and former members of his own party for engineering a political pact with former president and PLC leader Arnoldo Alema´n that had created political turmoil. Although Ortega opposed DR-CAFTA, he probably did not want to be blamed for an economic downturn, particularly since opinion polls showed that the majority of Nicaraguans favored ratifying DR-CAFTA. In another attempt to project a democratic image, the OAS brokered an agreement between President Enrique Bola~ nos and Daniel Ortega to put off constitutional changes that would weaken the executive branch’s powers until Bola~ nos left office in January 2007. The PLC also agreed to join with the Sandinistas and the Bola~ nos administration in a national dialog to resolve the political conflict between the legislative and executive branches. The National Assembly approved a special ‘‘framework law’’ (Ley Marco) that would put on hold recent constitutional reforms that had stripped the presidency of most of its powers and provoked a crisis between the legislative and executive branches. The framework law was a result of the OAS-brokered agreement between President Bola~ nos and Daniel Ortega to resolve the crisis. According to the framework law, the constitutional reforms would not enter into effect until January 20, 2007, when Bola~ nos’ term ended. Surprisingly, the law was supported by all the political factions and a majority of the Assembly deputies. Ambassador Trivelli reluctantly declared the U.S. government’s support for the legislation: ‘‘If the agreement between President Bola~ nos and Mr. Ortega, or whoever, results in a framework law, we welcome it, because it will give the country some political stability.’’ I remember thinking to myself as he said that about what Thomas Jefferson said: ‘‘Delay is preferable to error.’’ Shortly thereafter, a ‘‘national dialogue’’ among the Liberals, Sandinistas and the Executive began. It was only my second month in Nicaragua, but after the Zoellick visit, a strategy seemed to be emerging. We had to trust the Nicaraguan voters to do the right thing. That is what democracy is all about. But we had to ensure that the two established parties did not rig the system with their machines and money to keep corruption in power for yet another term. The Nicaraguan people deserved better. While there was corrupt leadership on the left (Ortega) and the right (Alema´n) in their pact with each other, there was also a democratic left (Herty Lewites and others) and a democratic right (Eduardo Montealegre). Also, it was unclear whether or not Ortega and Alema´n really spoke for their parties. Within the FSLN, Economist Alejandro Martınez Cuenca promised to challenge Ortega in a primary. Could he rescue the FSLN and bring it back to the democratic fold? On the right, Jose Rizo (PLC) and Jose Antonio Alvarado (APRE, a spinoff from the PLC) were strong liberal candidates who talked democracy, but were they really independent of Alema´n or just his stooges? Our strategy would be to promote a clean, fair, transparent, and credible democratic election. We would also work with civil society to examine the candidates’ records and make it clear who was ‘‘on the take.’’ Also, after decades of mismanagement and

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corruption, the voters were jaded. We needed them to get out in numbers, especially the youth who had never before voted. We hoped the youth might not have been corrupted already by the established parties and would be open to hearing a public debate and making their own choices to favor democracy. This meant not only encouraging them to vote but also making sure they could get voter identification cards (c e dulas). Of course, democracy is more than just elections. We needed to do what we could with the justice system, civil society, and the administration to clean up government and improve administration. Even if the FSLN and the PLC had a lock on all the instruments of power, the party faithful were not monolithic. They could be persuaded to work to improve governance and transparency—on that we could all agree. After all, we were not against the FSLN or the PLC or any political party at all; we were against persons who were not democrats, who were corrupt, or who were organically anti-American. Many hard-working, honest members of the FSLN and PLC did not fit this mold, and we were thrilled to work with them. It underscored that we were about fairness and transparency and that we could work across political spectrums to do what was in the interest of ordinary Nicaraguans, not the corrupt puppet masters. Or as Thomas Jefferson put it, ‘‘The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.’’ Having lived in Caracas, I had seen something like this before. In Venezuela, to institutionalize democracy and give it a better chance of success, the main political parties undertook a political alliance, the Pacto de Punto Fijo. The Pacto de Punto Fijo represented an alliance of competing political, social, and economic sectors that allowed democracy to survive from 1959 to 1964. The actors agreed to share political power to some degree, regardless of which party won the elections. They attempted to impart permanence to the government based on a concurrent majority that would in turn provide stability to the new democracy. This group played a dominant institutional role in the political, social, and economic spheres. This Venezuelan method of rule, notwithstanding its good intentions of preserving a new democratic regime, actually resulted in an undefeatable and impenetrable two-party system (Partidocracia), which ultimately would have tremendous consequences. The Pacto de Punto Fijo excluded many from any political role. By the 1980s, Venezuelan President Jaime Lucinchi (COPEI party) and then Carlos Andres Perez of Acci on Democra´tica (AD) had both been corrupt to the core. (Sound familiar?) Furthermore, Venezuela’s ruling classes did little to reform the structure to make it more representative or inclusive. While much has been made of the stability and durability of democracy in Venezuela, a closer inspection shows that it has had a series of ‘‘near misses’’ in coup attempts. The Hugo Cha´vez coup attempt failed, but it demonstrated the vulnerability of the Pact in Venezuela. The people had had enough. In the next election, amid the decay of the two traditional parties, two new parties emerged. In that election, Rafael Caldera won on a third-party ticket, and Velazquez of another third party (la Causa R) came in second, with COPEI and AD coming in behind.

ZOELLICK’S PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND A DISASTER IN WASPA´N (OCTOBER

2005)

31

Such a third-party scenario in Nicaragua was a long shot but possible. Could outside candidates make a bid to gain the presidency without the backing of the corrupt old guard under the Pact? Doubtful. Ortega had a firm lead in every poll a year out, and he had a lock on a party machine, the Pact with Alema´n, and access to cash. But a third-party strategy was the only hope democracy in Nicaragua had. The alternative was a return to the Alema´n-Ortega kleptocracy of the past. We had to try. Ortega announced in the press that what happened in Venezuela would happen again in Nicaragua. I was sure he was identifying with Hugo Cha´vez and the victory of a populist strongman left, but I knew the real history of the Venezuelan Pact. And I hoped Daniel was right: It would mean a ticket led by him would finish no better than third, along with anyone associated with Arnoldo Alema´n. I also knew that this time around might be a long shot. But just as time was on the side of the Venezuelan people to get rid of that country’s Pact, time would also get rid of the Nicaraguan Pact, if not in 2006, then at some point down the road. We needed to put in place the building blocks, one brick at a time, to get there. Democracy in Nicaragua would not be an event but a gradual process toward realization. Even as we worked to prepare for the elections, we were also dealing with a new emergency. Our usual Mission Disaster Relief Officer, Steve Olive, was out of town. His backup, Alex Dickie, was also away. I was the third-string guy, and since it was only going to be a week or so, I didn’t worry too much about it—I was busy. Besides, it was only for a week or so—famous last words! We got an urgent request by the Nicaraguan government for assistance. Hurricane Beta slammed into Nicaragua. In the remote town of Waspa´n near the Rıo Coco, 395 miles northeast of Managua in the Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN), heavy rains ended up producing a rat plague, which in turn decimated crops, causing food shortages for that city’s 4,450 residents. There were just over 800 people in shelters as a result of the flooding, mostly in the Leon and Chinandega area where the Rıo Los Queso and the Rıo Negras flooded. There were 10 communities that were completely outside of contact. Sporadic rains continued across the country with some localized heavy downpours. In Yali, Matagalpa, we received reports from Project Concern International. They reported 239 people who needed to be moved out of the area due to landslides. While temporary shelters were necessary, the move would likely have to be permanent as the land was no longer suitable for occupation. The government’s emergency supplies were exhausted. The government had sent its remaining supplies to Guatemala and El Salvador to help out after Hurricane Stan there earlier in the month. The Nicaraguan Ministry of Finance requested 3.6 million Nicaraguan c ordobas (equivalent to just under half a million U.S. dollars) from the National Assembly to replenish these supplies, but this request was not yet approved. If the people in Yali needed temporary shelters, the Nicaraguan government did not have the materials to construct them. Joining others, we donated $50,000 immediately. Our contribution went to the World Food Programme to cover transportation costs for the 224 metric tons of

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food to be distributed to these indigenous communities in the North Atlantic Region over the next three months. Globally, the U.S. government is the primary donor to the World Food Programme, contributing more than $1 billion a year to support World Food Programme activities worldwide. My role in all this was marginal. I showed up at a media event with the Ambassador and the acting USAID director, Carol Horning, posed for some pictures, and signed off on some documents. The real heroes for making this all work and come together were Enrique Urbina (a local Nicaraguan employee at USAID on the economic growth team) and Carol Horning (who managed much of the coordination with Washington). Their immediate, compassionate response saved lives in Waspa´n and in the neighboring communities. The disaster highlighted once again how fragile development can be in these countries.

6

International Collaboration and Turkeys (November 2005)

In November, the U.S. government added the vice president of the Controller General’s Office, Guillermo Arguello Poessy, to the list of Nicaraguans who, under Section 212-F of the Immigration Law, have had their visas revoked. Arguello became vice president of the Controller General’s Office in 2000 after the Sandinistas and the PLC created a five-member board. Arguello is a close friend and supporter of former president Arnoldo Aleman. As Controller General, Arguello conspired with Attorney General Centeno Gomez, whose visa had also been revoked, to protect Aleman from accusations of embezzlement of millions of dollars in Nicaraguan government funds by blaming others for the losses. In October, Ortega announced again that the ‘‘Pact’’ had ended, a recurring theme in Nicaragua. Every couple of months, the FSLN and PLC seem to announce the end of the Pact. Then they continue business as usual, only to repeat the cycle a couple of months later. Still, in November, thousands of Nicaraguans participated in a march against corruption in the city of Juigalpa, located about 100 miles southeast of Managua. This was the fourth demonstration organized by a network of civil society organizations led by the Movement for Nicaragua (Movimiento por Nicaragua). The work of the Pact, and Movimiento’s response, reminded me of the following quote from Abraham Lincoln: ‘‘The people—the people are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts—not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.’’ Movimiento also kept up pressure on the policy front. Klaus Stadhagen put the issue of candidate disqualifications (inhibiciones) squarely on the table. Klaus, who led Movimiento’s youth programs, made it very clear that civil society would not tolerate inhibiciones.

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

USAID works best when it is in concert with the other countries’ development agencies. And we were very anxious to make sure we were on the same page with the Europeans and Japanese in particular. The Embassy’s deputy ambassador, referred to as the Deputy Chief of Mission (or DCM), in Managua was Peter Brennan. Peter was absolutely in agreement with us on the need to engage the other donors. But it is amazing sometimes how even little details can make this difficult. For example, where would all the donors meet? Should the venue be a neutral site? Or should it be rotating? Who should chair the meeting? Should participation be open to everyone? Just ambassadors? Just the donors who are actually putting up cash? There are many details, and there are a lot of egos involved. I guess that is why they call it ‘‘diplomacy.’’ But as someone who likes action, I made some suggestions. I spoke with the German Embassy prior to any meetings and said that I didn’t ever want to host a meeting at USAID or the U.S. Embassy: I was concerned about the optics of people thinking there was some hatched plan or conspiracy by the Americans, and I also didn’t want to go through the elaborate security process to clear any number of foreign diplomats into our secure office space! I also suggested that Germany be the permanent chair of the meetings. At the time, Germany held the chair of the European Union. Also, Germany did not intend to invest any funds in the electoral process (which made them appear neutral in a funny sort of way). And besides, the German Embassy was near good restaurants and provided cookies and coffee for the meetings. None of the Europeans objected to Germany, so Germany it was. Another suggestion I had was to include the CEPPS partners in the donor coordination process. Peter went to bat on that, and the donors acquiesced. On a parallel track, we in USAID agreed to define an electoral calendar with milestones and trigger dates (or trip wires for cases of abuse) for common use by the international donors. That document would hopefully enable the donors to speak with a unified voice and with coordinated public diplomacy in the event of abuses. I found that another challenge was trying to engage constructively with the CSE. USAID and the CSE had been feuding for over a year before I arrived. At the core were allegations of misuse of funds or worse. USAID feared that hundreds of thousands of dollars of computer equipment given to the CSE for a prior election had ended up at some official’s home. In the end, it proved not to be the case, but the damage in the relationship was done. Our partners had finally shifted into action. The OAS began planning for its international observation of the spring 2006 regional elections on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast. The CEPPS partners began to get traction, too. IRI began work with civil society to advance voter education. IFES began an audit of the Atlantic Coast voter registry. NDI began work with local organizations Etica y Transparencia (ET) and Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Democracia (IPADE) on recommendations for the CSE to improve the ‘‘cedulation’’ process. Finally, I knew the USAID employees and those of the Embassy had personal political views. We did not want that to interfere with their work. In the United

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION AND TURKEYS (NOVEMBER

2005)

35

States, the Hatch Act forbids government employees from promoting partisan goals at work. I suggested to the USAID Director Alex Dickie and Ambassador Trivelli that we take the spirit of the Hatch Act and make that a policy for our Nicaraguan employees. A personnel notice was sent around—partisan politics in both the Embassy and USAID would not be tolerated. On a lighter note, my wife Julia and I did something with the Nicaraguan employees that year that we repeated the following November: we hosted a complete Thanksgiving Dinner for everyone and their families. These Nicaraguans had worked day in and day out, particularly in Luıs Fernando Ubeda’s case, since 1991 for USAID. But none of them had ever had the full turkey dinner with stuffing, gravy, rolls, yams, and all the other trimmings. Julia is the best cook I know, and she was incredibly organized to pull off this spread. We finished off the dinner with pumpkin and pecan pies. Anyone who has ever tried to cook overseas knows that you can’t always find the right ingredients. And when you see something at the store that isn’t usually there, you buy it in mass quantities because it may not be there the next time. I spent hours in the car driving all over Managua going to open markets, the ‘‘Stop and Go’’ (convenience store), the PriceMart (a smaller and a bit more expensive version of something like Costco), Porta’s (a smallish boutique grocery shop with limited selection, but at times some imports), and several other grocery stores, including Hyper La Colonia and La Union, but still could not find everything we needed. But in the end, Julia improvised, and we had an incredible dinner with enough for everyone. And with my overstocking of cans of pumpkin, I think we are still set for a few more years. I have been asked about whether we used ‘‘classified information.’’ In a word, no. All our programs were completely above the table. Sometimes information like someone’s home phone number or travel itinerary is ‘‘classified.’’ This is mainly for privacy or safety reasons. But we never had any secret agendas. Our program was exactly what it appeared to be. Really! As the month ended, and we looked ahead to the spring regional election on the Atlantic Coast, we needed to get a set of new cell phones for our observers and our democracy team. We put in a request with Movistar, one of the local service providers. However, when the cell phones arrived and we began to use them, we noted something curious. Each time, as we hung up after a conversation, a message flashed on the screen—‘‘call intervened’’ with an associated number. Call intervened? What did that mean? What was this other associated number? We all know that talking on cell phones is insecure. They are basically two-way walkie-talkies that can be easily intercepted. Our regional security officer had warned me in August when I arrived at the post that our conversations could be tapped by outside entities. When I heard this, I thought this was a quaint holdover from the old Cold War days. Who would want to listen to us? We had nothing to hide. I thought it pure paranoia. But here we were now with this ‘‘call intervened’’ message. It was our turn to do some sleuthing. It turns out that the number ‘‘intervening’’ on our calls was

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

registered to the Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE). Were they the ones listening to our conversations? On the one hand, it was laughable since everything we were doing could be discovered by a Freedom of Information Act request, or even easier, by just asking us. We had no secrets. But on the other hand, it was a bit scary. Were they monitoring our movements as well as our conversations? What were they doing with the information? Why were we being targeted? In the end, we just went back to Movistar and exchanged the phones for new ones and reported the problem. But now even with the new phones, we were very careful what we said on ‘‘open’’ cell phone lines and generally paid closer attention to personal security for the entire team.

7

Movimiento por Nicaragua (December 2005)

In December, after several weeks of criticism by all sectors, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on a narco-related case which involved the disappearance of $609,000 as a result of illegitimate judiciary procedures. The funds were confiscated as part of an alleged money laundering case. Several judges and private attorneys illegally withdrew the funds from a private bank. The Court then decided that the money should be returned to the bank and invoked suspensions of four judges and revoked the licenses of two attorneys involved in the case. We all understood how important civil society would be not only for the election, but also for the sustainability of democracy and the rule of law in Nicaragua. The fly in the buttermilk was that nearly all civil society suffered from either one of two ills. On the one hand, a lot of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were really fronts for the FSLN, set up with national funding as ways to move money from the government coffers to individual party members—legalized graft. These NGOs hardly pretended to represent the people. On the other hand, elitist organizations like the Chambers of Commerce did not link to the base but represented the interests of the rich—new (FSLN) and old (PLC). Nicaragua needed more options. In June, a civil society coalition group calling themselves the Movimiento Por Nicaragua visited me in Washington, asking for money. I had seen how S umate, a similar grouping from Venezuela, had tried to work for democratic change, but largely represented the interests of elites, not the base. I wondered how this would be any different. And I thought we should not hand over cash to anyone far wealthier than we are because it is their country, and it is their ox being gored, not ours. If this were a club of the wealthy, they should invest their own money, I thought. Nearly all of the leadership figures in Movimiento that I met with in Washington were probably millionaires.

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On the other hand, if Movimiento would open up participation, generate issues relating to a broad population, remain strictly nonpartisan but denounce corruption, and promote voting, then there might be a commonality of interest. Movimiento would have to be nonpartisan. It would have to connect with ordinary Nicaraguans, generate participation, and promote policies to attack poverty. As Woodrow Wilson put it, ‘‘Energy in a nation is like sap in a tree; it rises from bottom up.’’ I invited Joan Goodin, an expert on civil society organization in Latin America, to come to Nicaragua and give us her take on the status of NGOs. She noted that there is no lack of NGOs in Nicaragua. Nicaragua has more than 3,000 such organizations, many formed subsequent to hurricane Mitch in late 1998 as a response to the humanitarian crisis. With that experience in hand, a new network of 556 NGOs sprang to life, the Coordinadora Civil (CC), to represent NGO policy interests with government. Over time, however, the CC has lost some of its earlier drive, and the federation has been unable to put a concrete action agenda on the table. The Network for Nicaragua (Red de Nicaragua) has 60 members, and the Movement for Nicaragua (Movimiento por Nicaragua) had about 500 members. Movimiento was founded to protest the late 2004 constitutional reforms and to confront the Pact. All of the networks, unfortunately, were Mangua-focused, none had legal recognition, and they were plagued with issues of unsustainability over time. Joan’s observations echoed Freedom House in its 2006 Report on Nicaragua: [C]ivil society, though slowly gathering strength, is still too weak to pressure the government in most policy areas or force lawmakers to pass legislation beneficial to its interests … Most groups lack much depth of representation or capacity to mobilize their supporters to the streets, so their influence over policy or legislation, though at times tangible, is usually limited. We were under no illusion that civil society could eliminate Nicaraguan corruption. But the increased transparency was giving pause to those in the current administration that would seek to back away from international commitments and increasing the political cost of engaging in unjust enrichment and not promoting transparency. In addition, by stressing civil society, the demand for compliance with the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption was coming from the Nicaraguan citizens themselves, not outside actors. With Nicaraguans themselves making the case, we hoped there would be less need for our public diplomacy. In the end, we shouldn’t want it more than they do; this was the government of Nicaragua’s chance to demonstrate to its own citizens that it is serious about its international commitments against corruption. If the government of Nicaragua did not take those commitments seriously, the new transparency would tee up the issue in advance of the 2008 municipal elections. We thought this approach might be of interest to other countries facing difficult governance situations. It also underscored how development assistance can integrate effectively with public diplomacy and law enforcement interests.

MOVIMIENTO POR NICARAGUA (DECEMBER

2005)

39

On a separate track, I was concerned about how persons with disabilities could participate in the elections. As a third-world country with limited health care options, Nicaragua has its share of persons with health problems. The civil war in Nicaragua also left many without limbs, sight, or hearing. I sought additional money from Washington to implement programs targeted to this vulnerable population. While the funding was limited ($1 million available worldwide), the competition was intense. So I decided to join with five other countries in a unified proposal, agreeing to split any funds we got—and it worked! Again, democracy is not just about elections. While we were supportive of Movimiento, we also wanted to engage students. Law students were particularly interesting to us since they were the future leaders, judges, prosecutors, and public defenders. So we set about creating a ‘‘Law School Alliance.’’ In a lot of countries in Latin America, one of the central points of corruption is actually the military. Imagine all the millions of dollars in procurement outside any review either by Congress or the citizens. Opportunities for corruption were legion. Also, the military and police were the prime abusers of human rights throughout Latin America’s recent history. We needed to get civil society to focus on this as soon as possible. Why even have a military, some asked. Panama and Costa Rica both eliminated their militaries, and both became more stable as a result. On the other hand, there may be legitimate reasons to sustain a military. For example, a government may want the military to help with national disasters. Another role may be to serve as a complement to civilian law enforcement, especially for things like narcotics interception and interdiction on the high seas or in the air. The military can also perform traffic control on peak holidays or serve the public in other roles. Maintaining state presence and control over extended forests or natural resources may be another justification. According to a 2008 poll, the Nicaraguan military and police both have favorable public opinion ratings. Strangely enough, interest in defense issues among political elites has waned since the 1980s. Defense policy is rarely discussed when pressing issues like health, education, or citizen security are on the table. But ignoring the theme could, in effect, cede civilian control to the military through self-management. The subject gets short shrift from development experts for largely the same reasons. But the stakes are hugely important. Nicaragua still had 651 shoulder-fire missiles (called SAM-7s) left over from the 1980s, donated by the old Soviet Union. In a post 9/11 world, the United States was concerned that these could fall into the wrong hands. They could be stolen by terrorists. Or, given the culture of kleptocracy, they could simply be sold off to the highest bidder. I wondered whether armaments left over from a decades-old conflict, and never maintained, would actually work. What would happen if anyone actually tried to use them? What kind of collateral damage would there be? If I were Nicaraguan, I would have demanded that these things be destroyed immediately. But because it was an American idea, we gave Daniel Ortega something to bargain away. He wrapped himself in nationalism and said Nicaragua would never give up this defensive capability.

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Ortega complained that the United States had given offensive fighter aircraft to Honduras and that the SAM-7s were needed to defend Nicaragua. In fact, as part of our military-to-military cooperation, we asked both Honduras and Nicaragua what they needed within a minimal budget. Honduras asked for spotter planes to help in narcotics interdiction. These were slow-moving propeller aircraft, hardly Ortega’s ‘‘fighter planes.’’ For its part, Nicaragua asked for army equipment. Both countries got what they asked for, and both received about the same amount in dollar value. Both had been informed about what we were doing with the other. This was not about favoritism or rivalries. It was about collaboration and working together. Ortega deliberately distorted the facts for personal aggrandizement, ever the master at public relations and manipulation. On the margins of this debate (or debacle?), USAID quietly worked closely with the United Nations, the Nicaraguan military and Congress, and local civil society to establish the ‘‘White Book,’’ which outlined the new role for the military. For the first time, the military set forth its purpose and objectives. It presented how it intended to achieve those results and allowed civil society to participate in this process. USAID financed all the civil society participation, and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) funded publication of the resulting book. USAID had again made an invaluable contribution to the democratization of another Nicaraguan institution. We worked well with the military, even though its officers were nearly all from the FSLN, because they also wanted to professionalize and modernize. It was a clear win-win and again showed that we were not against any party, just against corruption. Even while we worked hard on improving governance and participation, we also had a lot of fun. After all, it was Christmas-time. Earlier in the month, on December 3, Todd Sloan invited my family and me to a breakfast at his home. Todd was the Peace Corps director in Nicaragua. Previously, he had worked with USAID in Guatemala, Honduras, and Bolivia, so he was a friend. Now as Peace Corps director, he oversaw one of the most important programs of that agency in the world with volunteers all over the country. One of the best events in Nicaragua is the Purısima. This holiday, celebrated at the end of the first week in December, is short for ‘‘Marıa Purısima,’’ or Most-Pure Mary. The day actually celebrates the Immaculate Conception of Mary. But to me as an American, this was a bit of Christmas caroling, combined with Halloween and the Fourth of July. You go singing Catholic seasonal songs from house to house. The homes are decorated with lights. After singing, the residents often give bags of rice or other food to the carolers, who go on to the next house. Some homes have reputations for always giving really good food or gifts. The poor mingle with the rich on this day with certain rich neighborhoods having lots of carolers. Luz Marina Garcıa took others from work and me to sing songs in her neighborhood. We had a blast. For some reason, only some neighborhoods do this, and not others. I didn’t understand why, but as long as I was with someone who knew what she was doing, I was fine. My kids Susana, John, and Daniel came along with me, and we all really had a great time.

8

A Welcome for USAID Electoral Help and Partying with Herty, Eduardo, and  Antonio (January 2006) Jose

With the regional Atlantic Coast elections just a couple of months away, we were nervous about plans coming together. On the one hand, we had agreed to give the OAS funding to observe the election, but the OAS still had not given us their plan. We called the U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, John Maisto (who had previously been U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua), to put the pressure on. To make matters worse, the CSE had not authorized any international observation for the election. Even if the OAS got its act together, it was unclear if it would be allowed in. On the other hand, assuming the OAS did come through, we needed to keep the OAS honest. International observers are sometimes criticized for not wanting to rock the boat. Would the OAS give Nicaragua a pass? The OAS did just that in Granada in the mayoral races in the last elections in November 2004—despite clear and overwhelming evidence of fraud. The OAS observation report never was made public. The Carter Center had given governments a pass before, too, in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela. We needed a credible check and balance to keep the international observers honest, and that would be an effective domestic electoral observation. We met with Roberto Courtney, the director for the local from Etica y Transparencia (ET), which along with the Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Democracia (IPADE), had served as a top electoral NGO with USAID funding since 1996. Both IPADE and ET planned to field domestic observation teams for the Atlantic Coast elections. It was IPADE that documented the electoral fraud in Granada in the past election despite the OAS presenting no objections. ET was now the local Nicaraguan chapter of Transparency International.

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Having both IPADE and ET on board would give added credibility to the observation effort and keep the OAS honest. Given resource constraints, IPADE and ET planned to coordinate placement of observers to ensure all potential problem voter centers (Centros de Recepci on de Votos, known as JRVs) were covered by at least one observer from ET or IPADE. To monitor the electoral activities, each political party/alliance can appoint party poll watchers (fiscales) to observe the electoral process, protect the party vote, and verify the integrity of the process. These fiscales have the right to observe all phases of the electoral process and to present challenges if problems or irregularities are discovered. USAID wanted to give its own local Nicaraguan employees and those from the Embassy a chance to help out and feel a part of history. ET agreed to accredit local Embassy and USAID Nicaraguan employees under its program. We agreed to provide ET with a list of volunteer participants and their citizen identification (ID) card numbers to finalize their accreditation request to the CSE. Since we thought that civic participation was a privilege of Nicaraguans, we encouraged our employees to participate, but we did not pay them to do this nor did we give them compensatory time off. This was a volunteer effort, and they needed to volunteer just like any other citizen. We were particularly concerned about a unique Nicaraguan electoral phenomenon called literally the ‘‘crazy rat,’’ or the Rat on Loco. One way to effect voter fraud was to change assigned voter centers so that voters were never sure where they were supposed to vote. If you could do this in places where you knew your party was going to lose, effectively frustrating local voting, you could repress the opposition. The Rat on Loco had been a huge problem in past elections. We also wanted to make sure that phantom voter IDs did not magically appear on the voter registries as also happened in the past election. These were both been factored into ET and IPADE’s upcoming audit of the voter registry (padr on) and assessment of the process for extending voter ID cards (c e dulaci on). The press was reporting PLC allegations of abuse: talones being printed and distributed in local bars, signally preparation for a return of the Rat on Loco. We really needed to discover if there was any truth to these allegations to see if there was real abuse (in which case, we should be saying something). But we also suspected that this could be the PLC just preparing excuses for a poor electoral showing. Another press allegation was that observer groups would not be accredited if they received any USG funding. That would mean ET and IPADE would be out. There was zero legal basis for denying accreditation, but rule of law was not a strong suit of the CSE. Again, we needed to investigate and speak out if this claim was true. We also talked with Roberto about the recently approved Electoral Observation Rules. The CSE’s board was split evenly between FSLN and PLC members with the president, Roberto Rivas, an appointee from the Aleman administration who was suspected of having switched sides to the FSLN. The MRS and ALN had zero representation. Incredibly, this was all legal! The Pact parties in the Assembly had agreed that they would split the spoils and actually wrote that into the law. No one else could even be on the board.

A WELCOME FOR USAID ELECTORAL HELP AND PARTYING WITH HERTY, EDUARDO

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I was always amazed at how the two main parties could rig nearly everything for their own benefit, but when one party seemed to get more than the other, even to the exclusion of everyone else, that party came whining either to the U.S. Embassy or the press, if not both. Was this a kindergarten where the kids didn’t know how to play nice in the sandbox? The analogy is apt except that the true victims are not a few spoiled brats, but a public ripped off by repeated kleptocracy. Could IPADE and ET shine a light on this? Would shining a light matter on Ambassador Trivelli’s sinverg€ uens ometro? We drafted a letter for the Ambassador to send to CSE president Roberto Rivas expressing our various concerns about the process to date. Implicit was that if the irregularities were not cured, Rivas would risk an international electoral observer saying ‘‘his’’ election was not free and fair. The CSE craved legitimacy, and we were convinced that Daniel Ortega, the real puppetmaster behind the CSE, would not want there to be any question about the legitimacy of an election he won. Unfortunately, a private letter was about the only club we had to enforce ordinary decency in this bizarre context. Under the convocation of the German Embassy, we also quietly met with the other donors to express our concerns and encourage the others to unite with us to demand a clean process. And the exchange yielded immediate results; virtually none of the other donors had any idea there were technical problems emerging in the electoral administration process as a result of political manipulation. They were on board and each joined our quiet diplomacy with the CSE with effective results. Within days, TV coverage and local press quoted the CSE President as saying international observers would be accredited. Days after that, the OAS confirmed to us that it had received an invitation from the CSE and planned a visit to Nicaragua the next week. We no more than sighed with relief that the OAS was finally coming when the other shoe dropped. The OAS sent one of their top diplomats, John Biehl, to Managua to meet with the CSE at the request of President Enrique Bola~ nos. The OAS invitation from the CSE, Biehl believed, could be subject to challenge, first since it was sent by the CSE without a quorum and second, because it was not forwarded by the foreign ministry. Finally, it did not set forth reasonable parameters for international observation (the OAS needs a dozen or so conditions set forth in the letter). If and when the OAS mounts an observation mission, the OAS will want to be in charge and coordinate everything. The CSE was playing chicken with the OAS! The OAS decided not to fool around. It got Chilean elections guru Patricio Gajardo to head up technical aspects of the program. It also got top experts on the team like Adriana Piquero of Colombia, Jacqueline Mosquera from Venezuela, and Sharon White from the United States. Notables from the Instituto Electoral Federal (IFE, Mexico’s well-regarded elections authority), Elections Canada, and the past President of IFES were consulted and invited. With regard to possible conflicts of interest between observation and providing technical assistance, OAS recognized the issue and pledged to cooperate to split up the work with IFES (our plan all along!). We realized that at this point the OAS was not in a position to prevent

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fraud on the Atlantic Coast in March, but could report on it. Once a decision to observe was made, the mission could probably be mounted in just 10 days. Biehl believed the electoral registry (padr on) to be fundamentally flawed, and although some improvements could be made, an entirely new padr on should be undertaken, probably after the November 2006 elections. Biehl suggested that in all our dialogues with the Nicaraguan government and the CSE in particular, we should all say, ‘‘If Bolivia can have free, fair, and credible elections, why can’t Nicaragua?’’ That mantra seemed to make sense. Again, it was not about right or left, but about right and wrong. We remained on the same page. In the meantime, although we had had the CEPPS partners on board for months, and NDI and IRI were gaining traction, IFES was all but sidelined. While IFES could offer international quality technical assistance, they could not force the CSE to accept it. I suppose the CSE was concerned about letting in ‘‘the Americans.’’ In this regard, the CSE displayed amazing ignorance of who IFES was. IFES had provided top-quality help to governments around the world. Their job was to help. And they had money to do it. But the CSE, perhaps awaiting instructions from the puppeteer, preferred to keep IFES in a holding pattern. As a technical cooperation agency, USAID provides quiet support to better the lives of ordinary people. We are not usually the ones playing hardball on the political scene. We needed help. As they did on many other occasions, Ambassador Trivelli and DCM Peter Brennan came to the rescue. Peter and USAID Director Alex Dickie went to the CSE to meet with Rivas and privately express their uneasiness regarding the situation. Then they sent Tim Smith, a competent and effective political officer in the Embassy, to meet with Roberto Riva’s chief of staff, Rodrigo Barreto. Barreto reported some movement forward between Roberto Rivas and his deputy Emit Lang (a desvisado fiercely loyal to Aleman) regarding a memorandum of understanding with IFES. Barreto reported resistance by FSLN magistrates to IFES participation, but he conceded that the visit to the CSE by Peter Brennan and Alex Dickie made IFES participation more palatable. Apparently this had something to do with respect. After the confrontation over the Inspector General audit and after Emitt Lang had lost his visa due to his own corrupt acts, the CSE wanted the U.S. government to come to them to make the case. Apparently, this was about saving face. Barreto suggested that IFES might begin with light assistance (like helping with a public education campaign) to gain the confidence of the magistrates and then later move on to more heavy assistance on more sensitive issues. It was never clear whether Rodrigo Barreto was speaking to us as a negotiator with authority from Rivas, or just giving friendly advice. I suspect Barreto was firmly with Rivas, told him everything we said and did, and gave nothing away. The ambiguity of his role was just another manipulation by the puppetmaster and his minions. But at least we had someone with whom we could talk. It was a start. And, I’m not sure why, but I liked Rodrigo Barreto on a personal level. He may be fiercely loyal to Rivas but I think he personally believed in what he was doing. He was always polite to me, returned my calls, and met with me when

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I asked. We were both married family men, and we shared with each other pictures of our kids. We were about the same age, and if there was corruption in the CSE, by the look of his suit and car, he wasn’t on the take. He was charming, articulate, responsive, and intelligent. I wanted to believe in him. With regard to voter identity cards (c e dulas), Barreto conceded that there could be some smoke concerning selective expediting of cards based on partisan political interests as alleged by former CSE head of c e dulas Palacios. But Barreto was doubtful of the bulk of allegations by Palacios. Regarding the electoral padr on, Barreto thought concerns were inflated. He noted the CSE was working on a pilot program for Managua that would give out c e dulas in 24 hours (however, he also complained that procurement rules were slowing down this activity). Barreto then brought up our work with Movimiento Por Nicaragua to help citizens get voter ID cards. He said any activity to assist the public in getting c e dulas was illegal. This gave us the opportunity to explain that Movimiento did not intend to actually issue the voter cards (that is the CSE’s job), but instead, Movimiento would help people understand what they needed to present, where to go, what to pay, and how to process the application. Movimiento would also bus people to the appropriate places to get their cards. Regarding whether ‘‘dead’’ people might vote using others’ c e dulas, Barreto noted this was not an issue since the ink used would assure that people voted only once (which begged the question whether those people were qualified to vote in the first place—apparently it is okay for dead people to vote if they only vote once). We were not convinced, but we felt we had made the point and moved on. Like citizens of other Latin American countries, Nicaraguan citizens living in the United States were overwhelmingly frustrated with corruption in their home country. They pressed their Embassy in Washington (which in turn pressed us) to promote overseas voting. Article 47 of the Electoral Law allows Nicaraguans living overseas to vote, but the Nicaraguan citizens have to come back to Nicaragua to do it. Separately, Article 122 of that same law allows for voting overseas, but it has never been applied. It has not been applied because the CSE would have to set up voting centers, deploy CSE personnel to run them (not consulate or volunteer staff), arrange for political party poll watchers (fiscales) to be present, and establish a voter roll for that overseas location. The electoral law made this nearly impossible. Regarding voting abroad, Rodrigo Barreto said the registry was not set up for it, and there was no budget, so the CSE would not be doing that. This was a big issue for both Embassies, our Embassy in Managua and the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, and I think they were both frustrated with me and the USAID team for not making this happen. But we couldn’t force the CSE to do something it didn’t want to do. I was never on board with the idea that overseas voting was a panacea. The Dominican Republic had spent a great deal of money on overseas voting in New York and Miami, but there was very little voter turnout and zero impact. The Mexicans had worked on this for years, and it was a logistical nightmare. I thought perhaps it was better to crawl first before we tried to run. Let’s get the CSE to administer

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a proper election in Nicaragua first, and then see about expanding efforts to overseas voting later if appropriate. Finally, there was no empirical evidence that overseas voters would vote any differently than voters in Nicaragua. IRI did a poll in Costa Rica, which confirmed that the Nicaraguans living there held opinions not that different from people in Nicaragua. Those pushing for overseas voting held the opinion that the Nicaraguans living overseas were for some reason ‘‘more democratic’’ than the ones back home. But also implicit in that opinion was that if overseas voting were allowed, it would greatly benefit the ALN and perhaps MRS, an inference that the Bola~ nos administration and the CSE probably both made, too, explaining why the Nicaraguan Ambassador in Washington so wanted us to push this, and why the CSE never lifted a finger to make this happen. But again, there was no empirical evidence to suggest that was true. As a bottom line, I consulted the polling guru himself, Neil Nevitte. He agreed with me that overseas voting has never been a substantial factor in a presidential electoral result in any country, including the United States Given all our other irons in the fire—and the fact that we couldn’t do anything if the CSE didn’t want it—our hands were tied anyway. The CSE held all the cards. On a similar topic, the CSE had ruled out mobile voting. I was actually relieved by that. Mobile voting is difficult to control and hard to observe. If we had that in Nicaragua, it would open up whole new opportunities for fraud. That ruling may not have pleased everyone, but it made our lives easier. As the plot thickened, the press began to report that the Pact might use the CSE to disqualify candidates from participation. What better way to win a ‘‘free and fair’’ election than having your opponent declared ineligible to even run! The non-Pact candidates were horrified by the threat. Apart from our visit, the European Ambassadors separately visited with the CSE to repeat the common concerns and used that opportunity to bring up this additional concern. Emitt Lang then pledged that the CSE would not disqualify presidential candidates (but that could leave open the possibility of disqualifications by the Court system). As I had learned in Nicaraguan politics, you get something, but it is never what you think, and there is always another hidden trap just around the corner. Another maxim of development is that the national leaders are a thousand percent smarter than we are in development. Often, in our arrogance, we think that leaders don’t understand the consequences of their decisions. Perhaps if we talked with them or held a conference, they would understand, we pondered. Rubbish. They get it. They don’t do what we want because first, it’s their country (not ours), and second, they like the consequences of their acts. Transparency does not work for corrupt governments. There are winners when systems are broken or inefficient. The CSE magistrates were all smart as foxes. If we didn’t want to be played for fools and be used by the puppeteers to validate and legitimize a fundamentally flawed election, we had to step up our game. Were we naive in making this about promoting democracy and participation when we were facing such a sophisticated threat? Perhaps. But I would much

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rather keep my soul and keep to an honest track than sell out our principles. This was still about ‘‘right and wrong,’’ and we had to model the behavior we wanted others to emulate. Our critics said we were fooling ourselves and that we should sell out and side with the PLC against the FSLN. To me, that same type of argument justifies torture even when we know that torture never produces reliable evidence to either solve or prevent crime. We kept to the moral high ground and, God bless him, our Ambassador was with us on this. On a parallel track, Liberal candidates Jose Rizo, Jose Antonio Alvarado, and Eduardo Montealegre each reached out to the Embassy. On the left, Sandinistas Herty Lewites (MRS) and Alejandro Martınez Cuenca (FSLN) did the same. To their dismay, our public position tracked our position in private: we refused to back them just because they were not the FSLN. Worse, at least for Rizo and Alvarado, we noted that any party dominated and controlled by Arnoldo Aleman was not in anybody’s interest. If the PLC wanted to be a credible party, they had to get rid of the cancer. They knew that too. The question was, did they have the courage to do the right thing, or were they just Aleman’s pawns? On the right, we offered to help organize a primary whereby the people, not Aleman, picked their candidate. On the left, we made the same offer to Martınez Cuenca if he could persuade the FSLN to enforce its own internal rules to have a primary. We thought that Ortega would probably win an internal FSLN primary if there was one, but at least it would conform to the FSLN’s own internal rules and would be backed by a vote, not by intimidation and corruption. That would be progress. I saw graffiti around Managua calling for internal FSLN primaries. That was cool! To keep corruption on the minds of voters, we sought opportunities to sponsor public events that would lead to positive change. We signed up a subgrant with the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation (through our anticorruption program) to push for an access to information (what in the United States is called ‘‘freedom of information’’) law through contacts with the national assembly, a public awareness campaign, and voluntary disclosure by key government ministries of their institution’s information. The Enrique Bola~ nos administration pledged to encourage the ministries to get on board. The Chamorro Foundation had done some spadework on this topic already. Lauren Neuman of the Carter Center had exchanged information with the Chamorro Foundation on experiences in Colombia and Jamaica. Our anticorruption program implementer, Casals and Associates, had been the prime contractor to help the Mexican government to pass its national information access law. The Mexican model was the most impressive and expansive effort in this particular arena in the hemisphere, a real credit to Casals. Gerardo Berthın put the Chamorro Foundation in contact with the same consultants from Casals that Mexico had relied on. Gerardo also connected them with counterparts in El Salvador, Panama, and Guatemala. But the product really represented the Chamorro Foundation’s very solid effort at synthesizing various models, validating it with broad segments of the public, and working the text with the

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

National Legislature. This was some of the best legislative drafting work being done in the hemisphere, and we were playing a critical role in that effort. Other projects included having Nicaragua participate in a nine-country video conference on criminal prosecution in anti corruption. We lined up the World Bank’s Managua office for the event since that location was convenient to most and would allow the greatest attendance by civil society leaders, prosecutors, and the media. CNN even covered this event. Separately, we organized a civil society forum on how NGOs in other countries had had success in a watchdog role to deter corruption and pursue it when they found it, shaming governments into taking action. Finally, we got media coverage for our support to the Public Defense Service, which USAID had helped set up to provide access to justice for the poor and guarantee fundamental human rights. The prosecutors’ video conference discussed specific criminal justice reforms in both the substantive and procedural areas to free law enforcement from legalistic/ ritualistic legal systems that require notification to defendants as the investigation progresses, thus allowing obstruction and outright corruption to continue to disrupt the process. Suggestions were advanced by the participating countries, including reviewing the statute of limitations for corruption-related crimes. Hosted by Panama’s prosecutor general, participants from Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Washington heard firsthand from prosecutors in the cases against former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and three Costa Rican presidents. The discussions served as a starting point for collaboration across the region; immediately afterwards, the Global Development Learning (GDLN) Center in Ecuador proposed a follow-up activity on public participation in the selection of Supreme Court justices. We hoped that the lessons on how to fight grand corruption were not lost on Nicaraguan participants living with the likes of Arnoldo Aleman and Daniel Ortega. Also, Nicaragua would have to elect new Supreme Court Magistrates in 2006. The comparative lessons on civil society participation could be instructive. In October 2005, the Mexicans and the Americans held their mutual binational commission that examines good governance issues and best practices. At the prior meeting, the Americans suggested that the Mexicans consider including other countries as observers in this annual conference. So Mexico identified some folks, as did the U.S. Embassies in several countries. In our case, we jumped at the chance. USAID picked up the tab for the invites to Nicaraguans that came from the U.S. government, and Mexico picked up the cost for invites they selected. The solicitor general and his deputy, Novoa and Lara, were on our tab. The old joke about psychologists rings true in the development business. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change. So it is with development. We can’t make any country do anything. It has to be their will, their sovereign act. If not, we are just pushing on a string, and it will never be sustainable. That is why conferences like the one in Mexico are valuable. The Nicaraguan participants go and hear about reforms in other countries and come back charged up to do something similar in

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Nicaragua. That works for us. We can support that. But the follow-up and followthrough is what matters, not the conference itself. You have to take the rhetoric and theory and translate it into actions and results. Otherwise, all you have is what some call either ‘‘sustainable conferencing’’ or the ‘‘United Vacations.’’ Throughout my time in Nicaragua, my work life and personal life seemed to blend. Our social life seemed to always lead to work and vice versa. One night, my wife Julia and I went to a reception at the Casa Grande hosted by the Ambassador. We had a great time just relaxing and talking. But after a while, I found myself in the corner of the room in a heated discussion with Jose Antonio Alvarado, Eduardo Montealegre, and Herty Lewites. That they were all there—invited guests of the Ambassador—underscored to me that the Embassy was trying to be inclusive. But to me, the discussion was riveting. As the four of us huddled in our corner, we debated why the PLC should ditch the Pact. Herty finally raised his voice, pointed at Alvarado, and said that he should be ashamed of what the PLC was doing to the Nicaraguan people. ‘‘The Pact was treasonous and was hurting the people,’’ Herty said. ‘‘It was corruption… It was theft.’’ Herty called on Alvarado to renounce Aleman and the Pact. When Montealegre joined in the attack on Alvarado, Herty pointed to Montealegre and accused him of being complicit because he served previously under Aleman. Herty certainly didn’t pull any punches! But by this point, the civility of our conversation had reached a tension point: Our conversation began to break up. My back had been to the rest of the room as we all had been talking in the corner. As I turned around, I realized we had an audience of fifteen or so people all around us, listening in to see what all the emotion was about and wondering what these powermakers were saying.

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9

€ egu € ence and the Boiling Land of El Gu Frog (February 2006)

In a country with such great artists, including the great modernist poet Ruben Darıo, folk singers Enrique and Luıs Mejıa Godoy and the D uo Guardabarranco, pop star Perrozompopo, the brilliant comedian Luıs Enrique Calderon, and even the heavy metal group Divisi on Urbana, the most renowned work remains that of an anonymous colonial era author and playwright. His play, El G€ ueg€ uence, reflects the soul of a people who have suffered oppression and manipulation and survived by responding with humor, cunning, disingenuous dialogue, and obfuscation. The work defines Nicaraguan culture and what it means to be a pinolero (slang term for Nicaraguan). It is about corruption, clever revenge, and the use of law and language. No one ever told me, but I was in that world living in Nicaragua! And we were being played like the Spanish colonial ruler who in the end turns out to be the sucker. Unfortunately for Nicaraguans, they too are being played for the sucker by a corrupt political class for whom this is no play or theater. They are playing for keeps and using the poor people’s money to do so. An internal CSE employee spoke with us and used a different but very similar analogy. He characterized the FSLN involvement with the CSE and the politicization of the CSE since 1994 as the ‘‘boiling of a frog.’’ He also alleged that all technical processes in the CSE are now run by FSLN loyalists with PLC backers sidelined. Meanwhile, the CSE closed its service-oriented municipal offices, citing budget shortfalls, while increasing benefits and spending on Managua-based Magistrates. At the same time, the local press began running stories on the bloated salaries and fringe benefits for the CSE’s board. To say the least, the CSE budget process is not transparent. We heard other allegations that mayors of both parties collaborate in adjusting birth certificates such that revised birthdays allow underage citizens to get ID cards and vote. Multiple

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voting is done via multiple, slightly different, birth certificates. Allegations are also floating around about the CSE buying different ink that can rub off if applied in certain ways. Most, if not all, of these allegations have appeared in the local press. The electoral observers, national and international, had their work cut out for them. The Ambassador decided he needed to get out to take the pulse of the Atlantic Coast. In a quick visit to Bluefields, Ambassador Trivelli talked to people on the street and met with as many as he could. He reported that people there seemed bemused by national candidates from Managua visiting, seemingly without concern for local issues or the quality of local candidates for office. This did not reflect well on the quality of the electoral process, no matter who you wanted to win. The Carter Center had received an invitation to observe the Atlantic Coast elections about the same time the OAS received its invite. But the Carter Center’s invitation suffered from the same defects. The Center was uncertain of its next steps. They seemed struck by the ambiguity of the CSE invitation letter. Normally, the Center does not oversee regional or local elections. Should they do it or pull out? We noted that the OAS had the same questions and concerns, but we were encouraging the OAS to participate in some capacity in the Atlantic Coast elections even without a ‘‘clean’’ letter from the CSE. The Carter Center was in a listening mode. A few days later, the Center issued a press release that it would send a small delegation to observe on the Atlantic Coast. An internal CSE employee met off the record with the donor coordination group, along with IFES and IPADE. The presentations were eye-openers for many of the European embassies on what was really going on with the Atlantic Coast, including abuses in the padr on electoral and issuance of voter ID cards. Shortly thereafter, IPADE would issue a public pronouncement on the CSE crisis. Most Embassies planned on sending out observers, and the German Embassy was coordinating for the Europeans. Ambassador Trivelli noted that the international observation groups needed a way to communicate a common message the night of the Atlantic Coast elections. He also noted his preference that any American participants be accredited as Estados Unidos rather than with IPADE or any other organism, now that it appeared the OAS might not observe the elections. To follow up, we drafted a letter from Ambassador Trivelli to Roberto Rivas soliciting accreditation of the names of the participants. With USAID funds via NDI and with additional support from the Danes, IPADE undertook a review of the voter registry on the Atlantic Coast, using empirical data. The study was rigorous. Through the good offices of NDI, we brought in Neil Nevitte from the University of Toronto to help. Neil is probably the world’s best academic on how to assess electoral voter registries using statistical analysis. With this strength on our team in Nicaragua, I felt we had the first string on the field, and we were moving the ball! The IPADE study results showed major flaws in the system and unveiled opportunities for electoral fraud. However, when IPADE released its review of the

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Atlantic Coast padr on, we were shocked. IPADE had found serious errors in the electoral registry and presented those results in private to the CSE. But on Thursday, February 23rd, IPADE director Mauricio Z un ~iga was on Channel 12 television, appearing to be backing away from the findings of the evaluation, saying that ‘‘the padr on had errors, but was within a normal range.’’ They had given the CSE ‘‘a pass’’ and had shrunk from their ethical role of calling it as they saw it. While I thought we were moving down the field ready to score, we were intercepted by the Pact, who returned the ball for a touchdown against us. We lost. Nicaragua lost. NDI was livid. We all suspected that IPADE’s remarks reflected CSE influence or intimidation. Who had gotten to IPADE? This was even more shocking since it was IPADE alone that had reported and fully documented electoral fraud in the earlier Granada mayoral election. We thought that if anyone could be trusted to call it like it is and shoot straight, it would be IPADE. This also made us question our entire strategy. If civil society could be cowed into silence, our most effective tool would be rendered toothless. NDI privately had warned IPADE that changing results to suit political pressure could jeopardize future funding. Fortunately, none of the numbers had changed in the actual report, only IPADE’s public interpretation. We learned a difficult lesson in this bruising environment about hardball politics. IPADE also had IRI funding via CEPPS for Atlantic Coast observation and get out the vote campaigns. We were concerned, to say the least. We had asked IPADE to lead the Atlantic Coast review, but we had promised to work with Etica y Transparencia on the national level review, so to some extent, we had compartmentalized the collateral damage. But the seeming betrayal revealed to us how even loyal allies in civil society could either be bought off or intimidated to back down. Meanwhile, the CSE had still not issued a letter to IFES accepting technical assistance. So the Ambassador decided to pull out the stops. He called Rivas and asked IFES board members to get involved so that he was not the one always having to solve the problems, which might, in the mind of Rivas, identify IFES even more with the United States He wondered aloud whether Roberto Cuellar, the distinguished director of the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, which oversees CAPEL, might play a mediating role in the current impasse within the CSE. Time was short, and the CSE was playing games. As if that weren’t enough, incredibly, despite the earlier Biehl trip and intervention by USOAS Ambassador John Maisto, the OAS had still not sent USAID its formal plan of action. What was this going to take? We called the Unit for Promotion of Democracy (UPD) within OAS/Washington, the outfit within the OAS responsible for electoral observation. We finally got some details, albeit unofficially. The OAS would be sending two separate teams, one dealing with the elections and another in a mediating role with the political process. Still, Roberto Rivas’ public comments on Channel 12 television suggested the CSE would reject any OAS role that was not strictly one of electoral observation. In any case, Biehl would be back on Monday, February 13th. It was unclear whether this was ‘‘the mission,’’ or just an exploratory visit. In the meantime, we proceeded to get our American international observers accredited as a U.S.

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Mission and not as part of the OAS. Roberto Courtney (Etica y Transparencia) gave an orientation to all U.S. Mission observers, national and international, on Friday afternoon, February 10th. On Tuesday, February 28th, Selma, Danika, and I met with Patricio Gajardo, the Deputy of the OAS Observation Mission, and two other experienced members of the observation team, Ana Perez Katz and Catalina Montana, to discuss OAS funding needs and whether we would ever get their proposal. They presented a copy of a proposal and budget for the OAS Observation Mission for the Atlantic Coast regional elections. OAS was shopping this proposal around to the international community in hopes of funding their current activities (approximately $470,000). This was not what we had asked for. We noted that the proposal was not responsive to the $2 million ‘‘request for application’’ that we delivered to the OAS back in October to support a long-term election observation mission and inquired when we could expect a response to our initial request. In very diplomatic terms, the OAS noted that the outcome of the regional elections would impact their decision regarding a long-term ‘‘accompaniment’’ mission (including both political accompaniment and observation components) and that USAID would likely receive a proposal in late March. We explained to our OAS friends that we would do the heavy lifting necessary to move the funding as quickly as possible, but that it was not like turning on a light switch. We would have to review the document, evaluate costs, and exercise due diligence. It would take several weeks to review the proposal and disburse funding. My fear was that the OAS, having delayed since October, would, all of a sudden, plop a proposal on the table and expect a check. When no check immediately appeared, they could complain to the State Department or the National Security Council that we were the ones delaying this. We had intentionally started very early in the process so that everything would be in place well in advance. I suspected I was being had by the international bureaucracy. To hedge my vulnerable position, I made sure the Ambassador understood where we all stood so that he could defend us when the inevitable call came from Washington. For his part, the Ambassador had met with Nicaraguan President Enrique Bola~ nos who was unaware of the OAS, IPADE, and other activities taking place on the Atlantic Coast. I was shocked to hear this. Even the president doesn’t know what is going on in his own country? He was more marginalized than we were by the Pact. We prepared a briefer for him to bring him up to speed. We continued to press on our earlier offer to both liberals and Sandinistas to organize primaries for them with international quality technical assistance. But all we got back was a lot of static. Proposals continued to fly. One we heard was that Alvarado had proposed to Eduardo Montealegre that Alvarado be Montealegre’s Vice President if Alvarado got slots for his Congressmen (diputados) in a Montealegre government. This was old school, closed-door-smoke-filled-room-type talk. The idea sickened me. A new PLC proposal had been made to Montealegre and Alvarado that would involve one round of votes (not two, as previously proposed by the PLC). However,

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only the 145,000 PLC officers, presumably controlled by Aleman, would vote. Alvarado had been receptive, but not Montealegre. If there were open registration for the primary, there was concern that Sandinistas would vote in the liberal process (in crossover voting, which takes place in very few places in the world, Wisconsin being one of them). In any case, there were lots of proposals and counterproposals. In this context, Movimiento published its proposal for a new Primaries Law. Given what we were up against, we got a $3.5 million increase in the ceiling from $4.5 million to $8 million. I felt we were in the hole, but perhaps we could start to get traction. Selma Tijerino, the former OAS legal adviser and a critical member on my team, prepared best practices and lessons learned from recent elections in Bolivia, Honduras, and Haiti. She synthesized that analysis with the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights into a set of principles for public talking points to guide the American international observer team. These were then shared with the multidonor groups that also signed on. Our CSE friend Rodrigo Barreto remained in contact. He reported that Rivas said that the CSE would ‘‘reach consensus’’ (presumably positive) on IFES within six to eight days. IFES would be invited to provide technical assistance for the national elections becauseit was now too late to do a credible job for the regional elections. Rodrigo requested our patience for eight days before we responded to the CSE or made a public statement. For the regional elections accreditation, we provided a letter and names for accreditation to Rodrigo, who said it would be ‘‘no problem’’ to facilitate our efforts. He made good on his promise, and we quickly got what we needed. Shortly thereafter, IFES got its letter. When IFES first took a look inside the CSE, it was shocking. Training for Atlantic Coast CSE personnel was being done on the cheap. Instead of three or five-day training, the CSE was trying to condense everything into a single-day orientation for its employees. Critical issues like Articles 41 and 116 of the Electoral Law, those used to allow people to vote if they are registered, despite shenanigans by the political parties in cases of the Crazy Rat electoral fraud, were being given superficial coverage. But it was Articles 41 and 116 that could allow for a democratic vote even in the face of fraud. It was an extreme pity that the CSE did not welcome IFES earlier—they could have really helped. We decided to redouble our efforts on the observation side to include these issues. Germany reported that the EU would send an observation mission for the national elections but not for the Atlantic Coast regional ones. The German and Swedish Ambassadors began to be very proactive on the Nicaragua elections. Meanwhile, the OAS decided that it would not be issuing a declaration or statement for the Atlantic Coast elections. USAID and the embassy met with the new OAS team, and we were favorably impressed with the group, in particular about Gustavo Fernandez (the OAS team leader). We emphasized the need to assure coordination, given recent history in Haiti where electoral observers looked disjointed and worked at counterpurposes, which in the end had reduced effectiveness. I swore to myself that would not happen on my watch.

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IRI began providing training manuals for political party poll watchers. IRI set up four voter response centers, where the public got information and advice and where they could present any complaints about the electoral process. Centers were established in the major cities on the Atlantic Coast, in Bluefields, Siuna, Puerto, and Bilwi. One job of the political section of the Embassy is to stay in touch with the country’s political pulse. Managua has one feel, but outside Managua is another world. The political section decided to get out to the Rivas department. During the visit, many reported they voted for the candidate, not the party. Ideological divisions are not nearly as strong in Rivas. Seven of ten municipalities were FSLN, but continuation of this depended on the quality of individual candidates. There was a perception that the PLC appointed its mayoral candidates last time al dedo (i.e., by old school influence peddling and based on conflict of interest), and therefore, they lacked appeal to the ordinary voter whereas the FSLN candidates were more tied to the communities. There was general apathy about the national campaign and very little advertising. The PLC mayors reported being open to dissident liberal candidates. They sought pro-liberal unity, and they were frustrated by the Managua process of competition and division between the PLC and ALN. Most commented that Montealegre’s campaign was probably stronger than that of Jose Antonio Alvarado, Herty Lewites, or other third party candidates. Other issues continued to emerge. There were apparent conflicts of interest with CSE and Supreme Court Magistrates involved in overt political activities. Allegations in the press complained of preparations for fraud in the regional elections. A rumor circulated that the Sandinistas might prefer an early convocation of national elections to upset the possibility that the liberal groupings could organize a primary to unify around a single candidate. We needed more tools. With our colleagues in IRI, we commissioned focus groups and polls to see what voters on the Atlantic Coast were thinking. If the elections results were far off from our polling data, we knew that fraud was a possibility. We conducted an in-depth poll (3,000 interviews) in 15 voting districts (‘‘circumscriptions’’ as they were called in Nicaragua) in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) and a similar number in the South (RAAS). Even as we focused on the elections, we also kept our eye on other, long-term goals, including the justice sector. On the proposed Criminal Code, Luıs Ubeda and I touched base again with the Justice Commission of the National Assembly. President Bola~ nos made passage of the Code a priority for the calendar year, highlighting this in his State of the Republic presentation. In the meantime, Nicaragua formally presented to the United Nations its ratification of the UN Convention Against Corruption. At least the Bola~ nos administration was doing what it could despite the Pact.

10

Atlantic Coast Regional Election (March 2006)

The pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place before the regional Election Day. IRI had produced a manual for party poll watchers. We distributed this manual to all political parties operating in the Atlantic Coast area, including the small regional  party YATAMA. Additional copies were shared with the OAS, the CSE, and Movimiento. When I personally observed the Election Day process, I saw the book in use, even by poll watchers from the FSLN. That was exactly what we wanted: a technical tool for use by any concerned citizen on how to ensure a free, fair, transparent, and credible election. The fact that each of the parties had the same document meant that there were common criteria. It also underscored the nonpartisan approach we were using. The only complaint we received about the manual was from the CSE: they complained that we should have printed more copies because we ran out. Together with Movimiento Por Nicaragua, we exported the existing Managua Huembes Market Center model to the Atlantic Coast, creating new citizen complaint centers along with the idea of helping citizens get their voter ID cards. Merging the concepts into a single model so that voters could present complaints against the CSE as well as get full service at a center produced a new model of a full-service center, which we then expanded around the country. Existing centers on the Atlantic Coast, opened for the regional elections, remained open with the expanded services. All this was done under the Movimiento banner. On Thursday, March 2nd, there was a massive march in Managua against the Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE) organized by Movimiento Por Nicaragua. Although Movimiento is strictly nonpartisan, it doesn’t turn away politicians who want to join Movimiento’s cause. Presidential hopefuls Jose Antonio Alvarado (APRE) and Herty Lewites (MRS) joined the 5,000 marchers. Protesters demanded that all current CSE magistrates resign. In March 2002, when the CSE was under the thumb

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of Arnoldo Aleman, Daniel Ortega had called for all the magistrates to resign. The same ones remained in office four years later. It was instructive to see how Ortega had systematically moved the institution in his favor through the Pact. Now it was civil society demanding the magistrates’ resignations, and Ortega no longer had a problem with the magistrates. Part of Movimiento’s public campaign was a video clip showing 4,000 voter ID cards in a CSE office in Siuna (on the Atlantic Coast) being withheld from voters. The TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes had nothing on these guys! The CSE was caught with its hand in the cookie jar and exposed for what it is: an instrument of the FSLN-PLC Pact to share power and exclude others from government by whatever means necessary. That measures had reached such criminal levels showed the level of desperation of the main traditional parties under public pressure. They might lose! Movimiento’s campaign was one case in which I agreed that we should not use USAID branding on products. We were so close to the elections, and while this effort was led by Nicaraguan civil society, we did not want there to be even an appearance that the Americans were somehow behind this. In truth, we in USAID are the technical arm. We really don’t do political interventions. And we were the ones who had the money and implemented programs. While some American politicians in Congress may have said they wanted one result or another, in country, we were all about ‘‘right versus wrong,’’ not ‘‘right versus left.’’ I was one of the international electoral observers assigned to the U.S. delegation. Each of the observation teams were a pair of individuals. In my case, I was paired with Ellen Leddy, USAID’s director in Washington for Central America and Mexico. We were assigned to cover urban polling stations in Bluefields in the Nicaragua’s Autonomous South Atlantic Region (RAAS). Bluefields is a bilingual town, including Afro-Nicaraguans, who are descendents of Caribbean slaves from the old British Empire and English pirates. Indigenous groups continue to have a thriving culture and tradition. Hispanic migrants from the western parts of Nicaragua also live there. All of this makes for a very beautiful cultural mix. However, it does mean that this Atlantic coast community is linguistically, ethnically, and culturally separate from the majority of Western Nicaragua with its Spanish colonial heritage. In part, this has been the historic rub between the two regions. We drove around town the day before the election just to make sure we knew the location of each polling station. As we drove, we listed to a Costa Rican radio station. The town was replete with posters promoting the FSLN, ALN, PLC, and MRS, along with Y atama, the regional political party supported mainly by the local indigenous population. Ominously, I saw several large street banners saluting Arnoldo Aleman and welcoming him to Bluefields. Many of the leaders of Y atama were associated with the old Contras from the 1980s. However, over the years, most had been given positions of influence and other favors from Daniel Ortega. As a result, ironically, much of the party had morphed into an FSLN proxy. This was not so surprising to my Nicaraguan

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colleagues, who noted that politicians in all parties had switched sides back and forth depending on who was offering the best deal at the time. Some would support anything just to wind up on the winning side and get a piece of the largess. Our work was cut out for us. The night before the election, Ellen Leddy and I received two notes at our hotel. The first was from the United Nations. The UN had been invisible in the elections, not even showing up for our election donor working group meetings in Managua. The letter called on all the various international electoral observer groups to meet at the UN offices in Bluefields that night. This had not been planned, but we decided to go anyway. When we got there, the Carter Center was there along with the Swedes, English, and other groups. They had also invited ET and IPADE. But what took place next astounded me. The UN tried to ‘‘coordinate’’ everyone else—with zero advance planning. Worse, they had only arrived in country a few days before and had no idea what was going on and what everyone was doing. ET and IPADE were amused and humored the group. I explained that the U.S. delegation was the largest in the country, that we had the region blanketed, and that we had funded both ET and IPADE for domestic observer coverage. The UN observers wanted to make sure we were not duplicating efforts. That made me wonder why they were even there at all. These guys had never even bothered to show up at any of our election donor coordination meetings in Managua earlier; now they arrived to declare they were ‘‘in charge.’’ It reminded me of Al Haig saying he was ‘‘in charge’’ when Ronald Reagan had been shot. This would be laughable if it were not so serious. It was ‘‘United Vacations’’ at its worst. We politely shared maps and information with the UN and other European observers, wished them well, and left. We had work to do. The other letter awaiting us at the hotel was from the Nicaraguan government’s human rights office. They too had been completely invisible up to this point. The office was run by an Ortega sympathizer. I wondered how anyone in that office knew who we were and what hotel we were at. (Remember our bugged phone lines?) ‘‘Big brother’’ was watching us and wanted to control our actions. That gave me the willies. The letter contained instructions on what electoral observers should do. I laughed. We were not going to be cowed that easily. We would follow the Nicaraguan electoral law and international standards for electoral observation—not some last ditch effort to undercut us. Nice try. Election day itself was peaceful, and we saw a wonderful civil event with persons of all stripes coming out to exercise their democratic privileges. We ran into CSE President Roberto Rivas at several different polling stations during the day with camera crew in tow, hamming it up at every stop. We ran into Rodrigo Barreto and compared notes. At nearly every stop, we saw domestic observers from IPADE and ET. We also ran into fellow international observers from the OAS and friends from IRI. In all, it was a good day for the CSE in terms of its election administration. The March elections had finally come. Results were split among the parties for various local officials. But it was an excellent dry run for our ability to test the

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

electoral system and detect fraud. We had some clear ideas where abuses could take place. The PLC showed the best although the FSLN also did very well. The ALN and MRS got votes, but the MRS was unable to cross the finish line for any of the seats, and the ALN was effective only in the south. On March 16th, we got together with the other international election donors and compared notes. One of the surprises in the Atlantic Coast election was the presence of a new international observer group called the Latin American Council of Election Experts (‘‘Consejo de Expertos Electorales de Latinoam e rica’’ in Spanish, known by the acronym CEELA). CEELA receives funding from Venezuela and is structured as an alternative to CAPEL, which along with the OAS, is the main entity in the region for electoral observation. CAPEL is a division of the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights (IIDH) based in San Jose, Costa Rica. CAPEL had not given Hugo Chavez a free pass in Venezuela, so Chavez helped bankroll a rival entity that would go soft on his electoral practices and serve as a counterweight to the OAS and CAPEL. If international observer groups did not agree on their observation, it would be easier for Chavez to get away with his shenanigans. Now CELA appeared in Nicaragua. The CSE held an event to announce CELA’s observation mission for the national elections. Despite the CSE’s pleading of poverty, it bankrolled CELA’s visit. This immediately created a conflict of interest: how could CELA call it as they saw it if they were being paid by the CSE? I smelled a rat. On the Atlantic Coast, the CELA magistrates were not in favor of using Articles 41 and 116 to extend access to voting. IPADE and ET had been very vocal and supportive of the use of Articles 41 and 116. We knew the CSE did not like Articles 41 and 116 since they could be used to limit the ‘‘Crazy Rat’’ (rat on loco) electoral fraud that was used to steal the municipal election in Granada just a few years before. We were extremely concerned that CELA could back the CSE to discourage use of Articles 41 and 116. Worse, inexplicably, IPADE suddenly went silent on this issue. At the donor coordination meeting, Roberto Courtney (ET) criticized IPADE on this particular issue. We noted that we all collectively needed the OAS to focus on getting out its report on the Atlantic Coast election. In our one-on-one discussions with the OAS, we also stressed that they needed to get us the proposal responding to our initial offer, still pending since the previous October. Ambassador Trivelli published a very good editorial in the La Prensa paper summarizing our take on what happened. With the election over, the CSE gave IFES an even greater entree to the CSE at all levels. IFES began work on a mass voter ID (c e dula) production and distribution strategy for the CSE, which to be effective, required continued political will by CSE. Separately, IFES had been in consultation with Rivas, Lang, and other CSE members concerning the ongoing conflict in RAAN with Yatama. There were allegations of irregularity in one council seat election. The press was reporting outlandish and unconfirmed reports of all kinds of things. We had no idea what to believe. But with IFES on the inside, we had greater faith that the right thing would be done. After dozens of articles of intrigue and accusation, as best I could ever determine, the bottom line was that the FSLN ended up losing one

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council (consejal) seat to Yatama when all was said and done. Since Yatama was a de facto electoral ally of the FSLN, this may have just been a distinction without a difference. Shortly after the Atlantic Coast election, there was a wave of visitors from the United States wanting to know more about the process. American NGOs, solidarity associations, and church leaders visited the U.S. Embassy to ask what we thought about the elections. I wasn’t in those conversations because I didn’t work for the Embassy. Those groups never asked for me—they wanted the ‘‘Embassy.’’ So I had no idea what they were discussing. And I found that amazing. At church, I often heard that you knew a person by their actions, not their words. I don’t know who said what to whom in those meetings, but we at USAID were the ones out there ‘‘doing.’’ And I knew what was happening. But the religious groups all wanted to talk with the State Department instead of hearing from me what we were actually doing about the elections. Whatever. I was busy anyway. Back in the 1980s, I served on the National Assembly of the Presbyterian Church’s Peacemaking Committee and worked particularly on Nicaragua and El Salvador. So I knew that the American visitors were trying their level best to ensure that the U.S. Embassy was not backing the PLC over the FSLN or intervening in some nefarious way. What they did not realize was that such a vision of Nicaragua and U.S. intervention reflected reality during the Contra civil war of the 1980s, not in 2006. Today, it was hard to distinguish between Somoza, Aleman, and Ortega: they had become the same thing. I strongly suspect that, if they were given a MyersBriggs personality test, it would be impossible to distinguish between the three of them. What Nicaragua needed was democracy, transparency, and participation. The new oligarchs were the same old oligarchs. The revolution was betrayed. Sandino would not have recognized this FSLN as having anything to do with him. But none of this mattered to Ortega. When Americans visited, he welcomed them. He put them on live television, and they denounced ‘‘American intervention.’’ Their comments told more about them than about anything the U.S. Embassy was doing. In fact, their well-meaning intervention in the public debate was probably more ‘‘interventionist’’ than any public comment the Ambassador ever made. They were used to help the Pact. I was reminded that sin in Greek comes from an archery term meaning to miss the bull’s eye. Intentions are not what matters. Anything short of missing the bull’s eye is sin. These ‘‘internationalists’’ were well intentioned, but they often missed the entire target. In fairness to the American solidarity groups, I should pause to note that their quotes in the papers may not have been accurate. I had been to events and heard what the Ambassador said, only to hear words put in his mouth the next day by reporters. It also happened to me on several occasions. The papers loved controversy and did not see a problem with inventing facts and statements to sell more papers. Still, I saw the groups’ paid advertising in the papers, and I did hear them on radio and see them on TV, and I was appalled by many of their endorsements of Ortega and condemnations of the United States. I am someone who believes in

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human rights, in the visions of Archbishops Girardi and Oscar Romero, and this Ortega with this Pact was not the ‘‘liberation’’ envisioned in Liberation Theology. He was the false profiteer. In a democracy, you might expect the press to expose these issues and attack corruption. Where were the Nicaraguan Woodward and Bernstein when you needed them? But what I saw was largely tabloid press, yellow journalism. One reporter, Ary Pantoja, was eventually fired from one paper, La Prensa, only to appear making up stories in the other major daily, El Nuevo Diario. I made a note to myself: stay away from that guy. I warned our implementing partners (as if they needed a warning). At a cocktail party, I met members of the editorial board of El Nuevo Diario and asked them about Ary. They recognized his ‘‘casualness’’ with facts, but he got the stories. Apparently, whether they were real or not didn’t matter. A friend of mine noted how pathetic that was and came up with a play on words in Spanish, calling that paper ‘‘El Nuevo Diablo’’ (The New Devil). At the national level, all the polls continued to show that Ortega had a lock on the presidency. His strategy was pretty clear. He never polled higher than 40% or 45%. But if he could split the right, their interests would be marginalized. He had to somehow dispose of Alejandro Martınez Cuenca in his own party and then marginalize the MRS to eliminate any threat to his left. But in the face of the emerging Movimiento Por Nicaragua and civil society calls for transparency, I figured he had to be nervous. I began to wonder what would happen if Ortega did not get his 35%? Ortega had to be wondering too. If the democratic right could unite with a single candidate, it could avoid a split in the vote. Ortega had lost time and time again when the right was united. We knew that Ortega would work via the Pact to ensure that the right never had a primary to unite itself around a single candidate. Given the political interest of the Pact in preventing any democratic selection of candidates through primaries, it was not surprising that everyone continued to twist round and around on the issue. The parties appeared to be retreating to prior positions. For example, the PLC went back to its proposal for ‘‘institutional primaries,’’ a concept long ago rejected by candidate Eduardo Montealegre. I thought we were heading toward a dead end on primaries. It was always a long shot anyway. Whether or not we ever spent a dime on this matter, we got it debated on radio and television, and we influenced how the public was thinking on this. The impact was already being felt. Alejandro Martınez Cuena used his own funds to put up posters calling for primaries within the FSLN. However, for me, the most telling was the graffiti around Managua that said ‘‘¡Primarias Ya!’’ That seemed to encapsulate it all. Even as we sweated the March Atlantic Coast elections, we kept our eye on the national context. We met with civil society to discuss the Framework Law, passed a year earlier in a very partisan National Assembly with the MRS and ALN opposing and the FSLN-PLC joining forces under the Pact to make it law. The Framework Law (or Ley Marco as it was known in Spanish) defanged the executive and transferred many executive powers to the Pact-controlled National Assembly,

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where Aleman and Ortega held sway. For example, appointment of government ministers and ambassadors was to be under the purview of the Assembly, not the president. I could not imagine how something like that could work in the United States. Could you imagine if George W. Bush or Barack Obama had to accept cabinet secretaries that Congress forced upon them? By shifting power in this way, the Pact continued to undercut the Bola~ nos administration, about the only remaining constraint on absolute hegemony by the two former strongmen (caudillos) Aleman and Ortega. Civil society, on the left and on the right, saw it just about the way we did. They promised action. Obviously, the Nicaraguans have more at stake than the Americans in an election in Nicaragua. After all, if things went south, we could just leave. And that was one of my biggest fears for Nicaraguans. Globalism meant that capital investment now was mobile. If the global community thought the Nicaraguans made a bad choice and re-elected the corrupt forces of the Pact, global capitalism might just decide to jump ship. The world economy did not depend on Nicaragua, and investment there could plummet. Even when we tried to discuss this in private, American groups accused us of threatening the Nicaraguans with punishment if they voted for Ortega. This of course was a reversion back to the old 1980s thinking. Groups assumed we were secretly pushing some right versus left agenda even while we talked the democracy game. Does anyone realize how hard it is to get an institution—any institution—to all pull in the same direction? How could we coordinate USAID, the Embassy, public affairs, the OAS, a myriad of Nicaraguan civil society groups, and Nicaraguan employees who were members of all political parties all to say one thing, but ‘‘secretly’’ be doing something else? It was laughable, and reflected a view of people who have never worked in a large organization like the federal government. It was also insulting. Even if a Republican administration in Washington harbored some secret, longstanding vendetta against Ortega or the left, the Ambassador, the USAID director, me, and everyone else there were all career employees. We were not political appointees. Furthermore, we had congressional visits nearly every month checking on what we were doing. Congressmen certainly would have seen us to the door if they thought we were doing anything but towing the line, especially with the tumultuous history of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations, dating from William Walker all the way through Oliver North. And finally, the days when Washington doled out the punishments are a thing of the past. Today it is Wall Street. Daniel Ortega might now long for the day when he could meet with a U.S. Ambassador and try to influence policy. How does he do it now when policy is made by an amorphous changing ground named for a road? In another but not dissimilar context, I heard one American religious activist say he harbored nostalgia for the days of the Cold War when policy was easy, and policy was not so complex! Given that the real stakeholders were the Nicaraguan people, and we absolutely refused to make contributions to any political party (and never did), we encouraged citizens to get involved with the party of their choice to influence

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the debate. One big step in this came when the INCAE business school board (including Carlos Pellas, the richest person in Central America, owner of the BAC bank and the Flor de Ca~ na rum), invited Ambassador Trivelli to participate in its meeting. They discussed how INCAE might help by promoting presidential debates. Separate from debates, Nicaragua needed electoral transparency. As IPADE Director Mauricio Z un ~iga highlighted in one presentation, under the Nicaraguan electoral law, an election is thrown out only when abuse affects more than 50 percent of voters. Under international standards, observers would say an error rate of 12 or 15 percent was completely unacceptable. Selma Tijerino took note, drafted a synthesis two-pager on the international law and standards for electoral verification, and shared this with civil society and the international donors. The regional election and the national one would be judged by international standards and values, not ridiculous Pact-inspired ones. Civil society, academic groups, and universities took note, including the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA). I thought it particularly important that UCA be involved with ET since UCA was associated with the popular left and historically represented strength in Nicaraguan academics. The dean of the UCA law school, Manuel Arauz, even advised Daniel Ortega from time to time. Looking past all the elections, voters need to know that it is not enough to vote for democratic candidates. They must also hold newly elected politicians accountable to remove the politics embedded in the Electoral Law and other key legislation like the Ley Marco and Pact-inspired Constitutional reforms. I had just pushed to include UCA in the program when UCA made a blunder that put me in a real bind. As part of our justice program, we established a new moot court in the UCA Law School. It was a magnificent facility, perhaps the best in the country. We were very proud of this contribution to legal education for future Nicaraguan attorneys. But instead of working with us on a public inauguration of the new Moot Court, UCA sent out invitations on its own with zero recognition for the USAID contribution. Were they ashamed to be seen accepting our help? Did they not want to be seen with us? I didn’t think so. I think the answer was much simpler: they treated us like an ATM machine and felt entitled to the cash. Nothing is more irksome to a development or donor agency than an ungrateful beneficiary with an attitude. I had to eat crow with the Ambassador. This only hurt UCA’s reputation with the Embassy and showed their lack of seriousness. I then ordered that none of our employees, nor our contract hires, would attend the event. Ungrateful beneficiaries like this could not be rewarded for their bad behavior, and we would not lend importance to the event by having pictures of us attending the UCA event splashed on television or the Internet. We told UCA that if they canceled the event, reworked the invitations for a later date, and coordinated with us, then we could participate. They went forward without us. For me, UCA stock was devalued that day. One of the lessons in development, as in many aspects of life, is that you have to be prepared for failure. But, just as important, you also have to be prepared for

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success. We quietly began the spade work to set up quick counts for a second round of the national elections, just in case no one won the first round outright and there was a second round between the top two finishers. Despite our disappointment with the audit of the Atlantic Coast voter registry, we began work, again with NDI and Neil Nevitte, on a national-level audit, this time via a subgrant to Roberto Courtney’s outfit, ET. But in order to audit the registry, you need to be able to see the registry. The CSE refused to share the data, saying it only had to give it out to political parties. The CSE alleged it had no responsibility to share it with a nonpartisan Nicaraguan NGO. Well there’s democracy and transparency for you! The CSE never ceased to amaze me with their dirty tricks. The voter registry was one headache. How people got their voter ID cards was another. That was another field with a myriad of opportunities for corruption and vote-rigging. So we also asked ET to take a look at constraints on the voter ID issuance (c e dulaci on) process. We did not yet have empirical data on the problems, but we sure had a plethora of anecdotes. And where there is smoke, there may be a fire. ET decided to team up with the UCA to train 75 interviewers to do 634 case studies covering urban and rural areas to verify where the problems were. Recommendations would address both technical and political problems. The ET voter registry was timed so that both ET reports come out at about the same time in May. All of a sudden, it was the CSE’s turn to blink. They saw clearly that civil society and major political figures were turning against a rigged election. While the CSE was doing the Pact’s bidding, it was the CSE magistrates being filleted every day in the press. They were left to twist in the wind. Some of the problems in the CSE were due to political intervention. But others were sincere, honest problems with electoral administration. They themselves knew they needed help. At least on this one occasion, the CSE made a decision to improve the quality of Nicaraguan elections by opening all doors to IFES. Even Roberto Rivas stopped by the IFES offices to welcome them to the CSE. IFES did not attempt to work on the Atlantic Coast, given its late start, but instead focused on the November elections including a major focus on getting c e dulas issued. Although candidates begin campaigning much earlier, the Electoral Law states the campaign period for national elections lasts 75 days (August 19 through November 1, 2006). In the case of a run-off election, the campaign will last 21 days with the election taking place December 21, 2006. Our IFES technical team was led by Rafael Lopez Pintor, perhaps the single most knowledgeable human being on how to administer elections. Rafael had lead the European Union’s electoral observation in Nicaragua in 2002. He had just finished leading the EU’s electoral observation in Iraq in January 2006, and before that, the 2005 national election in Honduras. He was the best in the world, and now at the service of the CSE. The OAS reported that it too was getting great entree to the CSE, including the computer systems. This is great news for international observation, and was consistent with what IFES is reporting.

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By this point, Nicaragua was ‘‘hot’’ in the foreign policy debate circles and the ‘‘me too’’ phenomenon hit. The State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor wanted to invest some cash in the effort, but they could not say exactly when and wanted USAID to review all the proposals and make suggestions for action. I suggested that they give us the money to spend and supervise since we were on the ground, but that did not fly well back in Washington. That’s called ‘‘turf.’’ Another theme we had picked up was the impunity Daniel Ortega and others enjoyed despite their roles in war crimes during the early 1980s. Through USAID’s justice program, we decided to give a small grant to the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) to investigate and document human rights atrocities committed against indigenous people on the Atlantic Coast. The Sandinistas had forced thousands into concentration camps. Yes. Concentration Camps. Many died. The more I learned about the atrocities committed by Ortega, the more I was reminded of a novel by Miguel Angel Asturias, the Nobel laureate in literature from Guatemala. Asturias was the one who gave the world the prototype for the novel about corrupt dictatorship, El Se~ nor Presidente. That novel was painful to read because the President was so evil and yet, always had plausible deniability and always kept his own hands clean. While the novel came out at a time when readers had in mind Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, it was actually modeled on a prior dictator, Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920). Still, the novel transcended any one caudillo or any single country. Otega was like that character. He was slippery, sadistic, violent. He seemed to defy justice. The atrocity was called the ‘‘Red Christmas’’ (Navidad Roja). CPDH Director Marcos Carmona got great television coverage on 100% Noticias, along with positive local newspaper coverage. In a country where the average citizen is about 20 years old, most had no idea what the FSLN did in the 1980s. This effort was about educating the public on Ortega’s personal role as shown by documentary evidence and about seeking justice. Ortega had to come out and recognize mistakes. He said the FSLN would not repeat mistakes made in the early 1980s. In that sense, the CPDH effort already had influenced the campaign. The Teflon caudillo took a bullet. Smelling a good story, newspapers decided to pile on Ortega for a while to sell papers. Ortega had pending litigation against him for the rape of his daughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, who was 12 years old at the time. He does not say that he didn’t do it—but rather as a legislator, he has prosecutorial immunity. This is ironic, since the Pact had moved to strip immunity from active government ministers just to effect the release of Arnoldo Aleman from house arrest. That is what passed for justice in Nicaragua, and the press was making a point. I could not have been more pleased that our support to CPDH in some way forced Ortega to have to defend his actions, even if he walks free to this day. With the downfall of Franco in Spain, Manuel Noriega in Panama, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, the military junta in Argentina, and Pinochet in Chile, the day

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of dictators and caudillos enjoying impunity is coming to a sunset. The CPDH effort was a gentle reminder for Mr. Ortega. The tide has turned against impunity for crimes committed during the 1980s, and what was happening in Nicaragua fit the trend. For years, evil leaders simply got away with their misdeeds, no matter how cruel. But this is ending. In the 1999 Augusto Pinochet case in Britain, the law lords decided the ex-Chilean dictator could be extradited to Spain to face charges because there could be no immunity for certain internationally recognized offenses like torture. That opened the floodgates. Alberto Fujimori of Peru has been taken to court for charges of corruption and human rights abuses. Cambodia’s ex-president Khieu Samphan is under prosecution by a UN tribunal for Khmer Rouge leaders. Indonesia’s former dictator, General Suharto, has been charged with corruption for having stolen $1.54 billion. Suriname’s ex-dictator Desi Bouterse is being tried for his role in the execution of fifteen political oponents. Uruguay’s former ruler Juan Maria Bordaberry faced charges for murder from the 1970s dirty war. Argentina’s former dictator, Maria Estela Peron, who took over after Juan Domingo Peron’s death, faced similar charges in Spain. After completing a sentence in the United States, Manuel Noriega, Panama’s ex-strongman, was extradited from Florida to France to appear in courts there to face counts of money laundering. Liberia’s former president, Charles Taylor, is the first former African head of state to face an international war crimes court, located in Senegal. For Ortega, in the end, at least for now, the CPDH effort had little impact other than a few press articles. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, reviewing the Zoilamerica case, dragged its feet. A hearing scheduled for October, just before the election, was inexplicably postponed. Aleman was not as lucky: In part due to the linkages we promoted between Panamanian and Nicaraguan prosecutors, Panama began pressing for Nicaragua to extradite Aleman to Panama for money laundering. Meanwhile, the local press picked up on the fact that we were spending money, and groups came out of the woodwork with sometimes creative, sometimes wacky ideas for funding. I continued the same old mantra: we want a program, not a Christmas tree. But having said that, politically, it was hard to maintain this fiscal and programmatic discipline. For example, the Catholic Bishop of Granada went straight to the Embassy to ask that we contribute to the Church’s efforts (via Catholic Relief Services) to encourage voter turnout. CRS received USAID funding in 2001 and wanted back at the trough. I doubt the Bishop even knew he was being used by CRS in this way. Since we wanted a program, not a Christmas tree, we needed to keep the number of partners implementing our elections program to a manageable level (i.e., just CEPPS and OAS). So we decided to share this request with IRI, which was leading the ‘‘get out the vote’’ campaign. IRI might wish to work through CRS or directly, but it would be up to IRI to decide how best to promote voter turnout (results oriented), and we were holding IRI to that result. Furthermore, we told IRI that if we decided to work with the Catholics, we needed to see how we could

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undertake a similar program with the evangelicals. This was about ‘‘right and wrong,’’ not ‘‘Catholics versus Protestants!’’ Another group that wanted cash was Ave Marıa College, a private Catholic institution with ties to its parent entity in Michigan. Ave Marıa had been engaged with civic education at the secondary level during prior elections as part of the ‘‘Christmas tree’’ approach. Nicaragua’s ambassador in Washington, Ambassador Salvador Stadhagen, came to USAID to make the case (in his personal capacity, he said, rather than his official one although any clear line was hard to distinguish). He was accompanied by Marvin Zaballos, the current director of a popular civic education program under the Ministry of Education. The program was founded by Stadhagen in the early 1990s and was later taken over by Nicaraguan attorney Terencio Garcia (now with the Chamber of Commerce as well as the head of his own prestigious law firm), and now by Marvin. Stadhagen was looking for money and had been recommended by the State Department. Trying to stay focused and hit two birds with one stone, we referred them back to Washington to the State Department Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. If that State Department bureau was looking for something to do or some way to get involved, they could do this. We needed to keep our focus. As the March Election Day approached, Danika led efforts to make sure the Embassy and USAID observers were well-prepared. Danika and Selma made packets for all volunteers with the electoral law, international standards, and specific instructions on what to do and what not to do. As a benchmark, our observation efforts kept in mind the mid-February polling data collected by CEPPS as shared with local press in Nicaragua from Borge y Asociados. Also, at the same time, we learned that Fox News had arrived in Nicaragua. Oliver North from the Iran-Contra scandal days worked for Fox News, so a number of us privately suspected an ideological push for their coverage. Fox interviewed Rene Herrera and Kruger (at COSEP, the businessmen’s association), Jose Rizo (PLC), and Eduardo Montealegre, along with the Ambassador. Besides the election itself, Fox was interested in the Manpads (shoulder-fire missiles, SAM-7s) and drug trafficking issues and the elections. The DEA actually coordinated the Atlantic Coast trip for Fox and showcased drug trafficking for them. However, we still feared that North or Fox News would fail to appreciate that this was not the 1980s and revert to the ‘‘right versus left’’ kind of obsolete analysis. For the life of me, I cannot understand why Fox News would use a criminal like North to broadcast the news. If he used Fox News to try to convince the American public that this was about the old-think, right versus left, he would be playing into the hands of the Pact which really wanted to make this the FSLN versus the PLC (so that regardless of who won, they both stayed in perpetual power) and stay away from any question of right or wrong. That probably served Oliver North’s interest too: his record on right and wrong was not so good. My father, a lifelong Republican and a real national decorated military hero, said it best: ‘‘No true conservative should tolerate Oliver North. If the military had been allowed to try him, he would have been court-martialed in about five minutes.’’ Amen, Col. Hendrix.

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The Fredrick Neuman Foundation played an important, low-key role in Nicaragua. Harold Kline of this German foundation decided to bring Mario Vargas Llosa to Managua. Vargas Llosa was a prominent Peruvian author. In Nicaragua, where artists and authors were given rock star treatment and their word was taken as scripture, this could have a big impact. Vargas Llosa had run against populist Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. Vargas Llosa represented a more sane approach to government, and the Neuman Foundation hoped the Nicaraguan audience would be listening. Besides, in Nicaragua, poets and artists gained extra credibility—especially with the left. Ruben Darıo was the national hero. Ortega’s vice president from the 1980s is probably today Nicaragua’s most noted author, Sergio Ramırez. The Neuman Foundation also intended to bring parliamentarians from the EU and promote ongoing activities with Liberal youth groups. The foundation is tied to Liberal party structures across a number of countries. On March 23, the National Autonomous University at Leon, Nicaragua opened a new Human Rights Observatory. We had helped them set it up. Leon traditionally was an FSLN political stronghold, so our work there had multiple benefits. While it showed that we helped institutions regardless of geography or ideology, it also had a direct benefit in shedding light on governance in that Department. The Ambassador, university rector, university council and a cast of local dignitaries all turned out. There was extensive media coverage, and as my old boss in Guatemala used to say, ‘‘It was a great day for Democracy.’’ In the background, we continued to plod forward with the draft Criminal Code. We pulled together top leadership from the Police, public prosecution, Superintendence of Banks, National Assembly, the Solicitor General, and other stakeholders, all meeting with members of the National Assembly Justice Commission and being advised by USAID consultants from across Latin America. I also developed a new and broad anticorruption strategy for the entire U.S. mission: the Embassy and USAID combined. It showed how our efforts integrated and dovetailed. It set priorities and detailed how we would focus on institutions and communications. I was particularly proud of this effort since it cut across institutional lines, getting rid of the historical stove-piping of programs and offices typical of bureaucracies. An example of this cross-institutional collaboration was immediately evident. Luz Marina Garcıa on my team organized a training for journalists and reporters. The idea was to bring them up to speed on what we had been doing with government ministries on their ‘‘Voluntary Access to Information Strategies’’ that we had helped the Bola~ nos administration develop in response to the proposal for a new Access to Information Law. Obviously, journalists would be big consumers of public information, and we wanted them to know about the new transparency and start to take full advantage of it. If journalists demanded information, it would create a clientele and demand for the new legislation. It was a great day for journalistic freedom. But critical to success was making sure we had the right people in the room. Preeti Shah, who worked in

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the public affairs office at the Embassy, worked with Luz to make that happen. Top figures like Roberto Zuniga from Channel 2, Jorge Loasiga from La Prensa, Roberto Collado from El Nuevo Diario, and Carlos Fernando Chamorro were all invited. The organizer was Cristiana Chamorro, executive director of the Chamorro Foundation (and Carlos Fernando’s brother). We had the exact people we needed, and it reflected what we could do when we all pulled in the same direction. As March drew to a close, a new wrinkle emerged in the electoral debate. The National Assembly wanted to deal with the dispute between Yatama and the CSE. It also thought it could substitute the CSE’s interpretation of the electoral law with its own ‘‘authentic interpretation,’’ which could effectively overrule a decision by the Supreme Court of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Where would that leave a system of checks and balances? As we did from time to time, we called Rodrigo Barreto at the CSE. He was concerned that the PLC might use ‘‘authentic interpretation’’ to try to overturn results on the Atlantic Coast. We added this to our growing list of ways to rig an election. The Nicaraguan politicians were giving me a graduate school course on hardball politics and political manipulation. Separately, the CSE sent a letter to the Finance Ministry to request 72 million Nicaraguan cordobas (about $10 million) in funding. Otherwise, according to Barreto, there was no ability for the CSE to pay for any verification of the voter rolls before the national election. We promised to check this issue with IFES and, if appropriate, refer the matter to the donor group. However, I thought to myself that the CSE had a big budget every year, but only held elections occasionally. Many of the magistrates didn’t even show up for work, but continued drawing fat salaries. I wondered how the CSE could possibly plead poverty.

11

We Ponder What Just Happened and Welcome Visitors from Washington (April 2006)

With the regional elections now behind us, we were able to come to closure on a variety of issues. For one, we decided not to go forward with support for primaries. The Ambassador, Political Section, Danika, and I had all engaged local parties in an exhaustive consultation process. There was no consensus among the parties. We were being strung along. Our victory was getting this theme inserted into the public debate. It was time to cut bait and move on. Funding within CEPPS that had been set aside for primaries was reprogrammed mainly to Movimiento for get out the vote and other anti-Pact activities. Also, with the election behind us, we had time to reflect on our decision to help the CSE. It had been very controversial. Some pundits in the United States had argued that we should not be seen to be helping a Pact-controlled institution. Better to let it fail and hammer it with civil society and diplomacy from the outside. I found that approach hard to swallow. We were about building up, not tearing down. We were taking the high road. We needed to help the institutions, if they wanted us to help, to assure that Nicaraguans had a clean, fair, transparent, and credible election. We wanted them to be successful. That is what international development and institutional reform is all about. We also should always model the behavior we want others to emulate. We wanted the magistrates in the CSE to turn away from corruption and run a clean election. We had to give it a chance. We had to believe. Were we weak and namby-pamby in supporting a naı¨ve process of democracy in the face of hostile, complex corruption? I thought a weaker response would be to revert to the old ‘‘right versus left.’’ Only a program that believed in itself and in the righteousness of its cause would

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be so bold as to extend the first olive branch. Or, as my wife Julia put it a lot more simply, you attract more bees with honey, so I believed the carrots were the right way to go, not the stick. To this day I am convinced we made the right choice, and I have zero regrets. The idea of primaries among the liberals to unite around a single candidate died definitively when the PLC went ahead with its own selection of a presidential candidate. Eduardo Montealegre (ALN) had accepted a primary process, but Rizo declined. Arnoldo Aleman certainly ‘‘influenced’’ the process. The internal PLC competition included Jose Rizo, Ramiro Sacasa, Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, and Haroldo Montealegre. Normally, the PLC would select its candidate via a secret vote of a general convention. But the PLC’s Central Committee decided that the selection would be done via 32 ‘‘mini-conventions.’’ All the candidates except Rizo protested the process. But when Rizo won, they all endorsed him on April 2nd at the general convention. In much of Latin America, governments shut down for Holy Week, and Nicaragua was no exception. This year, it came in April. We enjoyed a relatively quiet month and recharged our batteries while preparing for the battles yet to come. My family and I packed up and drove to Antigua, Guatemala to enjoy the sand ‘‘carpets’’ made by hand for elaborate parades. It was quality family time, and it could not have come sooner. Later in April, we received a visit from the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central America, Kirsten Madison, and the USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America, Mike Magan. On April 24th, the Embassy country team gave them a full briefing on the menu of activites under way. Later that day, I had lunch with them and the IRI team at the Casa Grande. These meetings were important to keep Washington in the loop on what we were doing and for us to hear any policy instruction or feedback. Kirsten is ‘‘low maintenance’’ and we enjoyed her visit. Mike Magan had been a friend of mine from my prior work in Washington, and it was great to see him again.

12

One Step Forward, One Step Back (May 2006)

Outside the electoral processes in its normal development portfolio, USAID tries to coordinate its programs with other donors. Each country is a little different. But in Nicaragua, the coordination is done under the ‘‘mesa global,’’ a global table of donors that all get together to compare notes. These coordination fora are important. Just like going to the dentist is important. It is something we have to do, but it is not fun. On the plus side, the ‘‘mesa global ’’ met only about once a month. We split coverage of this so that I rarely had to go. The much more action-oriented donor elections working group was finally getting into substance for the national elections scheduled for November. One concern we had again was having a program, not a Christmas tree, among the various donors. If we rejected funding for an NGO or an activity because it went at counterpurposes to something else we were funding or duplicated efforts, there was a real risk that the NGO could just go to another donor and get funded. We needed to make sure we were all on the same page with a single strategy. Otherwise, the collective donor effort could end up being self-defeating. We had one such case right out of the box. USAID was funding both IPADE and ET for various activities for the national elections. But we only wanted one quick count. Both IPADE and ET wanted to do one separately. But this presented an immediate problem. What if there were two quick counts, and they came to different conclusions? Quick counts can have a margin of error depending on the statistical methods used. But the parties could use any small difference to discredit the counts and have them discarded. Two quick counts, in effect, would be mutually defeating. It was easy for us to decide this for ourselves. We decided to fund ET, under NDI direction, and not IPADE. But we don’t speak for other donors. We knew that Denmark, Finland, and Norway were likely to fund activities with IPADE for

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the national election, and IPADE could use those funds to plan a rival quick count. In the event of a contested election, having two quick counts, especially if they did not agree, would be very problematic. IPADE had no experience in this area. All year long, the CSE had been complaining of inadequate funding, even while they purchased new cars for the magistrates and funding unnecessary programs like CEELA. In May, the CSE’s budget increase request to the National Assembly was rejected. As a result, Rodrigo Barreto warned us that the CSE might cut the voter registry (padr on) verification from two weekends to just one. If Articles 41 and 116 were liberally applied, that might not matter much. If articles 41 and 116 were not applied, cutting back on verification could have a negative impact on participation. The Citizen Attention Centers could mitigate this problem. Also, IFES was working to get the message on voter IDs out via the web, the CSE hot-line, and through Movimiento communications so that voters would verify their voter locations early in the process. On May 10, Ambassador Trivelli met with the OAS electoral observation leadership, Gustavo Fernandez and Raul Alconada Sempe. Fernandez noted three specific areas in which the OAS Election Observation Mission (EOM) would focus immediate attention: 1) ensuring adequate Electoral Law administrative rules (reglamentos) were enacted to reduce the discretionary power of the CSE magistrates; 2) observation of the voter registry (padr on) verification over the two weekends in June; and 3) voter ID card (c e dula) distribution, focusing on the roughly 200,000 c e dulas that had been produced but never claimed. In response to Ambassador Trivelli’s request, Gustavo Fernandez noted the OAS Mission would be exploring ways to encourage the magistrates to agree to a permanent session to avoid quorum problems as they had done in 2001. Earlier in the year, the CSE had passed administrative rules without a quorum since the PLC magistrates were refusing to participate. While allowing the PLC and FSLN to appear as rivals, this gave the Pact and the CSE the convenience to pass rules that said one thing while allowing everyone an out later to say that the rules did not apply if application of the rules turned out to be inconvenient to the Pact. They could have their cake and eat it too. They had thought of everything: Whether the rules would apply with or without a quorum would end up being a decision of—you guessed it—the CSE itself. Gustavo Fernandez announced that a ‘‘group of eminent persons’’ from the hemisphere would be traveling to Nicaragua in June. Although these individuals would be attached to the Mission, Fernandez explained that they would be traveling as dignitaries on independent missions rather than OAS functionaries to allow them greater flexibility to speak out without committing the pecado de injerencismo (the sin of political interventionism). The OAS electoral observation mission (EOM) agreed to incorporate at least 20 U.S. observers in its national election day observation and promised to consider additional U.S. personnel if the total number of international observers in the OAS EOM was large enough to balance out U.S. presence.

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The final day to register for the national election approached. In the 11th hour on the last day, APRE’s Jose Antonio Alvarado cut a deal with the PLC, agreeing to run as Rizo’s vice president while the rest of the APRE party mostly agreed to run on Montealegre’s ticket. Another last day surprise came when Alternativa por el Cambio (AC , ‘‘Alternative for Change’’), a shell party headed up by former Contra leader ‘‘Comandante Cero’’ (Commander Zero) Eden Pastora G omez, also threw its hat in the ring. In the end then, five parties/alliances would run in the upcoming elections: FSLN, PLC, MRS, ALN-PC-APRE, and AC. With the Atlantic Coast election now over, IFES produced massive books listing the status and location of c e dulas. Two hundred thousand c e dulas were ready to be picked up, thanks to the IFES effort. Meanwhile, IFES also produced manuals for the CSE and started a ‘‘train the trainer’’ program. Furthermore, IFES helped the CSE to set up a call center to answer any questions about the electoral process, including how to get a voter ID card, where to vote, and any other inquiry. It was an immediate success. By May, IFES had to provide funding to the CSE to hire additional personnel (10 to 24 operators) and provide necessary equipment to expand the capacity of the CSE call center to respond to the growing demand for this service. The CSE had no idea how many voter ID cards it had already produced but not distributed. IFES did an inventory of what was already in the CSE’s hands and where those cards were so that voters could go and pick them up. Upon completion of IFES’ c e dula inventory, the call center experienced a 100 percent increase in calls. IFES anticipated the demand for this service would continue to increase following the voter registry (padr on) verification in the run-up to the elections. The prediction was prophetic. By May 19th, new polls showed that Daniel Ortega had maintained a slight lead in the latest Borge and Associates poll over ALN’s Eduardo Montealegre, but the lead had fallen to within the margin of error. The poll results were spun any number of ways—the FSLN confirming its domination, the ALN saying that the surge was on its side, and the PLC saying polls were irrelevant. Meanwhile, rumors ran wild that the president of the National Assembly would resign. Daniel Ortega’s running mate would be Jaime Morales Carazo. Morales was actually well-known in the Embassy. He had been the civilian chief of the Contras in the 1980s. He was also Aleman’s confidant for many years and a PLC founder. He served as a PLC legislator in the National Assembly until 2006. Morales Carazo began to distance himself politically from Aleman and the PLC once Bola~ nos came to office and launched his ‘‘war on corruption.’’ Ortega used this nomination to set aside fears from the private sector that the ‘‘old’’ Ortega was making a comeback. He seemed to want to say that this was the ‘‘new’’ Ortega. My wife and I met Morales at a party once, actually at the Ambassador’s house. I was surprised how little he knew about our assistance and our role, or at least that is how he wanted us to think of him. His wife looked many years, perhaps decades, his junior until we noticed the hands. Plastic surgery can change your face and chest, but it does not take the years off your hands. This woman looked

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fabulous but had obviously had extensive cosmetic surgery. I wondered how ‘‘a man of the people’’ paid for that. Well, I knew how. This was the new FSLN, the one the political cartoonists referred to as the F$LN. Most interesting to me was the fact that Ortega now lived in a house he confiscated during the 1980s, without indemnity from, you guessed it, Morales Carazo. On paper, these guys should have been mortal enemies. But the Pact made strange bedfellows. What did Ortega promise him? What was his deal with Aleman? My only thought was: ‘‘yuck!’’ But I bet people wanted to know who the great plastic surgeon was. With each passing day, the electoral model grew more and more complex. Meanwhile, the Europeans and other major donors did not seem to possess the same sense of unease and urgency that we felt. We continued to reach out. Under Deborah Ullmer’s supervision, NDI worked closely with Movimiento Por Nicaragua to review whether citizens could get voter ID cards, or whether the CSE was blocking them for political reasons. Where were the bottlenecks? How was it really working? There were 634 cases in the sample. Of those, we already knew that over 100 persons were told to pick up their c e dulas in five months (not in three months or less as prescribed in the law). This did not bode well for our upcoming election. NDI began to analyze this to see if one party or another was being favored in this process. On a parallel track, NDI was working with ET on a national level audit of the voter registry. When the Carter Center report on the March elections was finally issued, I was disappointed. It had been delayed well past the March election date, so the impact was already minimized. It did not hit hard on the problems with issuing voter ID cards, preferential ID card distribution, or problems with the voter registry. It pulled punches, I thought. If the international referees did not call it as they saw it, again, we would be hard pressed to hold the CSE and the Pact to a clean, fair, transparent national election. We were on a very slippery slope. We were getting desperate. We needed to reach new voters and get them to make sure they had their voter ID cards and had verified their polling center in the validation of the voter registry. In late May, rapper Daddy Yankee was set to play a concert in Managua. So the Embassy’s public relations office contacted the concert organizers to request that Movimiento Por Nicaragua be allowed to set up a booth to offer citizens help with getting c e dulas. Danika Walters followed up with Eduardo Garcia Herdocia and others at the Youth for a Democratic Nicaragua (‘‘Juventud Por la Democracia Nicarag€ uense,’’ JUDENIC). What better way to get kids excited about voting? The voting age in Nicaragua is sixteen, and a lot of potential voters would be at this concert. In the end, the concert promoters declined to allow a voter information or assistance booth. As we had done all year, even while working on the election, we kept up our support for improving democratic institutions. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce Walter Bastian was visiting Managua and wanted to lend a hand. Luis Ubeda and I set up an event to inaugurate Nicaragua’s first commercial arbitration

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center. It was to be located at CACONIC, the national association of the business community. The Center was set up with USAID training and assistance. We hoped it would have a dramatic, positive impact in the context of the CAFTA by giving businesses an alternative to litigating in the politicized Nicaraguan courts. Arbitration also promised to be better, cheaper, and faster than normal litigation. The Center received international accreditation for Arbitration and made a big splash in the local media. The other main commercial association, COSEP, also began to step up but wanted us to pay for its role. COSEP proposed to create another dialogue forum, a mesa de di alogo. Our feeling was that the country already has a lot of ‘‘mesas,’’ many of which did not produce very much. COSEP was looking to USAID to provide funding for this. The COSEP proposals included many of the actors we were already funding, such as Movimiento, IRI, NDI, IFES, Hagamos Democracia, and others. COSEP proposed as well that it might be able to bring political parties to the table. In any case, COSEP itself would invest very little. We did not fund COSEP, but we encouraged them to coordinate with the activities we did have under way. In particular, we welcomed their help on the voter ID card production and distribution issues. We later learned that Sweden, Norway, and Germany expressed interest in funding this with COSEP. If other embassies did move forward, and we needed to pay a couple of thousand dollars via IRI to get a seat at the table, we thought we could always reconsider this. We also engaged COSEP about having their members’ employees ensure that their family members all had voter ID cards, that they verified themselves on the voter rolls, and that they voted on Election Day. We had the same concern with our own employees. Selma Tijerino gave an orientation to Embassy and USAID Nicaraguan employees who had family members who still need a ce dula to vote. This paralleled the type of training USAID was working with COSEP to provide to COSEP member families so that those citizens could participate in the election. We liked to joke in USAID that we had only three objectives: elections, elections, and elections. In truth, as a development agency, we sought to improve the institutions of democracy in Nicaragua, only one of which was the electoral tribunal. Another big concern was the politicization of the Supreme Court. Our rule of law program issued a subgrant to a local non-governmental entity NGO called Hagamos Democracia. The activity would engage civil society on new Supreme Court Magistrates and the new Attorney General (Fiscal General). The $25,000 grant would help with web sites, debates, and other possible actions. The purpose was to get the public involved in recommending candidates and bringing transparency to the process. We feared the court would continue to be picked by the FSLN and PLC to support their impunity and perpetuation of the Pact. On a parallel track, we began to organize a ‘‘Judicial Independence Week.’’ We set an initial date for the week of August 21st. As we began to pull this together, we wanted to make sure that events were held across the country, not just

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in the capital. We wanted all Nicaraguans focused on this problem, not just urban elites. Priority would be given to the Atlantic Coast, which was served particularly poorly by the politicized court. As John F. Kennedy noted, ‘‘If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.’’ With a view toward improving the rule of law, constitutional due process, and judicial efficiency, USAID launched its current justice program in 1997. At that time, the justice sector operated with multiple handicaps, including outdated legislation and procedures, lack of training and information for justice sector personnel, weak administrative capacity, inadequate financing, and a politicized judiciary. There were no full-time public defenders. As part of a broader effort to reform the justice sector, USAID helped the Nicaraguan government establish a Public Defender’s Office. At its inception in November 2001, the institution had 13 public defenders with cases in eight district courts and one juvenile court, only in Managua. With USAID help, Public Defense now has 75 assistant public defenders in 23 offices nationwide, increasing access to justice and promoting the right of destitute citizens to a legal defense. The entire professional legal staff has been trained by USAID. All were selected through a competitive process, which USAID helped establish. While our efforts to help Nicaraguan democracy took baby steps forward, the national picture remained tense with the country at times seeming to lack governability. Political forces in the Pact relished that the country seemed to be out of Bola~ nos control and at times made sure to complicate matters for him. For example, the FSLN pumped up students to strike in late May over a 40-cent increase in bus fare. Local press reported students protesting with anti-riot police on hand. What the papers did not report was that these protests took place near the American-Nicaraguan School. As the school buses were leaving—one which had my three children, Susana, Daniel, and John, in it—the university student protesters lobbed molotov cocktails at the buses from the American-Nicaraguan School. The bus with my children in it had to accelerate and turn back toward the school to escape attack. Only hours later when Embassy security personnel were able to arrive and escort the bus were my children allowed to leave, taking a route away from the conflict, arriving home under cover of night. Such was the extent to which the Pact and its surrogates would use violence even against unarmed children to destabilize the Bola~ nos administration and promote its alternative political agenda.

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Electoral Preparations at Full Speed (June 2006)

As the month opened, Nicaraguan newspapers reported the discontent within the PLC. It should have been obvious to all, if it was not clear before, who runs the PLC and what track the PLC was now on. The Pact seemed more alive now than ever in the press. Public statements by Dora Marıa Tellez (a top guerrilla commander during the war between 1977 and 1979) criticized the Pact and Ortega. She now supported MRS, but during the FSLN government of the 1980s, she held top cabinet positions, including Minister of Health for several years. Her statements against Daniel Ortega had to sting. As the CSE began its verification of the electoral rolls over two weekends, 28 fresh OAS observers arrived between June 5th and 7th. They fanned out over the country. Three top technical advisers also came to Nicaragua: Ignacio Walker (from Chile), Nina Paccari (Ecuador), and Ana Marıa San Juan (Venezuela). Eight EU experts were in Nicaragua from June 21st to 28th on an exploratory mission to define the EU election observation efforts for November. With this new firepower, I felt the cavalry had arrived. But would it be enough? Through our aggressive donor coordination, we were in excellent shape in terms of funding for the OAS electoral observation mission. The wish budget for OAS was originally about $3.4 million. With contributions in hand, they already had about $3.2 million for the international observation. This did not include possible future additional contributions from Norway and Denmark. USAID financial management and democracy staff worked very closely with the OAS to identify how the OAS could cut costs and work more efficiently within the budget. We thought the $3.2 million was perfect. The OAS was getting great entree with the CSE. They even signed an agreement with each other spelling out cooperative terms. The OAS brought on a

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technical expert dedicated to analyzing the CSE rules (reglamentaci on), which could be critical in the elections process. In terms of the USAID agreement with the OAS, even though we had been trying to reach agreement since the previous September, we still had not reached an agreement due to the many delays on the OAS side. But we were in the final stages of negotiating the agreement’s text. OAS already had a ‘‘pre-award letter’’ in hand, authorizing it to spend even without an agreement, so nothing was being held up. With the other donor funding coming in, we were in great shape. The truth is we all wanted the CSE to succeed in verifying that the voter registry was accurate and transparent. We wanted Nicaragua to create a level playing field. But would the CSE demonstrate the political will to defy the Pact and allow this? We had to try. We in USAID offered to help the CSE with the verification process. We scheduled a special training for CSE staff on how to conduct voter registry verification. Training was set for June 7th to 8th, and we coordinated closely with Adonai Jimenez (CSE), who we found very open and collaborative. The CSE 1-800 hotline, financed by USAID via IFES, had a huge impact as call volume began to climb. The CSE was now getting about a thousand calls a day, calls from citizens with demands and complaints. The ‘‘genie is now out of the bottle,’’ IFES expert Rafael Lopez Pintor noted. ‘‘With these citizen demands, the CSE can no longer just blame donors or NGO groups. The CSE is being forced to be responsive.’’ The CSE Web site, also produced by IFES with USAID funds was fantastic. It was very user friendly and represented another way citizens could continue to verify their election status. Manuals on the exact location and inventory of all existing voter ID cards were given to the CSE for distribution to all municipalities. IFES had then gone to NGOs, churches, and other local organizations around the country to distribute additional copies both in hard copy and on CDs. A lot of municipal CSE offices claimed they never received copies from the CSE, so IFES was also giving them copies. This led to other municipalities complaining to IRI that IFES was giving preferential treatment to some places and not others. We were trying our best, but no matter what you do, you can’t win! Finally we just put out the word that additional CDs were available to anyone who would like one. IPADE made sure its network nationwide all had copies. Another concern we had was about access to the electoral software and process of transmission of results. That had been a big issue in Venezuela’s questioned election. What access would there be for observers? We posed this question to the OAS. Posting of elections results would also be critical. The CSE promised us that the results would be on the CSE web page listed by polling center. Deborah Ullmer of NDI continued to work her magic coordinating with ET on the audit of the Voter Registry. She and ET made a full presentation of results to the CSE, followed by a briefing for the various ambassadors in Managua to keep the international community in the loop. Jim Sweigert and Deborah then established a media campaign calling on citizens to verify themselves, ‘‘CIUDADANOS VERIFIQUENSES,’’ to start shortly thereafter.

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Vanguardia Juvenil, another NGO working with IRI, was promoting ce dulas on university campuses across the country. Vanguardia Juvenil received death threats simply for informing students how to get voter IDs, which we thought attested to how the traditional parties felt threatened by our funding of the awareness campaign. I was glad we had given Movimiento and Vanguardia a pass on requirements to use our logo. The atmosphere on campuses now was very politically charged. If they threatened our local partners for giving out information on how to vote, imagine what they would do if they thought these organizations were doing all this in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy. We could not put them in harm’s way through an unnecessary association with USAID. It was the result of a better election we were looking for, not credit. IRI also was getting traction. Gilberto Valdez coordinated a series of television programming on the Rhina Cardenal show (channel 23, or 99 on cable) ‘‘Programa de Promoci on del Voto’’ throughout the month of June with help from Gilberto, Paul Fagan, and Joe Agostini. IRI’s training of party poll watchers had really taken off. Only two parties expressed interest in receiving USAID help to train their poll watchers—MRS and ALN. The FSLN had its own program and was probably suspicious of what we would provide. Parties did not want their representatives mixed in with other parties, so all training had to be done on a separate basis. Had the PLC or FSLN asked, we would have provided the training, but they didn’t. Party poll watcher training was critical to success in guaranteeing a free, fair, transparent, and credible election, particularly since the CSE was already dominated by officials from only two parties, the PLC and the FSLN, both in a Pact to exclude everyone else. With no institutional check or balance in place, party poll watchers stood as a last, thin line between a proper election and outright theft of power. The opposition needed a voice, and they needed to know what they would be looking for. The two traditional parties had very impressive internal training programs to prepare their party poll watchers. The MRS and ALN had nothing at all. In June we trained 12,000 party poll watchers with the MRS (via Hagamos Democracia). For the ALN, we started a bit later, not because we favored the MRS but because the ALN was simply not as ready or as organized. IRI had intended to do its training via a subgrant to CPDH. But CPDH had since gotten funding from Taiwan to do its own program. So IRI has decided to work with Hagamos Democracia for this component. With an eye forward to the 2008 mayoral elections, we began work with mayors on participatory budgeting and social auditing. Participatory budgeting takes place when interested members of the community help set priorities and make budgetary proposals. Social auditing is when citizens watch how money is spent and report that back to the community. Both techniques are very valuable for promoting citizen involvement with local budgets, and both reflect important tools in the fight against corruption. Luz Marina Garcıa worked with our transparency project to provide a subgrant to ET to carry out training in select communities. This ended up receiving great

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coverage on TV, on radio, and in the local press. We intentionally picked at least some communities to overlap with the Millennium Challenge Corporation activities in Nicaragua, mainly in the Leon Department. In this way, we were able to generate synergies across programs. Again, we worked for an integrated program, not a Christmas tree. On that broader plain, from 2002 to 2005, as the acting leader for democracy programs for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Washington, I had tried to push for a new, regional program to combat the rising tide of gangs and organized crime in Mexico and Central America. That had now started to gather some steam. Each of the countries had a gang assessment. USAID would likely have a regional program as well, which would focus on prevention, reinsertion and similar issues. The efforts would likely be modeled on original efforts in Villa Nueva, Guatemala that began at the Justice Center there, sparked by the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights’ consultant Brenda Qui~ nonez’s work there. Ironically, that work was done when I was stationed in Guatemala. I was glad to see this all finally coming together at the regional level. CPDH’s findings on the Red Christmas atrocities finally hit the press in June. The CPDH report was part of the USAID grant to the organization. It contained solid documentation backing up the claims with documents, witnesses, and video testimony. Daniel Ortega, Omar Cabezas Lacayo (the current human rights ombudsman), and Lenın Cerna Juarez (intelligence under the 1980s government) were specifically mentioned for their involvement and complicity. The CPDH executive director, Marcos Carmona, held follow-up press conferences. FSLN spokesmen tried to dismiss the CPDH findings as simple electoral posturing. But this was part of the broader effort to emphasize right versus wrong, rather than right versus left. No matter how the national elections went, we needed to assure the sustainability of governance and democracy in Nicaragua. One tool we had was the InterAmerican Convention Against Corruption. Since Nicaragua was a signatory, we could help Nicaraguan civil society get involved in evaluating Nicaragua’s performance without being accused of being interventionist. Most countries in the region provided reports for the OAS to review without any civil society input. In working with our civil society partners, we decided Nicaragua could be a model for the rest of the region by including civil society input in the report and encouraging civil society to remain engaged, providing a watchdog function on government performance. In a country where official checks and balances were evaporating, this might be one of the few remaining options keeping Nicaragua from becoming a complete kleptocracy under the rule of the Pact and its former strongmen. I was reminded of what Thomas Jefferson once said: ‘‘No government can continue good but under the control of the people.’’ USAID provided technical assistance directly to the national government’s Office of Public Ethics (OEP), organized under the Presidency, to help it respond to the second round questionnaire under the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC). Separately, we supported civil society input to and oversight of the process. The civil society group included the Association of Auditors (Asociaci on

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de Auditores), a coalition of 23 law school deans (Comision Nacional Academica de Derecho, CONADER), ET, Probidad, the UCA law school, and others. The capstone of our support to the Office of Public Ethics was an event presided over by President Enrique Bola~ nos, Jan Michelle Arrigui representing the OAS Secretary General, and Haydee Acosta from the Public Ethics Office. In his speech, President Bola~ nos related his government’s efforts to battle corruption and invited the new government to continue working toward compliance with the IACC. Jan Michelle Arrigui noted that corruption was one of the biggest threats to democracy and congratulated the Nicaraguan government for sharing its Work Plan and for working to follow civil society recommendations. A representative of civil society, Adela Torrentes from the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), read all the civil society recommendations that emerged during the workshop and suggested the OEP disseminate all the products from the workshop. No other country in the hemisphere had ever invited such a level of civil society input and participation in its reporting on compliance with the Inter-American Convention. This was breaking new ground and would never have happened but for USAID help. Our work with civil society to keep the government’s feet to the fire also paid off with extensive press coverage By mid month, Peter Brennan, the deputy chief of mission, returned from a quick trip to Washington. While there, he met with the Deputy Secretary of the State Department, the department’s second in command, Robert Zoellick, along with his top adviser, Chris Padilla. Both expressed their appreciation for the hard work of the team in Nicaragua. They realized that this was a long, hard slog forward, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. They felt very positive and upbeat that we are on the right track. Ambassador Trivelli felt the same way about the group. That Peter and the Ambassador would share this feedback with the staff and extend their own thanks to the team showed once again the quality of management and real human decency and understanding we enjoyed in the Embassy front office. They were always on page with Washington, and they were pure class. The president could not have had a finer representative. The warm feeling did not last long. All of a sudden, the CSE claimed it did not have funds to publicize the voter roll verification (June 10th–11th and 17th– 18th). What good was a validation and verification process if no one knew about it? We sprung into action and blitzed the media with ads, nearly all paid for by us via our work with IFES. Meanwhile, our audit of the voter ID card issuance process (c e dulaci on) was under way in association with UCA and ET. The preliminary results indicated that youth, the poor, and those in rural areas are most likely to have difficulties obtaining a c e dula. Twenty-two percent of the participants in the study have been told they will have to wait five months to get a voter ID card (ce dula). In other words, they will miss the election—a wait period contrary to existing law. This was an ominous warning about how the election was being administered. Movimiento Por Nicaragua continued to organize public events. They would be visibly active at city intersections and in communities each Thursday throughout the

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month with students and adults waving banners and handing out pamphlets calling for an end to the Pact and urging citizens to make sure they had their voter ID cards. The biggest event was a c e dulath on in Managua on June 17th with bands and other entertainment to raise funds for individuals who cannot afford a ce dula. Meanwhile, Klaus Stadhagen spearheaded Movimiento’s work targeted at youth. He initiated a campaign in secondary schools to encourage students to get their c e dulas and vote. But it was an uphill effort. IRI taped one conversation with students in which 100 percent expressed interest in voting, but about 80 percent did not have voter ID cards. Students were very confused about the process to say the least. If it was going to take five months to get ID cards for students (despite the law saying it had to be done in three months or less), and if 80 percent did not already have ID cards, the youth vote would be trivialized and have no effect on the outcome. And it was the youth that were most likely to be against the Pact and corrupt politics as usual. The CSE and the Pact had engineered a system to maintain power by cutting out the voter rights of its opponents through delay and bureaucracy. Seeing the dirty tricks unfolding in country, the domestic electoral observation groups wondered whether the CSE would ever provide them with accreditation. ET executive director Roberto Courtney was particularly nervous that it would not be accredited to observe the elections because ET has been critical of the CSE. To address this, ET contacted Transparency International/Berlin (another USAID grantee) to bring outside international pressure to the issue. We brought the matter to the attention of the OAS. There was little else we could do, as frustrating as that was. In effect, the CSE could get observers to censor themselves by withholding accreditation. It was Machiavellian. Jim Sweigert, one of NDI’s top experts, came to Nicaragua and met with CSE President Rivas. Jim was tasked with communicating our concerns directly to the top. Rivas assured him that Articles 41 and 116 of the electoral law would be applied. He also assured him that ET would be accredited to observe the national elections. But, always a step ahead of us, Rivas did not specifically say how many from ET would be accredited, leaving open the option for the CSE only to approve a handful. To be conservative, ET began to seek accreditation of its observers little by little, over time, through various organizations. Every time we gained an inch, it was only to learn that we had lost somewhere else. I wondered if we were just squeezing a balloon. While our assistance was nonpartisan, other outside groups did not have that restriction. One partisan outfit was the Neuman Foundation, based in Germany. The foundation hosted a lunch with 14 youth from ALN. What we heard was shocking. The candidates reported that it costs about 1,600,000 Nicaraguan cordobas to run a campaign for deputy. It may be more or less than this amount, depending on infrastructure, distances, population, and other variables. Where do candidates get that kind of cash? And how do they pay it back? The inferences were to corruption. There were many allegations that PLC and FSLN candidates benefit from mayors who provide access to municipal infrastructure and resources. They also complained about how FSLN candidates benefit

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from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, who was giving oil and fertilizer to FSLN candidates to hand out. Cuban doctors also were involved in supporting FSLN candidates. In some cases, FSLN deputy candidates made outright cash gifts to voters. The candidates were not surprised by low turnout rates for the voter registry verification, but they claimed that their own personal efforts would result in 60,000 ALN voters participating. In all, it was depressing news. The Neuman Foundation engaged with the ALN to provide advice and share impressions. To say the least, the Foundation experts came down very hard on all aspects of the ALN campaign. The ALN was very disorganized and had not taken to heart earlier recommendations from the Neuman Foundation. For example, even now, the ALN had not named its campaign manager although informally, the ALN said it would name Adolfo Arg€ uello shortly. Agreeing in essence with our take on the campaign, that it was not about left or right, but right and wrong, the Foundation recommended that the ALN not make Chavez or Venezuela an issue in the campaign. That would confuse matters and make it appear as if this was about right versus left. Instead, the Neuman experts counseled, the ALN should only mention Chavez in response to specific questions. In short, the Foundation came away very frustrated by lack of progress in the ALN. Not to be outdone, the PLC organized a ‘‘Liberal Youth Rally.’’ The PLC claimed it had 5,000 youth attending. A member of our staff checked out the event and reported he saw only about 300 or 400 kids. Curiously, retired Catholic Cardenal Miguel Obando y Bravo also happened to be there. Obando had been supportive of the Contras during the 1980s, and he was even accused of helping them get arms. However, in recent years, he had become very close to Ortega. His attending the PLC event reinforced rumors that the FSLN and PLC had closed ranks to keep the Pact running. Again the Cardinal. Again corruption. I was reminded of the words of Nicaraguan international recording artist Perro Zompopo: In spite of the government’s greed … You have to break the silence … Even while Ortega continued to lead in the polls, the ALN foundered with poor organization, and we fought continuous dirty tricks by the Pact and its stooges, we continued to do our best to make this an effort not about right or left, but about right and wrong. We sought to strengthen democracy by promoting citizen participation and citizen oversight. With Movimiento, we launched radio and TV ads encouraging citizens to obtain their c e dulas prior to August 6, the cutoff date to get a voter ID card prior to the election. Movimiento also visited secondary schools to encourage 16- to 18-year-olds to participate in the process. Channel 2 aired a piece on Movimiento’s work in the schools and followed the process as students applied for c e dulas. NDI’s voter roll audit with ET was not well received by the CSE. Despite the moderate tone of the report, the CSE President, Roberto Rivas, publicly criticized

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ET for auditing the voter roll without the CSE’s authorization and privately insinuated that ET might not receive accreditation. Meanwhile, CEELA (Latin American Council of Election Experts) came out strongly backing the CSE’s work, including the current voter roll. Still, the civil society pressure and media blitz were taking a toll on the CSE. It had to do something to shore up its image. With IFES assistance, the CSE opened seven kiosks to expedite c e dula requests in 15 days. All seven kiosks were located in heavy traffic areas such as commercial centers. IFES distributed manuals to all municipalities with the locations for roughly 200,000 c e dulas that had been produced but never claimed. This information was also included on the CSE web site and 1-800-1273 hotline. On the political scene, there were several significant changes. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court reorganized its divisional administration units (Salas). Within the Court, the FSLN got the Constitutional and Criminal Law Salas. The PLC got the Court presidency. This structure meant that the FSLN magistrates would rule on any electoral inhibitions or disqualifications. This was a blow to ALN candidate Eduardo Montealegre whose candidacy was mired in allegations of abuse under a public financing bond scheme (Negotiable Investment Certificates, or Certificados Negociables de Inversi on) referred to as the CENI. After several banks got into financial problems due to fraudulent practices over the course of 1999–2001, the CENIs represented a substantial part of the domestic debt. A commission of Nicaragua’s National Assembly threatened criminal charges against Montealegre, alleging he abused his position to enrich himself by illegally issuing US$400 million in bonds in favor of banks that acquired several failed banks. Montealegre dismissed the charges, stating that he was no longer employed by the government when the bonds were emitted. The Court’s new structure also put the FSLN in charge of whether Arnoldo Aleman was allowed to remain on medical release, whether he was sent back to jail, or whether he was let off entirely (in which case he could have Rizo removed as PLC party candidate and run himself ). This in effect meant that the FSLN could control Arnoldo Aleman, making the FSLN the senior partner in the Pact. The CSE had promised publicly not to disqualify (‘‘inhibir’’) anyone from running. But under the new Court scenario, that job could fall to the courts, allowing CSE President Rivas to say he kept his word. The sword of Damocles hung over the ALN’s Montealegre. Key National Assembly appointments also affected the justice sector. There was a real concern that the National Assembly might appoint three new Supreme Court Magistrates and a new Attorney General (Fiscal General) any day, even though their terms did end until November. The Assembly could do this in response to pressure from the ‘‘Pacto,’’ locking in their candidates before the opposition could effectively organize or before candidate qualifications could be vetted with civil society. To address this, USAID had already made a sub-grant to Hagamos Democracia to generate public debate and demand for appointments based on merit. Activity on this subgrant began immediately.

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With the election looming on the horizon, USAID and Embassy local Nicaraguan employees began to volunteer to help. We suggested that they enlist, like any other Nicaraguan citizen, in the domestic electoral observation. ET agreed to accept any volunteer observers. Our employees did not receive per diem or compensatory time off, but instead had to work on a volunteer basis out of civic duty. ET provided the orientation and training. On June 22, the Council for Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think tank with a fabulous name, issued its own statement on Nicaragua, blasting the United States The statement noted that in April, the Washington-based solidarity group Nicaragua Network ‘‘condemned’’ what they perceived as intervention by the U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli in Nicaragua’s internal election process. The Council then claimed that the April 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations supported the NicaNet contention. The Council stated, ‘‘But regardless of international law, the U.S. has rarely felt constrained over intervening in the internal affairs of many countries, and for 150 years Nicaragua has borne the brunt of more interventions than almost any other country in this hemisphere.’’ The document went on to accuse Ambassador Trivelli of illegal intervention and acting like a ‘‘viceroy.’’ It continued: Current Ambassador, Paul Trivelli, has reached new heights for institutional arrogance and assertiveness. For example, in April he sent letters to Nicaraguan conservative party leaders as well as presidential candidates offering them financial and technical assistance worth some $16 million and proposing that a primary election be held to unify all right-wing parties behind one presidential candidate.… Accused of intervening in Nicaragua’s political affairs, Trivelli insisted that his efforts were just ‘‘part of my job.’’ Nicaragua’s El Nuevo Diario (as quoted by the Nicaragua Network) lashed back that ‘‘the U.S. intervention was so blatant that even some right-wing sectors felt awkward and had to reject the offer.’’ Although Franklin D. Roosevelt warned, ‘‘Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth,’’ the Council on Hemispheric Relations bought the picture sold to it by the Pact. It interpreted modern events through a Cold War lens. It failed to understand that Ambassador Trivelli’s actions, all of our actions, were about right and wrong, not left versus right. The Council deliberately took offers made to all parties on an equal basis to help with primaries out of context and distorted them to make it look like the United States was helping the right. In my mind, the Council’s reputation dropped to zero. They didn’t get it. They, too, were now stooges of the Pact, being used and manipulated, fed enough information to get them excited and make uninformed public statements. In Nicaragua, where no one had ever heard of the Council on Hemispheric Relations (and no one realized that it had no official standing or support), people were confused by the message and thought perhaps there was something behind it. My Nicaraguan friends asked me about it, including some of those who had

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received death threats for standing up for transparency or electoral rights, and I had to say that I was proud that America had free speech to allow all types of uninformed, stupid comments. In my heart, I was ashamed that my compatriots could betray people standing up for democracy. It was also clear that the quality of journalistic reporting in Nicaragua was poor. We did not have a lot of funding to do much about this, but we did what we could. We sent six Nicaraguan journalists, including Ondina Olivas, to a highpowered two-day seminar on investigative journalism at the Latin American Journalists’ Center. On June 8, 2006, the National Assembly’s Justice Commission issued a favorable opinion on a draft Prosecutor Career Law developed with USAID help to allow Nicaraguan prosecutors to have some independence from political influencepeddling in ways enjoyed by prosecutors in similar countries. This law would provide, for the first time ever in Nicaraguan history, prosecutorial independence. Prosecutors would not be hired any longer on the basis of their political affiliation, but rather strictly on merit. Promotions, too, would be based on performance. We thought this represented a major advance in efforts to depoliticize criminal prosecution in Nicaragua. To our pleasant surprise, the Prosecutor Career Law sailed through and was passed by mid June. The hard work of consensus and coalition building paid off. In gratitude for our help, President Bola~ nos asked if Ambassador Trivelli would participate in a signing event. A few weeks later, however, President Bola~ nos vetoed the legislation. No explanation was given. We fully expected that the Assembly would override the veto (which they eventually did) because the legislation originally passed unanimously; the only other piece of legislation to pass unanimously would be the Mediation and Arbitration Law, also drafted with USAID assistance following a similar process. Another pioneering effort we had under way was legal education reform. During the 1970s, it became popular throughout Latin America to advance ‘‘open access’’ admissions policies that allowed many people access to university education for the first time. This meant that many national law schools, such as those in Buenos Aires, La Paz, Mexico City, or San Salvador, went from several hundred law students to thousands nearly overnight. Similarly, private law schools have proliferated with little or no national government oversight or quality control. Physical plant facilities, faculty numbers, and budgets did not increase to reflect the change. Quality in nearly all public Latin American law schools has suffered. At the same time, international donors dropped law schools from the list of priorities. All of this has happened in Nicaragua, where today there are 24 law schools with no national standards or quality controls. In addition to these regional trends, during the 1980s, many law students received substantive law course credit for farm or literacy ‘‘volunteer’’ work that had nothing to do with learning the law. The number of law graduates increased as controls and quality dropped. The future of justice reform depends in part on the quality of legal professionals now in service and those lawyers who graduate in the coming years. To ignore law

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schools would be to diminish the constituency for reform today and threaten the sustainability of efforts in the future. Many of the mid- and high-level figures in the justice system today in Nicaragua have less than 10 years of experience. So it is possible to have impact in the medium term through university education reforms. Legal education and law school reform have to be part of the strategy if justice reform efforts are ever to be sustainable. Although many counseled that it would be a much more difficult task, USAID in Nicaragua decided to work across the spectrum with all national law schools, including the public university, rather than with select private law schools. With the USAID focus on helping the poor, women, and the indigenous, the national law school was the logical place to go: most university students who were lower middle class attended there, and it had the highest numbers of female and minority students. Attempts to reform university standards are very sensitive in Latin America and are subject to protests and worse, so both USAID and the Law School administrations are moving cautiously. To avoid conflict, USAID sought to motivate students, faculty, and the public to work as a team, looking for constructive answers. Key to any change will be assuring a continued commitment to the mission of the law schools and preserving their character as inclusive and diverse. One criticism often made of legal reform programs in Latin America and the Caribbean is that they end up excessively assimilating national law schools into U.S. counterparts. One of the defects of university legal education in Nicaragua, as in many other places in Latin America, has been overemphasis on memorization and oral lecture. Students prior to the 1970s, prior to open admissions, often could get by with minimal attendance, without critical thinking or applying legal concepts by just memorizing text. With open enrollment, lecture size expanded greatly, and the straight lecture approach continued, again without much critical engagement of students and often with low attendance. With new alternative teaching methodologies explored, the faculty will begin to introduce new forms of instruction. In the end, a blended approach for classroom instruction, preserving much of the rich civil law heritage and approach while taking advantage of new technologies and elements of the Socratic methodology where appropriate, is likely to emerge. Finally, virtually no Nicaraguan law schools have modernized their law courses to take into account modern legal trends like DR-CAFTA, intellectual property rights, oral trial techniques, commercial law ethics, or even the Internet. Given all of these challenges and sensitivities, reform will be a long-term process. To operationalize the effort, we needed a revolutionary theory. As Lenin noted, ‘‘Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.’’ USAID sparked the revolution by helping to form a coalition of the country’s 24 law schools through an Association of Law School Deans (CONADER). The principal USAID goal with CONADER is nothing less than to transform and modernize the law schools’ curriculum. For the first time in Nicaraguan history, the 24 law school faculties have agreed to implement an improved standardized

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basic law school curriculum that includes instruction in important legal reforms (e.g., ADR, criminal investigation, oral trial skills) and ethical issues facing lawyers and justice sector operators. Reforming legal education in Nicaragua is critical for addressing the root causes of the malaise in the justice system. Getting law students to expect and demand better justice starts with giving them an appropriate legal education that prepares them for the globalized marketplace. But all this is a long-term effort. The reform of legal education was already under way, sparked in part by targeted public diplomacy interventions. Now, working with our partner CONADER, we were making tangible, measurable progress toward that goal. Beyond legal education reform, improved criminal investigations will require a sustained effort to improve practices within Nicaragua’s Medical Forensic Institute, among other institutions. USAID’s initial training and an exchange with Colombia represented important steps on this path. USAID will continue to engage the institute to assure improved investigation in priority areas such as narcotics, murder, and sex crimes. An adversarial criminal justice system requires effective criminal investigation. Beyond witness testimony, which can be perceived as biased or influenced (especially in politically sensitive cases), forensic evidence takes on added importance. The Nicaraguan Forensic Medicine Institute is critical in criminal investigation. For example, cases of rape almost always leave physical evidence (semen, hair follicles, and blood) that, if properly collected, maintained, and presented, can be used to support victims’ claims and prove their allegations, lessening trauma in testifying. Confronted with physical evidence, the accused may admit guilt, making the ordeal for victims less excruciating. In this context, USAID set up an aggressive program to upgrade forensic evidence collection in Nicaragua. The USAID program with the National Institute for Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Colombia has a regional reputation as one of the best programs for improving the quality of criminal investigation. To take advantage of these lessons learned, USAID/Nicaragua sponsored a study tour of the Colombian institution. Through this experience, Nicaraguan staff learned new forensic medicine concepts and technologies. The Nicaragua Institute Director and Deputy Director completed an intensive course on the administration and operations of the Bogota central office, regional headquarters, and individual offices.

14

Breaking the Silence (July 2006)

I am always amazed by the speculation in various countries about ‘‘what the Embassy thinks’’ about this person or that person. In Nicaragua, we mainly tried not to take sides. It was about ‘‘right versus wrong’’ and not ‘‘left versus right.’’ We didn’t have a ‘‘list.’’ Having said that, the closest we did have to any kind of list was the invitee list for the Embassy’s Fourth of July party. If a name was on that list, that person was probably good to go. The Embassy was not about to go out of its way to invite known drug dealers or money launderers or child pornographers. Some slots were obligatory for protocol reasons—like the president of the country. You had to invite him and his wife whether you liked them or not. But in most cases the protocol invitees didn’t come anyway—they got similar invites from every Embassy in town, and there was no way they could attend all the events. Plus attending only some might insult the others. So in the main, they stayed away. So, I have always told people that you can guess that the Embassy is probably on good terms with the folks you see at the Fourth of July party. At the Embassy’s party, you saw people from every political party and from every walk of life. In fact, I got to talk to more FSLN national assembly members at Embassy parties than any other time. It was a great schmooze and a great opportunity to hear from them what they thought, what they wanted for Nicaragua, and what they planned to do. It was also a great opportunity for us to brief politicians on an informal basis about our programs. One of my regrets in July 2006 was that I missed the Fourth of July party—and all that schmooze—to take a vacation. I needed a few weeks’ rest. While in Wisconsin, I received word that tragedy had struck. Herty Lewites, the charismatic MRS candidate, died suddenly. I had met Herty and was very impressed with his commitment to the country and his drive to make Nicaragua a better place for its entire people. My wife had told me that if she were allowed to

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vote, she would vote for Herty. That rang true for a lot of people I knew. My daughter Susana was even friends with his granddaughter Cristina. News of his death took me aback. What a loss for his family. And for Nicaragua! Speculation immediately surfaced about the cause of Herty Lewites’ death. Did the Pact poison him to eliminate competition on the left, allowing Ortega to consolidate the left against a fractured right? To this day, some believe that. To the best of my knowledge, however, Herty simply died of a heart attack. He had had several heart attacks earlier. He had even complained that he could not get life insurance anywhere due to his pre-existing condition. I discounted theories of foul play. Herty’s running mate, Edmundo (‘‘Mundo’’) Jarquı´n Calderon, was nominated to be the new MRS presidential candidate. I had known Edmundo Jarquı´n when he worked at the Inter-American Development Bank as the chief of the ‘‘State and Civil Society Division’’ in the Sustainable Development Department. At the time, I was the acting democracy leader in the Regional Sustainable Development Section with USAID’s Latin America and Caribbean Bureau. So we had a lot in common. He was an experienced speaker and had extensive personal connections across the region. He also benefited from being a nephew of former Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. In late July, Borge & Associates released its June poll results. Ortega had 29 percent, Montealegre 22 percent, Rizo 20 percent, and Lewites 15 percent. Another poll with dramatically different results (big leads for Ortega and Rizo) got media coverage in newsletters Bolsa de Noticias and the Pastr an Report, and there was discussion as to the credibility and validity of these polls and the institutions that produced them. A similar, mysterious group with a similar name worked in Venezuela. We concluded the Borge poll was the more accurate one. Movimiento por Nicaragua lobbied all the candidates to get them to commit to basic policy reforms. Entitled the ‘‘Agenda B asica de Naci on,’’ the document took a strong stance in favor of transparency and participation. By now, USAID had sent the letter to the Carter Presidential Center turning down a request for funding. However, USAID and the Embassy worked with other donors to help the Carter Center seek funding elsewhere. This worked out. Denmark ($300,000) and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British government ($54,400) were both contributing to the Carter Center observation. Carter Center consultant David Dye began setting up an office. The slender, academic intellectual Dye was an excellent choice for the Carter Center team. He was well known and respected among the donors, and from time to time, he served as a writer for the Economist Intelligence Unit. Soft-spoken, he could get along with nearly anyone. We had used an article he had written about politics in Nicaragua as a primer for any visitor. Dye was a friend. Our support to the CSE via IFES continued. Over at the call center, the 1-8001273 hotline was getting an incredible response. In just Managua, there were 34,000 calls to the CSE on the service set up by IFES. Nationwide, they were now getting more than 8,000 calls per week, reflecting citizen interest and demand.

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The CSE had a specific concern about electoral observer access to its computer systems at the CSE. On one level, who would want a bunch of strangers traipsing around your office when you were trying to administer an election? On the other hand, if the observers were not there, how could we guarantee that votes were not altered? Rodrigo objected initially but agreed to allow (only) international observers to have a single expert for each observation group. At first, Rodrigo only mentioned observer groups from the EU and OAS, not United States or the Carter Center. We insisted that this was not acceptable because national observers also needed access. In fact, Nicaraguan observation might be more important, since the election really belonged to the Nicaraguan people, not international observers. IFES pledged to work for a compromise with the CSE on this. IFES proposed that what everyone needed was not one single expert from each entity (national or international) but only one expert. That person should be in the CSE now, not awaiting election day. We needed to ensure that the software allowed for transparency and that meant getting into the system now. On Election Day, it would be too late. Another obvious area in which the CSE needed help was procurement. IFES advised on technical specifications and procedures for purchases for things like pencils, batteries, and so on. Through our donor coordination efforts and with Tim Smith’s help from the Embassy, Japan agreed to buy a new printer for the Voter Lists (the current one was so old that parts were no longer even sold for it). Japan also paid for the ink to place on a voter’s finger when he had voted so that he could not vote twice. IFES ensured that the ink would be of excellent quality from Mexico instead of the rub-off ink from Venezuela used in the Atlantic Coast elections. Potential problems are both with the quality of the ink and how it is applied. So IFES ensured that CSE employees would have training on how to apply the ink correctly. No stone was being left unturned. This issue of ink was interesting to me. When the American Marines organized the 1928 Nicaraguan presidential election with 90% voter participation, they got the ink right. How could a bunch of Marines get something right when the CSE, a professional, experienced organization, fumbled? The average Marine was probably about 20 years old with zero experience in international development, let alone institution-building or democracy promotion or elections administration. At some point, you stop thinking they are incompetent or stupid and start thinking these guys are just corrupt. Another concern was how to get the CSE to respond to students needing c e dulas. Working with Movimiento, IRI had gathered the names of 1,500 secondary students. Gilberto met with Rodrigo Barreto to present the student list and request rapid response teams be sent to the different schools. Movimiento held a press conference to present the student lists. I thought of what John F. Kennedy said: ‘‘The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.’’ But what was holding these voters back was not ignorance; it was the inability of the Nicaraguan bureaucracy to give them a damn ID card. That was a national security risk, I thought.

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The Elections Dialogue finally took place. IRI provided financial and technical support to COSEP for the Mesa Electoral. JUDENIC, all political parties, business chambers, Movimiento Por Nicaragua, civil society, and the CSE participated. Information about candidates’ positions began to filter out to the public. The COSEP-sponsored Mesa Electoral on July 25th focused on c e dula production and distribution problems. As a result of this conference, COSEP and Movimiento signed an agreement with the Ministry of Education to transport high school students in Managua to the CSE to apply for c e dulas in the final days leading up to the August 6th cutoff. The business chambers also agreed to permit employees to take time off to apply for c e dulas. IPADE was preparing to phase out the secondary school civic education program and initiate a national-level, door-todoor voter education program, including rural areas and the Atlantic Coast. One of the best elements of our GOTV package was a ‘‘rock the vote’’ style campaign we financed via IRI with JUDENIC. Ivania Vega and Gilberto Valdez were critical in the design of this effort. Our focus groups showed that youth were frustrated and fed up with the same old politicians telling them what to do. More to the point, they found citizens do not trust anyone but themselves, and they are interested in exercising their vote as a means to protect that right. That was about the only unifying message we found. But we were able to develop a campaign based on that frustration. The campaign was dubbed Rompe el Silencio: Break the Silence. Ads featured youth saying, ‘‘No one decides who I date or what music I listen to … ’’ The implication was that the only way to decide who was to govern was to get out and vote. The first concert would take place in Granada on August 19th. Eduardo Garcia Herdocia, Gustavo Montiel, Yolanda Talavera, and Claudia Isabel Paguaga at JUDENIC solicited support from the business community for promotional materials (T-shirts, hats, stickers, etc). International recording artist Perrozompopo (Ramon Mejı´a, son of the brothers Mejı´a Godoy who had written the Sandinista ballads of the 1980s), heavy metal band Divisi on Urbana, and other local musicians jumped in to help. If you were cool, you planned to vote! Everything was organized on Facebook and posted to YouTube. As an aside, it is worth noting that after the November election, Divisi on Urbana began to represent Pepsi in Nicaragua, much the way Britney Spears had done in the United States So working with us turned out very well for that group. The band had used our support to springboard into a great new contract with a much bigger profile. In the December ‘‘No’’ campaign in Venezuela in 2007, the opposition’s slogan was ‘‘Rompe el Silencio,’’ the slogan we had used in 2006. I assume that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Again, it showed what kind of impact we were having, both in Nicaragua and internationally. Domestic electoral observation was always critical for preventing voter fraud. Given its coverage across the nation, the OAS observer mission probably could not detect fraud of less than 10 percent. Given a much more comprehensive coverage through domestic observation, that margin of error could be reduced to less than two percent. With effective universal coverage, domestic observers could actually determine if a single voting booth had alterations. We urged ET to go for that gold standard—something that had never been done in a Third World country before.

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By late July, ET had recruited 2,000 observers for the national observation. ET has presented its third request for CSE accreditation (the first two were ignored). The third letter was sent July 21st with copies to the major international donors. The first audit of voter registries was done for the Atlantic Coast elections and was a sort of pilot to test where we were and what needed to be done to clean it up. The second audit report came out evaluating the national system. That report included recommendations for improving the accuracy of the voter rolls. A final audit of the padr on was designed to generate pressure on the CSE to implement recommendations. Based on the earlier report, the CSE had little choice but to agree to follow through with articles 41 and 116 to prevent ‘‘crazy rat’’ electoral fraud. This final audit would be based on the voter registry (padr on) as of August. That scheduling meant the report should come out in time for the CSE to make any final, last-minute changes. In the mean time, NDI promised to see if the padr on that ET received was the same one that the CSE gave to the various political parties. In the past, incredibly, there were differences. NDI received requests from ALN and MRS. This would be done the week of August 15th. NDI might also include training for national observation groups, journalists, international observers, and others. With our frustration boiling over at the OAS still not signing the grant agreement, we called the U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, John Maisto, to request his help. Eventually, the OAS grant was signed by Ambassador Dante Caputo, a top OAS functionary. We breathed a sigh of relief. In the field, the OAS seemed to be doing great work. It coordinated with us and the partners. However, this probably made the Pact look for opportunities to check the effectiveness of the electoral observation. Just then, OAS technical adviser Patricio Gajardo had a mysterious flat tire on the highway. In minutes, the FSLN-aligned Radio YA appeared and reported that it was an accident, exaggerating the circumstances. A police officer arrived and took his license. This was timed with public comments by Ortega disparaging international elections observation. The exaggerated (and inaccurate) coverage of Gajardo’s minor incident could be part of a larger effort to discredit observation. We were concerned. In the meantime, we advised him to get a driver and be careful! We later learned that the same policeman who had arrived on the scene had been one who had covered up a fatal car accident earlier in the year when Ortega’s son had hit someone, only to switch drivers, and then blame it on the other individual. The Gajardo ‘‘accident’’ was very suspect. Kind of like our bugged cell phones! Having worked earlier in the year with CACONIC on a commercial arbitration center, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) approached us about the possibility of establishing an additional arbitration center. Adela Torrente was an important counterpart, so we wanted to give the proposal a serious review. The AmCham experience in Costa Rica was taken into consideration as that was a very successful program. I met with our new rule of law Chief of Party, Carlos Marı´a Jimenez, who was very supportive. Carlos had been a top prosecutor in Costa Rica and had worked across the region on justice reform. We were thrilled to have him now on our team, and the timing could not have been better.

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Luı´s Ubeda and I sat down with Carlos Marı´a Jimenez and together we sketched out reforms for the justice sector and outlined impacts of existing programs. With regard to two human rights watch centers (‘‘Observatorios’’) supported by USAID through the rule of law program, new reports were starting to emerge. One study, from the Leon center inaugurated by the Ambassador, dealt with judicial corruption in Le on. A similar report was on judicial corruption in Bluefields, from the BICU Center. I warned the Ambassador that the reports were political dynamite. Corrupt officials were caught red-handed. In the ensuing public debate in the press and on radio, the human rights watch groups at the two universities stood their ground. Eventually, public officials were fired. The debate was never about USAID or who funded the program (as I feared might happen), but rather what these corrupt officials did. It was great to see the focus on right versus wrong in action and with universities (historically on the political left, not with the U.S. Embassy) taking the lead. It was also great to see these two new Centers making tangible, measurable, concrete impacts in just a matter of months. Also under the rule of law program with Carlos, our subgrant to Hagamos Democracia to promote transparency and merit-based principles in the selection of Supreme Court and Attorney General candidates was gaining attention. There was very positive press coverage. Still I urged Carlos to look for any way to accelerate this activity, if possible, given that the forces of the Pact already were seeking to pack the court and re-elect the current Fiscal General for another term. I feared that the Pact could name its new officials at any time preemptively to sideline our efforts. Yader Loza, the executive director of Hagamos Democracia, was on board and promised to do what he could. Another new rule of law team member, Deputy Chief of Party Javier Agosto, was to join Carlos. Alexander Rodrı´guez Campos, a Costa Rican judge and brilliant jurist, was the one helping out day-to-day on issues like the new Criminal Code. My old friend from the days of the Peace Accords in Guatemala, Mark Williams, had also agreed to help us out one week every other month, particularly on issues with the public defense. With this team, I thought we were making an impressive contribution to Nicaragua’s legal system. I like to keep this team of Latin Americans in mind when the American government or USAID is criticized for trying to impose a U.S. style legal system in our reform programs. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We had the very best in legal talent from similar neighboring countries. This made the advice much more appropriate, relevant, and honestly, cost-effective. I loved these guys for their dedication, quality of work, and real sense of trying to make Nicaragua the best they could to benefit the most marginalized persons. This was what development was all about. Carlos Marı´a Jimenez, Alex Rodrı´guez, and Yader Loza began to galvanize a new coalition of civil society groups to demand better justice. Yader pulled in his own group, Hagamos Democracia. JUDENIC and Movimiento soon joined. Their voice together was stronger than any single one on its own. The group branded itself Projusticia.

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Taking advantage of Carlos Marı´a’s arrival, I wanted to take stock of what we had done with the Public Ministry. The Public Ministry was created in October 2000 as part of USAID’s legal reform and institutional strengthening efforts. However, the Public Ministry did not begin to function until December 2002 when the new Criminal Procedure Code entered into effect. The inception of the Public Ministry divided the prosecutorial functions between the Public Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office, now known as the Procuradurı´a General de la Rep ublica. The Public Ministry was charged with carrying out most prosecutorial actions and the Solicitor General’s Office was reorganized to address corruption and other crimes against the State. The Public Ministry had grown at a fast pace. The National Commission is charged with oversight for the implementation of the Criminal Procedure Code. This notwithstanding, the National Technical Commission has been promoting the reform process, and it is integrated by a representative of the Judicial Branch, the National Police, and the Public Ministry. In this Commission, as well as in the municipal and departmental commissions, the Public Ministry plays an important role in detecting problems and developing solutions concerning the interpretation and application of the Criminal Procedure Code. Moreover, the Public Ministry facilitates the identification of weaknesses in other justice sector operators, such as judges and private attorneys. Even at the time when the Public Ministry was not required by law to carry out a merit-based selection process, it required candidates to meet professional, academic, and moral standards by participating in interviews and taking aptitude tests. Currently, all prosecutors have been selected from a registry of qualified candidates. The last week of July, USAID sponsored an international Political Party Finance Conference. Ambassador Trivelli made the opening remarks, followed by Costa Rican Vice President Kevin Casas. There were about 140 participants, mainly from Nicaragua, but also from Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Haiti, Guatemala, Ukraine, Poland, and others. During the conference itself, there were 5,000 Web hits—additional participants from Africa, India, Ukraine, and Palestine, among other places. Good press was now leading to more good press. On the Rhina Cardenal Show, a morning talk show (Channel 99, 6:00 a.m.–7:00 a.m.) speakers focused all week on themes of getting out the vote, c e dulas, problems in the CSE, and etc. A USAID logo was visible in the background behind the speakers. In the political newsletter 100% Noticias, there was extensive coverage of Ambassador Trivelli’s remarks from the USAID Political Party Finance Conference concerning both the PLC/Aleman and the need to get c e dulas out. IPADE and Movimiento Por Nicaragua were also on various TV channels hammering on the c e dula issue.

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15

The OAS Engages (August 2006)

OAS Chief of Mission Gustavo Fernandez made a passionate presentation in front of the OAS General Assembly on August 1st. He noted the fragility of the Nicaraguan election and how many challenges remained. After that, back in Managua, OAS technical leader Patricio Gajardo was getting the cold shoulder treatment from Rivas. That did not stop his expert organization of the OAS mission. The core 20-person observation team was set to arrive between September 17th and 24th; fifty-one additional observers would arrive October 8th, 27th, and 29th. The OAS projected it would roughly double the size of the observer mission with volunteers from the local diplomatic community. For its part, the U.S. Embassy planned to field 20 individuals under OAS accreditation. The Embassy would also have another 24 with U.S. Embassy accreditation. The Carter Center had 30 observers for the national elections. The Center’s coordinator, Jaime Aparicio, expressed willingness to coordinate programs with the OAS, the United States, and the European Union (EU). Patricio Gajardo underscored there would be two separate OAS teams, a political one and a technical one, for the OAS observer mission. The donors expressed concern to the OAS that the FSLN and PLC already dominated the CSE, and minority parties needed to have a greater voice. Patricio noted the OAS would be coming out with a new report in October. The donors and international observers were finally getting on the same page. Francisco (‘‘Paco’’) Coba from the IFES team announced he was leaving to join as a senior member of the EU observation team for the November elections. Paco attended the donor meeting, representing the EU. The fact that the EU ‘‘poached’’ one of our top elections advisers speaks well of the credibility of the team we have in place although I was disappointed and missed Paco’s contributions. He was very critical to our ability to work collaboratively with the CSE and had a real professional touch. Still, I told myself, it would be good to have an ally on the EU team.

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Ambassador Trivelli met with OAS chief Gustavo Fernandez. Fernandez was not inclined to make any public declarations about the CSE. A public statement might be made later by a visiting group of foreign ministers and presidents. One concern was that citizens might be issued ‘‘provisional’’ ID cards for use in the election. The officials might then confiscate the ‘‘provisional’’ cards as a voter voted. However, that would leave the voter with no ID card in the event that there was a second round of voting. The CSE assured the OAS that voters would be allowed to retain their provisional ‘‘supplementary ID documents’’ so that they could use them again in case of a second round. That was important progress. We continued to be concerned about the Pact-inspired constitutional reforms and the framework law (Ley Marco), and we expressed that preoccupation to the OAS. Within the donor elections group, we asked ET and NDI to present their results of the USAID-funded study of the voter ID card (ce dula) production bottlenecks within the CSE. The other donors had their eyes opened as to the extent of the problem and the need to move quickly. DCM Peter Brennan encouraged ET to go to the CSE with the results, perhaps privately, and then follow up with a public presentation, taking advantage of ET’s tenth anniversary meetings. It would be hard to dismiss the study in open fora. Following advice from NDI President Ken Wollack, the donors discussed defining common ‘‘redlines’’ for use with the CSE. ET produced its list of major points. The challenge became how to operationalize that list and make it common across all observer groups. On August 9th, Catholic Bishop Brenes and other high-level church officials met with us and the CEPPS partners on the election program. Brenes was particularly interested in IFES’ c e dula distribution efforts and requested a technical briefing at the next quarterly meeting of the church leadership. He was also interested in IRI and NDI efforts to educate voters and encourage voter turnout. Brenes offered to provide church officials to assist with voter ID (c e dula) distribution and voter education, especially in the rural areas where the CSE does not have a presence. In the fog of war and deliberate distortion of the facts by the CSE, IRI was accused of trying to manipulate the electoral outcome with ‘‘illegal’’ manuals for party poll watchers. ‘‘Print is the sharpest and strongest weapon of our party,’’ Joseph Stalin once said. Bowing to the pressure, IRI agreed to pull thousands of political party training manuals from circulation. The CSE alleged the manuals were outdated and incorrect. This in part was true; the CSE had delayed issuing guidelines so that the non-Pact parties would not have sufficient time to prepare their party poll workers. IRI used the latest information available, and where none was available, it used materials from the last election, properly labeled as illustrative. In effect, the CSE won coming and going. Parties were denied access to the rules in advance, and when they tried to prepare using the best information available based on the IRI manual, the training was called illegal. This was the very art of dirty tricks, the kind of thing Leon Trotsky himself would have recognized, having

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noted, ‘‘The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.’’ In the center of the hurricane was Gilberto Valdez of IRI who had his personal reputation run into the mud by Roberto Rivas. Rivas had tried to ambush me with paparazzi, but he was able to completely dismantle Gilberto. Even U.S. ‘‘solidarity’’ groups denounced IRI as ‘‘illegal.’’ It was mob violence, a sort of electoral lynching. The Pact plays for keeps. As a footnote, when the CSE administrative rules did come out, they were fundamentally unchanged from the prior election— the IRI document had been on point. Gilberto submitted his resignation, and IRI replaced him with Joe Agostini, an experienced Republican who had helped win Florida for Bush in 2001. With the controversy over the training manuals, the training schedule was delayed briefly while updated manuals were produced. Regina Ramos Lovo, a brilliant, young Nicaraguan attorney, also joined IRI. The CSE then tried to say that IRI could not even operate in Nicaragua since it was never properly authorized to operate in the country. This was an ominous warning to all NGO partners: the Pact would use the power of the state to investigate you and put you out of business if you tried to exercise your free speech rights. In this case, IRI was able to prove its inscription; the CSE had looked for the Instituto Republicano Internacional in the registry, but IRI had registered its name in English, International Republican Institute, explaining why the CSE never found the inscription. Still, all the press printed, and all anyone remembered, was that IRI was illegal. Nery Patoja of the Nuevo Diablo led the charge. No retractions were ever printed. While the political party poll watcher activity with IRI was being delayed, the Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaign jumped into high gear. JUDENIC launched the rock the vote press and Facebook campaign and kicked off the first concert in Granada. Two Nicaraguan rock groups, Division Urbana and Zona 21, played for almost four hours. Around 1,000 youth attended the concert, heard the campaign, and received more than 500 T-shirts and hats with the slogan: ROMPE EL SILENCIO: VOTA distributed by JUDENIC. This campaign was calculated to motivate the youth, an untapped key demographic voter population, to vote. David Presiado, Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s logistics expert, came to Managua to work with JUDENIC and Movimiento to troubleshoot activities and bugs for the marches. Movimiento claimed that its Matagalpa march had 10,000 people. The more likely figure is 3,200 to 4,000, still a very strong figure for Matagalpa. The march received funding from the GOTV funding from USAID via IRI. Antonio Sora, the former communications director with Calderon and previously Spanish Prime Minister Asnar, worked on messaging with Movimiento. The first phase concentrated on the voter ID cards. The focus then turned to the ‘‘concentizaci on del voto.’’ Bringing in such top international talent demonstrated how far we worked to make sure Nicaragua had every chance to promote a free, fair, transparent, and credible electoral process while also giving Nicaraguans the chance to choose between right and wrong without caving into the Pact.

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Given the level of dirty tricks in this campaign, especially how Gilberto got shafted, we realized that contingency planning was in order. Through Movimiento, we worked to develop a plan for a Civil Society Rapid Reaction Force. This would only be used in the event that on Election Day or thereafter, citizens needed to be mobilized for sit-ins, or whatever was needed. In mid-August, ET hosted a week-long event in Managua with the Acuerdo de Lima group to commemorate ET’s 10th anniversary, discuss progress to date on safeguarding the integrity of the election, and release a statement demonstrating the broad international support for improving election conditions in Nicaragua. ET took over leadership of the group, and this event served to transfer direction to ET while also showcasing ET’s work in Nicaragua. ET, with NDI technical support, finalized the results of the c e dula study and presented the findings to the Donor Group on August 9th. NDI President Ken Wollack visited Nicaragua to emphasize the institution’s backing for the study and the broader efforts of the CEPPS electoral package. By now, the CSE was fully reliant on IFES. By mid-August, the CSE Toll-Free Hotline had over 100,000 calls. The call center remained fully staffed at 22 plus one rover for a total of 23 operators. Managua was the source of about half of all inquiries, reflecting a psychological mobilization for the election. The CSE Web site, again supported by USAID via IFES, had 36,000 hits already. Outfitting of the electoral ‘‘magic’’ bus began in earnest in August to be ready for the launch of the electoral campaigns. Bowing to civil society pressure, the National Assembly ordered a two-week extension to the deadline for requesting a new voter ID card. With this two-week extension for presenting c e dulas, the CSE received 8,600 applications for new c e dulas. Of this amount, 1,100 applications came from Managua. Roughly 11,000 replacements were also requested during the extension. The CSE now had in hand applications for 200,000 c e dulas, which it had to produce and distribute before the elections. The two-week extension in effect made the CSE focus on receiving new applications for an additional 14 days and cut that time from its time for production before the election. CSE President Roberto Rivas was not happy. The CSE response to the ET/NDI c e dula production study was actually measured. The CSE followed up on technical issues raised together with NDI—for example, why some departmental CSE offices have been reasonably productive while others had done zero. For once, a quality technical study offering constructive criticism was taken at face value and we were not demonized in the local press. Seeking to deepen democracy and justice sector reform, we organized a ‘‘Judicial Independence Week’’ for Nicaragua from August 28th to September 1st. Carlos Marıa Jimenez and the USAID rule of law program partnered with the association of 23 national law schools (CONADER), the Women’s Coalition, the Indigenous Coalition, the Coalition for Children and Adolescents, the business chamber (CACONIC), and the government’s Inter-Institutional Technical Commission for the Justice Sector in the organization of the week. A similar event in the previous year, organized by Florida International University, was highly successful in drawing attention to the lack of judicial independence.

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The Judicial Independence Week included activities both in Managua and around the country, coordinated among the various law schools, government institutions, and related entities. Given the elections and lack of progress with judicial independence, the topic was very timely, especially now in Nicaragua during a presidential campaign process. As a result of coordination with the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and the International Judicial Relations Council (via Judges Peter Messitte, Elizabeth Jenkins, and Wanda Rubianes), Federal Judge Jes us Castellanos of Puerto Rico also participated. Retired state Judge Joseph Caldwell, who participated in the previous year’s Judicial Independence Week, also returned to participate this year. The U.S. Embassy in Colombia also requested participation by a Colombian judge, Alberto Caballos, who was included and given a speaking role. I had several speaking roles during the Judicial Independence Week. I was on Channel Two on the Dino Andino show (‘‘Primera Hora’’) on August 30th, pumping the themes. The day before, I spoke to a packed auditorium of students at the Universidad Hispanoamericana (UHISPAM) in Managua. Students were really excited and I wondered how widespread our message was getting to be. On Thursday, August 31st, retired U.S. federal judge Jes us Castellanos and I both spoke to another packed auditorium at the historic Colegi on Maria Auxiliadora in Granada. Public sessions were held in five different universities in Managua and seven universities in other major cities. On August 25th, Ambassador Trivelli delivered opening remarks at American University (UAM) to officially inaugurate the week of events. His remarks, calling for honest and impartial judicial officials, were widely published in both print and TV media. The events were well attended by university students, public officials, lawyers, and citizens in general. As part of Judicial Independence Week, USAID had held ‘‘justice fairs’’ in popular locations, distributing T-shirts, hats, and other materials to promote public awareness of the importance of an independent judiciary. One fair location was the Oriental Market in Managua, a neighborhood considered an FSLN stronghold. I went there and thought how surreal it was to be handing out information to the public in that particular area of town as part of a U.S. government project. Kids in gangs, unemployed peasants, and people really on the margins of existence, all gathered around and listened as we shared with them why judicial independence mattered in their lives. I wasn’t the apostle Paul carrying a new religion, but I was doing my best. We were reaching out and pulling out all the stops. On August 22nd, Latinnews reported that Ortega’s lead was growing to more than seven percentage points over Eduardo Montealegre. Ortega received 32.1 percent support (34.9 percent if the ‘‘voto occult’’ translated into voter abstentions) followed by Montealegre with 25 percent. The size of Ortega’s lead could prove to be crucial because while he remained short of the 40 percent required to win outright in the first round, he was very close to the 35 percent that would be sufficient to win in the first round if he also held a five-point advantage. Ortega also began bashing the OAS. In that same August 22nd Latinnews report, Ortega noted the OAS should have voiced its opinion about presidential elections in the United States when ‘‘they stole victory from Al Gore to give it to

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George W. Bush.’’ Ortega claimed that they only want to send the OAS now because the Sandinistas are on the verge of winning. The report went on to state that, having lost four times in a row since 1990, Ortega faced an uphill struggle. FSLN approval ratings normally hovered around 30 percent, a respectable figure. However, Ortega also had high disapproval ratings. Some associated him with the tortured past, and his antagonism at the United States deterred some Nicaraguans from lending him their support. To his credit, Ambassador Trivelli wanted to get the pulse first hand and set out to Rivas Department to meet with mayors. In Rivas, he met with mayors, political party representatives, and the local offices of the CSE. The MRS was passionate and convinced of its purpose but short on resources and manpower. The ALN seemed committed and a bit better financed than MRS, but suffered from internal divisions. The FSLN mayors had all agreed to meet but then later pulled out. On a separate track, the Ambassador agreed to do an interview with BBC radio on the political situation in Nicaragua. He was always open to meeting with the media and was completely transparent about our work. As the election approached, I knew Washington would be getting anxious. During the 2001 Nicaraguan national elections, USAID/Washington had sent more than 20 technical officers to Nicaragua in the final months. They took over everything. I sensed that this was due to panic by Washington in 2001. They swept in and made the local mission redundant. In 2006, on my watch, I was determined to keep control. I didn’t want to be made irrelevant. That 2001 wave of people all coming in the final months ended up signing some 20 agreements with 20 different implementers, falling into what I have kept calling the Christmas tree approach, which I believed lacked any strategic focus. In 2006, I kept to the ‘‘program, not a Christmas tree’’ philosophy and held back the waves of requests I was getting, which, this time around, reflected ‘‘electoral tourism’’ more so than any real sense of loss of control or panic. To keep the Washington appetite satiated, I sent weekly updates and cables with progress reports. This seemed to do the trick. The one person I did want by my side was Marıa Elena Barron. Marıa had been my loyal coworker in my prior position leading regional democracy programs for Latin America and the Caribbean with USAID. She was a technical genius (with a degree in information management from Carnegie Mellon University). She could write well, knew the ins and outs of the USAID bureaucracy, and was very loyal. In Washington, she had managed regional human rights programs with the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, designed regional anti-gang initiatives with the Inter-American Coalition for the Prevention of Violence and designed anti-human trafficking programs for Haiti and Brazil. She was just the kind of experienced staffer you wanted in your corner. As I entered the final months in the run-up to the election, I asked her to come down and help me out. She arrived in August. The other person I wanted around was Carol Sahley. Carol worked as the global democracy officer and headed up the overall global instrument and arrangement

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with the CEPPS partners under which individual USAID missions could contract activities. We would have a blizzard of reporting requirements coming from Washington, and frankly, I was a bit busy. If Washington had an appetite for reports, why not bring someone from Washington who knew what they needed to ‘‘feed the beast’’?

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16

Working to Advance Transformational Development Even on the Eve of the Election (September 2006)

As the month opened, our new Transparency Program Chief of Party, Dr. Gerardo Berthin, arrived to take up post. I had known Gerardo when he had worked for me on a regional level when we were both based in Washington. Gerardo was a University of Chicago alumnus with experience across the region and in Eastern Europe. He had excellent contacts and a great imagination for programming. We would need that! And now he was again working for me. Under his direction, we had a slew of new, important programming. On September 2nd, Gerardo’s program held a workshop for the media. It focused on the Follow-up Mechanism of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption and featured perhaps the most important international expert on the Convention, Chilean expert Miguel Pe~ nailillo. Miguel had served the prior three Chilean presidents as an anti-corruption adviser. He was also on the Chilean delegation to the OAS Committee of Experts that reviewed other countries’ compliance with the Convention’s mandates. While I was in Washington from 2002 to 2005, I had served as part of the U.S. delegation to the same mechanism, serving under the State Department’s head of delegation, Richard Werksman. I knew that Miguel could shed real light on this topic for the Nicaraguan media. In democracy promotion, while national politics grabs headlines, it is often the municipal level work that gets traction. William Shakespeare wrote: ‘‘What is the city but the people?’’ During a social auditing training conducted in Nagarote, USAID learned that the municipality had a very interesting and creative activity that engaged children and youth to participate in municipal development. To follow up, on September 22nd, USAID held a meeting with Nagarote’s youth

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government (Gobierno Infantil ) to openly exchange views with the children about transparency issues and to learn more about the various activities that the children were currently implementing in their municipality. This exchange allowed USAID to explore potential areas of collaboration and activities that could be executed together with the youth. Based on our immediate initial success with budget transparency in various places across the country, we wondered if it might be time to go ‘‘big screen’’ and address Managua. We began exploring this possibility with the Internal Auditors Association (Asociaci on de Auditores Internos) and the non-governmental organization Poder Ciudadano. We proposed that they might conduct a social auditing action on corruption issues in the mayor’s office (Alcaldı´a) of Managua. Dionisio Marenco was the FSLN incumbent and tied to the Pact. Issues such as transportation, specific contracting projects, and the management of Managua’s open markets (mercados) were considered for this activity. We hoped to begin this activity the first week of October and obtain a final report prior to the national elections. An investigative piece of this sort would enable the citizenry to understand where their taxes are going, how they are being spent, and how the Alcaldı´a works. This would increase citizen demand for access to information and disclosure of the activities. USAID also began working with Red Probidad on launching a series of videoconferences focused on social auditing best practices. These videoconferences were broadcast regionally, targeting countries like El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and Peru. We hoped this effort would create a network of Nicaraguan organizations that could replicate the best practices cases addressed during each videoconference. We also hoped these videoconferences would provide input for the implementation of the two Transparency Fairs, which we were planning for municipalities such as Leon and Rivas. The USAID Anti-Corruption Program also signed a subcontract with a civil society youth group, Juventud Por la Democracia Nicarag€ uense (JUDENIC), to conduct a social auditing exercise on the way in which public resources are assigned to public universities and how they in turn are spent. The audit is an investigative piece which focuses on internal control mechanisms and accountability; how are these universities utilizing the assigned funds, and are they being held accountable for their expenditures? This social audit not only provides us with a consultative report but also seeks to open spaces for public dialogueue centered around this topic. Is the process used for the allocation of funds for public universities legal? Is there corruption? If so, how does it manifest itself, and what is feeding it? Answers to these types of questions would raise awareness of the misuse of university funds and foster demand for legal reforms among the Nicaraguan population, civil society, and students. No place in Nicaragua’s budget was more politicized than the universities. We were striking at ground zero. Having already been coordinating with COSEP, AmCham, and CACONIC on various efforts, we began policy dialogues on corporate social responsibility and its relation to transparency, ethics, and CAFTA-DR compliance. Initial contact

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was made with different organizations from the private sector (such as Union Nicarag€ uense de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (UNIRSE), C amara Nicarag€ uense de Construcci on (CNC), and other USAID-funded programs currently carrying out activities on this topic (USAID’s PRO-CAFTA project). Following the Second Conference on Political Party Finance held at the end of July, the USAID Anti-Corruption Program signed five sub-grants as part of a Strategic Small Grants Package Initiative on political party finance. The overall goal was to support an integrated civil society initiative to promote transparency and accountability in the electoral process and to pressure political parties to be more transparent in their finances. Natasha Loayza, a Bolivian citizen and international gender and development specialist with expertise conducting social and economic quantitative and qualitative analysis, helped USAID on gender, minority, youth, and transparency issues from September 24th through October 3rd. With Natasha’s help, we were able to assess not only the impact that corruption has on women and minorities, but also potential policies to increase transparency. The Program expects to have a higher level of involvement from women and minorities at the local level. The Ambassador was excited about her visit and set her up to meet with the new Chilean Ambassador to Nicaragua, who was keenly interested in this topic. With a view toward increasing transparency in the national budget process, on September 13th, we signed a 12-month subgrant with the Institute for Statistics and Surveys on Public Policies (IEEPP). This initiative focused on increasing citizen knowledge of the different sector budgets, including defense, health, education, and environment, and would also encourage better coverage of this topic by the media. The main objective would be to foster interest among other civil society organizations in closely monitoring and evaluating sector budgets through social audits. To me, the defense component was the most critical. We had done the White Book for national defense laying out a democratic role for the military. Now it was time to get a handle on the military’s budget. USAID had parallel investments in Nicaraguan health care, education, and the environment. It was no use pouring our money into these areas if the government of Nicaragua was misallocating its own resources. So bringing budgetary transparency to these areas also supported a holistic approach to development and mainstreamed anticorruption across these sectors. To make sure the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) efforts were included, we purposefully included activities in Leon and Chinandega where the MCC was active. As our engagement on transparency issues developed, we knew that civil society needed more tools to hold the government’s feet to the fire. We organized an international videoconference called: ‘‘How to Promote United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) Compliance: Civil Society’s Role.’’ The videoconference provided a perfect venue to provide our counterparts with high-quality technical assistance and make them familiar with successful experiences which can later be replicated at a relatively low cost. The videoconference also promoted initiatives to ensure UNCAC compliance in Nicaragua. These efforts would be

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closely linked to those efforts under the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (IACC) that we were already pursuing. At this point, one of our new focus areas was initiatives aimed at reducing petty corruption, specifically targeted towards reducing bribe solicitation. We identified two ministries, the tax authorities (Direcci on General de Ingresos) and the Health Ministry, in which bureaucratic simplification assessments could help in the reduction of petty corruption by making public services and the requirements to access these more clear to the general public. The processes by which the citizenry can obtain services were to be sketched out in citizen charters in order to avoid having public officials change the processes or fees at their own discretion. Hernan Charosky, an Argentinean specialist in research and analysis of public policies related to transparency and control of corruption, provided technical assistance on business simplification to the two ministries from September 21st through October 3rd. By the end of his trip, we had in hand two bureaucratic simplification assessments (BSA). If the institutions were willing, we would then proceed to implement the recommendations, improving efficiency while eliminating bribery opportunities. Procurement is always one area that attracts attention in any review of corruption. With the elections at full pace and knowing that municipal elections would follow shortly in 2008, we wanted to focus particular attention on what was happening at the local level. On September 28th, we met with Juan Manuel Navarro from the government’s national procurement office, the Direcci on General de Contrataciones (DGC). The meeting’s objective was to discuss the possibility of conducting a diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of the acquisitions divisions in a group selected from the 20 municipalities in which USAID planned to work. The diagnosis would help USAID identify which acquisitions divisions in which municipalities require the most strengthening in terms of training. Once this was done, USAID could provide technical assistance while at the same time increasing citizen participation and social auditing of municipal procurements. The meeting was positive, and we got a green light to move forward. On the political party finance reform front, the Fundaci on Violeta Barrios de Chamorro began its implementation of one of the five small grants (recently awarded and already approved by USAID) to promote transparency and accountability in political party finance. The Chamorro Foundation kicked off with the first of six forums on political party finance on September 22nd in the colonial town of Granada, about an hour outside Managua on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. The event, with 80 participants, included a panel of experts, among them ET’s Roberto Courtney and IFES’ Delia Ferreira and Pablo Galarce. The Supreme Electoral Council was invited but did not show. Topics addressed were the reforms needed for regulating and monitoring political financing, what Nicaraguan law currently regulates and monitors, private sector funding and the importance of monitoring it, and mechanisms that are used in other countries to regulate and track public financing. This event was reported by local radio stations

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and by La Prensa. Participation included youth (high school and university students), deputies and local municipal government. On September 28th, with USAID funding, the Chamorro Foundation held a Journalism and Access to Information Law Forum commemorating International Freedom of Information day. The event, which had sixty participants, informed journalists and civil society about the status in the National Assembly of the Freedom of Information Law, which was put on the National Assembly agenda twice in July but had not yet been discussed. USAID had been very supportive of this legislation, and we hoped a public forum like this might help the Assembly to understand the advantages of the legislation, while also promoting demand for it from citizen groups. Eduardo Enriquez from La Prensa, Francisco Chamorro from El Nuevo Diario, and Joel Gutierrez from Channel Two all spoke at the event, along with Foundation experts Marıa Adilia Serrano and Cristiana Chamorro. We certainly had the intellectual firepower to drive home the point. Now it was up to the Nicaraguan National Assembly. On the rule of law side, we also kept up the pressure against the Pact, working for transparency and institutionalization of the justice sector. We also continued the rollout of new mediation centers. On September 6th, we inaugurated a new center at the local university UNIVALLE. The Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Adolfo Franco, was visiting Nicaragua, along with USAID’s deputy assistant administrator for democracy, Paul Bonicelli. They attended the event, which received extensive media coverage. Coverage showed USAID working together with the academic community to provide better legal services for the poor. On September 26th, we opened another Mediation Center at the University of Nicaragua (UNICA). Sixty people attended, mainly university law students, and again I was asked to make remarks, along with the university rector. USAID’s contribution to UNICA was estimated at approximately $28,000 between technical assistance and equipment. The Center would provide free alternative dispute resolution services to a sector of the Nicaraguan society that cannot afford to pay any legal fees to resolve their conflicts through the formal justice system. The Center was expected to benefit approximately 7,200 people per year, resulting in an improved culture of peace in the Nicaraguan society and better legal security. Our counterparts on the Atlantic Coast felt they wanted more ownership in our preparations for the Justice Independence Week. They wanted a week apart from the national campaign: their own week. Historically, the Atlantic Coast is often an appendage to national politics. They wanted a focus on their own issues separate from the national debate. That was all fine with us. We coordinated with BICU and set up a program for October 19th to 20th working with local partners and groups on the Atlantic Coast. Public defense was one of the few checks and balances in the Nicaraguan justice system. We had to make sure it was real and effective. We provided extensive training and assistance to the public defense service, and USAID was the only outside group invited to participate in its sixth national annual retreat from September 29th to October 3rd. I was even invited to address the entire corps, along with

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Supreme Court Magistrate Marvin Aguilar, an FSLN-appointed magistrate who was a backer of our program and as far as we could tell, did his best to depoliticize the judicial sector. We counted him as a friend, someone who believed in right versus wrong, putting aside left versus right. It was very clear that the public defenders were dedicated to making sure that suspects were not detained a minute more than was necessary. They were committed to human rights, and I was deeply honored that they had selected me to share that moment with them. I told them they were the new Nicaraguan heroes for standing up for the poor and working to ensure the rule of law against all odds. Our support for transparent, participatory, and merit-based selection of a new Attorney General and new Supreme Court Magistrates continued on track via the USAID sub-grant to Hagamos Democracia, CPDH, and the ProJusticia coalition. Radio spots were all over the airwaves. CPDH released a comunicado p ublico calling on the Assembly to only approve candidates based on merit. The group resurrected a civil society-endorsed list from 2001 of 40 or so highly-qualified candidates vetted by civil society. Supreme Court Magistrate (and former Court President) Guillermo Vargas Sandino’s term was to end in December. Our support for merit-based selection of new magistrates would impact his replacement. The Assembly could pick his successor at any time. We hoped he would throw his hat in the ring—he was the only magistrate that had been selected unanimously by the National Assembly and also the only one not a member of any political party. He was there because he was the best. He was also a champion of justice reform. Earlier this year, Dr. Vargas indicated to Luıs Ubeda and me that he was not going to run again. I spoke with him again and said Nicaragua needed persons who believed that justice was possible, who had the courage to stand up against cynicism and corruption. He changed his mind and said he would like to run again. Across Central America, gang-related violence was a serious issue. Using a regional grant to the Inter-American Coalition for the Prevention of Violence, which by coincidence, I had a hand in setting up in my prior position in Washington, the Coalition obtained a commitment from twelve Central American municipalities and their respective national governments to design and adopt comprehensive violence prevention tools through scientific, technological, and political innovation such as indicators, data collection, advocacy, and policy changes. This approach enhances local capacity to develop effective citizen security initiatives and has proven effective in major American cities addressing gang and other violence as well as in Colombia. Nicaragua was to benefit with several all day antiviolence seminars in Jinotega (September 26th), Jinotepe (September 27th), and Leon (September 28th). On the election side, we had mounting concerns and stresses. IFES was distraught that the CSE might not have the capacity to produce and distribute the 200,000 voter ID card (c e dula) applications that were currently pending. The electoral bus, which IFES refurbished and equipped with CEPPS funding, had yet to deploy due to apparent lack of political support on the part of the CSE.

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We shifted into high gear to address potential electoral challenges. Just as was done in the U.S. elections in 2001, we wanted to prepare the parties and observers for any potential electoral challenges and the appropriate process those should take. Deborah Ullmer from NDI and Mauricio Z un ~iga of IPADE headed up the training and Electoral Challenge Conference on September 12th which included very informative comparative examples from Mexico, Costa Rica, and Florida. The CSE presented the electoral regulations, followed by a panel with the political parties to discuss concerns. IRI had trained 3,604 MRS political party poll watchers and 5,206 ALN-PC poll watchers to date. We were on the move. Presentation of challenges or ‘‘impugnaciones ’’ is the mechanism established in the law to modify, revoke, or nullify the acts and resolutions emitted by the electoral authorities. The main objective of this system is to resolve problems arising during the different stages of the electoral process and to guarantee that electoral acts and resolutions comply with principles of constitutionality and legality. On September 11, 2006, USAID Director Alex Dickie and I met with CSE President Roberto Rivas and Emit Lang. We reminded them of all the support we had provided through IFES. Rivas asked about problems with electricity, and I reminded him that in 2001, we had donated 45 electric generators to the CSE. The elephant in the room was the continued publicity over IRI’s manuals. I explained how the manuals were shared with the CSE before the Atlantic Coast election, and there was no objection. I explained that the publication contained the latest, best available information and that IRI should not be held accountable for any delays by the CSE in issuing updates. I also took advantage of the occasion to drive home the point to Rivas that the challenges process needed to be revised and the CSE needed to pay attention to the civil society arguments on how to amend the challenges process. Rivas thanked us for the visit, but he had another trick up his sleeve. As we walked out of Rivas’ office, I had dozens of microphones and cameras in my face because he had tipped off the press. This kind of ambush by paparazzi are what handlers call a ‘‘media spray.’’ But I played it the best I could. The question barrage began with ‘‘the’’ issue: IRI. I ignored the question and gave them a litany of the types of support we had already provided to the CSE via IFES, the Web site, the 1-800 call center, the c e dula inventory, and so on. I stressed the need to change the challenges process. This was about right and wrong, not left or right (staying ‘‘on message’’ as it were with our program). Eventually, I got to the training of party poll watchers, and the IRI issue came up again. Point blank: ‘‘Mr. Hendrix, did the CSE make any complaints to you about the manual?’’ ‘‘We did get one complaint,’’ I said. ‘‘After our training for party poll watchers after the Atlantic Coast elections, we gave hundreds of copies of the manual to each of the parties and to the CSE. The CSE complained we didn’t give them enough copies.’’ The reporters all laughed. That was not the clip they used on the news. The next day, Ary Pantoja of the Nuevo Diario published that we had gone to the CSE to apologize. Knowing what I really said and seeing how the Nuevo Diablo printed the false story anyway, gave me insight into how they twisted what Ambassador Trivelli said on a daily basis.

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The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus noted: ‘‘Wrong must not win by technicalities.’’ In this spirit, NDI looked to the CSE to take the lead in limiting challenges to ‘‘good faith’’ challenges. NDI coordinated with Movimiento Por Nicaragua on this. If the CSE did not respond favorably, NDI was already been talking with ALN, MRS, and the PLC to get the parties to take the initiative to sign a pledge. Conversations with the FSLN and AC were harder to nail down and remained pending. We wanted everyone on board, and we wanted to be transparent about our concerns. Under the pressure, the CSE blinked. A revised reglamento (administrative rule), incorporating some of the concerns expressed by the political parties following the recent IPADE Electoral Challenge forum, was released. NDI had sent a letter to the CSE requesting language be inserted in the reglamento requiring parties to issue only good faith challenges and requesting inclusion of Article 131, which would allow for ballots to be opened and recounted in extreme cases (not thrown out as happened in Granada in the municipal election last time, swinging the vote to the FSLN). NDI sent a separate letter asking the CSE to broker an agreement with all five parties committing them to issue good faith electoral challenges. Given the lack of response on the part of the CSE, NDI issued letters to all five parties urging them to sign individual agreements with the same language. The ALN, PLC, and MRS were on board, the FSLN did not respond, and the AC noted it was not interested. Given the lack of political will, NDI moved to its third option: working through civil society to demand recounts in extreme cases and keep the reglamento de impugnaci on on the radar screen to hold political parties’ feet to the fire. In the meantime, the CSE continued to play ‘‘mind games’’ with IRI, with the Nuevo Diablo saying IRI had committed electoral crimes. So we went to see CSE Chief of Staff Rodrigo Barreto on September 5th. Barreto assured us that the CSE was not behind the media frenzy over IRI allegedly committing a ‘‘delito electoral ’’ by producing political party training manuals with the CSE logo without prior authorization. He recommended IRI issue a public apology to put the issue to rest once and for all. IRI released the public clarification, explaining that manuals were produced with documents available at that time and underscoring that these manuals were being updated with current electoral information recently produced by the CSE. Despite this public clarification and apology, IRI’s chief of party Joe Agostini, ex-chief of party Gilberto Valdez, and the DC Latin America director Shawn Sullivan were subpoenaed on September 8th to appear before the CSE and the prosecutor’s office (Fiscalı´a) to testify regarding the production and distribution of the manuals. I suspected that the turning up of the heat on IRI had to do with Montealegre’s improved performance in some of the polling. All month long, the political show and intimidation continued against IRI. On September 26th, IRI country director Joe Agostini gave me a heads up: IRI anticipated that the next day, the CSE prosecutor (fiscal), Blanca Salgado, would present a press conference regarding the IRI manuals. The rumor was that there would be 19 new charges (denuncias) related to the manuals. Supposedly, the fiscal would seek six months to two years of jailtime for Agostini.

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Press activity and rhetoric really heated up as the election began to draw near. There were rampant discussions of proposals and scenarios uniting the liberals under various banners (including possible polls), all not very likely especially at this eleventh hour. We thought that even if that did go forward and one of the candidates (ALN, PLC, or MRS) said that he threw his support to one of the others, then the legality of the party registration might be compromised. The legal complexities were daunting, especially when the decision makers were all in the CSE and controlled by the Pact. The State Department Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) was able to help us out. Following up on an idea from Marcia Bosshardt of the Embassy’s public affairs office, DRL contracted with a for-profit U.S. firm, Creative Associates, to make a radio soap opera. I viewed this idea with a lot of skepticism. Who was going to assure quality control? Who was going to review the programming for local political sensitivities? The DRL staff in Washington did not have that local sense, we in USAID were busy managing our own programs already, and the Embassy public affairs office had no experience with project management. What if we were accused of backing partisan messages? Of having racist or sexist materials? Who was going to be responsible? After 10 months of bureacratic delay, DRL was only making an award in August for an election in November. Was there even any time to get anything done? Adding new projects (‘‘management units’’ in USAID jargon) smacked of the old Christmas tree approach, not the integrated program I kept preaching about. I did not like the idea. I was completely wrong. It was really cool. The new radio soap opera hit the airwaves concerning a small, mythical community called El Rosario. The residents talked about their lives and relationships and community needs. And in that context, they discussed why it was important to vote, how to get a voter card, when the elections would be, and other critical information. I thought the shows were extremely well done and very professional. Each chapter was 17 minutes and advanced the story line leading to the election. For me, what I liked best was that the entire series was broadcast on Radio YA, a FSLN-controlled media outlet. This testified to the content neutrality of the information, the quality of production, and our continued emphasis on right versus wrong, not left versus right. We wanted everyone to vote. Immediately after the radio novella, Radio Ya played the IRI ‘‘get out the vote’’ jingle, followed by Movimiento’s PSA for people to pick up their ce dulas. We had an integrated package with high quality, on-point messaging. I had no reason to be afraid. At the weekly staff meeting, I made a point of eating crow. I noted how impressive the work was, including Marcia Bosshardt’s great conceptualization for the product. After that, I made sure to adjust my daily work schedule so that I could continue to hear the radio novella: I may already have been an expert on elections, but I was completely hooked on the novela’s story line. Ugly Betty (Betty, la fea) had nothing on this! The OAS electoral observation mission leadership began to arrive, followed by the OAS observers. Gustavo Fernandez and Dante Caputo arrived Thursday, September 21st. They met with Cardinal Obando y Bravo, CSE President Rivas, and

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President Bola~ nos. Dante Caputo left the following Sunday, but Fernandez stayed on through the election. They began a process of soft diplomacy to persuade the CSE to amend the regulations on challenges per the NDI-sponsored conference and discussion. Regional OAS offices in Granada, Leon, Bluefields, and Matagalpa came online. At mid month, there was an initial meeting of observation groups, including IPADE, Etica y Transparencia (with over 12,000 national observers, including many USAID and Embassy local Nicaraguan employees), the Carter Center (which would have about 50 observers), and the OAS. The EU contingent was expected to include about 100 observers in all on Election Day. The OAS currently planned on having about 130 observers but could add 70 more from universities around the region if Canadian funding came through. Movimiento completed materials for the public on where to vote, how to vote, and so on. Seeing that the CSE was able to derail IRI over the poll watcher manuals, Movimiento decided to share its manuals in advance with the CSE for comment. I thought this was a terrible precedent. What if the CSE never took action? What if they disapproved? I met with NDI and Movimiento to share my concerns. They eventually agreed that they would give the CSE a few days to make comments, but they would not wait for the CSE to ‘‘clear.’’ Meanwhile, our IRI party poll watcher training and Get Out The Vote campaign continued full steam ahead. Catholic Bishop Leopoldo Brenes asked Ambassador Trivelli and Peter Brennan to explore training opportunities for about 400 potential election observers in Matagalpa from the Church. Without making any commitment, the Ambassador asked me to follow up, and I turned to Selma Tijerino and Danika Walters. They went to work to see what was possible. On the one hand, we could use any help we got. On the other hand, we did not want to be seen as supporting the Catholic Church as opposed to anyone else. Selma and Danika met with Ra ul Zamora in Brenes’ office. They explained how volunteers could plug in immediately with Etica y Transparencia as a way to get the Church’s observers accredited and trained if that was what the Church decided to do. It was now their action. Even as we continued to help the observer groups to keep the CSE honest and promoted positive messaging and get out the vote with Movimiento and IPADE, we also continued to offer any help needed to the CSE. We needed democracy to succeed in Nicaragua. The magic bus finally began to run. It was used to distribute the documentos supletorios —provisional voting cards. The bus visited each departmental capital, and the motorcycles then went to each municipality to make deliveries. The IFES inventory of voter ID cards let us know where all produced ce dulas currently were located; they remained in each municipality and would not be moved around any more at this point (that would be too risky—they might get ‘‘lost’’). A myriad of IFES products all began to converge to support the election and the CSE. OAS General Secretary Jose Miguel Insulza arrived in Nicaragua on September 25th. An OAS press statement criticizing ‘‘active interventionism’’ (which a local audience would have understood as referring to the United States U.S. or Venezuela)

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appeared to have been timed to smooth the way for this visit. The EU electoral observation, headed by Giovanni Claudio Fava, started up that same week. The U.S. solidarity groups were very sensitive to any evidence or even appearance of U.S. intervention. I honestly had a very clean conscience on that score, but we bent over backwards to avoid any appearance of trying to influence results. It was at that point that I learned that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was to visit. Apparently there are regular meetings of defense ministers from around the region. A year or so earlier, the Nicaraguan defense minister offered to hold the next one in Managua. It was now time. So Secretary Rumsfeld was to head up the US delegation to the Defense Ministerial of the Americas. Press speculation exploded. During the visit, the Secretary made clear why he was there and that it had nothing to do with the election. But the picture of him in Managua was the story that had legs. During a visit to Nicaragua from September 22nd to 24th, Congressman Dan Burton from Indiana met with presidential candidates, government officials, Embassy and USAID officers, and our CEPPS election partners. We briefed the Congressman on our work with our recurring themes: a program, not a Christmas tree; not left versus right, but right versus wrong. He was on board. Ambassador Trivelli and I and others had lunch with Representative Burton on Saturday, September 23rd at the Crown Plaza. Representative Burton commented that USAID/Nicaragua’s election program was ‘‘the best election support program I have seen anywhere. Very impressive. I’m carrying the message back to Congress that you are doing a heck of a job.’’ For us career government employees, a few words like that really have an impact. Under NDI technical supervision and using the August 5th version of the voter registry, ET completed a final audit of the voter registry. NDI’s technical team reviewed the preliminary results and cross-checked these results with the latest version of the voter list which was released only in September. Overall, there were about 30,000 new voters added to the voting rolls. That represented about a 20% increase in the number of new voters. An increase of that magnitude had never been seen in Latin America. Large increases in voter rolls in Ecuador and Chile both resulted in major losses for the incumbent parties. Would that pattern hold in Nicaragua? It was a concern for the Pact. With all the action on Nicaragua, it was inevitable that people in Washington would be nervous about what we were doing. But we certainly did not control all the information going to Washington. With the Internet, that would have been impossible. Also, the spoilers in the process, those that still wanted to see the tug between left and right and who had nostalgia for the old Cold War days, would emerge from time to time. PLC politicians would go to Washington and report that we were working to give the election to the FSLN. FSLN representatives said we were being partisan in favor of the PLC or ALN. Not to be outdone, the ALN complained to the NSC that we had not done enough poll watcher training for their party. I was incredulous. This year, there would be 4,296 voting centers for a total of 11,274 juntas receptoras de voto (JRV). We had already trained 18,000 ALN poll watchers, thanks to IRI. But they wanted

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to have 30,000, if that were possible, to have sufficient redundancy to cover all vote centers with adequate surplus for contingencies. I suspected the ALN was really concerned about defections due to bribes or threats, but they didn’t want to admit weakness; instead, they preferred to blame us for their internal problems. We could have done more, faster and cheaper, had the ALN had been more organized earlier in the process. Now they were trying to come up with a scapegoat if they lost the election. It would be the Embassy’s fault. What rubbish! And after we had really done a top notch job training their poll watchers. No good deed goes unpunished, apparently. As the month ended, on September 29th, we gathered together all of our transparency program civil society subgrantees for a coordination meeting, the first time we had ever done that. Everyone got to know each other and share information and progress about the projects that each of them was currently implementing. Grantees asked questions about the various projects and exchanged views, suggestions, and recommended experts. Some of them even came to the realization that the work of the other grantees was complementary to their own, creating synergies. We pledged to repeat these meetings every month. While my month was full with politics and government institutions, something else was going on in Nicaragua, something quite sinister. On September 2nd, a few individuals checked into a hospital in Poneloya (80 km west of Leon, Nicaragua) with a mysterious illness. By September 7th, the cities of Malpaisillo, La Paz Centro, and Nagarote were reporting similar cases. On September 9th, the Health Ministry declared a state of emergency for the Leon Department. By then, however, the sickness had spread across the Chinandega Department. At first it was dozens of cases, but then hundreds became ill, and some started to die. On September 9th, the National Forensics Institute confirmed the source of the illness: methanol and traces of xyleno, ingested unknowingly in a local alcohol brew called guar on. Two days after the initial declaration, it was clear that the government of Nicaragua did not have the resources to adequately deal with the worsening situation, and they asked for assistance from the United States U.S. Government when Nicaraguan President Enrique Bola~ nos passed a note to Ambassador Trivelli, who in turn passed it on to David Hallengren, USAID’s executive officer. The local press feared that hundreds could die within days. David jumped into action. Military personnel, equipment, and medical assets from Sotocano Airbase (in Honduras) were deployed to provide an immediate response while a USAID Mission Disaster Response Team (led by David) was formed to access the full requirements of our response. In forming his team, David assessed a complicated situation and brought together a group of mission experts in medical issues, disaster response, and administrative matters to provide focus and coordinate the efforts. Communicating with the highest levels of the government, he assessed and communicated the complicated issues involving the toxicology and recommended a course of action to provide the best possible assistance at the time it was needed.

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Three hundred antidote doses (fomepizol) arrived in time to save lives. Respirators also proved crucial to making sure critically ill patients survived. Coordination also ensured that 52,000 liters of the clandestine liquor were removed from sale while radio and television communicated the dangers. According to PAHO, in the end, 788 persons became ill, and 50 died. The USAID action certainly saved lives and prevented thousands from becoming seriously ill by responding immediately to the crisis. Thanks to David and his team, working with zero time or resources and under tremendous pressure, hundreds of Nicaraguans are alive today. Those kinds of actions really put our work in a new perspective. David Hallengren was a real hero.

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The Final Stretch (October 2006)

The Liberal Conference opened in October, sponsored by Germany’s Neuman Foundation. The German NGO clearly backed the ALN as the only true liberal force in Nicaragua, an international slap at the PLC. At a CAFTA conference, Carlos Pellas (Central America’s richest person, owner of the Toyota dealerships in Nicaragua as well as the Banco de America Central–BAC, Credimatic, and the Flor de Ca~ na rum) belatedly threw his support to the ALN and Eduardo’s economic platform. That same week, PLC candidate Jose Rizo’s sister, Marıa Elena, an FSLN danielista, had damaging things to say about her brother, calling him ‘‘inoperante’’ (a non performer). None of this was good news for the PLC. Historically, Daniel Ortega had never gotten more than about 42 percent. He would never get more than half the votes to win an election. If he was ever again to be president, Daniel Ortega would have to see to it that the rules of the game changed so that someone who only got—say 35 or 40 percent—could win. He got what he wanted. Through his deal with Arnoldo Aleman, the Pact amended the Constitution to say that a candidate could win with just 35 percent of the vote, so long as he also received 5 percent more than any other candidate. The other part of the calculus was to ensure that opponents could not unite and form a majority. So the FSLN path to success was to try to divide the right between the PLC and the ALN and split the liberal vote, while keeping the MRS (originally Herty Lewites, now Edmundo Jarquın) and AC (Eden Pastora Gomez) to negligible numbers on the left. The FSLN had the machinery and discipline as a party, much more so than any of the others. For the last several years, Ortega was always the front runner. The question was always: Could he get 40 percent in the initial round? And if so, could he win with more than 5 percent over any rival? The Pact had rigged the electoral structure to make it possible. Now the question was execution. If Ortega failed to get at least 35 percent plus 5 percent over any rival, the top two finishers would go to a second round. Under those scenarios, no matter who

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Ortega ran against, the polls were unanimous that Ortega would lose—he never would get more than 42 percent. So the trick for the FSLN was to win convincingly in the first round or pack it in. The liberals also saw this same calculus. In the spring, we had encouraged the ‘‘democratic’’ parties to link up in primaries to select a consensus candidate for the sake of the country. The MRS was always suspect of this. What if the MRS agreed to participate, only to have the PLC pull out of the deal? Was the PLC really ‘‘democratic’’ or would Aleman impose the ‘‘consensus’’? The MRS listened to the proposals, considered them, but in the end, opted out. The question lingered, however, if the liberals would ever get together. After extensive meetings among PLC and ALN party officials, COSEP finally announced that it would take a poll of 15,000 liberals starting October 9th (via the MNR marketing firm) to choose the best ‘‘Liberal’’ candidate. COSEP then promised to endorse whoever won that poll as the true liberal candidate for president (to beat Ortega). The poll itself cost about $35,000 and was funded by COSEP itself, not us. We assumed COSEP was likely to spend much more on follow up publicity. Montealegre agreed to respect the result of the poll, but Rizo never was on board. In the end, the poll clearly endorsed Eduardo, but Rizo continued on separately. This was another lost opportunity to unite the liberal votes. If our work was not about left or right, but about right versus wrong, we needed to do what we could to keep focus in that direction even as the ‘‘left versus right’’ began to emerge in the national debate. The USAID Rule of Law Program facilitated the creation of three civil society coalitions focused on women’s rights, indigenous rights, and youth and adolescent issues. The goal was to strengthen these coalitions to promote access to justice. In October, we conducted a series of regional workshops aimed at training a corps of access to justice promoters that would work in their local communities to advance human rights issues and criminal law reform. It was clear to us that the Nicaraguan indigenous groups could upgrade their effectiveness by learning from similar groups in other countries where advocacy and justice access had more currency. We facilitated a workshop with indigenous groups from Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras, Bolivia, Per u, Chile, and El Salvador. The objective of the workshop was to exchange experiences and share lessons learned from various countries in developing projects aimed at promoting respect for indigenous rights. This effort helped the Nicaraguan Indigenous Rights Coalition in developing initiatives that will contribute to improving the access to justice of indigenous groups in Nicaragua. Continuing to work for civil society’s promotion of transparency and meritbased selection of Supreme Court Magistrates, our sub-grantee, Hagamos Democracia, conducted a forum on September 29th at the local university UNICIT. Hagamos Democracia also conducted a radio campaign concerning the selection process of Magistrates. As I drove around Managua, listening to the FSLN-backed Radio Ya, I smiled as I heard those public service announcements. The message was out. If the Pact appointed their people anyway, at least the public would know it was happening.

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As a result of the 2nd Judicial Independence and Confidence in Justice Week Conference conducted in August, USAID facilitated the creation of a permanent national civil society forum. In October, USAID held several strategy meetings with Movimiento por Nicaragua, Pro Justicia, Juventud Democr atica de Nicaragua, Hagamos Democracia, Fundaci on Desafıos, the Women’s Rights Coalition, and the Indigenous and Ethnic Rights Coalition to develop an action plan for the creation of a permanent national civil society forum. This forum would serve to advocate for the implementation of the Judicial Career Law as well as to participate in the development of public policy concerning the justice sector. While we had opened mediation centers in Bluefields, UNICA, CACONIC, and elsewhere, we thought we could expand the benefits of the model even further to benefit more Nicaraguans. On that basis, we launched Mediation Training for Public Defense Auxiliaries. Our commercial arbitration training kick off with AmCham was October 17th and went on for several months. USAID’s rule of law program signed a collaborative agreement with AmCham with the objective of providing technical support for the creation of an arbitration and mediation center. USAID had been supporting the implementation of the new Mediation and Arbitration Law. AmCham’s center would be the second arbitration center in Nicaragua to be established with USAID’s support, which will include assistance in the development of a code of ethics, designing the operational organization of the center, drafting the center’s regulations, and defining a fee structure for ADR services. The center will contribute to expediting the resolution of disputes outside the court system and build confidence among foreign and local investors. I went to the opening of the training, but we hoped that the Ambassador would be able to join us to inaugurate the new Arbitration Center, probably early in the new year. On Friday, October 13th, CACONIC celebrated the one year anniversary of its USAID-assisted commercial arbitration center and recognized USAID’s support for arbitration training with a special event with Luıs Ubeda and me. CACONIC was making tangible progress on concrete cases to resolve disputes and promote a solid base for business in Nicaragua, serving mainly the country’s national commercial entities. We hoped that a future AmCham center could do the same for international transactions and investments and through this, create new jobs for Nicaraguans. USAID officially inaugurated the second mediation center to be established adjacent to a police station, this time in Ciudad Sandino, outside of Managua. This was not assistance to the police, but rather assistance to citizens at the place many go to have conflicts resolved. USAID donated office and information technology equipment and assisted with the remodeling of office space. The Center will provide free alternative dispute resolution services to a sector of the Nicaraguan society that cannot afford to pay any legal fees to resolve their conflicts through the formal justice system. The Center had been operating since August 2006 and, by mid October had already conducted 34 mediations involving minor criminal issues. Women have been a long-neglected segment of most societies. Violence against women is often unreported or underreported. I challenged our team to see what

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we could do on this score to help Nicaragua. Even small, obvious changes can sometimes have big impacts. Alex Rodrıguez and Carlos Marıa Jimenez of my rule of law team presented the national prosecutor’s office, the Public Ministry, with a solid new design proposal to restructure the Women and Gender Violence Specialized Unit. As a result, that unit now has a defined structure as well as specific prosecutorial functions and mechanisms for internal and external coordination. To anyone with a master’s degree in public administration, those measures seem obvious. But incredibly, Nicaragua’s Public Ministry did not have those measures in place. Once there, the office functioned more smoothly and cases began to flow. The work with the Public Ministry, both the Gender Violence Specialized Unit and the Organized Crime Unit, was controversial because of the institution’s leadership. At the helm was the Attorney General, Julio Centeno Gomez, a confidant of Arnoldo Aleman who had had his visa revoked earlier (a desvisado) by the Embassy for acts of corruption. I argued that we were in favor of the Nicaraguan people, and the people needed us to help the institution with its organization, structure, and institutionality. That concern was greater than the individual in charge of the institution and whatever he did as a private citizen. Ambassador Trivelli agreed. It would be difficult if not impossible to explain this to the press. Some would want to show that we publicly said one thing (revoking his visa) while privately helping him. We decided we couldn’t worry what the press would say. Our support was about right versus wrong. Helping women victims of violence or helping Nicaragua address organized crime was the right thing to do. The Ambassador deserves great credit for making this point and demonstrating leadership even against public criticism both in Managua and Washington. Curiously enough, Centeno had always been very supportive of our programs and embraced our recommendations despite his personal issues with the Embassy. The employees loved him, too, since he was able to get them substantial pay raises for a number of years in a row. We were able to separate the personal life of Centeno, with allegations of political favoritism and corruption, from the professional one which was actually working to support reform and institution-building. Interestingly, our good work with the Public Ministry gained the attention of the Solicitor General, a Bola~ nos appointee, Alberto Novoa, and his senior aide Victor Manuel Talavera. They asked if we could organize a workshop to review the organic law—that is, the institutional structure—of the Solicitor General’s office (Procuraduria General). The Solicitor General was the government’s attorney in litigation whether the government was the defendant or the plaintiff. The Solicitor General was the one who went after anyone who stole money from the government or harmed the government in any way. The Solicitor General also defended the government if anyone ever sued it. The Attorney General (Fiscal General) was the head of the Public Ministry, which oversaw criminal prosecution. Carlos Marıa, Luıs Ubeda, and Alex Rodriguez pulled together a very solid retreat of prosecutors to evaluate various aspects of the Organic Law and its

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regulation that needed reform. The workshop served to identify weaknesses in the structure of the Procuradurıa General and the limitations that the Organic Law imposed on the institution, particularly issues that affect its investigations and autonomy. As the workshop ended, the Solicitor General expressed interest in developing a draft law to partially modify the institution’s Organic Law. We offered to help in identifying specific areas of the Organic Law that should be reformed. Since the 1980s, USAID has had an emphasis on promoting human rights and nowhere more so than Central America. USAID helped establish the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights (IIDH) and later the Justice Studies Center of the Americas (CEJA). In the process, the U.S. government has trained thousands of judges, prosecutors, and police. In my opinion, a major human rights concern remained—that of the poor use of evidence. In some countries like Mexico, over 90 percent of all convictions are the result of confessions, forced or otherwise. On the other hand, successful prosecution of crime was pathetic in Guatemala with most homicides going unpunished. Nicaragua was somewhere in between these extremes. But I wanted to develop and support evidence-based prosecution. This meant not only crime scene management, evidence handling, and chain of custody training for investigators, but also scientific investigation and evidence analysis. Anyone who watches CSI: Crime Scene Investigation will know what I am referring to. People in USAID thought I was nuts. Several asked me, ‘‘You want to work with the morgue?’’ Also, getting funding for nontraditional programming is always an uphill battle. How could I explain why this is important to an agency much more comfortable with literacy for children, vaccinations, designing teacher curriculum, or disaster relief? My politicized portfolio in Nicaragua was already on the edge of the realm of reason. Now I wanted to work in a morgue. The State Department’s communication style is arcane until you decipher how it works. Phone calls, emails, and faxes all have little influence. Cables are what get the attention. We had been drafting a cable each month for Washington on the elections. Occasionally, I sent a cable on justice or corruption issues. I decided to send a cable, but I also wanted to make sure it got read. I wanted to garner support for my work on evidenced-based criminal investigation and forensic medicine. I drafted the text and labeled it: CSI: Managua. I don’t know if anyone in Washington ever read the entire description, but there was a new buzz about our ‘‘CSI program,’’ and I got the funds needed. We began with forensic medicine training for substitute medical doctors. Medical doctors from the Institute of Forensic Medicine are often replaced by substitute medical doctors that lack adequate capacity to handle cases. We got the Colombian Institute of Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine involved in the training since they had a great deal of experience, having been built up under Plan Colombia. With the Colombians, we trained 27 substitute medical doctors in techniques for examining victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse and for conducting psychiatric evaluations. We also sponsored additional trainings in forensic medicine such as autopsy techniques. All this jumpstarted a new relationship with

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the Forensic Medicine Institute. Training began at UNICA, and I was honored to represent USAID at the event. On October 17th, we took an additional step to inaugurate Nicaragua’s first graduate medical degree in forensic medicine. At last, Nicaragua would have doctors qualified to practice forensic medicine. Upon the doctors’ completion of the graduate degree program, USAID will have trained the first forty-five doctors specialized in forensic medicine in Nicaragua. Medical doctors from the Institute of Forensic Medicine will improve their performance during trials and conduct better forensic investigations. The graduate program also will contribute to establishing proper conditions for the implementation of a professional career system in forensic medicine in accordance with the Judicial Career Law. Similar programs exist in Latin America only in Costa Rica and Colombia (and the Colombians have carried out programs in Ecuador and Peru). So this was a big step for Nicaragua. USAID helped draft the Judicial Career Law, which was passed but then never implemented. Now under donor pressure (via the Submesa de Justicia in which USAID participates), the Court was likely to sign implementing rules for the Judicial Career Law within days, according to a public statement by Magistrate (Aleman confidant and desvisado) Rafael Solıs. Even while coordinating among donors to promote judicial independence, we also sought to improve implementation of the Criminal Procedure Code. Still, there was room for improvement. USAID facilitated a workshop with representatives of the Departmental Interinstitutional Commissions for the Implementation of the Code to resolve conflicts and attend to the concerns of various justice sector operators regarding the proper implementation and interpretation of the Code. We discussed issues like the lack of participation at trials of medical doctors from the Health Ministry, the absence of victims and witnesses during trials, and problems dealing with interinstitutional coordination between the National Police and the Public Ministry during investigations. USAID provided help to the National Interinstitutional Technical Commission to develop a manual of standardized procedures to be adopted by the Public Ministry, the National Police, and the Supreme Court. This kind of fine operational touch is what USAID does very well. It neither gets much attention nor grabs headlines, but it is critical to the nuts-and-bolts operationality of the justice system. USAID’s rule of law program, in collaboration with the Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU) and as an extension of the recently celebrated 2nd Judicial Independence and Confidence in Justice Week Conference, conducted the first ‘‘Campaign for Autonomous Judicial Independence and Access to Justice 2006’’ in Bluefields. As part of this event, we carried out various activities aimed at understanding the administration of justice problems faced by the local communities as well as raising awareness about human rights, autonomous rights, and how to access justice. Two debate forums were held on judicial independence, access to justice, and the results of the research on the perception of corruption in the judicial system. The Atlantic Coast Judicial Independence Week drove home the need for implementation of the Judicial Career Law and new administrative rules for the Criminal

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Procedure Code. Luis Ubeda and I flew out to Bluefields to participate. The BICU university rector asked me to share my own reflections on the topic at hand. As might be expected, I stuck to right versus wrong, not right versus left, and the need to instill transparency and merit-based principles to public administration, whether in the court, prosecutors’ office, or in any branch of public service. As part of the week’s events on the Atlantic Coast, on October 20th, we attended a public fair in Bluefields to promote judicial independence. Streets were shut down and the whole town had a fair atmosphere. Live music, food, thousands of pedestrians—it was fantastic. The local police had one of the largest, most centrally located booths to meet the public. How ironic, I thought, that the police would join a public effort to promote judicial branch reform. There were lines at the USAID booth where we had a board game where participants could win baseball caps, T-shirts, or buttons with judicial independence themes. We were striking a chord with the public. Part of the week included an outreach to and discussion among prisoners in the Bluefields jail. I joined the public defenders to go in among the detained to discuss issues of judicial corruption and due process. I had never discussed these kinds of topics with convicts before, let alone while in jail. The themes take on larger significance when people’s lives and liberty are being sacrificed even as the discussion takes place. This was no theoretical lecture on justice. The biblical Jesus said that as you administer to those in prison, you administer unto God. I thought we were reaching an important audience of persons truly disadvantaged and unserved. Even as I thought about our role in the greater cause of justice, my boss, the USAID Director Alex Dickie called on my cell phone. ‘‘Where are you?’’ he asked. ‘‘I’m in jail!’’ I replied. We continued to try to push the new religion of transparency and participation with the rule of law. And we tried to get this new message out far and wide. For example, in Jinotepe, we brought in 40 civil society leaders and trained them as justice promoters on legal reform issues, such as the criminal procedures code and criminal law. These justice promoters then went out to conduct outreach activities in the regions of Carazo and Masaya. The training tied into judicial independence and transparency themes and emphasized the need for citizens to participate. In Matagalpa and Jinotega, the Youth and Adolescent Coalition conducted a regional forum for civil society about access to justice with 48 participants. Upon completion of the USAID-sponsored forum, participants identified obstacles limiting the access to justice for youth and adolescents and proposed strategies for addressing such obstacles. They were identifying the needs and solutions on their own with USAID only playing a facilitation role. While the Judicial Independence Week engaged academics and civil society, we also wanted to reach a broad audience of general citizenry. This meant bringing in the media. So USAID conducted its third training in judicial journalism, this time for thirty-nine journalists in Jinotepe. The training was to improve investigation and reporting on justice sector reform. On the Atlantic Coast, in Bilwi, we held a fourth training in judicial journalism for 24 journalists from that region. During

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the event, participants expressed concerns about the lack of access to information and abuse of power by justice sector officials. We then did a similar rollout in Matagalpa where participants expressed concerns about judicial independence and the quality of news coverage on justice sector issues. In good development programs, the agency will have impacts in the short, medium, and long-term. Short-term impacts generate enthusiasm and support. But it is the long-term impacts that produce institutionalization and sustainability. I argued in Nicaragua, as I did successfully in Guatemala years earlier, that university legal education was a critical element to long-term restructuring of the legal system. In Guatemala, my program focused on the national law school, since its pre-eminence and prestige had a persuasive effect on how all other law schools worked. Besides, it was by far the largest law school with the most students from poor or indigenous backgrounds. The Nicaraguan situation was completely different. While Guatemala had seven law schools for twelve million persons, Nicaragua had 23 law schools for half the population. A different approach was needed. We had worked to string together a coalition of all 23 Nicaraguan law schools (CONADER). Working with our CONADER partners, we developed a new basic curriculum for law schools. Since all law schools were already CONADER members, this meant the country had a national curriculum for the first time in its history. This curriculum reflected innovations previously absent from university legal education such as the Internet, human rights, intellectual property, and trade integration. USAID distributed 240 copies of nine new teaching modules to be implemented by the CONADER law school faculties. The events this month were the capstone of months of hard, arduous work. Anyone who has ever worked in a law school, or in education at any level, will understand what a major contribution this was for Nicaragua. It may not make headlines, but it will have an impact for decades to come. Under the joint strategy between the U.S. State Department and USAID, development should be part and parcel of diplomacy: they should be integrated. We would not want our development programs to promote something that our public diplomacy was trying to discourage. This seems an obvious strategy statement, but in practice, it is tough. An example hit us between the eyes in mid October. Earlier, I noted that we had helped CPDH document the war crimes in the Red Christmas affair for litigation in the Inter-American human rights system. The State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) had followed up with a grant to Creative Associates to help CPDH to actually litigate the case. Ary Pantoja (of El Nuevo Diablo) reported that CPDH intended to take genocide claims to Judge Garzon in Spain. Pantoja was the same journalist who had distorted and invented facts that generated accusations against IRI for ‘‘electoral crimes.’’ So I knew better than to take what was reported at face value (although other articles later claimed that CPDH was interested in accusations against Ortega before the International Criminal Tribunal). However, international criminal jurisdiction had been opposed by the administration in the Kissinger case and in connection with the International Criminal

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Court. I certainly did not want to get involved in that dispute. We had other fish to fry! We risked losing focus, or worse, going against our own State Department. I contacted Creative Associates to see what the deal was. Creative assured us the plan continued to be to go to the Inter-American legal system, not Spain. I spoke with the Ambassador’s political adviser, Victoria Alvarado, and we were clear: The State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor activity with CPDH (via Creative Associates) was not promoting international criminal jurisdiction, and the Embassy political section was on top of this. I had another issue with Spanish jurisdiction in the Ortega case. I had served earlier in Guatemala, and Spain had offered help in a couple of cases. In the murder of Bishop Girardi, a Spanish forensics expert claimed with legal certainty that the murder had been committed by a crippled, arthritic, and aged German Shepherd dog, the Bishop’s own pet. Girardi had actually been murdered several days after his human rights commission issued a report which found genocide had taken place in Guatemala and named names, dates, and places, including presenting evidence against former dictator Efraın Rıos Montt. Later, in a criminal case in Spain against that same dictator, the accusation in Spanish courts was so poorly drafted that the murderer was able to have the case dismissed. After that, he told the Guatemalan public that the Spanish court had found him ‘‘innocent.’’ He argued that to try him again in Guatemala would be double jeopardy. Judge Garzon had been the judge in the Pinochet case. I have never met the man, but I could not help but wonder if he was drawn to this work for public grandstanding reasons. In any case, I knew the CPDH case had the goods on Ortega and others for war crimes. As a human being, I wanted to see him in a proper court of law and not just get off due to trickery and manipulation like Rıos Montt did. At the end of September, the outgoing Bola~ nos administration announced that it wanted to develop a new national anticorruption strategy. It stuck me as presumptuous that an outgoing administration would try to project its policy well past its time. But I had seen this before. In Guatemala, an outgoing Attorney General left the institution with a new five year strategic objective plan. USAID itself came out with a 2007 to 2012 plan going beyond the Bush administration’s years. In any case, if the Bola~ nos administration wanted to do a new strategy, if that could influence how the next government approached the topic, we would offer to help. Besides, if ALN or MRS won, many of the same functionaries from the Bola~ nos administration might still be around. And anything worth doing is worth doing well, so if we were going to help, we were going to provide the best quality assistance we could. We participated in a discussion organized by the Communication Directorate of the Presidency on the National Anticorruption Strategy. The USAID rule of law and anticorruption teams provided extensive comments on and suggestions for the document. While the strategy had some valuable elements, including a comprehensive inventory of anticorruption laws and a comprehensive analysis of the role of government institutions with regard to transparency and anticorruption, the strategy was frankly weak. It needed a lot of work.

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Our Chilean expert on the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (IACC), Miguel Pe~ nailillo, returned to Nicaragua from October 8th to the 21st. Miguel’s primary objective was to link back up with the civil society coalition group that monitors the Convention’s implementation in Nicaragua. Miguel not only helped the group with its strategy and plans, but also met with the Presidency’s Government Ethics Office (OEP) to help it with Nicaraguan officials’ voluntary asset declarations, which were being pushed by the civil society coalition. Miguel was able to share best practices from Chile and the region, and he was a star with the local press, gaining a new appreciation, at least among journalists, for the importance of the Convention. As John F. Kennedy noted, ‘‘The basis of effective government is public confidence, and that confidence is endangered when ethical standards falter or appear to falter.’’ The USAID Director in Nicaragua, Alex Dickie, had been very supportive of all our programs, in the rule of law area, with anticorruption, and with the election. Alex was one of the best environment experts in USAID and had been one of the key individuals that established the Maya Biosphere Reserve, extending from Mexico through Belize and Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and down to Costa Rica and Panama. His dedication to preserving biodiversity, indigenous culture, and the environment was singular. In Nicaragua, he was particularly concerned about illegal logging. But prosecutors often felt that cutting trees was a ‘‘victimless crime.’’ When they were stressed with murders, kidnappings, rape, and robbery, who had time for lost trees? What they did not realize was that the trees represented the national patrimony. Trees are jobs. Trees can alleviate poverty. And the trees were being stolen by organized crime. On October 17th, Alex and Gerardo Berthın represented USAID at the International Conference on Governance and Transparency in the Environmental Sector of Nicaragua. Of particular interest was a presentation on illegal logging organized by Center for International Politics (CIP). During the conference, Gerardo and Alex Dickie spoke with CIP’s Elsa Chang. They agreed to stay in touch to explore areas of collaboration between programs. In the 1990s, USAID had a program to help Nicaragua’s National Assembly. One of the more concrete or tangible things we did was to put up a board, visible to the public, to record how each person in the Assembly voted. Our relationship in recent years, however, was mixed. The Pact controlled the legislative agenda, and the Bola~ nos administration had been reduced to an opposition in power if that can be a way to consider it. The Pact controlled everything. On the other hand, we had worked successfully with the National Assembly on key pieces of legislation like the prosecutor career law, by gaining a broad consensus, working with civil society, and leading academics, human rights groups, the private sector, religious leadership, and other interested parties to produce a product that politicians would find difficult not to endorse. But I felt we needed something more institutional, something more focused on the National Assembly itself. Gerardo Berthın responded by working with Hagamos Democracia on a new program, National Assembly Watch (Observatorio). We launched the new initiative

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on October 6th. The effort focused on increasing transparency and citizen awareness of the legislative processes in the National Assembly. The project began immediately on four fronts. First, it began increasing citizen demand for a reform of the Controller General (Contralorıa General de la Rep ublica, CGR) Organic Law to strengthen the regulatory entity’s authority to demand that Deputies turn in their declarations of assets and make them verifiable. The second component was to obtain voluntary declarations of assets from newly elected and departing National Assembly Deputies as well as those elected to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). This activity centered on obtaining voluntary accountability from the Deputies on the discretionary 400,000 Nicaraguan cordobas that are given to them to perform public works in the municipality or department they represent. Third, Hagamos Democracia began to monitor the legislative work conducted in the National Assembly and increase citizen awareness of what occurs in the Assembly’s plenary sessions through daily reports, bimonthly bulletins, publications of approved laws and decrees, etc. All of this information was uploaded to a Web site for Internet research as well. Finally, Hagamos Democracia would publish an updated manual, ‘‘Who is Who’’ (‘‘Quie n es Qui e n’’) in the National Assembly, following on the earlier USAID publication from 2001 with that same name. This time, however, those deputies that voluntarily turned in their declaration of assets would be acknowledged in the manual and those who refused would be made known. That final idea came from the Ambassador himself. Our transparency program and IFES continued to roll out forums discussing political party finance reform. While our initial national conference in Managua got national and international coverage, we wanted to see the public debate continue. Our timing was propitious. Shortly thereafter, all around Managua, billboards appeared in what can only be described as a ‘‘shock and awe’’ campaign by the FSLN to promote Daniel. The FSLN promised zero hunger, zero unemployment, zero illiteracy, and zero poverty. How could they do that? And where did all the money come from for the billboards? They were all over the place. Many speculated that money was pouring in from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Others thought perhaps Cuba or Libya or Iran. The Ortega campaign clearly tried to show him as a ‘‘kinder, gentler’’ version, not the ‘‘old’’ Ortega. Billboards touted the FSLN as the party of ‘‘peace and reconciliation.’’ Advertising was all in pastel colors. Background music in radio ads featured the Beatles’ song ‘‘Give Peace a Chance.’’ Younger voters, unaware of the history from the 1980s, may have thought this was an attractive option. My favorite FSLN billboard said ‘‘Daniel es Nicaragua. Jodido.’’ In Nicaragua, ‘‘jodido’’ means ‘‘period’’ or ‘‘that’s it.’’ In Mexico, it means ‘‘fucked.’’ Given the dominance of Mexican literature and television in the region, I suspect most native Spanish speakers would interpret the word from the Mexican lexicon, even if it meant something different in Nicaragua itself. ‘‘Daniel is Nicaragua fucked.’’ I laughed hard. I could only imagine what the Mexican Ambassador must have

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thought! My son Daniel noted that the sign had a spelling error: it should be ‘‘jodida’’ to make the adjective agree with the feminine noun in Spanish. So the FSLN was also bad at spelling! Daniel was Nicaragua fucked and unable to spell. On a more serious note, I was concerned that it was the American Embassy being labeled in the press as ‘‘interventionist.’’ But in fact, we gave not a dime to the ALN, PLC, AC, FSLN, or MRS. Meanwhile, the FSLN was obviously being bankrolled by Chavez. Ortega even made sure that his audiences knew Venezuela was behind him, endorsing his candidacy. Ortega made trips to Cuba and Venezuela to have his photo taken with the leadership there. It played with the FSLN base. Not to be left completely behind, we had a few billboards of our own. But ours did not back specific candidates—we were about getting Nicaraguans to do the right thing. Joe Agostini and Regina Ramos Lovo of IRI were working with IPADE on 14 new billboards with a get out the vote theme (‘‘Tu Voto es la Semilla: ¡Que hace crecer a Nicaragua!’’). The first went up on October 15th, and the other 13 billboards between the 15th and the 20th. TV and radio spots repeated the message. On the Atlantic Coast, versions were done in local language for the Atlantic Coast. To be honest, though, our GOTV billboards were a drop in the ocean compared to the much more visible FSLN efforts. Also, it is worth repeating that our message was nonpartisan: just encouraging people to exercise their democratic rights. We did not contribute to any campaign. On October 17th at IPADE, we launched a new web site with a new coalition with a press conference. Over 25 journalists attended the launching event for the coalition: Citizenry for Transparency in Politics (‘‘Ciudadanı´a por la Transparencia en la Polı´tica’’). During this event, IPADE presented its new coalition web site. The web site provided access to topics related to corruption and political party financing. On October 18th, ET presented two USAID-supported reports on the amount of campaign expenditures that each political party had incurred. One report dealt with expenses incurred in what we called the ‘‘precampaign’’ (June to August), and the second report concentrated on those expenses incurred during the official political campaign (September to October). Both used methodologies that counted billboards, advertising, and other visible expenses to estimate expenditures. A third report was to be disseminated on October 30th dealing with expenses incurred after the official campaign ended. More than thirty journalists covered that event. On October 20th, the Chamorro Foundation held its third USAID-sponsored political party financing forum in the city of Rivas. Miguel Pe~ nailillo, Don Ray (an investigative journalist from IFES), and three candidates for the National Assembly from the MRS, ALN, and AC political parties were among the panelists. With an audience of approximately fifty-five participants plus media coverage, the forum promoted an interesting debate on campaign financing and expenses. The most relevant moment of all was the excellent debate that was generated among the deputies regarding each party’s and candidate’s willingness to share expenses and provide accountability to the citizenry.

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The Nicaraguan electoral system allows for public and private contributions to political party campaigns. To qualify for public funds, a party must achieve 4 percent of the vote. The CSE reimburses political parties/alliances according to the percentage of votes obtained in the election and election expenditures. With regard to private expenditures, political parties or alliances are able to receive donations from national or international organizations or individuals within the amounts, limits, and conditions established in the Electoral Law. Donations from foreign governments may only be used for training and technical assistance. No donations can be received directly or indirectly from anonymous private contributors or from national, regional, departmental, or municipal governments, foreign or domestic. On October 24th, the Chamorro Foundation held its fourth and final USAIDsupported forum prior to the elections on political party financing in the city of Matagalpa. As in the forum held in Rivas, the Matagalpa forum counted panelists such as Miguel Pe~ nailillo, Don Ray, and political party representatives from MRS, PLC, and FSLN. The initiative attracted one hundred one attendees and also provided an avenue for public debate of the importance of monitoring campaign financing. All three political party representatives presented their views, with only one representative from MRS actually giving a detailed account of their finances, donations, expenses, and loans. This forum was also well covered by the local media. The Get Out The Vote (GOTV) program was getting traction. And that meant that the FSLN would try to stop it. In Juigalpa, 3,500 attended the latest concert organized by JUDENIC with USAID help via IRI and Facebook. Reflecting rough politics, the FSLN decided to hold its rival final concert the same day and time as JUDENIC. The mayor of Managua, Dionisio Marenco, was FSLN, and the party controlled the local permits. Through this channel, the FSLN arranged to secure Managua’s music band shell (Casco) for its location despite JUDENIC also having previously booked that location. JUDENIC simply got bumped. Moreover, the FSLN reportedly offered $250,000 to either Daddy Yankee (Puerto Rican rapper) or Mana (Mexican rock band) to appear. JUDENIC thus had problems to solve. If the FSLN has taken their location, where were they supposed to go? If the FSLN event was the same date and free, with big name international acts, would anyone go to a JUDENIC event? In terms of location, JUDENIC met with Grupo Pellas about using their center. JUDENIC did a great job earlier improvising in Leon when local FSLN mayoral authorities forced a change in venue with only hours notice, and yet notice got out, and the concert was a huge success with seven thousand attendees. So JUDENIC was not na€ive as to how the FSLN can manipulate governance. FSLN interference meant JUDENIC was perceived as a threat and having an impact. They were learning to roll with the punches. JUDENIC would not try to match the FSLN’s big money approach but instead, would go exclusively with national artists to show patriotism and underscore the message that this is about Nicaraguans deciding for Nicaragua. The final JUDENIC concert did take place and attracted about 10,000 youth.

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On October 18th, I spoke with Roberto Cuellar, Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights. CAPEL (‘‘Centro de Asesorı´a y Promoci on Electoral’’ or Center for Assistance and Electoral Promotion, an organizational unit under the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights—IIDH) serves as the secretariat for electoral tribunals and councils in Latin America and the Caribbean. Also, as the secretariat for the Tikal Protocol and the Quito Protocol, CAPEL has functions within the Inter-American legal system. In this capacity, CAPEL has been invited to participate in every election in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 15 years. Usually, this means that 10 or 15 sitting electoral magistrates from other jurisdictions visit the country, observe the process, and present technical findings, which are then shared within the Inter-American system. This is completely separate from any functions the OAS has. For the first time in the past 15 years, in the case of Nicaragua’s coming election, CAPEL was not extended an invitation to participate. Consequently, CAPEL would not be sending any electoral magistrates to review the process. This was very significant and a distressing signal about how the Nicaraguan CSE was approaching this process. Given that the Nicaraguan CSE was directly financing the Latin American Council of Election Experts (CEELA), a rival group of former and sitting magistrates mainly from left-wing parties, created and funded in part by Hugo Chavez, it was worrisome that CAPEL would not be in Nicaragua to provide a counterweight. Moreover, if Nicaragua set a precedent that CEELA should be included but not CAPEL, this was even more worrisome at a regional level, not just for Nicaragua, especially in the context of Venezuela seeking a seat on the UN Security Council, again to extend its influence. IIDH noted that it might seek to send technical civil society advisers that might work with Etica y Transparencia in ET’s work, but this would only be a couple of people and would not be electoral magistrates. Roberto Cuellar advised that he would like to see an IIDH forum, perhaps two weeks after the elections, to discuss with the public what happened in these elections and how they stood up. He was coordinating with possible partners including ET and UCA, along with Embassies from the Nordic countries (that provide funding to IIDH). For its part, ET was in discussions with the NDI and the CSE on procedures for election night. The CSE, logically, did not want ET announcing any results before the polls closed. Since the quick count was only effective after poll closing, that concern reflected ignorance about the methodology and was easily cleared up. Really, the purpose of a quick count was to keep the CSE honest. If the CSE knew that civil society or election observers already had the election results, the CSE would be hesitant to fudge the figures. ET agreed that it would share its results on election night, when available, with the CSE first. Then they would be given as ‘‘close hold’’ to the international observers. Once the CSE made its official announcement, ET would have the CSE’s blessing to issue its own conclusions to the press. This would give confidence to the CSE’s official results, assuming the two figures concurred. This is the

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standard practice for elections in Latin America and the Caribbean, and we intended to follow that model. At the suggestion of Carol Horning, USAID/Nicaragua’s deputy director, journalists were included in ET’s quick count training. We hoped that would improve the quality of election coverage. All political parties were briefed on the NDI methodology and how the ET quick count would take place so that no one would besurprised or make unfounded accusations. Also, we thought that if the parties knew we had this capability, and the parties controlled the CSE, they would be less inclined to engage in fraud for fear they would be caught. I thought this all reminded me of some nuclear deterrence strategy from the Cold War. But then again, this was Nicaragua. We offered to provide training by Neil to the CSE on quick count methodologies. The CSE turned us down flat. Since the journalists and political parties had all received training, we thought we had the bases covered anyway. The FSLN and ALN planned to have their own quick counts as did OAS. The OAS quick count usually has a margin of error of up to 5 percent, but in one case was as high as 40 percent, according to Professor Neil Nevitte. Neil thought the FSLN methodology was serious, befitting a party with structure and organization. The ALN approach left a lot to be desired. Neil tried to advise the ALN the best he could on how to improve their product. The NDI/Nicaragua count with ET was organized to have a margin of error of less than 1 percent, but Neil predicted that it would probably even be better than that. In 2001, using Neil’s methodology, the margin of error was 0.02 percent, and results were produced three hours after closing; the official results did not come for three more days. A simultaneous legislative count had never been done in the developing world before. In this sense, Nicaragua would make history. We would make history. At mid month, we held a quick count simulation with volunteers across the country. It went ‘‘spectacularly well’’ in Neil’s words. Ojo Electoral, a Venezuelan civil society group, was accompanying us as an observer on this work with NDI during the elections. They would need to replicate lessons learned in their country in the not so distant future. We were glad to share what we knew. Since challenges (impugnaciones) were the key to the electoral fraud in Granada at the municipal level, we needed civil society to be ready. Under NDI, ET had trained a rapid response legal brigade that could be deployed around the country, as needed, on Election Day to address any issues in the challenges process. There would be no repeat of Granada on our watch. Each day, we were closing the range of maneuverability for anyone wanting to commit fraud. By October 13th, 11,000 electoral observers for ET received accreditation. The observers for the challenges process and the CEM remained pending accreditation, but this was much better than it had been. My stress level dropped a notch. To train this number of electoral observers, we had worked with NDI and ET to organize 160 workshops, some of which were still ongoing. It now appeared we were within striking distance of our goal of having constructive 100 percent

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coverage by domestic observers on Election Day. By November, we had the numbers in place. Such a level of domestic observation with parallel quick counts had never been undertaken anywhere in the developing world. We were making history and establishing new best practices. It is worth going into the difference between exit polling and parallel quick counts. With exit polling, you interview people as they leave the polling station and ask them how they voted. They may refuse to say. They may lie. They may not remember. In any case, there is a level of error. Also, you are probably not asking everyone; you are taking a sample and then projecting it with some level of error. Parallel quick counts are not polls at all. As the actual votes are counted at each polling station, the observer also counts. The observer does not ask anyone how they voted, but rather looks at the actual ballots, and watches how the electoral authorities count. When the count is in, the observer text messages or calls in the results from that observer’s polling station and voter table. Electoral observers are not participants—they don’t challenge, they only observe and then report back. With constructive universal coverage, ET then can add up the various JRV’s reporting in. ET would have the final tally way before the CSE did. If the CSE tried to change a vote, ET would know. While domestic and international observers were critical, so too, were the political party poll watchers. Unlike observers, they would be the only ones who could challenge a vote count, whether at a polling station or at the municipal, department, or national level. By the end of October, through IRI and Hagamos Democracia, USAID had trained 31,500 ALN poll watchers. An additional 400 ALN trainers were also prepared to reach another 7,000 poll watchers for ALN by Election Day. For the MRS, 12,850 had been trained. Ana Quir oz of MRS was very happy with the effort and did not ask for more. Given the relative strength of the MRS, it was unlikely they would have been able to field any more poll watchers even if they had them. MRS had organizational problems for some time. While MRS was strong in Managua, in parts of the interior of the country, it was practically invisible. They needed help with the basics, and unlike other parties, they were willing to accept that kind of help. In USAID, we have to make all of our assistance to political parties available to everyone on an equal basis, but since the MRS was the only one to accept an offer for organizational help, we pitched in with them. Joe Agostini and Shawn Sullivan of IRI contacted the Partido de Acci on Nacional (PAN) in Mexico. The PAN provided David Presiado, then Mexican President-Elect Felipe Calderon’s top election adviser. What a coup for the MRS to get such a heavy hitter to advise them! Presiado provided advance advice from Mexico and then came to Managua in October to help MRS with election logistics and getting out the vote. Allegations about the earlier IRI political party poll watcher manual and electoral crimes (delito electoral) faded away in the press. Electoral prosecutor (Fiscal Electoral) Salgado began to say earlier allegations were contradictory. Astoundingly, he then claimed not to have seen any report from the CSE. Yellow journalists did not see any story in reporting that the allegations were just smoke, so nothing was being said in the press.

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Still, given political desperation at this point, I feared the story could resurface or morph at any point. The sword of Damocles was still present. Gilberto Valdez and Joe Agostini were keeping a low profile. In fact Joe was spending a good deal of time in Washington and only returned to Managua just before the election itself. For now, no news was good news. The USAID-sponsored GOTV campaign was in high gear. IPADE ran radio ads, and jingles played in English, Spanish, and Misquito (depending on location and audience) eight to ten times a day now. JUDENIC had its ‘‘get out the vote’’ song jingle on local radio—the quality was excellent. If you heard it more than two or three times, you couldn’t get it out of your head. I would find myself in the car to work, and all I could think about was that song! I would turn on the radio, and there it would be again. The sixth JUDENIC concert, in Bluefields, went forward despite driving rain. Even with that storm, a thousand kids gutted it out and had a blast. Between groups and between songs, at all the JUDENIC concerts, DJ announcers drove home the anti-Pact, GOTV message. JUDENIC was also visiting universities and getting its message across with 100 banners placed around Managua, plus on Facebook. Through USAID’s support to Movimiento (via IRI), Movimiento began a major public relations push in October to get the CSE to get out ce dulas and documentos supletorios and to get citizens to pick them up. It was unclear if, caving under civil society pressure, the CSE would allow citizens to vote with the colilla (c e dula application receipt). Unfortunately, even if the CSE did, it would be at the last minute with no time left to get the word out. CSE President Roberto Rivas had already told Peter Brennan and others that this would not happen. Danika began work with Movimiento to be prepared in any case. We counted that, between Movimiento, IPADE, and JUDENIC, just in October alone, we had separate Get Out The Vote activities around the country in the lead up to Election Day. NDI continued to help Movimiento Por Nicaragua to ratchet up the pressure on the CSE to get out the c e dulas immediately. Movimiento also launched a campaign to get citizens to pick up remaining c e dulas already produced. Special spots, produced with NDI help, were now running on radio, explaining Articles 41 and 116 and how to vote if your name did not appear in the voter registry due to the famous ‘‘crazy rat’’ phenomena (‘‘rat on loco’’). The six Movimiento Citizen Attention Centers remained open, receiving citizen complaints. Movimiento had in place attorneys to take claims forward for prosecution if citizens began to complain of fraud, a concern of the Deputies Committee. In effect, with NDI help, Movimiento was the de facto ‘‘Fraud Center’’ for Nicaragua. If there were abuses, we would know about it, and Movimiento could respond with legal muscle and mass protest. One thing difficult for voters to understand was that the person elected did not need to win by a majority of votes cast; as a result of the Pact, the rules had been changed. To win outright in the first round, a candidate needed only 35% of the vote, provided he was also 5% above any other rival. In Washington, the Deputies Committee, meeting this month to review the Nicaragua situation, wondered if the Nicaraguan public might be more motivated

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to get out and vote if they understood what was at stake. We did not want to leave any stone unturned. Danika Walters and Victoria Alvarado talked to Pilar Martınez at Movimiento about this, and the nuance was incorporated into the Movimiento’s GOTV campaign messaging, being rolled out at a major rally at UNICIT and large plantones (marches) in major cities, including a multicity caravana of cars, plus announcements on Facebook. Other donors had cash to invest in the electoral process but did not have the kinds of operational mechanisms we had to make any donation effective. And they were rightfully wary about just writing a check to an organization without any proper oversight. I had suggested to other donors that rather than give cash to Nicaragua civil society or the CSE, they should work together with the USAID partners. They would not necessarily have to give IRI, NDI, or IFES the cash, but they could use those organizations to identify investment opportunities so that there was a reasonable assurance that the funds would be effectively invested with proper accountability. For example, through IRI, we were working closely with Movimiento. Taiwan provided parallel funding to Movimiento for seventy teachers from CONAPRO to have conversations (charlas) in schools across the country, coordinated with the Ministry of Education and emphasizing the importance of voting. By coordinating this way, Taiwan was assured that it was investing its funding well, and our programs were more effective with the additional parallel investments. Our hard work at donor coordination was paying dividends. The international electoral observation was another area obviously ripe for coordination. By mid October, we began to have a clearer picture of the composition of the OAS observer mission. They would have about 100 observers brought in by the OAS (37 already in country) plus about 35 local volunteers from various Embassies (20 from USA plus others from Japan, Norway, Sweden, and/or Canada). The Canadian contribution to the OAS had come through, so the OAS could plan to have another seventy or so university students arriving October 25th for two days of intense training, leaving for their polling locations by the 28th. A sufficient element of the OAS observer team planned to remain in place through November 19th to cover the challenges (impugnaciones) process. The OAS hoped to include three former presidents with the delegation: Sanguinetti (Uruguay), Ra ul Alfonsın (Argentina), and Osvaldo Hurtado (Ecuador). We now needed to make sure the international community, especially the OAS, did not pull any punches. The OAS needed to call it the way they saw it and not pull punches just to avoid controversy. We were also concerned that the OAS could attack the U.S. just to make it appear as if they were ‘‘balanced.’’ This in effect played into the ‘‘right versus left’’ mentality of the Cold War, rather than the ‘‘right versus wrong’’ approach. The OAS had been ‘‘soft’’ in Granada earlier, allowing electoral fraud to go unpunished. OAS critics said the institution shied away from controversy, only calling the very egregious cases. We had reason for concern in Nicaragua. In October, Ortega made a public speech deriding the electoral observers. CSE President Robert Rivas then incited the people to violence, telling them to stone any ‘‘interventionists,’’ a veiled reference to

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the Americans with words Fidel Castro would have understood well. The OAS appeared to be intimidated. We used diplomatic channels in Washington. Where were the credentials for the domestic and international observers? Why was the OAS silent about the slow distribution of voter ID cards? Why in the heat of the electoral observation was Gustavo Fernandez in Washington rather than Nicaragua running his show? Victoria Alvarado and Tim Smith from the Embassy met with the European Union electoral observation team on these points. The EU expressed its willingness to advocate on these issues, including accreditation for domestic observers at the CEM and CED levels and for the Computer Center. We followed up later with the EU to repeat the message and make sure they got it from the technical side. On October 31st, I had been invited to the Lincoln School to speak about what USAID was doing with the election. One of the students asked me if the U.S. Embassy was supporting any candidate. I explained that we were working for ‘‘right versus wrong, not right versus left.’’ I emphatically said we backed no candidate. I also added that Deputy Secretary Zoellick had said we did not support any particular candidate, but he hoped the Nicaraguans would select someone who fit three criteria: not corrupt or a criminal; a democrat who would rule democratically; and someone who was not organically anti-American. The next day, Bolsa de Mentiras published a front page article saying I had endorsed Eduardo Montealegre. The next day at work, I mentioned the article to Ambassador Trivelli. He said, ‘‘Yeah, what was that about?’’ I explained. He laughed and patted me on the back. I sighed with relief. His job was to carry out U.S. foreign policy, and I served under his direction. Although I was doing the best I could and hadn’t done anything wrong, there in the paper, I was (mis)quoted as saying something that we were not about. It had happened to him many times. People would now quote that article as ‘‘proof ’’ that we were interventionist. He understood what had happened to me. He didn’t need to say anymore. In part as a reaction to the ‘‘interventionist’’ label, the State Department in Washington issued press guidance to the Embassy in Managua: WHA PRESS GUIDANCE October 10, 2006 NICARAGUA: Upcoming Elections Q: Comment on Nicaraguan elections? A: - IT IS UP TO NICARAGUAN VOTERS TO CHOOSE THEIR LEADERSHIP. OUR POLICY, IN NICARAGUA AND AROUND THE GLOBE, IS TO SUPPORT DEMOCRACY. WE DO THIS BY SUPPORTING FREE, FAIR, TRANSPARENT, AND INCLUSIVE ELECTIONS, IN WHICH THE PEOPLE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ELECT THEIR LEADERS.

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- THE UNITED STATES HAS SPENT $15 MILLION DOLLARS OVER THE LAST YEAR TO SUPPORT NICARAGUAN GOVERNMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY EFFORTS TO PROMOTE VOTER EDUCATION AND PARTICIPATION; TO DOCUMENT VOTERS AND CLEAN UP THE ELECTORAL REGISTER; AND TO CONTRIBUTE TO VIGOROUS AND IMPARTIAL INTERNATIONAL OBSERVATION OF THE VOTE. Playing it safe, Washington decided to send its own White House Presidential electoral delegation to join the mission’s electoral observation. September was the last date to get CSE observer credentials, and we had not planned on having a White House delegation. So, ironically enough, we had to ask the CSE’s permission to allow for a late registry of international observers. Tim Smith did this in a low key meeting with Rodrigo Barreto, and Rodrigo came through for us. We also asked Washington-based heavy hitters to be here for the lead-up to the election. NDI’s regional director Jim Sweigert and deputy director Matt Dippell arrived, along with William J. Hybl, the IFES Chairman, and Richard W. Soudriette, the IFES CEO and President. For IRI, Shawn Sullivan (Regional Director) and Joe Agostini (Nicaragua program director) arrived a bit later, but in time for the election. The Ambassador sponsored a cocktail party for the visitors and other observers to show his personal appreciation for their involvement and commitment. But even as we geared up the international and domestic observers to detect fraud, even as we taught the party poll watchers to catch trickery, what we really wanted was a clean, fair, transparent, credible election. We wanted the CSE to succeed. One concern that electoral observers had was whether electricity could be used as cover for irregularities. What would happen at voting centers if voters could not see the ballots? Or if the electoral workers could not see to count the votes? Or if the domestic and international observers could not see? What if departmental election stations did not have electricity to transmit results to Managua? The press was rampant with speculation on this issue. In July 2001, USAID provided $530,000 to the CSE to support a four-month ‘‘Voter Cedulation Support Program’’ to increase the number of citizens eligible to vote with c e dulas. Also, USAID gave the CSE a budget of $570,967 to buy computers, printers, telephones, a server, and other high-tech equipment, including 45 Coleman electric generators (35 at 110V and 10 at 220V). The total cost of the Coleman Generators was $28,015. Even as the CSE was telling the press that it could not guarantee electricity and needed more equipment, we knew they had this prior equipment. I spoke with USAID’s top energy adviser, Juan Belt, with whom I had worked in Guatemala, but who was now based in Washington. I trusted Juan. Juan told me that the Bola~ nos administration had also raised the concern and was doing what it could to deal with the situation. We asked IFES to follow up to see where they might be now. We also worked the issue with the OAS. The OAS made inquiries. Based on this, they believed ENITEL, the national electric company,

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would have electric generators for transmission of data for the elections, and that this would not be a major problem. I was still nervous. As the month ended, our assistance to the CSE via IFES had racked up very impressive numbers. The 1-800-1273 toll free line made a huge impact. In the last week of October, the call center racked up 16,000 calls, reflecting an incredible interest in the election. At the end of September, the call line had had 123,485 calls. Many of these last-minute questions dealt with citizen questions about provisional voter ID cards (documentos supletorios). Calls over the last 10 days actually declined, reflecting the fact that these motivated voters had already applied for their voter ID cards and did not need the same help as before. IFES’ impression was that the local JRVs were not being manipulated by the dominant parties, the FSLN and the PLC. On the contrary, it would be nearly impossible for the CSE in Managua to control these groups. Under the electoral law framework, as enacted by the Pact, each JRV would contain three persons, a president and two others. The president was always either with the FSLN or the PLC. One of the other two slots would then go to whichever party did not have the presidency, again either the FSLN or the PLC, according to the case. The third person on the voter table could be from any of the parties, the FSLN, PLC, ALN, MRS, or AC. It depended on who applied for the opening and what the competition was. Our ‘‘back of the envelope’’ calculation was that JRV composition was about as follows: 35% FSLN, 35% PLC, 19% ALN, 8% AC, and 5% MRS. Party loyalty in Nicaragua was an issue for all parties. In mid October, we wondered about crossovers from the PLC to the ALN. On the margins of the CSE training programs, we talked with the JRV representatives. We noted that in some cases where the president of the table was PLC, there was crossover to the ALN. This could mean that on Election Day, the ALN would actually control that table. This phenomenon was also happening, albeit on a much smaller scale, between the FSLN and MRS, reflecting the fact that the traditional parties were losing some control at the local level. That same week, the USAID-assisted CSE Web site had 10,000 hits (for a total of over 74,900), again, a tribute to the interest in the election. The voter registry (padr on electoral) was now on the web site. In the final days leading up to the election, bowing to pressure, the CSE finally issued the last of the accreditation cards

Statistics on the Number of Polling Stations and the Number of Voting Tables for the Nicaragua National Election, November 2006 Rural

Urban

Total

Polling Stations (‘‘Centros de Votaci on’’)

2,841

1,455

4,296

Voting Tables (‘‘Juntas Receptoras de Voto’’ or JRV)

5,308

5,966

11,274

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for electoral observation: 16,000 domestic and 500 international. The CSE produced these with the printer provided by IFES. Although civil society had been bashing the CSE since the start of the year, the CSE had barely moved on issuing provisional ID cards. After the first week in October, production of these had not even started although the press cited the CSE as saying that it had! The CSE did not have the correct safety paper and complained that it couldn’t get it from any country. In the end, the CSE redesigned the card to incorporate other security measures (including microprint) to compensate so that they didn’t need safety paper. However, the new design was not approved until mid month. A new printer donated by Japan was on hand to get the job done but was not yet in use. Patricio Gajardo of the OAS believed the CSE could get the job done quickly. Earlier in the year, there were 38,000 old supplementary ID cards to be distributed, many of which had not been distributed because of errors or problems, including being outdated. Still, 23,000 of that earlier 38,000 had now been moved to the voter rolls and distributed, leaving 15,000 still in the problematic category. This was positive news even if not a complete success. In mid October, the CSE started to take action, and amazingly, just as Patricio Gajardo had predicted, in about a week, 214,452 provisional ID cards were finished. Distribution then began. The CSE decided to use ce dula security paper and did not go for ordinary paper although security paper was not available in Central America. Rebeca Cox of the EU observer mission reported to us that Roberto Rivas was stated clearly that the bus would not be used to distribute the documentos supletorios while Rodrigo Barreto stated clearly to us that it would. I never did hear what actually happened. Thanks to IFES, the CSE was able to make incredible progress training its own voter polling station staff. Over 10,000 members were trained just for urban Managua in just one weekend. Unlike prior elections, where the parties played a heavy role in the training, this time, the training was being done entirely by the CSE. This was a major step forward for institutionality and for checks and balances in the electoral system. IFES had been able to rescue some level of electoral administration. We were very disappointed that many people were disenfranchised by the CSE not getting voter ID cards out to the people. We were also upset about partisan politics being used to decide how, when, and to whom to distribute the voter ID cards already produced. In some sense, this was already fraud by the two parties that clearly controlled every single magistrate and important administrative position in the CSE: the FSLN and the PLC. As Election Day approached, we thought logistics might be the next biggest issue. So much with the CSE had been improvised and last minute. Another example of this came with the CSE’s Public Awareness Campaign. IFES was ready months in advance to help the CSE with an institutional get out the vote effort to cover the entire last month before the election. The CSE only approved the IFESassisted effort with just 10 days to go. IFES did its best, but these certainly were not ideal conditions.

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Still, albeit very quietly, we were making history in a way that could turn out to be huge. IFES estimated that, between distribution of existing c e dulas, new ce dula production, and the provisional ID cards (documentos supletorios), there were 400,000 new voters this time. Since these individuals were motivated to get their ID cards, they were likely to vote, especially in a country where more than 80% of the general population votes. The padr on had, realistically, about 2.8 million voters before. To add 400,000 new voters was very significant. It actually could decide the election. The national political campaigns continued in their classic, superficial mode while the country demographics had changed. Could this shake up traditional politics? No one knew how these people would vote. In part, our overwhelming success at getting new voters enrolled helped to explain the backlash within the CSE against our programs to enroll even more. Perhaps they had put the breaks on production and distribution precisely because an even greater influx of new voters would the electoral dynamic just too explosive. I strongly believe that the CSE at first did not know how effective these programs were at getting new voters enrolled. When they saw the statistics, they shut us down as bureaucrats do, with delays, obfuscation, and denials, while creating distractions like the false IRI allegations. We were too close to potentially changing the end result for the CSE’s comfort. They preferred the status quo of the Pact members that had appointed them. Nevertheless, this big bump in eligible voters was not good news for either the PLC or FSLN. Any time a country adds a massive number of new voters, it generates instability and a shakeup in politics, just as it did in Argentina and Chile. In both those cases, after a big percentage increase in eligible voters (but not even as big as what we had done in Nicaragua), incumbents were turned out. The Nicaraguan parties now smelt fear. I suspected that the traditional parties were likely to keep mounting smokescreens (like the attacks on IRI with trumped up electoral crime charges) while they desperately tried to manage the new environment and close off access for any additional new voters. The mood for the traditional parties in this context could be panic. This was a dangerous moment.

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18

The Election and Its Aftermath (November 2006)

Since July 2005, I had pounded on the theme that what we needed in Nicaragua was a program, not a Christmas tree. In 2001, we had over 20 USAID Foreign Service Officers arriving several months before the election and giving over twenty grants to different organizations, sometimes working at counterpurposes with different messaging. What a mess! This time I pledged to keep things simple. We had the CEPPS grant to do all the civil society, political party support, and technical assistance. Keeping checks and balances, we had a single grant to the OAS for international observation. OAS did not do technical assistance so that they had an incentive to call it the way they saw it, the first time for the OAS that they were not engaged on the assistance side. We kept management simple: two grant instruments. That was it. Simple. We were pressured by many outside groups that wanted a shot at the trough, and we held them all back with the mantra—a program, not a Christmas tree. We got the predictable complaints (e.g., ‘‘But we’ve gotten USAID grants in every prior election since 1990!’’), but every time I held the line. Just because we had allowed groups to complicate our management model in the past, and had fanned out grants across the development community, did not mean we had to continue. I pledged tight, focused management with an integrated program. Until just now. In late October, I was a bit busy. Then Alex Dickie came to my office and said one day, ‘‘You’re going to give a grant to the Red Cross for the elections.’’ What?!? I threw what probably can only be described as a bureaucratic temper tantrum. No matter. The decision had been made. I never knew who made the call or why or under what pressure: I could only speculate. I got an order, and my job was to do it.

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

The amount of the grant was not big—something like $20,000. It wasn’t a huge deal. But I was allergic to any violation of our principles of a program, not a Christmas tree. Besides, the reason for not having a Christmas tree was to allow for appropriate management and to provide appropriate supervision of scarce taxpayer resources. With the election on top of me, I wasn’t sure I could take on another grant and take it through the entire procurement process from design to formation to award in the few days I had before the election. I was focused on a much bigger strategic level. But my job was to implement the decision. As a loyal employee, I owed my boss my honest opinion. He listened and said to do it anyway. But I knew Alex also understood where I was coming from. So I accepted his order, but I also made a request. Carrie Mitchell was a new Foreign Service Officer assigned to the program office of the USAID mission. Would Alex lend me Carrie? I would supervise her, tell her what to do and how to do it, but I wanted the extra hand at this 11th hour to help me cross the finish line. Alex met me halfway, and agreed to Carrie helping me out for a few weeks. In the end, the Red Cross focused only on providing emergency medical help to anyone waiting in voting lines who needed assistance. We did not duplicate programs, and the Red Cross did not play a substantive role in electoral administration. Kudos to Carrie for designing a tightly choreographed program description that crafted an appropriate role for the Red Cross that moved our agenda forward, remained consistent to the vision, and didn’t take us too far toward the Christmas tree. In fact, the Red Cross component became an important complement to our other two grants with CEPPS and OAS, providing an additional, critical service. On October 31st, Nicaraguans got a bit of history delivered with their morning papers. Movimiento Por Nicaragua had come up with comic books, targeted at youth, that talked about the history of Nicaragua and laid out in salacious detail the mass theft over the generations, including the 1980s with the FSLN and the 1990s with the PLC, with the capstone being the Pact. Themes like enforced military service and the lack of jobs, water, food, and shelter that the Nicaraguan citizenry faced during that period are ingeniously reflected throughout the characters’ experiences. Furthermore, the story emphasizes the key cases of corruption that took place during the period and encourages young people to vote. La Prensa delivered 40,000 copies, and HOY another 20,000 copies. The same comic book then came out on November 1st from El Nuevo Diario. The publications were a supplement which USAID supported out of the anticorruption program, under a subgrant to Movimiento. If anyone really wants to know how Nicaragua got where it is today, that is the thing to read. On the night the CSE ordered campaigning to conclude, the FSLN had a caravan that passed by the USAID offices. Danika and I were still at work, and with thousands passing in front, there was no way we were leaving any time soon. After some time, we saw Daniel Ortega himself drive by. He stood atop a vehicle, and as he passed Danika and me, he waived a machete in the air in a circle as the crowd jerked anti-Yankee epitaphs, all the while the Nicaraguanized version of

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2006)

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‘‘Give Peace A Chance’’ blared from the loudspeakers so loud it made my ears ring. Honestly, the guy looked like an escapee from a maximum-security prison. What was with the machete? Was this guy a complete joke? In this day and age of modern democracy, what was his deal threatening us that way? Where was the guy that said he supported the Inter-American Democratic Charter? He was doing his best to play the ‘‘populist against the Yankee giant’’ card. That night he was clearly not the moderate, reformed, democratic, European-style socialist he liked to portray to foreign investors and diplomats. This was the old school, unreformed, edgy Ortega. And he was flaky at that. As a student, I had worked as a resident aide at Hearthside Rehabilitation Center and had dealt with emotionally disabled and dangerous individuals. Had those patients wielded a machete in a threatening manner, I suspected what would happen to them. The difference here was this guy was the top contender to become a Head of State. The pieces of our international electoral observation were falling into place. Gustavo Fernandez and Patricio Gajardo of the OAS met with the Ambassador and me on November 1st to discuss last-minute details. Fernandez said he thought Ortega basically had it in the bag. He noted all the polls for several years running, projecting an Ortega win. I felt he was preparing the U.S. Embassy, about as softly as he could, for what was most likely to happen—an Ortega win. The OAS may have been concerned about how the United States would react. Would it recognize the result? But Ambassador Trivelli told him in private what he said a thousand times in public: ‘‘We want a transparent, participatory, credible, and legitimate election.’’ He didn’t say it, but he could easily have added the very words from George Bush on Iraq: ‘‘Let the chips fall where they may.’’ While I was at the Embassy with the OAS, IFES President Soudriette and Rafael Lopez Pintor were meeting with Alex Dickie and Danika Walters. For better or worse, the stars were lining up. The USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America, Mark Silverman, was also in town, and we met with him the next day for a briefing and lunch along with USAID Deputy Director Carol Horning and Danika. Game day was approaching. Early morning on November 3rd, two days before the election, I got an emergency call at my home. The USAID building was on fire! We were told to stay away. As I hung up, Luıs Fernando Ubeda called. The fire was already being reported on Radio Ya, he informed me. I wondered how an FSLN-affiliated radio station knew about this already and was already broadcasting live from the scene? Did this have a political underpinning? Was this arson? Terrorism? Was the radio station tipped off ahead of time? Who did this? And why? I thought about how Patricio Gajardo had been set up with a mysterious flat tire only to have his license confiscated and become a suspect of media speculation. I thought about how the media were used for political purposes to attack IRI with trumped up criminal charges. The attacks on me by the press for statements at Lincoln School and the CSE. The bugging of our cell phones. Nicaragua was such an overpoliticized place that it made you think that way. But I had to pinch myself—sometimes an accident is just, well, an accident.

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

When MRS presidential candidate Herty Lewites died, many thought (and still think) he was killed, that it was a murder. In the end, the evidence suggested he died of natural causes. I warned myself not to rush to judgment but also to take prudent precautions. I made sure I knew where my family members were and double-checked the locks on the house. Next I called Alex Dickie, the USAID director. He was actually at the office! He was supervising the firefighters. He was making sure documents were preserved. He was assessing the damage and making contact with the Embassy on how to get contractors there to fix the place. Smoke still permeated the building, and I wasn’t sure how safe it really was to go in. Several embassy facilities management experts arrived, and we were able to inspect the damage. The firefighters put out the blaze, which apparently started on the roof. It had gotten into the electrical system and spread. A good chunk of half of the top floor of our two-story building was soaked. My office was spared. A Washington construction expert from the Overseas Building Office (OBO) of the State Department happened to be in town since we were planning construction of a new Embassy the following year. OBO advised they could help us get back into our offices in perhaps four or six weeks. Alex thanked them and then worked with the executive officer, David Hallengren, to call a private contractor. Working through the procurement process with incredible expertise, Alex and David had local contractors on the ground that same day, working repairs, ventilating the offices for smoke, and drying up the water. Miraculously, we ended up losing just one business day due to the fire. This was a testament to the management genius under pressure by our director and our executive officer. The regional security office investigated the cause of the fire along with the Managua fire department. They were able to determine with a reasonable degree of certainty that an electric surge had blown up a transformer several blocks away. The destroyed transformer then let loose a huge surge of electricity that literally blew the fuse box off the USAID roof, igniting the fire. I was convinced there was no foul play, although some to this day believe it was an intentional part of some conspiracy to either intimidate or punish us—in essence, terrorism. As part of the domestic observation, ET needed volunteers to staff its command center. My son Daniel was a freshman at the Lincoln School in Managua, so I spoke with the school’s director, Adolfo Gonzalez. Adolfo offered about 30 of his top students as volunteers to ET. Students had to compete to join by writing an essay on why this was important for Nicaraguan democracy, and their parents had to consent. Daniel competed and was selected. So I ended up having a special inside source on how the domestic observation really unfolded. Tim and Danika headed up the U.S. delegation’s command center. As the team leader, I could have insisted on a top role, but I actually preferred to be in the field on Election Day. I wanted to see the action firsthand. I wanted to taste, smell, feel, and hear the election. And I wanted to go where all our intelligence indicated there might be problems.

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Electoral observers usually go out in pairs. I was teamed with Ron Perkel. This was no accident—since I was the team leader for democracy programs, I could choose my partner, and I wanted to work with Ron. Ron and I had actually known each other since law school days at the University of Wisconsin in the mid 1980s. Ron was a consular officer with the Embassy. Before Ron joined the State Department, he had worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and in Palau in the South Pacific, he was the government’s top legal adviser. Prior to coming to Nicaragua, he was the administrative officer for the U.S. Embassy in Quito, Ecuador. I was thrilled to link back up with my old Wisconsin buddy. On the eve of the election, Ron and I set out for Chinandega and Jinotega. Chinandega and Jinotega had been ground zero of the old contra war of the 1980s. Today, the mountainous department still had severe poverty with little health care and rough infrastructure. The PLC had counted it as a stronghold. But during the 1990s, the FSLN made a concerted attempt to penetrate the region and organize the grassroots. Given its distance from Managua, the MRS was nearly invisible. I wondered whether the ALN had any traction at all here so far from urban Managua. Observers start out at an assigned JRV and witness the opening procedures. Once the election day is in motion, the observers can move among JRVs at a polling station and can even travel from one polling station to another throughout the day. But before voting closes, the observer must be back to the same JRV as at the start of the day. That way, the observer can attest to how the day opened and closed at the same location. Ron and I were at a remote school with just two JRVs in the entire polling station. We had both ET and IPADE observers with us. As domestic observers, they stay put with the JRV and do not go out to other JRVs or other polling stations. The president of the table was with the FSLN, and the other members were PLC and ALN. In our JRV, there were poll watchers from each of the parties. The MRS representative was from Managua and had no connection with the community. This would be a major disadvantage if there was a contentious issue over whether a member of the community should be allowed to vote or not. But as luck would have it, the issue did not come up at our table. During the final days of the campaign, the PLC released false polls that showed Rizo was surging, running neck and neck with Ortega, as if the FSLN and PLC were the only real parties in contention. As the campaign wound down, PLC leader Enrique Qui~ nones went on a tirade against the female ALN candidates for National Assembly. The Rizo campaign played up scenes and footage of him meeting with Congressman Dan Burton, implying that the United States really backed Rizo. Congressman Burton tried to meet with all the candidates when he was in Nicaragua, a fact not highlighted by the PLC for obvious reasons. The PLC then played a surprise card. They invited Oliver North back to Nicaragua. North wrote a column endorsing Rizo, saying that the United States had mistakenly endorsed Eduardo Montealegre. North was completely duped by the PLC, but the damage was done. The PLC then used the images of North, together with American flags, in TV ads to try to show the PLC had the U.S. endorsement.

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THE NEW NICARAGUA

With all that was going, the last thing we needed was some loose cannon from the United States engaging in private freelance diplomacy and pretending to speak for the American Embassy. Just when it looked like Eduardo Montealegre could push the election to a second round, that PLC dirty trick was a doozy. The PLC had pushed the rumor for months that the United States talked ‘‘right versus wrong’’ but in the end would revert to its traditional ‘‘right versus left’’ ideology. North was considered the high priest of that ideological religion, and his presence cemented for many, both in Nicaragua and in the United States, that the United States had sold out. People thought the United States had blinked and gone for the rightwing PLC and Rizo. Nicaraguans had a basis for cynicism about U.S. policy in elections. We had backed Aleman in 1996. In the summer of 2001, it was former COSEP president, cotton farmer, and rancher from Masaya, then Vice President under Aleman, Enrique Bola~ nos Geyer, who went to Washington to tell the USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios that if the FSLN won, it would be USAID’s fault, leading USAID to jump in with a multimillion dollar assistance package only several months before the election (the famous Christmas tree approach). But this was not a new idea. Way before the world had ever heard of Daniel Ortega, back in 1928, then Nicaraguan president Adolfo Dıaz pleaded for U.S. involvement and intervention, noting American participation in the elections ‘‘will spare Nicaragua the horrors of Bolshevism.’’ I give Ambassador Trivelli a lot of credit for changing all this, refusing to buckle, and sticking to the moral high ground. Besides, the PLC with Aleman had become indistinguishable from the FSLN. At least with the FSLN, you knew what you got. Political cynicism is so ingrained in Latin culture that it permeates the literature. Juan Rulfo wrote one of the classics of Latin American literature: Nos han dado la tierra. Set in postrevolutionary Mexico, it tells the story of a peasant waiting for the arrival of agrarian reform. It was never going to arrive. Each day, the peasant walks by plots of land belonging to the right, hearing the dogs bark, wondering when he is to get his parcel of land. Corruption and bureaucracy would prevent him from ever getting any benefit from the revolution. The story rings true across Latin America. I had a personal grudge against North. My father was a career military man. He served his country nobly and honorably, and reached the rank of Colonel—the same as North. But North’s actions in the 1980s were a shame to military service. He illegally gave weapons to Iran. He dishonored America. I know exactly what would happen to me if I tried to give millions of dollars worth of property that did not belong to me—U.S. government property—to Iran of all places. North handed the blood money he got from the Ayatollah in exchange over to the counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua, the so-called Contras. Congress had passed legislation strictly forbidding support to the Contras. What he did in Nicaragua in the 1980s wasn’t ‘‘technically’’ illegal: it was notoriously illegal and immoral. North freelanced with foreign policy and almost got Ronald Reagan impeached as a result. To get the truth out, Congress extended him immunity from prosecution. This in turn all but destroyed the government’s

THE ELECTION AND ITS AFTERMATH (NOVEMBER

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ability to throw the book at him. So he went on television to say the courts had found him ‘‘innocent.’’ What a sham. To this day, Costa Rica maintains criminal charges against him for money laundering in San Jose. And now North was at his freelancing again, causing damage to U.S. interests through his own arrogance and ignorance. After the official close of the campaign, following the Oliver North scam, the PLC played another dirty trick. The PLC sent out announcements, allegedly from the ALN, with a falsified letter from Eduardo Montealegre saying he had stepped down as a candidate, leaving the PLC as the only liberal option. The PLC then added a radio onslaught saying the U.S. Embassy was pressuring Montealegre to quit. There was no time for the ALN to respond to these lies before the election. Because polls were now stopped, it is impossible to say what the impact of that maneuver was, but since Ortega only needed 35 percent, and just got 38 percent, that trick may have taken a percentage point or two from Montealegre. Ron Perkel and I observed the electoral process in the Chinandega and Jinotega Departments. In theory, each voting station was to open at 7 a.m. But given the elaborate preparations, Ron’s junta did not open its doors to the public until 8 a.m., and mine didn’t open until after 9 a.m., possibly the record for the latest in the country. During the day, between the two of us, we observed processes, at least briefly, in close to 80 voter stations (JRVs) in and between two cities, several in voting centers not on the Master List given to us by the electoral authorities. Several juntas had no lines, and the directly adjoining poll had waits of 5.5 hours. In my voting booth, the first person to vote was an elderly, disabled woman. Everyone was following the new policies we had worked to put in place to promote voter access for all citizens, even the disabled. I was thrilled to see this. As a student of history, I also remembered that in 1990, Ortega was predicted to win. But voter turnout was massive. Even some voters with physical disabilities that practically never left the home came out to vote. That turnout elected Violeta Barrios de Chamorro despite the polls. Would history repeat itself? Our voter assistance workers (edicanes) were at work at every polling station we visited. The disabled, the blind, the deaf, everyone was voting. I was teary-eyed. This was a tangible, measurable impact. More importantly to me, we were transforming the lives of ordinary, humble, poor, marginalized people. Their voices would be heard. All day long, we also saw the Red Cross making its rounds, again thanks to the American people through our program. It was hot, and as people stood in long lines, sometimes for hours, they suffered in the heat. The Red Cross was there to help anyone that needed immediate help. In the meantime, I had stacked up on my own supply of water bottles, but as we visited each location, I kept giving away my bottles to people who were suffering with thirst. By the end of the day, my supply was gone, but it was fine: they needed it more than I did. In the evening, we returned to the scene of the morning’s crime of late starts where the process of closing, counting, scrutinizing, and packing at Ron’s junta

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did not conclude until 2 a.m. Mine did not close up until after 3:30 a.m., perhaps the latest in the country. We then had over an hour’s drive to get back to our hotel. Needless to say, we were both exhausted. Between the two of us, we each had enough material to fill a completely separate book with, as Ron put it, ‘‘head-banging, eye-rolling incompetence, frustration, impatience, and inexcusable delay to write a small book.’’ But all that incompetence, delay, and frustration was not the whole story. Obviously, what we saw was not Managua or Granada, and we only saw what we saw. But what Ron and I observed was, in Ron’s words: An election overwhelmingly conducted fairly, freely, without fear, or the threat thereof, without violence or its suggestion, with transparency, accountability and scrutiny exercised to a fault. Where fiscales acted in cooperation and camaraderie among themselves and the presiding members, even as they prosecuted their own interests. Where presiding members, though often woefully inadequate, as pointed out, in skills of math, form-filling nuance, and time and motion efficiency, executed their responsibilities with seriousness, earnestness, gravity, and even grace after the exhaustion of functioning nonstop for a marathon twenty-plus hours. In short, we witnessed ordinary people engaging in extraordinary performances of civic responsibility in ways that even mature democracies too often take for granted and lose through apathy, cynicism, and media exhaustion. As electoral observation works, observers open and close at the same exact location. So we returned to where we started. At my polling booth, we had party poll watchers from all five parties: the ALN, PLC, FSLN, MRS, and AC. Party poll watchers get to vote wherever they work whether they are registered to vote at that table or not. At the end of the night, we all counted the votes together with the three electoral officials manning the station. The AC didn’t get a single vote. The AC party poll watcher laughed: he hadn’t even voted for his own party’s candidate. He confessed; he was actually with the FSLN and had voted for Daniel. At our table, the FSLN won by a landslide. The PLC was a distant second, followed by the ALN. MRS had only a few votes. The MRS party poll watcher noted that even he came from Managua since they couldn’t find anyone in the neighborhood to serve as a poll watcher. I realized that the traditional parties had maintained a monopoly over the rural vote. I wondered what was going on at the national level. All things considered, Ron and I concluded that what we had observed was nothing short of remarkable. Voter turnout was massive. Despite all the poverty and all the administrative constraints, Nicaraguans came out and exercised their democratic rights and showed the world a democratic and peaceful civic selection process. The night of the election, our voting booth did not end its counting and recounting and recounting until past 3:30 a.m. Cell phones cannot be used in polling stations, so back at the command center in Managua, no one knew what happened to us. I think we were the very last group of observers to report back to

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Managua. About all I said were the final count numbers and that I would call again the next day. The day after the election, Monday, November 6, 2006, Ron and I linked up with other international observers in the general region in other cars and went in caravan fashion back to Managua. I was exhausted. I called in with my report and got the full debrief from Danika on the night’s events. National-level early returns showed Montealegre in the lead in a neck-and-neck battle with Ortega. Even if Ortega won, he was nowhere near five percentage points over Montealegre. It looked like a runoff was in the offing. However, as the counting wore on, and returns came in from ever more remote areas, the tide turned in favor of both the FSLN and the PLC. Rumors began to fly that the ‘‘fix’’ was coming in from the CSE. All along in the process, the CSE had been suspected of fraud. Having allowed fraud in the municipal election in Granada earlier, its credibility was already shot. In such a close race, where a few percentage points mattered, international observers are unable to make a difference. And the public was not about to believe the CSE no matter what it said now. To the rescue, ironically, was the domestic observation that the CSE had for so long opposed through antagonistic attacks in the press and slow processing of credentials. But when the credibility of the process was on the line, the CSE turned to Etica y Transparencia to announce the results of its parallel quick count which confirmed the CSE results. In case anyone wondered about whether ET could have been in cahoots with the CSE on a fix, we had Deborah Ullmer, Melissa Estok, and Neil Nevitte all there with ET as the process unfolded. My own son Daniel, a local ET volunteer through the Lincoln School, was in the ET command center and confirmed the process for me. It was close, but it was an Ortega victory and by more than the required five percent. In the end, Daniel Ortega (FSLN) won the race with 37.99 percent of the vote with Eduardo Montealegre (ALN) trailing with 28.30 percent, Jose Rizo (PLC) with 27.1 percent, Edmundo Jarquın (MRS) with 6.29 percent, and Eden Pastora (AC) with just 0.29 percent. I found it ironic that the credibility of the FSLN victory rested on USAID technical assistance in guaranteeing a free, fair, and credible election administration along with American support for domestic electoral observation so that the Nicaraguan people could believe their own government. I didn’t wait for a ‘‘thank you’’ card from Ortega. Ron sent around an email to the group with his own observations about the election: The thing that needs to be said, in light of the above, impartial recognition of democratic action, is the recognition due to USAID in ensuring, from where I stood (and I stood practically the entire day), a democratic triumph of civic and community will. Organizing the observance was the least of it. USAID labored for well over one year to ensure that all parties, all communities, and all actors, without favor or political promotion of one ideology over another, for that is the true test of democratic assistance, received the

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resources, training and confidence to function effectively nation-wide in a poor and politically divided politic. That the process came off as effectively as occurred is testimony to how far, in fact, the country has really come in fifteen years. In particular, it is the Democracy Initiatives Office that earned its stripe and its chief, Steve Hendrix, deserves a medal, and perhaps, even more, his elections processes adviser, Danika Walters. There are only a few moments in life when we can tell our children, and grandchildren, and more importantly, ourselves, that we truly made a difference. Danika, this is one of those moments. Not to be forgotten, though, is the recognition owed to the locally hired Nicaraguan staff that toiled to ensure this victory of democratic process. Many of them feel embittered, betrayed, depressed, and dejected by a substantive result that dismayed and overwhelmed them. And this was not just an academic exercise. Many people, many of them first citizens of Nicaragua and second employees of a foreign government embassy, had real and direct economic and personal interests at stake, perhaps even jeopardized by Sunday’s outcome. How, then, to make them see, even more so, the truly heroic and selfless nature of their efforts? How much easier and more satisfying to channel resources and expertise to ideological allies? But this they did not do, for this, rightly, was not their mission. The proof is their very real disappointment. And in that irony is the truth and beauty of Sunday’s lesson. Nicaraguans said in one voice, above the political fray and ideological passion, we are all democrats exercising our right to be heard, to express our political will, and participate in the forming of our government. This, this process of self-determination, is more important than the form of the government itself. And this reality will not, cannot, and we in the embassy community must not let it, be forgotten by the country’s new leaders both in power and in opposition. Nicaraguan staff of our embassy community, you, more than any other actor, made me the proudest. On Tuesday, November 7th, I was still feeling exhausted. I was thinking that I had worked so hard for so long and kept up the fight, that now that it was all over, my body was in let down mode. I went to Ginger Waddell’s office and sank into a couch in her office. Ginger was not only one of the best program officers in USAID, she was also fantastic at keeping up our spirits and making sure the team had a positive morale. But I needed more. ‘‘Do you have any ibuprofen?’’ I asked. By the end of the day, I was admitted to intensive care at the local hospital. It was not exhaustion. But I had some sort of food poisoning, was dehydrated, and extremely weak. The Embassy nurse visited me in the hospital, but I barely had any energy to talk to her. She talked with the emergency room doctor and my wife, and they began making plans for my medical evacuation back to the United States. The next day, with the wonder of massive antibiotics and intravenous fluids, I was more alert. I learned that I might miss work for four to six weeks. Preparations were under way to have me shipped out of country. Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi used to say, ‘‘Winners never quit and quitters never win.’’ I was in Nicaragua to win. I didn’t want to quit. I was

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not leaving. On Thursday, I checked myself out of the hospital. I called David Hallengren, USAID’s executive officer, and asked him to cancel any plans to send me off. On Friday, I was in the office. I may not have been at the top of my game, and I was still taking medicines, but I was back. I didn’t quit. The elections were over, but the CSE delayed in issuing the exact final vote tally. Civil society wondered if the CSE was playing with national assembly seats. ET’s Roberto Courtney and NDI’s Deborah Ullmer met with the Ambassador, Victoria Alvarado, Danika, and me on November 16th to discuss ET’s legislative parallel count and possible areas for civil society to assist political parties in scrutinizing CSE results. The electoral calendar gave political parties just 72 hours to challenge the CSE’s preliminary electoral results. Although the period for political parties to officially challenge electoral results was set to expire November 17th, MRS and ALN had yet to receive a complete list of polling station results from the CSE. Since the PLC and FSLN were the CSE, we assumed they had the results through that channel. ET contacted ALN and MRS following our meeting to provide missing information on specific polling stations based on ET’s parallel count. ET also briefed the international observers on the situation and held a press conference to maintain public pressure on the CSE. Meanwhile, Movimiento issued a press release demanding that the final results be made public. I spoke with Rafael Lopez Pintor. ‘‘What is going on at the CSE?’’ I asked him. ‘‘They have the results. Why don’t they just put the results on the Web page so that everyone will stop complaining and recognize the results? Is there something we aren’t getting?’’ Rafael knew our frustration. He, too, wished the CSE would just publish the results. Since IFES had helped the CSE all along, it looked bad for IFES if the CSE was seen to be playing games. However, Rafael hypothesized a rationale why the CSE might not want to publish full results. He explained to me that in every national election, in every country, there is always some level of error. If you add up all the voter tables, you will get a different vote count every time. Recount after recount will continue to give different results. That could undermine faith in the election results. The CSE had been beaten up by civil society for the past year and was fearful of being taken to task yet again. They felt like punching bags and were trying to avoid further controversy. Rafael’s explanation reminded me of the biblical parable of the talents attributed to Jesus. Three servants were each given a talent. One buried it, knowing his master was severe. The second invested it with low risk but low return. The third invested for high gain with high risk. In the parable, the one that did the best was the highest risk taker. The master took away the talents from the other two and gave them to the third servant since he did the best by the master. In this case, the master was the Nicaraguan public. The CSE was trying to bury the electoral results to avoid any risk, and in the process, was a very poor performer. What a pity for Nicaragua. That was if Rafael’s interpretation was true. Since he was probably the most knowledgeable person on the planet about electoral administration, and since he

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knew the CSE from the inside, I thought we could go to the bank with his take on events. But Washington was not so sure. The Nicaraguan press was feeding speculation that something sinister was afoot: figures were being fudged. Months went by and the results never did come out. I’m not sure anyone but the CSE itself really knows what happened. Rafael’s take on it was the most plausible. However, in the worst case, the PLC may have lost a seat or two to the FSLN. Since both were in the Pact, I wasn’t sure what difference that would make. It was unfair to the PLC, but the PLC created these conditions themselves. I wasn’t that upset. And I knew in time, the local press, political parties, and Washington would all move on anyway. What choice did they have? Because the presidency had gone to the FSLN and the Pact, I turned to damage control. We had to salvage what we could as far as checks and balances. The Pact would control the executive, electoral, and legislative—a clean sweep of unchecked power. So we looked to civil society, human rights, academia, and the media to be a check on unfettered power. Still I feared what Woodrow Wilson warned: ‘‘The concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human initiative, and therefore of human energy.’’ Our continued work with the National Assembly’s appointments of the new Attorney General and Supreme Court Magistrates was on the front burner. Luıs Ubeda and I had been working closely with Movimiento, CONADER, Hagamos Democracia, CPDH, and other interested groups on an integrated strategy for making selection of the new Fiscal General (Attorney General) and new Supreme Court Magistrates a much more transparent, participatory process. I published a column on the need for the new criminal code which appeared in El Nuevo Diario. We signed up former Costa Rican attorney general Jorge Chavarria as a new consultant on our rule of law team. On the anticorruption side, USAID sponsored a major media push for passage of the Access to Information law in coordination with the Chamorro Foundation. If the FSLN was going to run every branch of government without checks and balances, perhaps civil society could at least know what was happening. We organized a retreat for journalists with a view toward a broad campaign against corruption. Preeti Shaw of the Embassy’s public affairs office joined the retreat organized by Luz Marina Garcia and Mariela Lanzas. At the same time, we selected participants to attend the global anti-corruption conference in Guatemala organized by Transparency International. I feared the local civil society could get cut off from their counterparts in other countries due to the political developments in Nicaragua. In the human rights and anticorruption lines of work, networking was critical. To continue to promote and apply good governance best practices from other countries, and in the spirit of mainstreaming anticorruption across sectors, we sent a delegation of 21 participants to attend Transparency International’s 12th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Guatemala from November 14th to18th. Another new ‘‘nontraditional’’ partner group for us was the Centro Valdivieso. The Valdivieso Center was connected to dozens of faith-based groups from the

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United States that come to Nicaragua for short terms on health, education, or construction visits. U.S. Presbyterian pastor Gary Campbell, now retired, was one of the important figures at the Center. This new association could be an important bridge to these constituency groups. Regarding the political party financing issue, we continued to move forward on various fronts via the Citizen’s Network for Transparency (‘‘Red Ciudadanıa Por la Transparencia’’). On November 23rd, Grupo Fundemos, one of the five civil society organizations that make up the coalition Citizens in Favor of Transparency in Politics, held a press conference to officially launch an awareness campaign to mobilize support for reform in political party finance. The campaign targeted young people, and it included posters, compact discs, radio and television spots, and stickers. In addition, the campaign included two innovative strategies: banners in public spaces nationwide and an awareness spot shown before a movie, currently in Cinemark Metro Centro movie theaters. The press conference was attended by 30 journalists representing radio, written press, and television. While the event did not receive coverage in the major written media, the main television channels and radio covered it extensively. Lastly, this campaign was engineered to nourish and feed the agenda for reform being produced by the coalition to be released in January. At the same time, via IPADE, the network was finalizing the Manual for Monitoring Public and Private Financing of Political Parties. With the Institute for Strategic and Public Policy Studies (IEEPP), we launched a new effort to use tools from social auditing at the municipal level but applied them to the national budget instead. As this started, activities focused generally on the national budget with particular emphasis on the education and health components (synergies with other USAID programs in follow-up to the anti-corruption mainstreaming retreat and strategy) and the Chinandega and Leon Departments (again, synergies with MCC, as per mainstreaming strategy). Javier Melendez at IEEPP was leading this, working alongside Gerardo Berthın and Luz Marina Garcıa. We set our kickoff for December. We also set out to apply social auditing tools to national university spending and higher education reform, working with JUDENIC. In Nicaragua, the constitution specifies that 6 percent of the national budget has to go to universities. How this gets divvied up, however, is far from transparent. This subgrant was extremely modest but on point. Separately, USAID had an aggressive campaign under way to restructure university legal education with CONADER, the coalition of the country’s 23 law schools, and that was moving ahead very well. With the election over, we felt the need to coordinate even more closely with other donors. In anticipation, over a three-month period, we met with other anticorruption donors bilaterally in order to establish possible areas of collaboration with them and ensure no conflicts or duplication of effort. Ambassador Trivelli requested that USAID review the geographic reach of all our programs in poor and otherwise disadvantaged areas. USAID worked with job growth, education, health care, and the environment in addition to democracy.

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We might, for example, need to increase attention in areas like Matagalpa, Jinotega, or the northern Atlantic (RAAN). The Ambassador knew that a new government without checks and balances would find it hard to resist corruption. And the poor were the ones hardest hit with corrupt governance. He wanted to see if we could cushion that blow. This Ambassador had his priorities right. The Ambassador also noted the importance of considering agendas from groups like COSEP and Movimiento por Nicaragua. There were only two years to go between now and the next elections (municipal), so electoral reforms should not be delayed. Subjects like constitutional, judicial, and education reform needed to be examined. Even as the dust was settling on the November 5th national election, we began to focus on the next development stage and got to work. We needed to restructure our CEPPS program. In our earlier planning, we had to be prepared in case there was a second electoral round. Since Ortega had won outright in the first round, we needed to amend our strategy. We asked our CEPPS partners for their best ideas as to how to reprogram our assistance to jumpstart our new approach. After my hospitalization early in the month following the grueling election and after the immediate transition that was happening postelection, I needed a moment to stop and breathe. My wife came to the rescue. She taught at the Lincoln School. The school’s patrons, the Vogel family, sponsored a dinner for the teachers, and I got to go as ‘‘the spouse.’’ Julia and I had a great time relaxing with the other teachers and escaping the political life for one night. Also, leaving the kids behind didn’t hurt either! The next day was Thanksgiving, and Julia once again prepared the spread for all my Nicaraguan employees plus a lot of Americans, too, as she did the year before. Julia keeps me sane and, dare I say, happy. That Saturday, Monica Drazba from the USAID executive office had a party at her house for people from work. By the end of the weekend, my attitude had been adjusted, and I was recharged. On November 28th, Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon was again in Managua. He thanked all of us for our hard work. He made us feel appreciated even as he listened to options for how we might adjust our ideas under an Ortega administration. His visit showed Nicaraguans that the United States was not going to run or hide. Ambassador Trivelli had done exactly what Tom had asked, so I hoped that in private at least, the Ambassador got reassurances that he too had done outstanding work. I would be remiss if I did not add one reflection about family life in the Foreign Service. I had been working hard for weeks in the run up to the Election. The weekend of the election, Ron and I had left early Saturday morning for Chinandega, and we didn’t come back until late on Monday. Shortly thereafter, I was in the hospital and didn’t really re-engage until the following week. But while I was focused on all that, I was not focused on my family. Apparently, shortly after my departure on Saturday, my wife, daughter, and two sons went out and got a new dog. I’m not a huge fan of pets, but this seems to be a recurrent theme in our family—we already had two cats and another dog. I wasn’t pleased to come home

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from the hospital to find Teddy, perhaps the ugliest puppy in all Nicaragua. But sometimes, if I am going to be in the Foreign Service, and my family makes sacrifices because of my career, I have to be a bit flexible and allow for a few compromises along the way. For anyone wanting a career in the Foreign Service, or anyone with a position requiring family sacrifice, a dog is probably the least you can do.

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Refocusing (December 2006)

On Friday, December 1st, Carlos Marıa Jimenez, Luıs Fernando Ubeda, and I met with our rule of law partners. It was suggested that National Assembly members be invited to explain, before the public and media, how officials will be selected. This and other advocacy initiatives were already part of a series of activities that were planned through the new coalition integrated by Movimiento, Hagamos Democracia, CPDH, and Pro Justicia. The new civil society alliance temporarily called itself the inelegant name of the Citizen Grouping for Justice and the Rule of Law Agrupaci on Ciudadana por la Justicia y el Estado de Derecho. The event was covered by print, radio, and television media. On December 4th, USAID’s justice program signed a subgrant agreement with Movimiento that included an extensive media campaign demanding the transparent selection of Magistrates and the Fiscal. That same day, I met with the Embassy team to discuss how civil society was getting involved with the selection of the new Fiscal General and Supreme Court Magistrates. This new civil society group developed an action plan to advocate for the transparent and merit-based selection of justice sector officials, including the Fiscal General and the Fiscal General Adjunto (assistant attorney general). Initially, the group held a press conference on November 28th and launched a series of forums starting November 30th to highlight the importance of the Judicial Career Law and to define the profiles for the selection of senior justice sector officials. While we expected 30 to 45 for the initial event at the Princess Hotel, 120 persons showed up, including media. The group’s strategy also included an extensive media campaign that includes appearances on key radio and television shows, development of informational TV ads and radio spots, and press releases in major newspapers. Despite all this, I noted that the power of the Pact should not be underestimated, and we were hearing that the Assembly might ignore all civil society

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efforts and nominate individuals selected behind closed doors who are loyal to the Pact. I did not want expectations for actual impact on selection to be high, but I believed that this demonstrated a new way civil society was beginning to flex its muscle on policy reform issues, even if they were not successful this time around. Even as we worked on the politics of the justice sector, we also kept pushing on the nuts and bolts issues. In collaboration with the USAID-assisted Women’s Rights Coalition and the Youth and Adolescent Rights Coalition, we organized new access to justice fairs in Leon and Granada. These fairs are aimed at educating the population about their legal rights as well as access to justice issues. We also kept up work on improving how the justice sector operates. If the justice sector could operate according to rules as opposed to political influences, that could be an effective check on abuse of power. On the front burner was improving criminal investigation through forensic medicine. We also continued our administrative help in the justice sector. In December, we worked toward this end by strengthening the National Inter-Institutional Criminal Justice System Commission (NICJSC) and redesigning the administrative structure for the Organized Crime Unit of the Public Ministry. With the NICJSC, we provided technical assistance to the National Inter-Institutional Technical Commission (NITC) in designing and creating a Technical Secretariat for the NICJSC. During a meeting with the NICJSC the first week of December, the NITC presented its recommendations for the creation of this Technical Secretariat, which was approved by all members of the NICJSC. Even while the executive, legislative, judicial, and electoral branches of government were in the Pact’s hands, we remained integral to the institutionality and sustainability of the justice sector. With the Public Ministry, we helped the institution to develop a new organizational structure for the Organized Crime Unit of the Public Ministry. The new organizational structure includes a definition of policies and procedures, a determination of required human resources, and a distribution of responsibilities by geographic coverage. With the election now over, it was time to take stock of what worked and what hadn’t. We took a close look at, among other things, our justice facilitator program. We sponsored an evaluation workshop with representatives of all five partner organizations of the justice facilitator program. The activity identified strengths and weaknesses of the justice facilitator program, developed sustainability strategies that would be incorporated into each organization’s action plan, and defined an agenda for the first annual meeting of justice facilitators scheduled for January 2007. We continued our focus on high-poverty regions. We carried out training in mediation for 39 human rights promoters from the Jinotepe region, all members of the Women’s Rights Coalition. This training was part of a larger effort to increase the capacity of the civil society coalitions created by USAID’s justice program designed to assist in improving access to justice in disadvantaged communities. Now more than ever, Nicaragua needed a media competent to cover politics. It might be one of the last lines of defense against the Pact. We conducted training

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in judicial journalism for journalists of the Granada and Masaya region. A total of 21 journalists attended the event. Participants demonstrated high interest in learning about the criminal reform and requested additional training to improve news coverage of justice sector issues. They also recognized self-censure as one key obstacle to overcome in order to advance better journalism practices. On the selfcensure issue, Peter Brennan noted his positive experience regarding this in Paraguay, using the Inter-American Press Association to explain libel laws and what the limits for journalists are. We were gaining similar traction. I’ve been asked many times why we focused so heavily on the criminal law side rather than on the civil or commercial law sides. In the mid 1980s, USAID prioritized criminal law reform primarily because the main concern in Central America was human rights. Also, most Central American countries updated their commercial law systems in the 1970s (so they were not as ‘‘broken’’ as the criminal system). Obviously, these countries needed help across the board. But you simply can’t do everything: We had to prioritize. USAID has stayed this course for four reasons. First, the job is not yet complete. This is a long road and we have wanted to see it through. Second, innovations in the criminal law area (personnel systems, clerk offices, evidence procedures, oral skills, performance monitoring approaches, etc.) are transferable to other areas of administration. Third, in the sphere of donor coordination, the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank have worked in the civil and commercial law areas (given their charters, they find it much more difficult to work with criminal law), and so USAID has avoided duplication of effort. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a real question of development sequencing: a well-functioning commercial law system is dependent upon an operative civil law system which in turn depends on an effective criminal justice system. If we don’t have a good criminal law system, it will be hard to have any impact on commercial or civil law. In Nicaragua, among donors, the World Bank takes the lead on commercial law issues with the Supreme Court and Ministry of Commerce (MIFIC). Commercial registry reforms are included in this effort. The World Bank is also working on property issues, deeds registry, and the physical cadastre. The geographic focus of this activity is on rural areas. The MCC is expanding the titling component to two additional departments. The USAID Economic Growth Team has been coordinating with USAID/W and the State Department (WHA/PPC) on possible reforms for the labor law area in Central America. Separately, the USAID/Nicaragua Economic Growth Team was working on the Competition law and competitiveness, along with sector specific activities to assure open markets. Finally, USAID provided Nicaragua with a comprehensive assessment on needed actions to upgrade national legislation in the CAFTA context. Having said all that, if we could now spark a reform in civil procedure, based on our access on the criminal law side, we were up for the challenge. The Supreme Court’s Judicial Career Council (Consejo de la Carrera Judicial ) met with Carlos Maria Jimenez, Alex Rodriguez, Luıs Fernando Ubeda, and me for lunch at the Princess Hotel on December 18th. One secret in the development

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business is that if there is food, you have an audience! The purpose of us getting together was to make sure that our training programs continued to be supported by the Council and integrated into the judicial career. The idea of a ‘‘judicial career’’ may not be intuitively obvious for Americans but is typical of European style systems. Young lawyers are hired based on merit. They are then given intensive training and enter what amounts to an apprenticeship program. Eventually, they become probable cause judges, and as they move up in their career, they become trial judges, and the president of of the trial court. Appellate and Supreme Court Magistrates are named by the National Assembly. Any training USAID or anyone else offers has to fit within this structure and reinforce the overall goals of the judicial career. If not, it won’t be valued or rewarded. When Luıs Fernando set up the meeting with the Council, I was happy to go but still feeling burned by how I had been set up by CSE President Rivas and how he had thrown me to the yellow journalists. The President of the Supreme Court, Manuel Martınez, was a desvisado, and while I was meeting with him in his official capacity, and I respected his position, I didn’t want to be used again. So I asked Luıs to schedule the lunch not in the regular restaurant but in one of the hotel rooms off the main floor. This had to be private and discrete. When the meeting ended, Luıs rushed me out through an employee elevator and work entrance and out to a waiting car. It may be the Ambassador’s job to confront a camera spray, but I preferred to let my work speak for me. By now, our Legislative Monitoring Project via the Hagamos Democracia sub-grant was gathering steam. The ‘‘Legislative Watch’’ (Observatorio) began two weeks after the election, covering the National Assembly with three components. First, we tracked the Controller General (CGR) organic law reform. We learned that the CGR’s reform bill (Anteproyecto de Ley ) for changing the Organic Law had already been submitted to some Deputies that sit on the Probity and Transparency Commission and on the Justice Commission. So it was being discussed in committee. However, the bill had still not been submitted officially to the National Assembly. The new draft was based on technical assistance received from GTZ and Spain. Hagamos was trying to meet with the CGR’s President to discuss this Anteproyecto de Ley. Our second component was a system for Voluntary Assets Declarations and Accountability for the 400,000 Nicaraguan cordobas allotted to deputies for social development projects. We initially approached eight National Assembly deputies from three parties with regard to the voluntary accountability for the 400,000 Nicaraguan cordobas granted to them each year for social development projects in the departments/municipalities that they represent. All eight Deputies voluntarily agreed to provide these financial records pertaining to their entire period as representatives in the National Assembly. The third and final component was legislative monitoring to increasing citizen awareness of legislative work. The project began sending out daily reports of what was happening in the National Assembly. These reports were being sent to an initial database of approximately three hundred people electronically. This database increased steadily from then on.

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On December 5th, through a subgrant with Javier Melendez’s outfit, the Institute for Strategic and Political Policy Studies (Instituto de Estudios Estrat e gicos y Polı´ticas P ublicas, IEEPP), we held an opening workshop targeting stakeholders and practitioners involved in the development, management, and execution of the national budget, particularly in social policy areas (i.e., health, education, and environment). National and local civil society organizations (in particular from Leon and Chinandega), public officials from the Ministry of Finance and the SIGFA, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Health, Deputies from the National Assembly’s Economic Commission, and the CONPES all participated. The ‘‘International Day Against Corruption’’ was December 9th. We planned to capitalize on this with a series of activities and events for that week. In advance, through our regional office, we contacted the other Central America missions to encourage them to have activities for the week but got no response. So we decided to go it alone. That first day, a column I wrote came out in El Nuevo Diario concerning Nicaragua and the International Day Against Corruption. On Monday, December 11th, we published an eight page supplement to La Prensa dedicated to the ‘‘International Anti-corruption Week’’ with essay articles on the International Day Against Corruption; political party finance reform; the 2006 Corruption Perception Index; Nicaragua’s evaluation at the OAS in terms of the InterAmerican convention Against Corruption; citizen participation; and analysis of the 12th Anti-corruption International Conference in Guatemala by the Nicaraguan delegation. Forty thousand copies were printed and disseminated. The main partners for this initiative were IFES and the new political monitoring coalition, ‘‘Ciudadanı´a por la Transparencia en la Polı´tica.’’ The supplement targeted a diverse range of audiences such as the general public, NGOs, political parties, and public officials. The next day, USAID sponsored an event in partnership with ET to award mayors a prize for integrity and transparency. Invitees included mayors, council members, members of CEMs, municipal institutions, our partners, donors, and the press. The event awarded three prizes to the top municipalities that participated in the project, according to the scores in participation and transparency. Certificates were also given to the rest of the municipalities. The five mayors who participated in our Municipal Budget Transparency Project all came along with a hundred others, including mayors, council people, local and national civil society organizations, donors, and the media. That week also saw one of the more creative and experimental things we undertook. On Thursday December 14th, we held the ‘‘Open and Transparent Municipal Government’’ forum with the Children’s Government of the Municipality of Nagarote. The actual (adult) Municipal Government of Nagarote presented a full report to five hundred children from sixty-five different public schools on what the municipality had done during the last year to benefit children. The mayor had given a small sum of money for the children to manage for the community’s benefit, and this was also the kids’ chance to brief the adults on their progress. T-shirts, bags, and calendars were shared with the kids. It was a fantastic civics lesson and

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demonstration, and the kids saw how their participation generated tangible results in terms of new government action. The capstone of the week was a live videoconference report on December 15th from Washington, DC, featuring Nicaragua’s three official representatives attending meetings at the OAS on the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. We had collaborated with the Government of Nicaragua with technical assistance to prepare the government’s report to the OAS on its compliance with the InterAmerican Convention Against Corruption. We also collaborated with Nicaraguan civil society on its independent assessment of compliance by the government under the Convention. Civil society participation at this level is extremely unique in the region and represents cutting-edge practice for involvement of civil society and transparency in implementation. There were a dozen recommendations from the OAS in areas such as public procurement, witness protection, need for reforms, and sanctioning of corruption practices. The Nicaraguan Independent Report produced by Nicaraguan civil society and the key partnership between government and civil society received praise from OAS. In the videoconference, both government and nongovernmental actors pledged to continue monitoring compliance with the Convention. Another important international legal framework signed and ratified by Nicaragua was the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The First Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption took place December 10th to 14th in Amman, Jordan. We funded Zoraida Garay from the OEP to attend this conference at which the follow-up mechanism would be discussed and adopted as well as bribery of public international organization officials and asset recovery. Both the U.N. Convention and the Inter-American one would be pillars in any effort to hold Nicaragua accountable by international standards for good governance and transparency. Three places that suffered from corruption in Nicaragua were the property tax collection office (Direcci on General de Ingresos, or DGI/Cadastre), public hospitals, and the customs service. All three had very complex processes and procedures, opening the way to multiple bribery opportunities. We offered the Nicaraguans an assessment of how to simplify procedures, improving efficiency while also reducing bribery opportunities. We jumpstarted this in December with an initial ‘‘look see’’ at the institutions and planned to map out what could be done perhaps in January. This type of analysis is quite advanced in terms of how countries examine corruption and fits with the best practices developed under USAID’s anti-corruption strategy. In an effort to get the Access to Public Information Law approved before the current National Assembly session ended, we partnered again with Oscar Ortiz and the Grupo Promotor to boost the spot campaign and to initiate a new effort. The four ad spot series showing on Channel 2 (where citizens representing key sectors of society, such as producers, students, mothers, and executives) demand to their deputies that the law should be approved) was given more air time on Channel 2, and Channels 8, 10, and 12 were added to the mix.

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In addition, Oscar produced five mini-stories where Nicaraguans from key sectors tell a story of how the lack of the Access to Public Information Law limits their opportunities and choices in life. In these shorts, an artisan, a student looking for employment, small enterprise owners, and people infected with the HIV virus, each tell their stories in their own words. These mini-stories were shown on Channel 2 during the segment Primera Plana, which also dedicated most of the week to the issue of the Access to Public Information Law. In much of Latin America, entire countries start to shut down by mid December to make way for the holidays. Our hopes of getting the Access to Information Law or the Criminal Code passed all but evaporated. We quietly held a meeting with key members on the National Assembly Justice Commission to assess how we could engage with them to galvanize support in the coming year. In most of Latin America, natural resources and the environment simply have not been priorities for the justice system. Prosecutors and judges, busy working on homicides, rapes, and kidnappings, are loathe to spend much time dealing with people who cut down trees, which from their perspective, is a ‘‘victimless crime.’’ That attitude could not be more mistaken. Trees represent future income and savings. They represent jobs. They are the national patrimony. Theft of trees is a critical economic crime with global consequences. On the environmental law side, with very limited resources, we did what we could. In October 2006, the National Assembly enacted a new environmental and natural resources law (Law 559) with the objective of improving the legal framework and enforcement of environmental issues. The law defines various environmental violations as criminal offenses. But not surprisingly, prosecutors, police officials, public defenders, and other justice sector operators lacked capacity to properly implement the law. USAID worked with the Public Ministry to create and strengthen a specialized Environmental Crimes Prosecution Unit. In December, we had one of the initial successful prosecutions, which also made the media. Our broader work with public defenders also continued in December with a second selection and training round of law students that would participate in the Public Defense Auxiliary Program during the first academic semester of 2007. It would be critical that independent justice sector representatives could be in all parts of the country at a time when the national level checks and balances would be out of whack. We also took time to reflect with our civil society partners and helped them to begin thinking about the new challenges in 2007. We facilitated the first meeting of the board of directors from the three access to justice coalitions created with USAID-support to define a strategy for developing an alliance among the three coalitions that could have national impact. The coalitions developed an action plan for 2007 that included carrying out activities associated with improving criminal reform in Nicaragua. One of the most important partners in this was the Women’s Rights Coalition, and we hosted the last national assembly meeting for the Coalition for 2006. In 2007, the Coalition planned to focus its efforts on

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improving the administration of justice, increasing the visibility of the Coalition, and positioning women’s rights issues in the public agenda. We also hosted the last national assembly meeting of the Youth and Adolescent Rights Coalition for 2006. The meeting concluded with definition of activities for 2007 to be conducted by the justice promoters trained by the coalition. The university spending social auditing investigative piece continued to focus on the universities’ use of the 6 percent budget allotted to them. JUDENIC was conducting the study, which by now was almost complete. We received a second draft of the final report and were working on providing minor comments. But already there were some very interesting findings: • The majority of students and professors have not read nor are they aware of the content of the superior education law (‘‘Ley de Autonomı´a de las Instituciones de Educaci on Superior ’’). Focus groups and interviews with them reveal that when the Ley de Autonomı´a is referenced, all that comes to mind is the 6% earmark that should be assigned by the legislative branch to public universities. • When asked how this 6 percent should be used, students responded that all this money should go to scholarships. Many insisted that academic installations (water, electric, etc.) and professors should not be paid from these funds. Clearly students do not understand how the budgets work. • Of the five universities, the weakest ones in terms of accountability and providing information to students were UNI and UNAN. All this data was certainly input for a good strategy and awareness campaign. We committed to helping future initiatives under university governance. As the month wound down, we continued our networking among civil society and youth organizations. We met on Tuesday, December 19th with Mauricio Solız and Raquel Mejia from the Youth Association for Solidarity and Change (Asociaci on Juvenil Solidaridad Aportando al Cambio, or ASOL). This is an organization that works in two Departments, Rivas and Rio San Juan, particularly targeting migrant/immigrant youth sectors. They were interested in promoting transparency and accountability activities related to municipal public policy activities. ASOL promised to send some background information on their organization, and we pledged to get together again to brainstorm on possible project ideas. The next day, a Citizens’ Open Consultation Meeting (‘‘Cabildo ’’) took place in San Marcos. This was the first time ever that an event like this took place in a rural community (Marvin Corrales) of San Marcos. The activity’s main objective was to present to the population the 2007 municipal draft budget. ‘‘All politics is local,’’ as Tip O’Neill used to say. People were participating in the development of their own communities, and this was development at its best. With an incoming FSLN administration controlling the judiciary, executive, legislative, and electoral branches, and through official largesse, a good chunk of civil society, we wondered who would stand up to hold the government

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accountable. The donors would be accused of ‘‘interventionism’’ if they tried. We had done our best with civil society and the media to prepare them. We had worked with local governments and the National Assembly where they were willing to do what was right. Finally, we turned to the private sector to encourage it to play a leadership role with objective ethical standards. On December 28th, we met with Adela Torrente from the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). Adela discussed its draft proposal focused on increasing private sector participation in the fight against corruption by creating ethics codes for all AmCham member companies and promoting their adoption. I thought that this was very consistent with work the public affairs section of the Embassy was doing to promote corporate social responsibility, or CSR. The proposal was meant to complement an earlier effort supported by the U.S. Department of Commerce that produced an Ethics Manual. The proposal also included a section on ethics training and seminars with internationally renowned speakers that have worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce on similar projects. Finally, a monitoring and evaluation tool to keep control of the level of company implementation of the ethics codes would be developed by AmCham. I was excited to see the business community also thinking it was time to get organized. The Chinese have a saying—the best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today. AmCham was only planting the tree now, but better late, than never. Going into the final Christmas and New Year’s break, we took one final shot at moving our agenda forward. Over the holidays, we thought the government and civil society workers would be at rest, but they would probably also go to the movies. Our five-member NGO coalition (Ciudadanı´a por la Transparencia en la Polı´tica) working on political party finance reform produced a public service announcement which the local Cinemark-Metro Centro theater agreed to show from December 26, 2006 to January 9, 2007. The ad showed a man by the side of a pool, being served margaritas by bikini-clad women while negotiating a bribe over his cell phone. It was very effective and immediately grabbed the audience’s attention. We hoped it would have staying power into the New Year and the new administration. This was about ‘‘hearts and minds,’’ right versus wrong. It was finally time to relax. Alex Dickie invited all the employees (and families!) at USAID to a Christmas party at his home on December 23rd. Alex was a great leader and wanted to make sure the employees had a chance to let their hair down after a long, hard year, knowing that it wasn’t about to get any easier any time soon. I respected his class and generosity with the teams. His commitment to development was bound up in his DNA, and I think it is always easier to support a leader who is willing to put in long hours himself and do what it takes to cross the finish line working toward shared goals. That’s leadership.

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20

President Ortega (January 2007)

January 10, 2007, was the Inauguration. Hugo Chavez from Venezuela and Evo Morales from Bolivia both came and were media sensations. At the event, Ortega repeated his campaign pledge to join Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Alternative (ALBA) trade arrangement with Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina (which he actually did the very next day without any review by the legislature or public discussion). At the same time, Ortega pledged to review CAFTA. Both Chavez and Morales took advantage of the occasion to bash the United States with populist rhetoric. Chavez praised Cuban leader Fidel Castro and shouted, ‘‘Always to victory! Country, socialism or death. We will be victorious!’’ Ortega thanked Chavez, calling him his ‘‘twin.’’ For his part, Ortega bashed neoliberalism, which he blamed for poverty, but refrained from naming the United States. Three days after the inauguration, on January 13th, the Iranian president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, visited Managua. He too blasted the United States. and praised Ortega, pledging support for the Nicaraguan people. Ortega and Ahmadinejad signed a cooperation agreement involving manufacturing, energy sector development, engineering studies for water sanitation, housing, and port development. Again, the text of this agreement had not been previously vetted either with the public or the National Assembly. The visit by the Iranian head of state provided Ortega the opportunity to announce a normalization of relations between the two countries. Ahmadinejad expressed his solidarity with the Nicaraguan people, calling for ‘‘the death of all the oppressors and of imperialism worldwide… Today, we are not alone; Iran, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other revolutionary countries are together and will resist together.’’ He then linked the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran with the FSLN triumph over Somoza, noting the two countries were brothers and twins in revolution. The news media noted, however, that there was no discussion of debt relief for the $152 million that Nicaragua owed to

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Iran. Wouldn’t a true new friend forgive the old debt? Not surprisingly, I wasn’t invited to any of the inaugural parties or the diplomatic reception for the Iranians. The visual made it clear where this was all going. When we saw this in the press, I turned to Luıs Fernando Ubeda and only half facetiously, asked, ‘‘So when does Kim Jong-il arrive?’’ in reference to the rogue North Korean dictator. He seemed like the only ‘‘bad boy’’ who hadn’t been to town since the inauguration! I think all these visitors were sending a clear signal to world markets about what to expect from Nicaragua in the coming years. Later in January, on the 24th, the Nicaraguan National Assembly approved a series of reforms to Law 290. That law defines the roles of ministries and executive branch agencies. The reforms granted much more power and discretion to the executive, in other words, Ortega. The reforms were pushed through by the PLC and FSLN. The MRS vigorously opposed the legislation but was powerless to stop it. The ALN sat by, quiet. New ‘‘Citizen Councils’’ were established by these reforms. Since they were not to receive direct public support, they could operate outside the control of the Assembly. They were modeled on similar programs in Cuba, Venezuela, and Libya. The president’s wife, Rosario Murillo, commonly called ‘‘La Chayo,’’ spearheaded the program. Other reforms addressed the Ministry of Defense. Originally, Ortega proposed that he directly run the military. The opposition parties were at least able to moot that initiative and cut it from the reform package. But still, the Defense Ministry lost power in the restructuring with the executive gaining more control over what previously was in the hands of career employees. Military budget oversight by the Ministry of Defense was lost in the process. It was an incredibly unfortunate week for transparency and oversight of the military. Deputies Victor Hugo Tinoco, Alejandro Bola~ nos, Monica Baltodano, and Enrique Saenz—all of the MRS—were the voices in the wilderness, trampled in the process. With this steamroll by the Ortega Administration, the media and civil society openly wondered whether there was any effective opposition left to the Pact. What happened to the ALN and Montealegre? We had our work cut out for us. First off, we met with Gustavo Montiel from JUDENIC and Alvaro Gonzalez and David Ernesto Gonzales (President and Vice President of New Generation, Nueva Generaci on, the governing student body at UCA). They were interested in initiating a transparency and accountability initiative to raise awareness about Law 89 and to monitor the university budget and finances. Since Nueva Generaci on was not a legal entity, we agreed any future programming could go through JUDENIC. Meanwhile, the pressure for passage of the Access to Information Law continued on pace. In the process, we were leveraging money from the private sector to help. As of January, the total cost of the campaign to us was about $73,000 while the total cost of the media campaign had exceeded $350,000. For each dollar we invested, media owners were contributing another four. Obviously, media owners had an interest in ensuring access to public information. Part of information access and social auditing involved the Nicaraguan military and the security sector. We were working with Javier Melendez at IEEPP to see

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what could be done. Javier, Gerardo Berthın, and I met with Tim Smith of the Embassy’s political section and Ambassador Trivelli on January 26th to compare notes and again on February 2nd, that time without the Ambassador. With the political transition, it was a difficult time for overly-sensitive intrusion. We thought it would be best if Javier went ahead and spoke with the new civilian and career military leadership to explore what they were interested in and how we could be supportive. We thought it might be useful for IEEPP to help document where the military had legitimate financial needs. Was the pension program in good shape? How was the health care system for military employees? What other areas needed addressing? The public may not trust the military to be honest about financial needs, but they might trust a social audit that made those findings. With that approach, the military establishment might understand that a social audit is constructive and that it is meant to help, as we had done in municipality after municipality. As far as I knew, we were on new ground applying this methodology to military spending, but it had worked in other ministries in other countries. Why not with the Nicaraguan military? On January 25th, the Chamorro Foundation (with sub-grant funds from USAID) held a national conference to push for the Access to Information Law’s passage. Librarians, journalists, academics, civil society leaders, and others met with National Assembly representatives to demand passage. Transparency/Guatemala Chapter President Manfredo Marroquın gave a keynote address on the importance of this instrument in promoting transparent, responsible government. Coverage in that Friday’s La Prensa was glowing. Still, the legislation sat pending in the Education Committee of the National Assembly. Membership attached. I made some quiet calls to deputies in other committees to see what could be done. They pledged action. One of my dad’s heroes, Theodore Roosevelt, once said, ‘‘The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.’’ Nicaraguan citizens now had their work cut out for them if they wanted clean government. USAID had supported a coalition of civil society organizations to monitor the passage of an Information Access Law. Separately, USAID had been working with eight pilot institutions on the Voluntary Access to Information Strategy (EVA). The eight pilot institutions volunteered to make public information available to citizens on their web sites on budget, procurement, services offered, and current projects. A new Legislative Watch program (through Hagamos) allowed civil society to witness activity in the National Assembly. Meanwhile, our social auditing of the national budget was gaining traction with a new web portal. The USAID-supported Citizen Participation, Participatory Budgeting, and Social Auditing were already under way in 12 of 20 target municipalities. So far, close to seven thousand community leaders, municipal officials (including mayors), and CSO leaders had been trained in social auditing methods, budget processes, and access to information. Public service announcements on local radio stations were reinforcing the message to hold local leaders accountable and for citizens to get involved in the decision-making process.

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With funding reprogrammed from CEPPS (since there was no second round for the national election), we reviewed our program with IRI. Joe Agostini informed us that he would be stepping down at IRI and that our new program would be managed by Shawn Sullivan out of Washington until his successor was named. I was disappointed to hear this since Joe and I had worked well together. But I understood his situation after all he had been through with the trumped up criminal charges by the CSE. We asked IRI to help the organization with a youth agenda to address issues relevant to this obvious demographic group. The youth agenda could be a non-traditional format for youth involvement with politics. We thought it could be a compilation of concerns to youth, including the future, jobs, and social issues. The effort could also help maintain the JUDENIC network and keep the youth motivated. Continued engagement with JUDENIC also serves as an incubator for future leadership and identification of future leaders. We also asked IRI to help train new legislators for the National Assembly. All legislators would be invited to a ‘‘Legislation 101’’ course by IRI which would feature basics like how laws are made, how to build consensus, etc. It could include national experts, international experts from Mexico (from the PRI and PAN) and other Latin American countries, and legislators from the United States. (from either state legislatures or the U.S. Congress) for peer-to-peer interaction. For its part, IFES intended to hold three workshops with the CSE to review the lessons learned from the past November elections. Every level of CSE employee was to be included. One of the most glaring problems identified was that of the Nicaraguan civil registries. Civil registries were where Nicaraguans had to go to get birth certificates. Birth certificates were needed to apply for a voter registry card. No birth certificate, no voter ID card. IFES set about a four-country (Colombia, Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua) comparative review with a view toward making recommendations for reforming how Nicaragua manages its civil registry. Uruguayan registrar Ana Marıa Tellez was leading this. USAID’s Rule of Law Program and the Bluefields Indian & Caribbean University (BICU) conducted a series of workshops to increase awareness of human rights and access to justice issues for youth and adolescents of the Atlantic Coast. These workshops focused on developing community leaders and potential justice promoters that will be committed to strengthening the rule of law in the Atlantic Coast region. A two-day workshop entitled ‘‘Autonomy and Our Rights as Young People’’ was held on January 12th to 13th in Laguna de Perlas. Continuing our outreach, we facilitated the first meeting of 2007 with the Indigenous Rights Coalition to evaluate last year’s work plan and to coordinate various initiatives for the 2007 work plan. In collaboration with the Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia (the coalition with five civil society organizations—JUDENIC, Hagamos Democracia, Grupo pro Justicia, Movimiento, and CPDH), we launched a media campaign to demand transparency and merit selection for the Fiscal General and Supreme Court Magistrates. By mid month, the television spot was running on

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several national television stations (Channels 2, 8, 10, and 12). A radio spot was being aired on various radio stations covering the Pacific region. On January 23rd, the five civil society organizations met to coordinate continued actions to promote Judicial Independence. A technical framework was developed during the meeting, including the program for events, coordination with panelists, and a media strategy with television and radio journalists. Media coverage heated up on the Organization’s work, especially on Channels 8 and 11. Meanwhile, ads continued to run on local radio and TV to promote the transparent selection of Magistrates and the Fiscal General. We also continued to support AmCham with the objective of establishing the second arbitration center in Nicaragua. USAID provided technical assistance in the development of a Code of Ethics, a Manual of Procedures, and the selection of mediators and arbitrators. We facilitated a strategic planning meeting with AmCham representatives to define and develop proper procedures and protocols for the center’s legal accreditation. The meeting also helped plan for a dissemination campaign to educate the public about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and the existence of the Arbitration Center, the country’s second, tentatively scheduled to be inaugurated in April. We had opened the country’s first Arbitration Center with CACONIC earlier in 2006. New Centers on the Atlantic Coast, in Bluefields and Bonanza, were to come online in the coming weeks. Part of the strategy to broaden access to justice by use of mediation and arbitration had always included use of judicial facilitators to further expand access to justice beyond just the physical sites of the new Centers. On January 25th, we held the first national meeting of all facilitators. Property rights always seemed to be sticking points in the mediation centers or in disputes brought to the facilitators. And nowhere more so than Estelı. So in mid January, we held a special training in Estelı for facilitators just on that one topic. With this training, 32 justice facilitators recruited by the Instituto Nicarag€ uense de Promoci on Humana (INPRHU) completed their training and were added to the ranks. They would be conducting mediations and practicing as justice promoters across Estelı in areas that lack access to justice. Historically, I had been riveted by property conflicts. In Nicaragua, prior to joining USAID, I worked with the University of Wisconsin. During those years, I helped Nicaragua set up a strategy of ‘‘block solutions’’ to settle property disputes, allowing the government to compensate former smallholders who had been expropriated without compensation by the former government while giving security of tenure to the resource poor. This strategy allowed the Nicaraguan government to begin to use alternative dispute resolution and set up an ‘‘Oficina de Ordenacion Territorial’’ to resolve the majority of conflicts, while allowing the more political claims to proceed through the court system. In Guyana, again prior to joining USAID, I brought together members of the Afro-Guyanese, Indo-Guyanese, and Amerindian communities to develop a unified strategy for improving land tenure and land access. In Venezuela, I helped the Ministry of Agriculture develop a strategy for giving land titles to the poor. In Bolivia,

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I worked with the Planning Ministry to develop new mechanisms to activate the land markets to provide new opportunities for the poor. With these few examples, you can see why I was interested in property rights and why I gravitated to the mediation centers in Nicaragua. Our work on the graduate degree program in forensic medicine, a first ever in Central America, continued on track. January 15th to 19th, in collaboration with the Colombian Institute of Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine, we carried out the fourth training module for medical doctors from the Nicaraguan Forensic Medicine Institute pursuing the medical graduate degree program in forensic medicine. As the doctors received training, they became more effective in their daily work, and trials slowly began to use forensic evidence, reducing over-reliance on victim testimony that could be weakened through intimidation and threats. The Forensic Medicine Institute was our main beneficiary for training. It was organized under the Supreme Court’s oversight. However, we also worked with prosecutors. The Prosecutor Career Law required the Public Ministry to train its entire professional staff on forensic medicine and evidence. On January 16th, we met privately at a local restaurant with the participants who attended the Inter-American Convention against Corruption Plenary Session at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C. (December 11–15, 2006) and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption Conference held in Jordan (December 10–14, 2006). The participants presented a brief report of their activities and exchanged ideas about how they plan to use the knowledge acquired in these international events. They reported that in Washington, Nicaraguan civil society representatives were congratulated for their verbal and written presentations of their report. Nicaragua had an Action Plan responding to the first round of analysis and would have to update it with the recommendations from the second round. This new plan, in effect, would be a National Anticorruption Agenda. With the election over, I pushed to redouble efforts to advance political party finance reform. In July 2006, in partnership with IFES, we conducted an international conference on political finance. Nearly 250 participants attended the conference, the conference web site received nearly 11,000 hits during the two-day conference, and to date the web site has received nearly 63,000 hits. The conference galvanized the discussion on political finance in order to place it on the public and political agenda; raised awareness about issues in political finance; and provided participants with new information and an opportunity to exchange politically-feasible solutions to the complex problems of regulating political finance. Then in August, we launched a Strategic Small Grant Package Initiative on Political Party Financing to support an integrated civil society initiative to promote transparency and accountability in the electoral process and to pressure political parties to be more transparent in their finances. The small grant initiative involved five civil society organizations and five corresponding topics, including strengthening and expanding the coalition of civil society organizations that oversee political party finance issues; monitoring campaign media spending of all political parties;

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producing a target awareness campaign; several informative forums on the topic outside Managua; and a citizens’ manual and web site exclusively dedicated to providing information to the public on political party finance issues. Now we were striking again. Argentine political finance expert Delia Ferreira came to Managua to provide technical assistance to the Citizenship for Transparency in Politics Coalition. She met with all five grantees: ET, IPADE, Hagamos Democracia, Grupo FUNDEMOS, and the Chamorro Foundation. With Delia’s help, the group coalesced around a unified ‘‘Political Financing Legislature Reform Proposal.’’ A new youth group called DESAFIOS stopped by on January 18th to explore an initiative to engage youth in the fight against corruption. A contest featuring short films created and edited by Nicaraguan youth was one of the many ideas. I was taken with the creative idea. We programmed a follow-up meeting to take place to discuss other activities that could be included in a proposal. The USAID Transparency Program and DESAFIOS were both interested in a more integrated proposal than just the contest. But I sensed they had some ideas we could work with. We would meet again in February. At the fourth in our series of coordination meetings with transparency program subgrantees, four of the program’s now fourteen subgrantees gave a more in-depth presentation of their projects. The initial results of the Valdivieso Center social audit of Managua were presented at the meeting. The results were both impressive and shocking. Dionisio (‘‘Mincho’’) Marenco, Managua’s FSLN mayor, was a subject of speculation in the media. His relationship with Ortega was schizophrenic; sometimes he was on board with the Ortega express when it worked his way, but at other times, he insisted he was no ‘‘danielista.’’ Under his administration, despite mass poverty, Managua built a major monument to Rigoberto Lopez Perez, a poet who had assassinated then dictator Anastacio Somoza at the Workers Social Club of Managua, only to be killed himself in a hail of bullets while leaving the door open for Somoza’s son, Luıs Somoza Debayle, to take over. Many Liberals decried the use of public resources for a politicized, towering statue and referred to that monument as the ‘‘Monumento al Asesino.’’ Mincho’s grip on the city and his electoral machine reminded me, in many ways, of former Washington, DC ‘‘mayor for life’’ Marion Barry, Chicago’s oldtime Mayor Richard Daly, or Milwaukee’s Mayor Henry W. Maier. In other words, Mincho was a classic operator. Mincho was known for dubious construction of an overpass exchange which ran way over budget and time with rumors of kickbacks and possible diversions of funds to the FSLN. My friend Luıs Fernando Ubeda was so convinced of the shoddy workmanship that he predicted the construction’s collapse. It was actually at that spot where Patricio Gajardo had his ‘‘mysterious’’ flat tire incident. It was the Mincho administration that gave free billboard space to the FSLN party during the campaign, an incalculable subsidy on partisan grounds and an unequivocal misuse of public resources. He was in office when JUDENIC lost its permit for its ‘‘Get Out the Vote’’ campaign due to FSLN intervention, and it was under Mincho that Movimiento was threatened

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with being shut down for illegal protests in the streets. No one from the international Solidarity and religious groups ever whispered a word against him. Hagamos Democracia also made a presentation. It was working under a subgrant to perform legislative oversight work under which they would produce periodic reports of the legislative work and produce an updated handbook called, ‘‘Who’s Who in National Assembly.’’ On Friday, January 26th, Hagamos Democracia held a meeting with USAID and Manfredo Marroquın to discuss the ongoing Legislative Monitoring Work. During this meeting, Marroquın shared Acci on Ciudadana’s Guatemalan experience on legislative monitoring and strengthening. I had known Manfredo from my days in Guatemala. He was a real architect for civil society there when they had to deal with former dictator Efraın Rıos Montt when he came back as the head of the National Assembly. I was glad to have him, and his experience, back on my team now. Lessons learned and best practices were discussed and potential new ideas emerged: (1) monitoring the frequency with which the different commissions meet and actually discuss a law before approving or vetoing it; (2) the need to work with deputies on improving the parliament’s structure and operative functions (an assessment could be useful); (3) publications of the various laws that were approved with an analysis of which laws are approved more rapidly (i.e., economic, social). On Thursday, January 25th, our USAID-assisted partner Local Network (Red Local) held a small discussion group with indigenous women’s groups in Sebaco. The objective was to provide a venue in which USAID gender expert Natasha Loayza could learn what their perception of gender is. The group showed great interest in learning about other gender experiences that have been successful in other countries such as Bolivia. I tracked this particular activity closely because we had been supporting Red Local to generate social auditing capabilities in five municipalities including Sebaco. Sebaco’s target audiences selected by Red Local were youth groups, indigenous groups, women’s groups, the private sector, and civil society. Last year, five theatrical play rehearsals took place reflecting upon corruption and the need for social auditing. In terms of promoting the project and raising awareness, the theatrical play rehearsals have been a huge success, capturing the participation of youth groups. Twenty-six youngsters native to the area were dramatizing these plays. The play El Cabildo would be held in February 2007. The youth groups were also preparing a Reggaeton production on citizen participation. The primary and most important result of the Red Local under this grant was the creation of the Municipal Development Committee; there was no such structure in the municipality. Although political will was weak, through persistence, we managed to get the Mayor’s collaboration. While we were having a rough time of it in Nicaragua, I told my team that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. They had given their best during the past year, and now other USAID missions were trying to emulate their innovations. For example USAID/El Salvador began replicating key aspects of our approach and strategy on the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. USAID/Paraguay

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and USAID/Malawi were about to implement a similar small grants program for technical assistance on design and implementation. USAID/Guatemala and USAID/Malawi were replicating aspects of our political parties initiative. For its part, USAID/Mexico began to follow up on the voluntary access to information program. And finally, USAID/Dominican Republic kicked off replication of the local governance budget participation and social auditing aspects. Our programs were innovative, and the message had gotten out. While our work was on the cutting edge of democracy promotion, I wondered whether we might be the incarnation of the old adage about surgeons: ‘‘the operation was a success but the patient died.’’ Not only did our programs have to be outstanding, but also they would have to make a difference and win the day. It was a tall order. And we were ‘‘leaning against the wind’’ with Ortega pushing the envelope a bit more every day. We had to make sure the civil society groups could be an effective check on abuse of power by an Ortega Administration which now had a lock on the judiciary, executive, legislative, and electoral branches, which controlled a substantial amount of the media, and was not afraid to change rules to fit its purposes. One way Ortega effectively pushed the envelope was in using visitors to validate and legitimize his power. International visitors came in waves and every last one had to see Ortega personally. As one friend of mine wryly noted, ‘‘It’s like they’re coming to the Island, and they want to see King Kong. It won’t be a visit unless they see Kong.’’ They knew they would play into his hands, and yet the lure was too overwhelming. About the time of the inauguration, I was listening one evening as Radio Ya broadcast live from a political rally featuring Ortega. On the radio came a visiting American, some guy I never heard of. He said he was from the solidarity movement. He wanted to apologize to the Nicaraguan people for the interventionist behavior of the American government in Nicaragua and what we had been doing throughout the election process. The guy was obviously clueless. But he was sucked into the vortex of the old Cold War, us versus them, left versus right, and I guess just assumed that we were against the FSLN. Ortega let this guy blab on and on about how evil the United States was. Ortega also used more sophisticated international visitors with basically the same result. Visitors would go for ‘‘private’’ discussions. But when they got there, select news media would already be in place. News cameras would edit out any unwanted remarks but feature a magnanimous, inclusive President Ortega welcoming international dignitaries. Often he would then go on to lecture them about the evils of globalization or American involvement. Sitting there on a platform, there was nothing they could do but sit there and take it. After all, they had to be ‘‘diplomatic.’’ We would warn visitors this could happen. No matter. They went anyway. They had to see King Kong! As January closed, Daniel Ortega announced a new ‘‘National Peace and Reconciliation Council (CONAREP) via Law 290 (Citizen Participation Law) and decree 03-2007, which creates national citizen councils and popular assemblies. He appointed the Cardinal Obando y Bravo to head it up despite political preference

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for separation of church and state and despite an August 2006 pastoral letter from the Episcopal Council that noted the Catholic Church doctrine that priests should not participate in political offices. Obando told the press that any prohibition on his participation would have to come from the Pope since he was a Cardinal (albeit retired, and so in theory under the authority of Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes). Back in September 2006, at Salvador Talavera’s defection from the ALN to the FSLN, Cardinal Obando had been present. That day, Ortega had pledged to work to promote peace and economic development with equity and solidarity, with CONAREP to receive at least one percent of the national budget, the press had reported. This new Council made good on that deal between Talavera and Ortega although the budget commitment was in some doubt.

21

The New Ortega Administration Begins to Show Its Stripes (February 2007)

February started out with a bang for us. On Thursday, February 1st, we held the political party campaign finance reform forum in Bluefields to continue to promote awareness. We had over a hundred participants. This event was led by the Chamorro Foundation. These activities were leading up to a Managua event at the end of February to present concrete proposals to civil society and the media and then to the National Assembly. That activity was being undertaken by IFES under a USAID subgrant from the Transparency Program. The Bluefields group was extremely representative of many sectors of society, including NGO representatives, regional and government officials, current and former municipal Councilpersons, former mayors, business owners, senior citizens, and young people. Also included were activists from all political parties and members of the police. Both men and women attended. This forum was by far the most substantive forum we had had so far on this topic. The presentation by Rosa Marina Zelaya (a former CSE magistrate and now an activist with Movimiento) provided an insightful analysis of political party finance reform history since 1974 and perspectives looking into the future. To put it mildly, she sparked an active, healthy debate about political party finance reform. Her presentation generated one of the richest and most participatory debates on this topic here in Nicaragua. In this context, on February 8th, IPADE launched its Political Finance Monitoring Manual. This was another unique product from the coalition being supported by USAID’s transparency program, Ciudadanıa por la Transparencia en la Polı´tica (Citizenship for Political Transparency). This manual is really a tool, which had been developed for the first time in Nicaragua. The manual not only informs readers about the history of political party finance legislation in Nicaragua, but also

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analyzes the current legislation focusing on its weaknesses and potential vulnerable areas. In addition, the manual analyzes the implications for democratic development of not having effective controls and enforcement in political party finance. Most importantly, the manual points the reader to key areas for both public and private reform in political party finance. In that sense, the manual offers an initial road map to reform. The development of this manual was part of the package of measures to advance political party campaign finance reform. The Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia (Movimiento, CPDH, ProJusticia, Hagamos Democracia, JUDENIC, and others) then held a session with the Justice Commission of the National Assembly to present civil society’s outlook on the transparent and merit-based selection of Supreme Court Magistrates and the Fiscal General. The member organizations decided to continue their media campaign through public notices in national newspapers. Participants from Guatemala’s Mack Foundation and Madres Angustiadas joined the effort. These activities were not aimed at supporting the selection of specific candidates, but instead promoting merit-based principles and transparency. The work of these civil society organizations sparked a debate. As a result, the President of the Justice Commission expressed an interest in involving civil society organizations in the justice sector official selection process. The obvious question became: will he follow through? There were emerging dangers. First Lady Rosario Murillo began to control the president’s agenda and the national budget. She also established new rules for public relations and restricted public employees from international travel unless they had express permission. When the press printed copies of Nicaragua’s new agreements with Venezuela and Iran, President Ortega attacked the press. The press began to characterize the top FSLN officials as secretive and paranoid. This top group was extremely small: the president and his wife, Paul Oquist (national security adviser, former civil society activist), Lenin Cerna (formerly the chief of state security in the 1980s), and Bayardo Arce (formerly in the National Assembly). Leaving nothing to chance, access to the Republic’s Official Newspaper La Gaceta, which published all official decisions and laws, was taken offline. So much for the FSLN’s call for transparency during the election campaign. In midst of all this, the Sandinistas supported a reduction in the number of Supreme Court Magistrates, which would keep the FSLN majority in place as nonFSLN magistrates dropped off. The FSLN also proposed that the Magistrates be given life terms, as in the United States, as a step to improve judicial independence. In reality, this would lock in a lifetime of Sandinista ownership of the court even if the FSLN was ever voted out of the executive branch or lost control of the Assembly. The FSLN was looking to cement its grip on the judiciary for decades to come. In the latter part of the month, the parties were pressured to name their candidates publicly and take the discussion out of the smoke-filled back rooms. For the Supreme Court, the PLC proposed Guillermo Arg€ uello Poessy (current Magistrate of the Controller’s Office and a desvisado), Ivan Escobar Fornos, Sergio Cuarezma Teran, and Guillermo Vargas Sandino. Sergio Cuarezma had been a former consultant on our rule of law program and was popular among the business community

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and among the diplomatic crowd. Guillermo Vargas Sandino was perhaps the best qualified of this lot—he was the only one with prior experience on the Court. He had served several times as the Court’s president and was the only past member of the Court who was not a member of a political party. As far as I knew, his ethics were impeccable.  The MRS proposed Auxiliadora Meza, Oscar Castillo, and Gabriel Alvarez Arguello. The FSLN continued to support the re-election of Alba Luz Ramos. I had met Alba Luz in El Salvador years earlier, and she too had been a prior Supreme Court Magistrate with a good reputation. She had served on the judicial career council. However, she had signed one opinion that let narco-traffickers go and returned hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to them, which the newspapers alleged ended up in FSLN party coffers. So there remained a doubt about her. What was her involvement with the narco-traffickers? What did she know? Did she innocently make a mistake, or was she on the take? Or did she follow orders from her party? If it were not for this one case, I would have said she had excellent qualifications. Like Vargas Sandino and Marvin Aguilar, Ramos had been a great supporter of USAID and our programs. We could work with those three very well. In terms of candidates for Attorney General (Fiscal General), the PLC was looking for Julio Centeno Gomez to return. The MRS proposed Sergio Garcıa Quintero. For its part, the FSLN did not publicly endorse any particular candidate for Attorney General. Instead, it floated several candidates to be Assistant Attorney General: Ana Julia Guido (former Deputy Chief of the National Police) and Juana Mendez (the judge in charge of Aleman’s cases). The PLC was immediately allergic to the suggestion of Mendez. But Mendez noted that she had a ‘‘change of heart’’ toward Arnoldo Aleman. In pure theater, Aleman then publicly endorsed her. What was that all about? The Pact at its best! The timing of the Political Party Finance Forum coincided with a sense of panic among Nicaragua’s civil society leadership. The incoming Ortega administration had begun to fire career civil servants and replace them with questionable political appointees. There was fear that a single party controlling all branches of government could consolidate power and control the pursestrings. As had been seen with IRI, the CSE was used as an instrument to bully a NGO, forcing it to play defense instead of using its energy to shine light on government practice. Would the power of the state now be harnessed to harass civil society into submission? Civil society began to respond to the wave of anti-democratic reforms that had begun to take place. COMPAS sent a letter to President Ortega outlining its concerns over recent political developments. The Red Local came out with its position statement regarding law 290, which would allow constitutional reforms to take effect that in essence would allow for greater state control by the Pact. The Guatemalan Mack Foundation met with local USAID partners that were planning their own reaction force. While we touched base with Managua civil society, we always tried to ‘‘keep it real’’ as my son Daniel might say. We got out of town and met with the

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indigenous and ethnic rights coalition. We also held a meeting with the board of directors of the indigenous and ethnic rights coalition in the northern community of Muy Muy to develop a schedule for this year’s sessions and to discuss strategic initiatives for the indigenous communities of the North and Central Pacific regions. The Attorney General’s term ended in December, and the institution was now without leadership. The National Assembly had not yet appointed a successor. On the one hand, that meant that our efforts via civil society to push for merit-based selection had slowed down the ability of the Pact to impose its candidate. On the other hand, any support we could give to the Public Ministry had to focus on lower priority activities like training. Key activities such as restructuring the specialized prosecution units (organized crime, anticorruption), carrying out meritbased selection processes, and defining criminal prosecution policies were on hold because these issues would need to be decided by the new Fiscal. We continued to make tremendous progress on access to justice through new mediation programs. On Thursday, February 15th, USAID inaugurated a new Mediation Center, BICU, Bluefields. Separately, USAID, in collaboration with the C amara de Comercio Americana de Nicaragua (AmCham), conducted a training course on mediation and arbitration. With a view toward improving the investment climate for domestic and foreign entrepreneurs, USAID’s Rule of Law Program and AmCham signed an agreement to create and institutionalize a mediation and arbitration center. USAID, in addition to providing technical assistance to define the structure of the international arbitration and mediation center, offered assistance in the training of the professionals who would work as arbitrators and mediators. To address grand corruption, we invited Jose Carlos Ugaz, the prosecutor in the Fujimori and Montisino cases (Per u), to Nicaragua via the USAID Transparency Program. Jose had also served earlier as president of the Peruvian local chapter of Transparency International, PROETICA, and had worked at the World Bank as chief of investigations for institutional integrity for Latin America and the Caribbean. He understood Nicaragua’s context and the challenge ahead. He met with various groups and the media to show how law enforcement and civil society deal with corruption as it emerges in government and how grand corruption is prosecuted. We hoped that Jose could spark excitement and inspire Nicaraguans to step up to the political challenge. On Thursday, January 25th, in collaboration with the Chamorro Foundation, the USAID-sponsored forum ‘‘Access to Public Information Legislation: A Challenge for the State’’ was held in Managua. It targeted public officials that would be involved in the implementation of the Access to Public Information Law once it was passed. During the workshop, the new bill was shared, and the importance of organizing files within government institutions was addressed. Manfredo Marroquin (Acci on Ciudadana, Guatemala) shared his civil society experience on measuring access to information compliance. Other keynote speakers were Emilio Ortega from the Office of Public Ethics (OEP), Andres McAlister

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(IDB), and Consuelo L opez (FISE). I was thrilled to see the enthusiasm for the Access to Information Law had not dimmed despite the national political changes. Across Latin America, the public has become jaded about corruption. Yet until the public demands a change, we can expect the same corrupt politicians to keep on doing what they do. But I had a good idea what to do in Nicaragua because I had met this challenge before. In my prior position as the democracy team leader for Latin America with USAID, we struggled to come up with ways to deal with this chicken-and-egg problem. Working with Gerardo Berthın in Bolivia, we came up with a ‘‘cost of corruption’’ survey. We would ask heads of household to whom they paid bribes, how often, how much, and for what. This would give us empirical data and a profile of corruption. In Bolivia, we found that Bolivians paid more than the national debt of the country every year just in bribes. The reaction at first was outrage. Calls flooded the Embassy and USAID, first from the corrupt leaders themselves, complaining about the survey. But over time, the reaction goes from blaming the corrupt politicians to a realization that the ones with the ability to stop corruption are the citizens. They can just stop paying. They can demand reform. They have the power to change things. Our local partner in Bolivia for carrying out the survey was statistics expert and marketing guru Luıs Alberto Quiroga. Quiroga had a small marketing firm that represented Coca Cola, and he also did performance monitoring for USAID’s health and education programs along with similar investments by the World Bank and European donors. He had become involved with politics by doing the marketing for presidential campaigns. His wife, Sonia Monta~ no Ferrufino, was the General Secretary of Saint Andrew National University (Universidad Mayor de San Andre s, or UMSA), Bolivia’s most prestigious university. Together they made a power couple, both brilliant intellectuals, both some of the nicest persons you’ll ever meet. Quiroga, a son of a senior Bolivian diplomat, understood what we were looking for and how to help us get there. Based on the success in Bolivia, we expanded the approach to Mexico. Quiroga led a program with the Mexicans to assess corruption there. As in Bolivia, the reaction was like a nuclear bomb: calls and complaints to the U.S. Embassy and to USAID, denials, and recriminations. But again, gradually, the public understood. Governors who scored better touted the survey as evidence of their positive administration. The survey also identified vulnerable processes and services, which in turn provided a road map for attacking the corruption. The survey turned out to be such a hit that the next time we did the survey in Mexico, the private sector paid to carry it out, and it has been repeated since, again paid for by businesses. Today, Mexicans see the survey as a national governability index. The methodology was also extended to Peru and the Dominican Republic. Results have been unprecedented in terms of raising awareness in the general population about the monetary impact that administrative corruption has on the average citizen. We invited Luıs Alberto Quiroga to develop a cost of administrative corruption study for Nicaragua, similar to what we did in Bolivia, Peru, Dominican Republic,

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and Mexico. But it would be the first of its kind in Nicaragua. This would provide a point of reference for government institutions when it comes to the design and analysis of public policies that need to be implemented in order to combat corruption. The study was also calibrated to raise awareness of the impact that corruption has on citizens on a daily basis, the cost to the average person, and what type of quality control measures and monitoring of public services are in place. In mid March, we would conduct a series of focus groups to include Managua, Leon, Rivas, Bluefields, and Laguna de Perlas to validate the survey instrument. Later in the year, the empirical work would be undertaken. Through a highly competitive procurement process, CID Gallup was selected to carry out the methodology. Part of the methodology involves having persons of impeccable ethics sponsor the study and explain it to the public. We debated who to get. They should be people who can understand the methodologies and answer any technical questions. But they should also be persons who can project a moral image for the public. They would be lending their good names to back the report. We wanted the backers to represent a political balance. This was not about left or right, but about right and wrong. I was absolutely thrilled with the ‘‘notables’’ that signed up to support our work: Alejandro Serrano Caldera, Eva Sacaza, Ricardo Teran Sr., and Altha Hooker. They were leading intellectuals and patriotic Nicaraguans. The Quiroga-style study is fantastic at documenting the cost of corruption at the administrative level. The Petty Corruption Study would also cover services that households periodically receive from private companies, including electricity (UNION FENOSA) and telephone service providers (CLARO). In other countries, this has hit like a bomb on the local press and results in tremendous demand for change. However, the approach does not capture all corruption. Heads of households, as the ones who are paying bribes, are likely to report schools, doctors, police, or others with whom they have contact. They will not cover corruption in the theft of natural resources, which is sometimes misunderstood as a ‘‘victim-less crime.’’ They will also not report grand corruption, that kind of abuse that takes place at the highest levels of government, involving the biggest sums of money, which is outside the view of the ordinary citizen. It was in that sphere that the Pact had its biggest impact. So we were not going to be able to measure that. But having an instrument that could measure petty or administrative corruption was also very useful. Also, we could infer that where there was petty corruption, there was also likely rampant grand corruption. We began to work with political parties on internal democracy and participation. The parties themselves asked for help with communication and e-government. IRI organized the session and invited all the parties to participate. Daniel Ortega was invited to speak but declined due to a scheduling conflict with the opening of the school year. A Mexican Congressional representative and a Guatemalan representative joined the forum. Attendance was quite good from the ALN (19) and MRS (4) and only token from the Pact: Mario Valle (who at times says he is with the FSLN, other times an independent) and one from the PLC (actually Camino

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Cristiano, a PLC affiliate). Based on a needs detection undertaken during the seminar, subgrantee 11 de Junio would follow up with targeted microseminars in February on themes of interest, including conflict resolution, teamwork, and communications. We also offered to send Nicaraguan members of the Assembly to Washington, DC to meet with legislators there and compare notes. Jim Sweigert, NDI’s Latin America director, and Luis Alberto Cordero of the Arias Foundation visited Nicaragua to re-establish contact with the new government and National Assembly party blocks (bancadas). We spoke with Jim, Luıs Alberto, and Deborah Ullmer about the need to redouble efforts with civil society over the next several months on themes of electoral reform and getting out more voter ID cards. Citizens must have the right to vote, and we needed to keep the heat on the CSE to make that happen. Civil society also had to be engaged with the National Assembly and the political parties to check abuse. Our review of civil registries was finally coming together. Rafael Lopez Pintor of IFES supervised the review of comparative frameworks in Colombia, El Salvador, Panama, and Nicaragua. Rafael was now finalizing the report along with a separate Manual for the Civil Registry (an aid for teaching as well as galvanizing support for civil registry reform, copy of the draft attached). Meanwhile, I had been working with the Justice Commission on the policy side: civil registry law reform was suddenly cited as a top priority by the National Assembly. I loved it when our technical development work jelled with our quiet diplomacy. Danika and I also made the rounds with other donors. Various embassies began looking to IFES to set the agenda for electoral reform. Rafael was working on his ‘‘to do’’ list of perhaps 16 to 18 needed changes, to include civil registry reform, cleaning up the voter registries, issuing new voter ID cards, and related reforms. With IFES help, the CSE reopened the kiosks, mainly at supermarkets, to push new voter ID cards. The CEM offices remained closed, but we hoped that might be the next step. The CSE had a private sector loan with a Spanish company to provide computers and assistance although the Spanish firm was not sure yet of its instructions and asked IFES to help. So far, the CSE expressed interest in digitalizing the civil registries at the central level,but if that was not also done locally, would it matter? The supplementary voter ID cards had not yet been given out. I figured that the cards probably never would be. We got figures on cost for our support to the CSE Web site. For 2006, it had cost us about $50,000. The number of hits spiked before the election and then dropped off. Interestingly, however, traffic had now returned to normal, preelection levels with hits going back up. People wanted their c e dulas! We saw the same phenomenon with the 1-800 toll free call line. Once again, number of calls was back up, at about 500 calls/day, mainly asking ‘‘where is my c e dula?’’ Again, the 800 line cost about $50,000 for the past year. This and the Web site, given their relatively cheap cost, ended up having a big impact. A critical ingredient in a package to promote transparency in politics is the ability of citizens to see candidates’ personal financial interests. The Controller General (Controlerı´a General de la Rep ublica, or CGR) had an Organic Law that

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needed to be changed to allow for this kind of transparency. Under a USAID subgrant, Hagamos Democracia met with the newly elected CGR President Angel Montenegro to discuss the possibility of consulting at a national level on the CGR Organic Law Reform with various sectors of the Nicaraguan society. Montenegro expressed deep interest in promoting this reform so that it was approved this year. He recommended that in order to do so, Hagamos should contact the Probity and Justice Commission in the National Assembly in order to promote the legislature’s reform among the deputies. Montenegro also stated that he met with President Ortega a few weeks earlier and that the President was highly interested in the reform. The President’s recommendation was that CGR internal auditors be included in the reform proposal’s consultation process so that they could provide valuable input in areas that the proposal didn’t cover extensively, particularly those dealing with accountability and fiduciary needs. We were optimistic that this activity could get some traction. To help improve the reform, we invited back international consultant Chilean Miguel Pe~ nailillo to conduct an analysis of the CGR Organic Law reform proposal. The objective of the analysis was to identify areas in which the reform proposal was lacking empowerment or clarity, or where there might be ambiguous language. Hagamos Democracia used this document as a tool to help in the consultation process in order to present a more complete and adequate reform proposal. Hagamos Democracia also came out with the first bimonthly bulletin under this project called Legislative Barometer (‘‘Bar ometro Legislativo’’). With the Ortega Administration’s shutdown of the official Gazeta Web site, this effort arrived none too soon. It contained a compilation of all laws that were approved and/or vetoed during the previous two months, among other things. This represented the start of a new Legislative Watch program to keep the citizenry engaged with oversight and monitoring. With no political check on power, this would be one of the few brakes on power in the new administration. On Thursday, February 1st, USAID consultant and gender expert Natasha Loayza was the keynote speaker at a program on Transparency and Gender held with the the Fundacion Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. The meeting resulted in a high level of commitment by participants to promote collective action in the fight against corruption. The exchange also raised awareness of the need for women to work toward changing patriarchal mentalities. Later, we met with Pilar Martınez, Movimiento’s executive director, to exchange information on activities for 2007 and explore common areas of interest. Three key areas were identified for potential future work: 1) Investing in internal capacity of Movimiento to strengthen not only its capacity to influence policymaking and an anticorruption agenda, but also its capacity to achieve sustainability, using as a model the similar Chilean organization Participa; 2) Providing youth with tools and skills, particularly related to the design and implementation of transparency projects; and 3) developing a grant proposal focusing on a strategy to monitor the decision-making process. We agreed to a follow-up meeting in several weeks.

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In most countries of the world, professional attorney associations—the organized bars—play a critical role in public policy analysis and advocacy. This was an untapped resource in Nicaragua. However, we would have to start almost from scratch in creating it if it was ever to be effective. In the United States, most states require attorneys to be members of the bar, including Wisconsin, Virginia, California, and the District of Columbia. A few states have no such requirement, like Pennsylvania where being a member of the bar is voluntary for attorneys. The American Bar Association (ABA) is a national-level voluntary bar organization. In Mexico, there are a number of voluntary bar entities, perhaps the most prestigious being the Barra Mexicana. There are three bar associations in Nicaragua, none of them obligatory. Worse, the three are perceived as politically ‘‘infected.’’ Unlike, say, the ABA, they do not opine on judicial candidacies or have a role in defining national bar exams. Also, poverty and the economy are the top citizen concerns, not the judicial system. Citizens lack consciousness of the importance of judicial independence and impartiality. The USAID Rule of Law Program began a new program on citizen awareness parallel to a new program with seven student law clinics to advance pro bono legal services which would alleviate demands on the public defense service while also educating citizens on their rights and roles. USAID also engaged universities to monitor judicial performance and publish results as a way to galvanize society to demand reform in the judicial sector. We set aside a small fund for local grants to further advance information campaigns and awareness. On February 21st, our rule of law program sponsored a forum to analyze a proposed draft law on the creation of a mandatory bar association in Nicaragua. The forum was conducted by national and international experts on the subject in coordination with Nicaraguan lawyers’ associations. The forum allowed the associations to identify the steps for the approval of a law that would regulate the profession and the process for implementing it. The new law would guarantee more efficient, ethical, and quality professional services from the approximately 13,000 lawyers in Nicaragua. Just by way of comparison, Guatemala had six law schools with about 6,000 law graduates in a country over twice the population of Nicaragua. The forum was a first step to calling attention to the necessity of creating an independent bar association. With USAID help, the National Justice Commission unanimously endorsed the draft Criminal Code and sent it to the National Assembly. The new legislation required an article by article reading, debate, and vote. The draft had 700 some articles. This would take forever. We told the Justice Commission that when USAID had helped on the Criminal Procedure Code, we had done a chapter a week in the Assembly. If the Assembly could agree to set aside a single day a week to work on it, we could get through it in a number of months. The Assembly leadership agreed to set aside Thursdays every week. USAID advisers would be on the floor of the Assembly to respond to technical questions about comparative law or about requirements under international treaties signed

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by Nicaragua, including the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, the American Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, international money laundering agreements (Financial Action Task Force, or FATF), and other commitments. The goal would be to ensure that anything in the Code cohered with the latest international standards. On the opening Thursday, the Assembly approved 36 articles. With the work we had done previously, 229 articles from the whole Code had been already approved. We were back on the march. Social auditing of municipal finances was another area in which we continued to engage civil society. Working with IEEPP, we held a workshop on February 21 on ‘‘Planning and Strengthening Social Auditing in Chinandega.’’ Members of civil society, municipal government, local media (from Corinto, El Realejo, Villa Nueva, and Sto Tomas del Norte), and community leaders participated. Successful social auditing experiences from the region were shared. The new political context was also analyzed in-depth to determine which public policy areas would be more feasible to socially audit, and IEEPP came out with a new newsletter on social auditing. USAID had a subgrant with Red Nicarag€ uense para el Desarrollo Local to work on social auditing in five municipalities. Each municipality had a different objective and strategy; however, this project encouraged an integrated approach, engaging such themes as gender, youth, and capacity building. While we advanced on social auditing, we also had the ongoing participatory budget program with Grupo FUNDEMOS working on participatory budgeting in three municipalities: San Marcos, Palacag€ uina, and Chinandega. I particularly liked the Palacag€ uina program. We helped the city to hold a Citizen’s Open Municipal Council Meeting (cabildo). That in itself sounds really boring. At the meeting, the citizens of Palacag€ uina were provided information on the 2006 municipal budget and what citizen projects had been incorporated into the 2007 budget. Community leaders, municipal government officials, and civil society representatives were present. Palacag€ uina is a tiny town. But 250 people were there to discuss the budget. They were engaged, they wanted to know what was happening, and they wanted to have a say. This was pure democracy in action. And it was having an impact. As a direct result of this USAID-facilitated meeting, 12 new projects presented by the citizens of Palacag€ uina during the participatory budgeting consultations were incorporated into the budget. Citizen demand–driven projects were chosen based on need and local priorities, including health, safety, and education. This was textbook development assistance, using participation and transparency to transform the lives of ordinary citizens in tangible ways. And in the end, the impact and results were not ours—they belonged to the citizens. After all, this was their town, and they were the ones that did it. On February 27th, in collaboration with Red Probidad/Nicaragua, USAID held the first part of its Transparency Forum with local journalists. The roundtable was called ‘‘Investigation of Corruption Cases, Where are we and Where are we Going?’’ This included Jose Ugaz, a Peruvian penal lawyer that investigated the Fujimori-Montesinos case, and local level journalists from many regions of the

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country, including both autonomous regions from the Caribbean Coast. There was a great degree of interest from journalists, in particular from the Caribbean Coast, about improving their investigative skills in this area. The next day, we had a continuation of the program with ‘‘Transparency Forum II: ‘‘Investigation of Corruption Cases: Where are we and Where are we Going?’’ In addition to Jose Carlos Ugaz, other panelists included Eduardo Flores-Trejo, the USAID transparency program director from Panama; Lola Araujo, AntiCorruption Task Force Specialist and the USAID transparency program director from the Dominican Republic; and Samuel Gonzalez, former Mexican Chief of Prosecutors against Organized Crime, who delineated strategies to fight cartels and high ranking corrupt officials. The program was broadcast live via web casting. The program was quite innovative. The forum consisted of a full day of sharing experiences from other countries, including Bolivia, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, on their advances in investigation of corruption cases and on the use of new methodologies and approaches to enhance the process of investigation. Seventy participants from civil society, media, the private sector, and the government(e.g., National Assembly Deputies such as Xhantis Suarez from Movimiento Renovador Sandista/MRS and Public Ministry officials) were present. I appreciated the positive newspaper coverage as well. Since 2005, we had been working with a group of 17 civil society organizations that had voluntarily been meeting to monitor the government’s compliance with the Convention. This group was called the CSO-IACC group. In 2006, they developed a civil society independent report presented to OAS in December of 2006. After meeting regularly, they were now ready to begin implementing projects of their own. Since we could not support seventeen individual grants, the group itself determined that it would be best to present only four to six grant proposals. They formed their own subgroups to design and eventually implement these grants. With the new government, we did not immediately meet with the new Administration heads of ministries. Protocol dictates that the new President meets first with the Ambassador. Then, if we have other relationships with ministries, the Ambassador would meet those individuals next. So it was not until late in February that we had our first courtesy meeting with the new Solicitor General (Procurador General), Hernan Estrada, on Thursday, February 22, 2007. Estrada had been a private attorney earlier, representing international clients. We hoped this would be a sign that he could engage on a substantive basis and not just follow the dictates of the Pact. In the meeting, Estrada showed a genuine interest in learning about our efforts, particularly activities related to training, environmental enforcement, and strengthening the capacity of procuradores to investigate anticorruption cases. Other areas of interest to the Procurador currently not contemplated by our program included: the creation of an office that would specialize in the investigation of complex international cases and the provision of information technology equipment. I was impressed with his interest in complex international litigation. As for equipment, we get that all the time. When new politicians get to office, they don’t understand development or institution building. They imagine we are some sort

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of ATM machine, and they ask for toys. As we do with most ministers, we would have to bring this guy along and educate him. The best ones learn, adapt, and succeed. The worst ones get frustrated when they don’t get their toys, and some are just in office to steal what they can and only pay lip service to institutional development. Time would tell in this case. We also continued our support for the Public Ministry and in particular, support for the full implementation of the Prosecutor Career Law. One provision of that law requires the Public Ministry to train its entire professional staff, and USAID was committed to helping the institution comply with that requirement. From February 26th through March 3rd, we conducted a training course for twenty-six prosecutors, a course discussing domestic violence and gender violence. This course was part of our larger, ongoing program of assistance to hit all the needed topics within the institutional context. As the month ended, we continued the push on political party finance reform. On the heels of the successful Bluefields forum, we returned to Manauga. On February 20th, the Chamorro Foundation under the civil society coalition initiative known as Citizenship for Political Transparency (Ciudadanı´a por Transparencia en la Polı´tica) held a Political Party Finance Reform Forum at the American University (Universidad Americana/UAM). In the forum, 40 participants discussed and analyzed ways and means to reform the political party finance legal framework, which would be the centerpiece of the Citizenship’s future work. While we chipped away on these efforts, Ortega was chipping away in the other direction. On February 23rd, he slipped off to Caracas to meet with Hugo Chavez. Upon return, Daniel talked up the thousands of Cuban and Venezuelan teachers and doctors in Nicaragua. The U.S. assistance was either ignored or belittled. A new Cuban literacy campaign was imported to replace a multidonor basic education program four years in the making and field-tested across Nicaragua, a waste of millions of dollars in scarce education assistance. As Ortega moved with intention to the hard left, La Prensa published on the web a bootleg copy of the Presidency’s communication strategy. La Chayo’s strategy noted that the relationship with the United States was sensitive for economic reasons and because Nicaraguan citizens defined their own security and stability based upon a positive relationship with America. So the goal would be to portray openness and a positive relationship with the United States and American investors and avoid any return to a cold war. At the same time, the strategy called for taking any steps possible to oppose the United States. Apart from the stresses of Ortega and the political transition, one of the highlights of my month was a visit by my mom and my stepfather, Beverly and Jerry Sweitzer. Danika told me about a beach hotel, Marina Puesta del Sol, in the northwest corner of Nicaragua on the Pacific Coast. And she strongly recommended the place—fantastic white sand beaches, good food, incredible views. Danika’s husband Steve, a real estate agent, had gone and stayed there with clients and knew the owner. I took the entire family, and we had a blast. My mom really liked riding horseback on the beach along with my kids and me.

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My son Daniel wanted to go deep sea fishing, but boat rental there for an afternoon was about $600. I’m a public servant and don’t have that kind of cash, so we jumped a fence and walked to a nearby peasant village where, for about $15 for gas, some peasant fishermen took us out on their boat at dusk. My Mom and Jerry really liked their visit and Nicaragua in general. Jerry, the author of a book on small southern U.S. towns, is now writing a book on retirement for babyboomers on a limited budget. He plans to include a section on retirement options in Nicaragua, based in part on his visit here.

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22

Drip, Drip, Drip Meets Wiley Coyote and Road Runner (March 2007)

We started the new month on a positive beat with an event on March 6th with Ambassador Trivelli and the Ambassador of Sweden, Eva Zetterberg. They were both guest speakers at a ceremony to present the results of a program that allowed thousands of Nicaraguans with disabilities to vote in the last general election in November 2006. USAID provided $175,000 to IFES for technical, logistical, and financial assistance to Fundaci on Solidez, a local organization for people with disabilities, to facilitate participation of voters with special needs. Ramps were constructed, and facilitators were trained and deployed at polling stations to help voters who needed assistance. IFES estimated the turnout of voters with disabilities for the 2006 national election was ten times greater than previous elections, a direct impact of this program. At the event, we publicly released a report and CD describing the experience of voters with disabilities in the recent election: ‘‘Tu Voto Vale, Tu Voto Decide.’’ The report and an eight-minute CD documenting the campaign to promote and facilitate the participation of voters with disabilities in the 2006 national elections were also presented during the event. We were told that this activity has some of the best, most effective, cutting-edge programming to promote participation by the disabled anywhere in the developing world. Our funding went to provide instruction for CSE employees on how to accommodate people with disabilities, to hire assistants (edecanes) for Election Day to help the disabled, create new rules to allow the disabled to vote, and provide support for people with disabilities to work in the JRVs and as electoral observers. By mainstreaming participation by people with disabilities in the machinery of the electoral process, we laid the groundwork for their inclusion in all future elections. Two things struck me about the event. First, the civil society groups brought together by Fundaci on Solidez for the event of the election had really bonded. They

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would use this as a jumping pad for future coordination in other areas. Activists with disabilities were now organized into a group that could advocate for change. Second, thanks to Selma and Danika, we actually changed the Spanish language in a small way. Danika had written the Ambassador’s speech. Selma was editing it, and they came to a question on how to translate ‘‘the disabled.’’ Selma put ‘‘persons of differing abilities’’ (personas de distintas capacidades) rather than ‘‘disabled.’’ We debated this among ourselves, but in the end went with Selma’s version. At the event, the Ambassador stuck to the script. Following his remarks, a CSE Magistrate spoke. And guess what he said? He used the same expression! A new expression was born. I pulled the Ambassador aside after the event, and we both laughed at how Selma was changing the Spanish language and Nicaraguan culture, making both more inclusive of persons of differing abilities. He confessed that he practiced the new expression several times before the event to make sure he got it right! He liked it too. In the meantime, we were concerned that all current voter ID cards (ce dulas) were set to expire prior to the 2008 municipal elections. A Spanish firm had agreed to provide a loan to the government of Nicaragua for technical support and equipment to produce the new c e dula. IFES estimated that this loan would cover roughly 60 percent of the actual costs of producing the new c e dulas. The other 40 percent would have to come from the donor community or from the regular CSE budget. The civil registry and voter registry (padr on) would also need to be updated to support the new ce dula. IFES reported it was highly unlikely that the CSE would complete these actions before the 2008 elections. This would leave the CSE in the unfortunate position of having to authorize the use of three different kinds of ce dulas (old, new, and provisional ID cards—‘‘documentos supletorios’’) and two separate voter registries (padr ones) (from the 2006 national elections and the padr on created for the new ce dulas) in the upcoming elections. IFES was on top of this, but the issues were both extremely urgent and complex, and the end result was not clear. To complicate matters, the CSE had no current budget. The IMF was undertaking a review of Nicaragua’s national budget, so the CSE was unlikely to get any appropriation until the IMF review was complete. The CSE would also have to await finalized budget support figures from the European donors. Our best guess was that the CSE would likely have to survive without a budget until at least May. CSE President Roberto Rivas offered to meet with key ambassadors to discuss the electoral reform agenda. Rafael Lopez Pintor advised Amb. Trivelli to participate. To help with policy dialogue with the CSE, we had the benefit of several new studies. ET released its voter ID card (c e dula) report, receiving great press coverage in both papers. The study showed that the average person waits five months to get a c e dula (the law says it should never take more than three months). Of those that presented documents correctly requesting a voter ID at least 90 days (but in most cases, much more) prior to the elections, 89 percent succeeded in getting their c e dula (11 percent failed). Rafael Lopez Pintor and Rodrigo Barreto (CSE) were in Washington briefing USAID and the State Department on developments with the CSE. The European Union Election Observation Report also came out.

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Curiously, the EU didn’t even bother to invite either USAID or the American Embassy when they released their report (although Danika crashed it!). Only 12 people were in the audience, and no one from the CSE attended. Working-level staff from ET, IPADE, and the Chamorro Foundation as well as David Dye from the Carter Center and Deborah Ullmer from NDI were most of the attendees. The entire briefing lasted just 30 minutes. On the bright side, the report recommendations were in line with our postelectoral assessments and seemed to dovetail nicely with the CEPPS extension activities and IFES’ recommendations. A bootleg copy of the FSLN government communication strategy somehow was leaked to the press. It ended up on the Internet. This was intended as an in-house document, not for publication, until La Prensa got hold of it. It noted that the government would try to avoid direct confrontation with the United States even while it worked to advance a socialist agenda. At the same time, El Universal, the major Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper, noted that Nicaragua had joined Telesur as a partner. Telesur is a multi-satellite channel that had been on the air for a year and a half. Previously, Telesur’s board had members from Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina. The Ortega government was beginning to bite. Conservative Party (ALN-PC) Deputy Rafael Cordova contacted us after reading the ‘‘Pronunciamiento’’ from the USAID-assisted CSO-IACC Follow-Up Group that was published in various newspapers. Initially, he approached us by stating that he was interested in the Group’s efforts and was interested in promoting IACC compliance by promoting proper implementation of the civil service law. However, he was really interested in something else. Cordova currently formed part of the Labor Commission of the National Assembly. He explained that since the new government administration came into place, the Commission had received approximately five hundred complaints dealing with unjustified firing of public officials. On that same note, the Commission was receiving two or three requests per day for assistance to issue lawsuits against those who are unjustly firing officials. Eric Mahler of the Embassy political section spoke with the new Labor Minister. She mentioned that no more than four hundred had been removed in the changeover. Mahler also had lunch with the National Assembly’s Labor Commission Deputy Alejandro Bola~ nos, who mentioned the same figure of five hundred and said the firings violate the Civil Service Law. Our take on all this was that the law probably isn’t that clear. The new administration was probably using wiggle room to justify firing people in lieu of transferring them, as is supposed to be done, even with employees of confidence. Bola~ nos said he proposed legislation to tighten up the wording of the law to make it more difficult to fire people in early February but that it was still sitting on Navarro’s desk. Bola~ nos also reported that the Commission for Appeals had never been created despite being written into law in 2003. The Ministry of Labor wasn’t touching disputes over firing, claiming it was an issue for the Treasury Ministry (Hacienda). Thus, Bola~ nos pointed out, this left people in limbo. Most didn’t do anything, but others filed lawsuits. Bola~ nos said that he opened a center to provide guidance

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on filing cases in court, staffed by a couple of lawyers. This may be the same effort described below. DCM Peter Brennan and I both thought this was an issue that the opposition should seize on, especially since Ortega, Foreign Minister Samuel Santos (who told us several times that there would not be more than 200 slots changed), and others had said there would be no wholesale firings (despidos). The FSLN appeared to be eviscerating the professional and technical corps of many of the ministries we worked with, many peoplewe had paid considerable money to prepare, train, and equip. As USAID, we could not fund partisan litigation. Furthermore, we did not want to appear interventionist. In the end, we left this issue to the political arena with the ALN-PC leading the way. But we remained concerned. A related concern remained merit-based selection for the Fiscal General and Magistrates for the Supreme Court. We facilitated another meeting with members of the Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia to discuss the impact of the media campaign to pressure the National Assembly to select independent and impartial justice sector officials. The Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia agreed to continue the campaign in addition to publishing public notices in national newspapers and conducting meetings with media executives. Movimiento Por Nicaragua organized a demonstration on March 1st to call attention to the issue. The purpose of the demonstration was to pressure the National Assembly deputies (Diputados) to commit themselves to implementing a transparent, merit-based selection process for Attorney General and Magistrates. All diputados were invited to participate; however, only two diputados attended the event (one ALN and one PLC). This notwithstanding, there was strong participation from civil society, academics, legal associations, and journalists. The event received extensive media coverage, especially on Channel 23 and Radio Maranatha. On forensic medicine, we also needed civil society to be engaged. Justice promoters also needed to be brought on board with the broader training being offered to doctors, judges, and prosecutors. Our programs extended across the four corners of Nicaragua, and we hoped that might help turn the tide to generate positive reform. We were leaving no stone unturned. I thought it was important that these operational level actors understand what was at stake, what we were trying to do, and why it was important. I did not want their only information on this to come from the media. I underscored to the audience that it was their country and their future at risk. They had to take responsibility. They had to lead. Development agencies like USAID can help, but they are only really effective if they are supporting leadership that wants to do the right thing. Politics aside, I have been extremely proud in my career that the USAID technical programs we have provided for judges, prosecutors, and public defenders have always had ‘‘street credibility,’’ no matter the national level political shenanigans. From March 8th to 10th, we again rolled up our sleeves and conducted a nutsand-bolts, practical training course on elements of proof and trial evidence for organized crime cases. This is the ‘‘meat and potatoes’’ style training that makes or breaks a justice system.

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But for this kind of USAID training in much of Central America and the Andean countries, the legal systems simply would not work. Since the United States has a keen interest in making sure these countries have operational justice systems, the backbone of any democratic system, I have often wondered why we have to go to such extreme lengths to justify the pennies we get in foreign assistance to make them work. Who in Washington doesn’t get this? I am never sure if it is the Administration (although it doesn’t seem to matter whether it is Democratic or Republican on this score), Congress, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), or an American public that either is unaware of this work and its importance, or doesn’t care. In any case, we had 42 prosecutors in the class from all across the country. Separately, on March 12th, USAID inaugurated a Court Management Specialization Course at UAM. Our technical credibility in these programs was grounded in a professional law review article by Carlos Cerda on the Nicaraguan judicial career law in the Revista de lo Jurıdico. Cerda was extremely laudatory of USAID’s efforts to promote merit-based principles and transparency within the judicial system. Curiously, on the day of our training, an unscientific poll in La Prensa found that only one percent of Nicaraguans said judges were not corrupt or politicized. We had the right issue, at the right time, with the right package of assistance. Given the political situation, would it work? While USAID normally works on long-term development concerns, at times the urgency of political events makes it imperative to focus on the short-term. As the development context worsened in Nicaragua, we shifted more and more to helping civil society survive the immediate term. One innovation was the ‘‘FortyFive Day Political Memorandum.’’ Normally, governments are judged on their first 100 days. Our start in Nicaragua was so far off the mark, we dared not wait that long. Gerardo Berthın worked with Rosa Marina Zelaya, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, Eloiza Ibarra (from El Nuevo Diario), and several academics to assess the current government’s performance at 45 days. Our best instrument was the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption. In the current political context, it was imperative that the government be held to internationally-accepted standards for governance. This was best done by Nicaraguan civil society and democratic political parties. We also made sure our efforts on the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption were integrated with work of other donors. Since most of the IDB and OAS projects and initiatives related to the IACAC are centralized in Washington, DC, we were able to share our work with these Washington counterparts and ensure our efforts were coordinated. The Legislative Watch, through Hagamos Democracia, continued to publish reports, including new work by the Legislative Commissions on executive branch political culture and budgetary changes in legislation, in addition to regular reporting. My favorite part of the new wave reporting was the publication of the brand new Iran-Nicaragua memorandum of understanding. I doubted that the Ortega administration wanted to see that in the public eye, and I was pleased that our program was able to show the public what was going on in the administration.

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Our program to promote the Access to Information Law continued to get great press (for example, the lead editorial in La Prensa on March 1st. Our subgrantee, the Chamorro Foundation, got particular attention. Our local Nicaraguan partners began also coordinating with neighboring countries and networking with NGOs, including FUSADES in El Salvador, to bring regional lessons learned to bear. On March 4th, USAID and the Chamorro Foundation aired a TV show on the program Esta Semana in honor of the recent celebration of Journalists’ Day. The special was dedicated to a report out on the Access to Information Law (‘‘Reportaje: Ley de Acceso a la Informaci on’’). The show focused on the difficulties that journalists face day after day in their jobs due to denied access to public information. The show also mentioned various nefarious motions that have been put forth by some National Assembly Deputies to obligate journalists to make their sources of information public, despite a long history of journalistic confidentiality in reporting. The show was available online and really drove home the public policy arguments why the Access to Information Law is needed now in Nicaragua. USAID subgrantees played major roles in shaping the debate in the Assembly. In part reflecting intense training of journalists on how to cover the story, USAID’s activities continue to get great coverage. Outside of government, we were making good progress on promoting alternative dispute resolution. USAID and the Bluefields Indian & Caribbean University (BICU) inaugurated a mediation center in Bluefields. The center would serve to improve access to justice for the citizens of the region. The center has multilingual mediators that will serve the local population in their native languages. We are reaching ordinary citizens, mostly women, the poor, and indigenous, in tangible, measurable ways through this effort with institutionalized, sustainable mechanisms. Back in Managua, in collaboration with the C amara de Comercio Americana de Nicaragua (AmCham), we conducted a workshop on mediation and arbitration techniques. In addition to providing technical assistance to define the structure of the international arbitration and mediation center, we trained a pool of attorneys who would work as arbitrators and mediators. With the ongoing intensive training, we hoped to open the new AmCham Mediation and Arbitration Center in mid April. CACONIC’s Mediation and Arbitration Center, inaugurated a year earlier with USAID help, was the first in Nicaragua focused on commercial disputes. The AmCham Center would now provide an additional resource for the business sector. In 2006, the USAID-drafted Arbitration and Mediation Law was the only piece of legislation passed unanimously by the Assembly with support from the Executive. We took on several new efforts to promote civil society advocacy and monitoring. On the Atlantic Coast, we visited the community of Bonanza to hold a meeting with representatives of the Cooperativa de Silvicultores de Bonanza and various community leaders, including the leader of Matumbak, a Mayagna community. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss issues related to access to justice and environmental law that affect the local indigenous communities. At the same time, we inaugurated another new mediation center also in Bonanza that would help to improve access to justice for the citizens of that region. The

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center was established with the collaboration of the Movimiento de Mujeres Cristina Rugama. Likehe the center in Bluefields, this center has multilingual mediators that will serve the local population in their native languages. Separately, a letter to the editor in La Prensa, noting problems with the judiciary in Nicaragua, singled out USAID’s help for mediation as one positive sign. On March 29th, USAID director Alex Dickie presided over the inauguration of a new Mediation Center at National Autonomous University of Nicaragua’s Leon campus (UNAN/Leon). The Center would serve to improve access to justice to economically disadvantaged citizens from the region of Leon and to provide alternative dispute resolution services in an effective and expedited manner outside of the formal justice system. At the same time, we sought to expand the Justice Facilitator Program. We met with representatives of CPDH, Casa de la Mujer, Comisi on Municipal de Atenci on a la Ni~ nez de Matagalpa, and Comisi on Municipal de Atenci on a la Ni~ nez de Granada to develop an action plan for the expansion of the Justice Facilitator Program in rural and urban areas. As a result of this effort, we expected to recruit more than 300 new voluntary justice facilitators. We also offered help on an equal basis to all political parties with their internal strategy and democratization processes if that was of interest. Only the ALN and MRS wanted to participate. From March 10th to March 11th, we sponsored a closed door session for the ALN with facilitators from INCAE, the Nicaraguanbased business school of international renown. We later provided a similar session for the MRS. These intensified retreats on policy, planning, and structure followed the all-party training we offered in February at which we had only token PLC and FSLN participation although all were invited. A women’s leadership conference for political parties was taking place in Mexico. So as part of our help to Nicaragua, we brought Marıa Eugenia Sequeira (from the ALN) to participate in the Mexico conference (along with Joe Agostini). While there, she also met with Mexican political parties and exchanged views on how to strengthen communication among parties internationally, and how to strengthen parties internally. A lot of times in my development work I believe the most important skill I have is not my law degrees, or Spanish language, or background in Economics. The most important skill I had was the experience of being a parent. A lot of politicians and political institutions behave like spoiled children! And I was about to see that again. On the heels of our training for political parties, as it drew to a close, only then did the FSLN and PLC approach us and say they would like substantive participation. But we had already done the training and paid for it. They chose not to participate when it was offered and now expressed regret. We were not going to pay to do the same thing all over again for these politicians acting like children. You snooze, you lose. We hoped in the future they would be more responsible and behave appropriately. The children had to learn to live with the consequences of their decisions. This was tough love. We were not favoring any of the groups. But if one or two want to go off and have tantrums, I am not going to reward that.

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A lot of what we do in development is also very process-oriented, getting people together to talk and try to come up with plans so that both can come out ahead. This kind of ‘‘babysitting’’ is actually most of our work—getting people that ordinarily don’t talk to each other to at least meet. For example, this month, we brought together representatives of the three access to justice coalitions (women, children, and indigenous communities). The idea was to create a national commission that would group justice promoters and leaders from all three coalitions. But in development, it will never work if it is USAID’s idea—it has to be the partners’ idea. That means we don’t impose solutions, and we work to institutionalize results with the local actors to give them ownership and give the programs sustainability. At first, you might think it would be a lot easier to do the work ourselves. But we can’t. It isn’t our country, and frankly, it isn’t our problem. We don’t ‘‘own’’ the development problems—they do. Only when they own the problems will they own the solutions and make them work. In this instance, representatives of the coalitions eventually agreed on the mission and objectives of the national commission. But beyond that, they also came up with a strategic plan that included three major components: 1) public participation, 2) media, and 3) capacity-building. Dick Silc, one of USAID’s top financial controllers until his retirement, used to say, a bit sarcastically, that ‘‘Process is our only product.’’ He was right in one sense. Process mattered a whole lot in what we did. Process is not sexy. It is usually about as fun as a trip to the dentist, but it is important. Another example of our process work in March was our sponsorship of the National Meeting of Justice Promoters of the Women’s Rights Coalition. Women’s rights have been a top concern for me in my career. I was surprised that, even after all the Sandinista populist rhetoric of the 1980s, and all their talk of women’s rights, there had never been a national level meeting for women to get together to discuss the challenges they together face. So we facilitated the first annual meeting of justice promoters in Managua. While I am not a fan of conferences or meetings (which I have to admit, I sometimes jokingly call meetings ‘‘sustainable development’’ because they seemingly never end), when they can produce tangible, measurable, concrete agendas for action, count me in. I was proud to be on board with the Women’s Coalition even if long meetings and lectures are not exactly my thing. I was also proud that this meeting had included representation from the Atlantic Coast, the north, and the south, as well as the center of Managua. A lot of policy for the last 500 years in Nicaragua had been top down. We were modeling the behavior we wanted the politicians to start to emulate. The last week of March, continuing our expansion of the Youth and Adolescent Rights Coalition, our rule of law team staff visited the region of Chontales to meet with twenty-two members of civil society organizations from the communities of Juigalpa, Acoyapa, La Libertad, Santo Domingo, Santo Tomas, San Pedro de Lovago, Cuapa, El Coral, and Comalapa. In addition, USAID developed a training plan consisting of a series of workshops, which would focus on developing

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community leaders and potential justice promoters committed to increasing awareness of human rights and access to justice issues for youth and adolescents. Another target population for USAID help is indigenous peoples. They have historically been marginalized or excluded from the political process. As with the American civil rights movement, we hoped that improved access to justice could galvanize Nicaraguan indigenous people to better protect their civil and political rights. Back in Managua, we facilitated a meeting with eleven members of the Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia (OPEJUS) to revise and sign the internal procedures manual of the organization. OPEJUS also agreed on a strategy to seek assistance from other donors interested in supporting the organization’s efforts concerning governance, transparency, and strengthening of the justice sector. Beyond this, the Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia (OPEJUS) and USAID developed a strategy and began implementing activities to improve transparency in the justice system, including the merit-based selection of justice sector officials. As such, our NGO partners were making life difficult for the Pact and their appointment of Supreme Court magistrates and Fiscal General. Public debate between candidates for Attorney General and Magistrates for the Court took place Thursday, March 22nd with great press coverage. In the end, all the civil society work went for naught. The Pact got its way anyway. On Thursday, March 28th, Ivan Escobar Fornos, Alba Luz Ramos Venegas, Juana Mendez Perez, and Sergio Cuarezma Teran were approved by the Assembly to fill the open slots on the Court. Julio Centeno Gomez was approved as Fiscal General de la Rep ublica, and retired Police Commissioner Ana Julia Guido was named Fiscal General Adjunta. So what next? Civil society expressed its anger and intention to punch back. They had the profiles for Supreme Court Magistrate and Fiscal General that were completed by the OPEJUS and accepted by the National Assembly Justice Commission. The OPEJUS board met and agreed on a statement concerning the process that week and issued a paid advertisement (campo pagado) in a major newspaper. Eight additional magistrates would come up for appointment in just one year, so civil society realized that it needed to start now to get on top of this! Movimiento Por Nicaragua’s protest march also included a public pronouncement on the subject. Again, the journalism training on this subject continued to pay off big, but still, the fact was that the Pact had gotten its way once again. Another of our ‘‘process’’ products was the Criminal Code. As part of our ongoing effort, we offered technical assistance to the Justice Commission of the National Assembly. In mid March, we had meetings with seven National Assembly deputies (diputados) and five of their legal advisers, all from the Justice Commission, to reach consensus on sixteen motions to upgrade the Criminal Code on issues related to fraud and patrimony. This work was the ‘‘drip, drip, drip’’ needed, like drops of water falling on a hard stone which, only after a sustained period of time, eventually break the rock in two. We kept at the ‘‘drip, drip, drip’’ of assistance to the Commission, meeting after meeting after meeting, hoping that in the end, the Code would get passed.

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The lead article in La Prensa on Friday, March 9th showcased the Code, so we knew it was getting attention, and our help was making it all possible. With the packing of the court and the Criminal Code pending in the legislature, we needed to keep civil society engaged, especially outside the capital. In coordination with the three access to justice coalitions, we organized a justice fair in the northern region of Triangulo Minero. We wanted these communities to be involved in the political life of the country and the decisions being made on their behalf back in Managua. Some in the development world have accused me of having a ‘‘bag of tricks’’ to dip into when I confront a problem. I prefer to think that all development professionals have an accumulated ‘‘toolbox’’ of ideas they can draw on as they confront new situations. Part of the toolbox is assembled from one’s own experience. Other tools come from seeing what others have done, what works, and what does not, and stealing the best ideas! The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) harps on the need to use ‘‘best practices’’ and share ‘‘lessons learned’’ to improve government performance. I am all about stealing the best practices I can find and analyzing them to see if they might fit a new situation. However, all development practitioners need to be careful never to ‘‘parachute in’’ a solution designed for somewhere else, or some other challenge, and assume it will work in another context. With all that in mind, I considered a new issue, civil society capacity in Nicaragua. To be honest, it wasn’t a new issue. It had just gained monumental importance to us. With the FSLN’s control over everything from most universities, to the court, the legislature, the electoral tribunal, and the executive, civil society was one of the few remaining options for holding the Government of Nicaragua to the Inter-American Democratic Charter and its various anticorruption, human rights, and law enforcement commitments under various treaties and international agreements. The fly in the buttermilk was that civil society in Nicaragua was pathetically weak. I had a long talk with the Ambassador and the Embassy country team. As I saw it, most Nicaraguan civil society entities were quite pathetic. Often, an organization would be some guy with just an email address and a fax machine. There was not a lot of capacity. Worse, a lot of organizations were driven not by membership dues or contributions, but instead by what they could get from financial donors. The most prestigious institutions were not those with the largest or most diverse membership bases, but the ones that got the most money from a donor. Consequently, incentives were for organizations to compete with each other to chase scarce donor money, rather than work together to build or create a common good. It was unnatural to bring groups together to reach a common goal. Success for a Nicaraguan NGO was often getting more money, not changing policy or improving people’s lives. Few could present an operational budget, and virtually none knew about indirect cost recovery or how to construct personnel policies or draw up strategic plans with indicators and performance monitoring. It had to change. We had been doing that with our subgrants program with a great measure of success. But we were only successful where we ‘‘pushed on the

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string.’’ Broadly speaking, though, Nicaraguan civil society was dysfunctional. It needed some sort of jump start or a kick in the head. Civil society needed to go to boot camp! So I reached into the ‘‘bag of tricks.’’ In the early 1990s, Kerry Byrnes (who then worked for Chemonics International, a Washington-based consulting firm) had done a series of workshops for agriculture export firms called ‘‘Organizational Management for Sustainability’’ or OMS. I decided to adapt the OMS program for work with democracy-sector non-governmental organizations. As luck would have it, Kerry Byrnes now worked directly with USAID’s Latin America Bureau. I enlisted Kerry, along with Amy Regas (Chemonics International), Gerardo Berthın, and Luz Marina Garcıa to build a workshop for eight Nicaraguan civil society entities. At the end of workshop, each NGO had a draft of its strategic plan for sustainability. The Ambassador commented that everything he had heard from the participants indicated that this was an outstanding program, and he urged USAID to repeat it. He added, ‘‘This is the exact kind of activity we need to be doing more of.’’ The event also represented a very successful example of regional programming out of Washington supporting field mission efforts in critical sectors. My warm feeling from NGO boot camp would not last long. The worst counterpart meeting I have ever had came when we met with the Presidency’s new Director of Office of Public Ethics (OEP), Edna Stubbert. She explained to us that the Presidency’s approach to ethics would be to give all government employees an ethics course. I had the distinct displeasure of trying to tell her that such an approach had never had any impact in any country in the world. Her approach would never yield any result or have any impact. Attacking government corruption would require a full, broad, and coordinated strategy. I could not give her a corruption 101 class, and I suspect she wasn’t interested. She was clearly out of her league and clueless on how to run this office. I suspected that the Ortega Administration really didn’t want anyone effective in that role, which is why Ms. Stubbert was there. Perhaps I am being unfair to this woman, perhaps this was only the impression she wanted us to take away. Luz Marina and I provided her with extensive information, illustrative examples of possible areas of collaboration, and best practice information. Nonetheless, Stubbert was evasive and provided a highly ideological analysis of the situation and of future activities. There was little interest and knowledge of the subject matter, and little willingness to commit to collaborative activities. My takeaway from the meeting was abundantly clear: we were likely to explore other potential government counterparts to monitor compliance of Convention. As the meeting ended, I encouraged Stubbert to engage with Gerardo and said that we were happy to collaborate in any way she deemed appropriate. But I thought we would never hear from her again. There was zero interest in doing anything about official corruption. This was a complete shame. The OEP’s previous administration had been extremely willing to provide USAID with information and updates on Nicaragua’s

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compliance with the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and in fact collaborated with the civil society group that monitors the IACC. The OEP is the office, which by Executive mandate, is the Central Authority designated to monitor the Nicaraguan State’s compliance with the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (IACC). Since the start of our program in 2005, the OEP under the Bola~ nos Administration had been an important counterpart. Even as we reached out to the OEP, the real agenda of the new administration was becoming crystal clear. Former President Arnoldo Aleman’s liberal house arrest was expanded to the entire country. Previously, the political Pact between the FSLN and PLC parties allowed Aleman to serve a 20-year sentence for money laundering and embezzlement within the department of Managua. On March 16th, the director of the National Prison System granted Aleman freedom to travel anywhere in Nicaragua. Legally, only a judge has the authority to grant house arrest and set its parameters. Aleman lost no time in using his new privilege, making several trips outside of Managua to meet with supporters and make declarations about his ‘‘innocence’’ to the media. It seemed as if Aleman was campaigning, and, in fact, the daily news bulletin Bolsa de Noticias reported that Aleman confirmed that he plans to run for president in 2011. On March 12th, USAID, in collaboration with the Civil Society Organizations that provide follow-up to the Nicaraguan State’s Compliance with the InterAmerican Convention Against Corruption (CSO-IACC Follow-Up Group), published in La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario a unified pronouncement urging the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches to comply with the ratified anticorruption instrument. The agreed-upon text promoted proper implementation of the civil service law, adequate mechanisms for procurements and acquisitions, and creation of new spaces for citizen participation. Our pioneering work with civil society to monitor corruption was gaining international attention. The approach of using subgrants was also particularly attractive. We sent Gerardo Berthın to an international event in Asuncion, Paraguay, to explain what we had done, how we did it, and what impact it had had. Shortly thereafter, the USAID mission in that country announced its own program based on our subgrant model. I was pleased to see others stealing from us what they thought were best practices. Our civil society efforts again grabbed national attention: Movimiento por Nicaragua presented a report card of Daniel Ortega’s first 60 days in power, accusing the FSLN government of violating Nicaragua’s constitution. In a public forum, Movimiento presented an analysis of the Sandinista administration, citing several examples of illegal acts, including: violation of the civil service law with the firing of government employees; violation of the Ethics Law with Ortega’s appointment of his wife Rosario Murillo to a government position; the appointment of Cardinal Obando y Bravo to an official position, violating the separation of church and state; and the misuse of the official state seal, among others. Movimiento Executive Director Violeta Granera said there was ‘‘a dangerous confusion between the party and state.’’ Luıs Fernando Ubeda told the Ambassador: ‘‘There were hundreds of

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people at the announcement. The room was packed.’’ Ambassador Trivelli thought Movimiento’s analysis ‘‘was extremely well done.’’ During the USAID-assisted coordination meeting for the Civil Society Organization Follow-Up Group to the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (CSO-IACC Follow-Up Group), National Assembly Alianza Liberal Nicarag€ uense (ALN) Deputy and President of the Labor Commission, Alejandro Bola~ nos Davis, gave a five-minute presentation on the hundreds of cases of unjustified ‘‘layoffs’’ that had been making their way to the Commission. He provided an invitation to the group to attend a complete presentation that would be given by the Labor Commission on the current situation. He expressed the need for the group, as a representative group of civil society organizations, to draw attention to the fact that the Civil Service Law was not being upheld by the current Administration. A debriefing of our disastrous meeting with the new head of the Office of Public Ethics (OEP), Edna Stubbert, was also provided to the group. As a result, the CSO-IACC Group accepted Deputy Bola~ nos’ invitation to the National Assembly. As a reaction to the negativity and lack of political will on behalf of the OEP, the CSO-IACC Group decided that they would seek a separate meeting with Ms. Stubbert in hopes of obtaining her collaboration, despite our poor start with her. USAID had been working since 2005 with a group of 17 civil society organizations that have voluntarily been meeting to monitor Nicaragua’s compliance with the IACC. While USAID works with all parties on an equal basis—or at least offers that to all—I was invited to a meeting at Peter Brennan’s home where I could be the proverbial ‘‘fly on the wall’’ as Embassy representatives talked politics with local politicians. Peter had invited top ALN and PLC figures to his home on March 5th for cocktails, along with folks from the political section. Invitees tend to self-select: those most tied to Aleman were unlikely to come, while those looking for honest, open reform would probably come. They all admitted in private what we already knew. Because of their inability to get past Aleman, they allowed themselves to be split and handed power to Ortega. They agreed that Liberals still had a lot in common, and no one wanted the political agenda the country was now stuck with under the FSLN. But, predictably, it was difficult for them to agree on a path forward. The Embassy was not pushing any agenda here. Peter just offered some drinks and brought people together to talk, something they would not do otherwise. Neither Peter nor the Embassy staff said much. It was very interesting, but in the end, I’m not sure what we accomplished. The next day, it was back to politics as usual. The scene reminded me of a cartoon I saw as a kid: Wiley Coyote always chased Road Runner. The Sheppard Dog would punch in the clock for work and then fight all day with Wiley Coyote. But when the Sheppard Dog clocked out, he and Wiley could be good friends. I think Peter’s cocktail was something like that. The politicians had ‘‘clocked out’’ and met at Peter’s house, but the next day, they were ‘‘back on the clock.’’ At Peter’s house, they talked about the need to work together for progress, transparency, and participation, and the next day bickered on the Assembly floor like children. I hope the analogy of the Nicaraguan National Assembly

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being like a Road Runner cartoon is not too offensive to my Nicaraguan friends, but that’s what I was thinking. The Assembly and its diputados behaved like something in a cartoon. A clear way to get something done in economic development is to tap women’s productivity, intelligence, and resourcefulness. All that would work well for the political system as well. Unfortunately, Nicaraguan women earn on average $2,018 per year, while men get $4,512. To draw attention to these issues, on March 8th, the Ambassador hosted a cocktail at his personal residence in honor of International Women’s Day. Women’s participation in development was something both he and I cared deeply about. At the event, I ended up speaking with Alba Palacios, an FSLN deputy to the National Assembly. She was also part of the Assembly’s leadership, serving as the Second Secretary of the Assembly’s board. In the 1980s, she was a top student youth leader for the FSLN. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, if you were a student opposed to dictatorship, the only real option you had was to be in the FSLN. She was articulate and intelligent. I thought it interesting that she chose to attend this event at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence. I’ve mentioned how anyone getting an invite to the Embassy’s Fourth of July party means that the person is probably not involved in any sort of corruption, but persons opposed to the United States would not come, even if invited. The same is true for invites to any kind of official reception at the Ambassador’s residence. So it was interesting to me that one of the top FSLN leaders was there at the event. For me, it meant that the message that we were about ‘‘right and wrong, not left versus right’’ got through to at least one person in the top FSLN leadership, and she was there with us. It also illustrated how there are good-quality people across all parties, not just the ones that the pundits, left and right, assume are associated with the U.S. Throughout the month, we continued to press the anticorruption theme. On March 14th, Citizenship for Transparency in Politics members Mauricio Z un ~iga, Patricia Mayorga, and Yader Loza appeared on Channel 2’s early morning show Primera Plana. Furthermore, questions about Frente Sandinista de Liberaci on Nacional’s (FSLN) publicity ads posted throughout Managua to this date were asked many times. For example, were all these billboards still being provided gratuitously by Managua’s Municipal Government? They also took advantage of the media access to push two additional talking points, the importance of the Access to Information Law and Z un ~iga’s complaint that CSE had not made public the 100 percent of results from the last election. On March 26th, the USAID-funded civil society coalition Citizenship for Transparency in Politics hosted a second forum on political finance monitoring at the Polytechnic University (UPOLI). This forum had an open invitation extended to the population at large, but it primarily targeted UPOLI students from all majors. We distributed the new ‘‘best practices manual’’ on political party campaign finance reform, and there was great media coverage. The event and arduous dissemination of information about the need for political finance monitoring and reforming the electoral law boasted intense press coverage.

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On March 28th, USAID hosted its Sixth Sub-Grantees’ Coordination Meeting where we received an update on our efforts to keep the heat on for political party campaign finance reform. Hagamos Democracia planned two events to expose students at two universities to the political party finance issue and the products from Ciudadania. At month’s end, we relaunched the public awareness campaign against corruption. The previous government’s Communications Secretariat initiated this campaign. The campaign went on hold with the change in political administration and had consisted of TV spots that transmit strong anticorruption messages. The campaign’s ‘‘Anticorruption Spokesperson,’’ Nicaraguan pop star Perro Zompopo, continued to be a part of this initiative. The spots began to air again at the end of March on Channels 2 and 8.

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23

David Hallengren and Brett Favre (April 2007)

With the Good Friday holiday on April 4th, the first week of April began very quietly. Governments across Latin America basically shut down for Holy Week. As previously expected, per IFES, the CSE announced its new program to modernize voter ID cards (c e dulas). Other than that, the news was fairly quiet except for the Eric Voltz case. Eric Voltz was an American citizen who was involved in real estate for investors and retirees, working for Century 21 in Nicaragua. Nicaraguans were sensitive about foreigners buying their real estate, especially on the beaches and coastal areas most sought after by the Americans. Eric’s Nicaraguan girlfriend was found brutally murdered one day, and the local authorities leaped to blame Voltz, who was an ideal scapegoat as a foreigner engaged in real estate. At the trial, Voltz hired Daniel Ortega’s personal attorney to represent him—and he was completely ineffective. Was he incompetent on purpose? My friends from the Embassy, Ron Perkel (with whom I had attended law school at the University of Wisconsin) and Fernando Groene (with the U.S. Department of Justice), attended the trial. The defense counsel only began to mention such exculpatory evidence as cell phone records that located Voltz across the country at the time of the murder just before closing arguments. Voltz received constant death threats. In the end, he was convicted on basically zero evidence. It was a political circus, used by politicians for political ends. It reminded me of the Sandinista popular tribunals of the 1980s—mob justice. This was a knife-edge problem for the Embassy. Voltz’ family in the United States was demanding the Embassy intervene. That is not so easy without being accused of messing with judicial independence or interventionism. The American news media seized the story and began running pieces on kangaroo justice in the

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banana republic, which just made the Nicaraguans more defensive about American arrogance and intervention. The blogs on the Nuevo Diario newspaper showed that the FSLN supporters largely wanted to hang Voltz immediately, assuming him to be guilty. The ALN supporters viewed the situation as another sham of ‘‘Pact’’ justice and called on the Embassy to be ever more vocal. Ambassador Trivelli was in a no-win situation, but he handled it as best he could, being forceful in demanding due process and fundamental human rights, while refraining from telling the Nicaraguans how to solve the case. I thought Ortega would let the show continue through sentencing and then deport the guy. He would then look like the gracious, magnanimous leader, appearing to rise above the fray. He wasn’t that smart. Instead, they kept Voltz in jail, extorting ever more from his limited savings to pay for lawyers and protection, bankrupting him and his family, even while he rotted in jail. While the Voltz case made the press, most of the rest of Managua headed for the beach. My family and I went to San Juan del Sur, a vacation resort destination on Nicaragua’s southwest Pacific coast, near the border with Costa Rica, with some of the best surf action in the world. Danika and her husband Steve were both avid surfers, and swore by San Juan del Sur. So we knew we were in for a treat. We booked a cabin, as did our friends the Hallengrens, who also made the trip. David Hallengren was the Executive Officer for USAID—the guy who made sure the personnel, computer, transportation, physical plant, and all other support systems were in place to make possible our work in health, education, the environment, economic growth, and democracy. David made sure we had the right diplomatic visas with the government, that our homes had the right security systems, that our offices were safe, and generally provided a lot of adult supervision to everyone that worked in the building. He was the same guy who had saved hundreds of lives during the tainted guaro outbreak in September 2006, and who had gotten our building back online after the November 2006 fire. Prior to joining USAID, David had been a career military officer. In the First Gulf War, he was in Kuwait. They had trained for scud missile attacks, which they thought could contain biological or chemical weapons because Saddam Hussein had used them against the Kurds and in the Iran-Iraq war. But despite all the training, when the missiles were launched and the U.S. troops were under attack, the American commanders froze. There were no orders given. The young David Hallengren, jumping rank several fold, began to issue orders. He got on the radio and had each station radio in its status. He ordered them to put on their protective gear. This was grace under pressure, and he rose to exemplify leadership. On the sidelines of all this was another officer who was thinking, ‘‘Who’s this guy who just stands up and takes over?’’ That was Charlotte, who would later become Mrs. Hallengren. Charlotte herself was an accomplished officer. She had served as a top military adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff with an office in the Pentagon. She was visionary and articulate, but now was in the process of retiring. She was, for the moment, a ‘‘dependent spouse,’’ and the beach with David and her kids Damien, David (junior), and Victoria sounded like a good idea. I was looking forward to

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letting the kids (David’s, plus my own Daniel, Susana, and John) run around the beach while David and Charlotte and Julia and I sat back and enjoyed a good Flor de Ca~ na rum with diet coke. Julia had one reservation about going to the beach that weekend. Her little brother Michael and his wife Kari were expecting their first child any day. If Nicaragua was in the Third World, at least in Managua we had the Internet and a Vonage U.S. phone number. In San Juan del Sur, you can kiss goodbye any connectivity with the rest of the world. There was no connectivity in the cabins at the hotel. Julia was able to use the computer at the reception desk, and she received an email from her brother Michael that she had a new nephew, Spencer. She then bought some time on Skype online to place a call to Michael and Kari to congratulate them. Being in the Foreign Service often means you are not there when important events happen in your family. This was one of those occasions when we should have been with family, but we were stuck overseas, serving our country. Then again, serving the homeland was not all a complete sacrifice—we were on the beach after all. Still, we would soon learn another hazard of Foreign Service. At breakfast, the morning we were to leave San Juan del Sur and return to Managua, I noticed that little Damien Hallengren had laid his head on his mother’s lap as we ate. He was not feeling well. Perhaps he had a headache or something. We finished breakfast, and we each got into our own cars and headed back for Managua. When the Hallengrens got back, Damien was still not doing well. Charlotte took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. But there was no way to treat that in Nicaragua. Worse, flying him out could kill him with the changes in air pressure that come from an airplane. If we had been in Miami or Montana, Damien might have had a fighting chance although his condition was extremely delicate. In Managua, there was little we could do. As he did in Kuwait while under a scud missile attack, David took charge again. He got American medical experts online with the Managua doctors to guide them in how to stabilize Damien’s condition. He got a medical air evacuation team assembled in the United States to fly to Managua to try to take Damien out. If the aneurysm burst, Damien could die at any moment. But without action, he might suffer the same fate. David was taking leadership. The Hallengrens were a solidly Catholic family. Prayer requests went out through the family liaison office at the Embassy, and soon people of faith across both the United States and Nicaragua were doing what they could. Julia’s school where she worked was under the Catholic Diocese of Managua, and through her efforts, the Nicaraguan church began to have regular prayers for Damien as part of its services. After miraculous medical work in Managua to stabilize him, Damien was able to fly. The U.S. medical team whisked him off to Florida in a Medevac jet, and he arrived safely in Miami. Tests at one hospital showed his condition to be even more serious than they had originally thought, and he had to be moved to yet another hospital. He needed immediate surgery, which itself could be fatal if the brain hemorrhaged. It was unclear what functionality Damien would lose even if he survived.

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By this time, the entire Hallengren family was in Miami, staying as close as they could to the hospital to be near Damien. God apparently was with them, too, because Damien pulled through the surgery and responded well. I am thrilled to say that Damien eventually made a full recovery. Having said that, the process took months. At the end of the school year in June, I attended the end of year services at the American School where my kids Susana and John attended. The Hallengren kids cleaned up on various academic awards, and I went forward to pick them up on their behalf, the only adult picking up awards that day, as the case would have it. There were tears in the eyes of many in the audience. The Hallengren family had really touched this community. Little Damien’s health situation underscores another issue for all Foreign Service families. Even though the image of living overseas seems sexy or glorious, it is the day-to-day sacrifice that wears. And on occasions when you need the ordinary care that all Americans enjoy, and it is not there, you have to ask yourself if the sacrifice of putting not only yourself, but also your entire family, in such a situation is worth it. I believe it is. I believe we are called to do what we do, to make sacrifices, to put ourselves in harm’s way, and to do what we can to make the world a better, safer, more democratic, and more inclusive place. But I certainly understand if others come to a different conclusion. I guess to fit in as an officer in the Foreign Service, you need to feel that calling, that drive. I told my team in Managua that I would do this job for free, but the government had to give me a salary so that my family would allow me to do it, paraphrasing what Brett Favre used to say about his work with the Green Bay Packers: ‘‘They pay me to practice, but I play the games for free.’’ Like Brett Favre, I love my work. I love my team, and I love working to improve democracy and human rights. Even when the Packers were losing by 10 points, with less than two minutes left in the game, the opponents would shudder if the Packers got the ball. Favre could work miracles. He could strike without warning and snatch a victory. Just as often, he would throw an interception. What mattered was that he never gave up, and he displayed an undying enthusiasm for the sport. I fancied myself as a kind of Brett Favre of international development—I was in Managua trying to implant democracy. The odds were against me and my team. But I knew the Pact watched what we did. And I would like to think we made them very nervous. We might not always score, but we played hard with all our heart. I loved watching the Green Bay Packers, and I loved my work with the Foreign Service. One of our top players was Rafael Lopez Pintor of IFES. In April, Rafael departed for Egypt at mid month to attend an international electoral conference. The UN was also talking to Rafa about heading up the UN election observation in Nepal. He was away for the rest of the month. I knew how lucky we were to have such a giant of international electoral administration on our team,perhaps the most knowledgeable person on the planet on this subject. He had been the EU head of delegation in Honduras in the past election and held the same role in the prior Nicaraguan election in 2001.

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He was invaluable. If we could cut him flexibility to jaunt out to Nepal or Egypt when needed, we were thrilled to be his ‘‘day job’’ and enjoy his expert advice. At times I thought he must have looked at all of us as his grandkids, since he imparted grandfatherly advice and perspective as we slogged through the ins and outs of the Nicaraguan political scene. He was happy to be on our team and appreciated our flexibility with his schedule. He bought a house in Managua, and moved permanently from Spain to live in Nicaragua. Regarding our broader IFES program, Channel 22 (cable 99) gave extensive coverage of the disabled voter initiative, begun by USAID last year, but now fully embraced by the CSE with support from a broad array of civil society organizations. Ambassador Trivelli commented to me that he saw a new awareness of persons with disabilities, and he thought this could spark similar actions in other areas beyond just elections. I was amazed that five months after the national election, it was still news. We must have done something right! The Supreme Electoral Council held a plenary session at mid month to discuss the ‘‘CSE modernization plan,’’ which includes implementation of the new voter ID, an update and cleansing of the voter rolls, and restructuring of the civil registry system. The plan was reviewed and approved by all magistrates. The CSE president’s chief of staff and IFES’ chief of party planned to host a round of technical briefings for each donor country to explain the plan in detail. Once these briefings were complete, CSE President Rivas announced he would host a meeting with the entire donor group to discuss potential funding. Rafael had told me about this process, so it came as no surprise. We were supportive and looked forward to the upcoming process. Together with the CSE, IFES planned to host twelve seminars around the country to train registrars on the new civil registry manual produced by IFES. CSE President Rivas said he would inaugurate each of these seminars to underscore the need for reform of the electoral apparatus and civil registry system. In the meantime, IFES was doing its homework, and identified a number of immediate priority CSE funding needs. I asked IFES to continue working and coordinating with other donors to address these needs. NDI was quietly working with Movimiento Por Nicaragua and Etica y Transparencia on regional forums to disseminate information from the c e dulas study. We were afraid that the issue would disappear from public discourse and wanted to keep up the pressure for reform. Fresh municipal elections were set for 2008, so any problems with voter ID cards should be dealt with now, not at the last minute before the election. Etica y Transparencia continued to get good press for its push for the CSE to get out more c e dulas. The ET network distributed the report to all seventeen Nicaraguan Departments and presented the recommendations with NDI to the National Assembly Reform Commission on May 9th. For its part, IRI offered fresh assistance to all the political parties on training activities. As had happened in the past, the MRS and ALN jumped to accept the opportunities. The FSLN and PLC did not respond. IRI was also working with the youth democracy group JUDENIC to kick off a new ‘‘Leave a Legacy’’ campaign. The effort started on April 11th to promote democratic values. The campaign

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included a weekly radio program with special guests and open microphone for calls and a youth magazine touching on youth democracy issues. During the second phase of the JUDENIC campaign, the group planned to host regional forums around the country to develop a youth agenda for the National Assembly. For the CEPPS partners as a whole, we negotiated an additional package of $1.3 million in electoral system and political party funding to extend the program for another eighteen months. With the new funding we added a slew of new activities projected for the grant period. Despite the reactions from the parties themselves, the Embassy political section received request after request from the various National Assembly commissions for help. I was not keen on providing any partisan support to one group or another. Also, I did not want to have a separate ‘‘new’’ project to help National Assembly commissions—we didn’t have the cash for that. But if we could use our ongoing projects in rule of law, transparency, or election administration to help with policy or drafting, fine. Danika took the lead and initiative to coordinate our response. She not only took advantage of our programs, but also reached out to our other USAID partners in education, health care, and trade to include them as well. She prepared a package for the several bancadas, on an equal basis, to access technical legal advice on pending legislation. All of the partners were very supportive, and this creative initiative reflected a full team effort. Danika pulled this all together in a presentation of the project to the various bancadas. On the judicial reform side, the already passed Judicial Career Law (USAIDassisted) still required implementing regulations (which USAID also helped with via the Judges Association). The court had been slow to move on this, and with the political transition, we suffered another several month setback on this issue and the Judicial Ethics Rules (which were drafted as an output of the course for ‘‘good judges’’ from two years ago). Given our support for journalists in the justice sector, these delays did not go unnoticed! The media were hammering the court in the local press. In the meantime, as a continuation of USAID’s Good Judges program of two years ago (which Peter oversaw as Charge with additional support from Marcia Bosshardt in the public affairs office), we were about to launch a new program with the American University (UAM), targeted again at the trial court judges. No Appeals Court or Supreme Court Magistrates would be students, and the training was to take place at the university which would accredit the program (a structure similar to the previous Good Judges training). We set the opening session for 5 p.m. on April 26th at UAM, and the university rector asked if I would make opening remarks. Following this, CPDH held a meeting with the President of the Supreme Court to present a series of recommendations for the implementation of the Judicial Career Law. The Magistrate recognized the efforts made by CPDH. This might not sound like much, but we had actually come far. The Court President felt obliged to meet with this civil society entity and recognize the issue before him. This outcome documents progress in strengthening the participation of civil society organizations in justice sector issues. It also shows that much remains to be done.

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Even while we worked on short-term goals, we had to keep a constant eye on long-term objectives. The new Criminal Code was one of the latter. If enacted, it could provide a structure for accountability with new definitions of criminal action. I told Luıs that we needed to ‘‘inject the process with steroids’’ so that we could advance movement. Luıs got together with Carlos Marıa Jimenez and pulled together a three day retreat at Montelimar (a hotel resort on the Pacific Coast, about 90 minutes from Managua) with the Assembly’s Justice Commission to finalize the motions to the draft Criminal Code (from Wednesday to Friday). I wanted this to be pure work and no fun, so I insisted that journalists attend. The Saturday before, we held an all-day orientation in Managua for journalists on everything they needed to know about the Code. For journalists unable to be at that event, we held a makeup day with identical briefings. We wanted the journalists to play an effective role in making sure the Assembly did the right thing. Our April 14th training seminar for journalists on the draft Criminal Code netted 38 journalists from different media outlets. After the three day retreat, with eleven deputies and six legal advisers, all from the Justice Commission, along with representatives of key government institutions in order to expedite the validation process of the draft Criminal Code, consensus was reached on 41 motions to revise the draft Code on topics related to fraud, banking, and money laundering. However, after returning to Managua, the Pact had one more trick to play: in a political process in the Assembly, the FSLN and PLC joined forces to lower penalties for money laundering from 20 years to just 7 years. That change had, as they say in Spanish, a first name and a last name (nombre y apellido): Arnoldo Aleman. He had been convicted of money laundering and sentenced to twenty years. In criminal law, a change in the law subsequent to a convictionthat lowers penalties can be applied retroactively. The Pact had used the excuse of the review of the Code to do their good friend a political favor. I had some explaining to do to the folks in Washington and at the Embassy. Why was USAID promoting a change in the law to favor a convicted felon who had stolen millions from a poor country? I noted what was obvious. The Pact would free Aleman if they wanted to anyway and in effect, already had by having a judge grant him free movement throughout the country. The Code was just a cover. If not this way, they would do it another way. Second, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had recommended sentences from seven to twenty years for money laundering, so Nicaragua’s action fit with international standards. We can hold Nicaragua to its commitments, but it is difficult to demand more than that. Finally, the Pact was using a USAID product to liberate one of their own. That does not mean the USAID work was bad. In fact, this Code would give Nicaragua probably the best substantive criminal law in Latin America. But like all law, it reflects a people and a political context. We can’t force Nicaragua to do anything. And the Code was always to be their product, not ours. Our Ambassador was hit with this on live television at the inauguration of the new Mediation Center at AmCham. I hated to have played any role in him having to defend our programs. My job was to keep him out of trouble, not put him in

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front of the cameras to be filleted. And I was standing at his side as it happened. But Ambassador Trivelli was masterful. He noted, ‘‘I don’t have any problem with Nicaraguan law if the convict Aleman serves six years in jail. The problem is that he’s not in jail. He wandered around Managua and now wanders around the whole country. He’s not in jail. I have no problem if Aleman goes to jail for six years.’’ He made the obvious point. Nicaragua had to choose whether it was going to be serious, or ruled by the Pact. Brilliant. It was straight out of the Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick playbook: this is ‘‘not about left or right, it is about right and wrong.’’ Implicit in the message was ‘‘Stand Up Nicaraguans: Do the Right Thing!’’ At the same time, however, I marveled at how the puppet master Daniel Ortega could play the game. Here was a new Code that could shut down money laundering, organized crime, trafficking in minors for sex, Internet child porn, and other nefarious things going on in Nicaragua within full view of the Pact, and yet, the card he plays springs his buddy and Pact fellow Aleman from jail. Ortega was no reformed, soft ‘‘Swedish socialist’’ as he was often portrayed by American ‘‘solidarity’’ visitors to Nicaragua. They never saw this Ortega. This one was the same man who raped his daughter and perpetrated genocide on the Atlantic Coast. And he was the same one who engineered an election win with only 38% of the vote by cutting deals with Aleman and creating the Pact. The master puppeteer. But times were changing. Our anticorruption ambassador, Perro Zompopo (Ramon Mejıa) captured the ‘‘new cool’’ of the youth. The new struggle was not about the right or the left. It was about right and wrong. To be a real Nicaraguan was to work for inclusion and to help the poor. In his song ‘‘Love Your Country’’ (Quiere a tu paıs), Perro Zompopo writes: Strong groups pressure us, they reduce our food, democracy and arms, soon comes the shot to the head. The politicized economy goes from right through the left. And in the center are so many people who never get anything In the 1970s or 1980s, I imagined that standing up for democracy, for the poor, and against dictatorship and oppression meant supporting the FSLN. No longer. Today, standing up for what was right meant seeking democratic candidates from any party that were not a part of the corruption and the Pact. Such people are in all major parties, even the PLC and FSLN. But they are being repressed, even within their own parties, from rising up and presenting new visions for Nicaragua. While the old caudillo leadership hangs on in the PLC and FSLN, the support for them is receding like sand under their feet. The youth no longer want these dinosaurs, these corrupt politicians, and eventually, Nicaragua will get the government it deserves. New leaders will emerge. Artists like Perro Zompopo point the way, just as the Mejıa Godoy brothers did in the 1980s, harkening all the way back to Sir Thomas More in his work Utopia at the time of the earliest Jesuits in the jungles of the New World.

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If I had one eye on the Criminal Code, I had another eye on keeping political party campaign finance in the news. On April 9th, Pablo Galarce and Delia Ferreira from IFES returned to Nicaragua to begin working on the second phase of the Citizenship for Transparency in Politics Coalition. The work would now focus more on promoting the reforms in the area of political party financing. They would meet with each of the five previously participating institutions (IPADE, Chamorro Foundation, Hagamos Democracia, Etica y Transparencia, and Grupo FUNDEMOS) plus one new possible coalition member, JUDENIC, to work out the details of the projects to be implemented from May to September 2007. While we worked on the political side, we also continued our long-term efforts to ensure access to justice for Nicaragua’s poorest citizens. To strengthen the work of the Mediation Centers and Justice Facilitators, we met with twenty-six justice facilitators and the director of the mediation center in Bonanza to promote better mediation practices. The meeting served to establish policies and procedures for the certification of the mediations conducted by the justice facilitators in the communities of Bonanza and Rosita. At the same time, we carried out a workshop on fundamental human rights for justice facilitators. The workshop was attended by sixty facilitators from the region of Jinotega. Separately, USAID carried out mediation training for twenty-nine human rights promoters from the communities of El Morrito, El Castillo, San Miguelito, El Almendro, and San Carlos. These promoters are members of the Women’s Rights Coalition. The workshop was part of a larger effort to increase the capacity of the civil society coalitions to improve access to justice in disadvantaged communities. The big media event in April for us in promoting alternative access to justice was the opening of the new Mediation and Arbitration Center with the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). Next, USAID provided technical assistance to AmCham to ensure that its Arbitration Center operated in accordance with international standards. We also held meetings with representatives of CACONIC, AmCham, and COSEP to advance the development of a publication on mediation and arbitration to be published in August. By maintaining international standards and getting the word out about the Centers, we hoped to build institutionalized, sustainable dispute resolution mechanisms that could provide Nicaragua with a legal framework to promote investment and economic growth, in turn producing more jobs. Throughout the month, we also did our ordinary business, including training prosecutors. From April 19th through April 21st, USAID conducted a targeted training course on practical aspects of criminal procedure for prosecutors. The course was attended by fifty-one prosecutors from across the country. While this does not sound like much, this kind of everyday support for the administration of justice is what makes the system work. On April 11th, USAID hosted the first of three regional videoconferences showcasing social auditing best practices at a regional level. The effort was coordinated from Nicaragua with joint support from USAID’s regional anticorruption program

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and the World Bank. Our continued effort would also be closely coordinated with other donors such as the Inter-American Development Bank and DANIDA, among others. Participating countries were Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Our technical organizing committee was formed by IEEPP, Probidad, Red Local, Hagamos Democracia, Poder Ciudadano, Coordinadora Civil, Fundemos, and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). The case study presented for the videoconference was the Nicaraguan case of Telpaneca in which its citizens performed social audits of municipal transfers and education and health systems. We had 44 participants including Municipal Development Committee members, local citizen leaders, civil society members, government officials, and donor organizations. So who cares about a videoconference on social auditing? I can hear my kids now thinking that must be the most boring thing ever. While it may not matter if my kids think their dad has a boring job, it did matter to me that people in Washington understood why this mattered. In all four ‘‘best practices’’ in social auditing were shared: Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. But it was the Nicaraguan case that stole the show! The Nicaraguan Telpaneca case showed how we had developed Municipal Score Cards for evaluating municipal performance. Could this be a model for regional replication? How could it be used in the political sphere? The questions and interest were contagious. Details in development matter. We were in the details, and we were pioneering new best practices. I may be a development wonk, but this was exciting stuff: we had ‘‘street credibility’’ in the development world. To follow this up, we teamed with Grupo FUNDEMOS to host a Regional Participatory Budgeting Seminar. The seminar had as its target audience municipal government officials such as mayors, deputy mayors, and consejales. Municipal Development Committee (CDM) members, civil society organizations, and donors were also present. Successful participatory budgeting cases from the region (cases from El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic) were analyzed, and their best practices and lessons learned were analyzed for possible replication here in Nicaragua. Grupo FUNDEMOS presented on their successful experience in three municipalities: Chinandega, Palacag€ uina, and San Marcos. We realized that our relationship with journalists was having a positive impact on how the public understood issues like the rule of law, transparency, and the Pact. Journalists were eager to learn more. We invited decorated Costa Rican journalist Eduardo Ulibarri to make three short trips to Nicaragua in connection with the Center for International Journalism. Peter Brennan offered to host a dinner at his home. I was concerned not only about the quality of journalism but also issues of selfcensorship: if a journalist felt that he or she could be threatened for what was published, he or she might refrain from writing anything. In such a case, the Pact would win. What alternatives did we have? I wanted Ulibarri to help us get a handle on all this. What did we need to do to make journalists more effective? We wanted an assessment that could offer a menu of options for developing a two-year program that would give journalists and media organizations the ability

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to analyze and investigate issues related to corruption, transparency, and accountability. We also wanted visibility in the media and in other sectors of society for the work of our transparency program. The corruption mainstreaming strategy that we developed noted that transparency themes should ideally be woven across development portfolios, rather than stove-piped as a stand-alone activity. Access to education has always been considered a critical element of democracy. Within USAID, education has always been a top priority; think of USAID in your mind, or ask someone on the street what they think of USAID, and you are likely to hear some vague recollection of the Alliance for Progress and the idea of teaching poor kids in rural areas of Latin America. We still do that! So it was important to engage our education programs. Gerardo Berthın, Connie Johnson (the USAID team leader for health and education programs), Luz Marina Garcıa, and Alicia Slate (an expert on education reform and a member of Connie’s team) met on April 10th with the Vice Minister of Education, Milena N un ~ez. While the original meeting plan was to meet with Minister Dr. Miguel De Castilla Urbina, a teachers’ strike prevented him from participating. The purpose of the meeting was to present USAID’s transparency program to the Ministry and explore potential areas of cooperation. After a meeting with Dr. Juan Darce, Health Program Coordinator for the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health (MINSA), we received a call from the Health Minister’s Office. Minister Quant was briefed on our meeting and on the bureaucratic simplification assessment that we wish to conduct in three public hospitals. We were informed that Minister Quant has designated MINSA’s Director of Planning as our primary contact for this effort. I was extremely proud of our innovative programs that pushed development in creative, new ways. One of these was the brainchild of Luz Marina Garcıa: a youth theatrical production about citizen participation. The play targeted Sebaco’s Municipal Government officials and citizens. The play raised awareness among citizens and local government officials of the importance of transparency and accountability. The play also promoted the need for active citizen participation in decision making and monitoring of municipal governments’ functions. When shown for the first time, the play received good comments and suggestions from the audience. The actors pledged to roll out the production again in neighborhoods and Managua. Mainstreaming anticorruption with youth through the arts was a cutting-edge idea. On Monday April 23rd, USAID signed up a subcontract with D uo Guardabarranco to collaborate on an initiative that uses art and music as a tool to change tolerance of corruption. Environmental corruption is a topic being considered to be addressed under this initiative. Already, four new unedited songs would be composed and produced for USAID. A final product would be a full CD containing four original D uo Guardabarranco songs plus the four new unedited songs which will be USAID’s property. The CD would then be promoted through eight concerts held in various universities and ‘‘Transparency Fairs.’’ The primary result was expected to be increased awareness among youth groups of the damage that corruption causes in society. The proenvironment, anticorruption

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message by D uo Guardabarranco and Perro Zompopo, among others, was delivered at the ‘‘Ruta Maya’’ club in Managua. All of this was part of a broad communication strategy on anticorruption (attached guide developed by USAID with Grupo FUNDEMOS). Our four-track program with Hagamos Democracia continued forward with uneven progress. The first track was to work on reforms to the Controller General of the Republic (CGR) organic law. This component hit a roadblock. The CGR was only interested in pursuing a reform to the existing organic law if, and only if, the National Assembly’s Transparency and Probity Commission was on board. In the CGR’s eyes, the ball was in the Commission’s court. The CGR in the past submitted a legislation reform project for this specific law, and it had always been sent back saying that it was not a priority. Hagamos Democracia met with Commission President Miriam Arg€ uello to try to move this reform forward, but the result was negative. Given the political situation and the shift in policy priorities under this new Administration, we began talking with Hagamos about whether we should even continue to work on this at all. Should we cut our losses? The second track of our program with Hagamos Democracia was to gather voluntary asset declarations and voluntary financial information from deputies on the 400,000 Nicaraguan cordobas Social Development Works Fund (given to National Assembly and PARLACEN Deputies). We had set a very modest goal of getting at least ten deputies to provide their financial data. We met it. Hagamos Democracia received ten deputies’ financial statements that verified the appropriate and legitimate use of the Social Development Works Fund that they receive each year. Hagamos Democracia planned to continue to gather as many financial statements as possible. But frankly, Hagamos had little luck in obtaining voluntary asset declarations. The only National Assembly Deputy that turned in a declaration was Luis Callejas of the ALN. The third component of our program with Hagamos Democracia was monitoring and reporting on the National Assembly’s plenary sessions and decisions. By mid month, Hagamos had sent out thirty daily monitoring reports to a database of over 300 citizens. Hagamos Democracia was in the process of designing a public awareness strategy to increase the size of the database. The second legislative bimonthly publication was also being finalized. We planned an index of approved and vetoed laws for 2006 to be ready by July 2007. Amazingly, no such publication existed in Nicaragua and we were establishing new levels for legislative public transparency. The final component involved gathering information for the ‘‘Who’s Who in the National Assembly (‘‘Qui e n es Qui e n en la Asamblea Nacional ’’) publication. We were making good progress, and we expected the publication out in June 2007. While we had a lot of activity under way, we needed a ‘‘big screen’’ event to focus attention. President Ortega’s ‘‘100 Days’’ of government presented an opportunity. In the end, IPADE came out with its assessment of Ortega at 100 days, which reflected a lot of the input from our team, especially from Gerardo Berthın. It hit the right issues and had the right tone—constructive criticism with a view toward making Nicaragua a better place for everyone. Mauricio Z un ~iga’s board of

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directors included folks like Jaime Wheelock, who had been Ortega’s Minister for Agrarian Reform in the 1980s. IPADE crossed political boundaries and could make political statements in a constructive way. I thought Mauricio did a great job with the report and represented one of the few voices of moderation left in the country. The IPADE report came out at the same time as a new public opinion poll. Jan Howard, a former Time magazine writer, now USAID’s public affairs officer, summed it up this way: According to a recent opinion poll, 51.5% of the population believes that President Daniel Ortega is authoritarian and is violating Nicaraguan laws. The survey, performed by M&R Consultants from April 11–14, indicated that only 28.2% of those polled gave Ortega a vote of confidence, another 28.1% gave their support, but with reservations, while 36.4% did not support him. The poll also indicated that the U.S. topped the list of countries perceived as providing the most benefits to Nicaragua (21.1%), followed by Venezuela (18.5%). However 86.6% of the population said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should not be telling Nicaraguans what to do and using his visits to the country to attack other countries. In comparing CAFTA with ALBA, 35.2% of those polled said the new government should continue to strengthen CAFTA, compared to 9.6% who favored only strengthening ALBA. We met with FSLN presidential candidate economist Alejandro Martınez Cuenca to discuss the possibility of hosting a conference/forum that analyzed Ortega’s 100 Days of Government. Gerardo Berthın provided advice and inputs to his agenda, in the area of ethics, anticorruption, and citizen participation. More specifically, Gerardo suggested that the agenda touch topics such as the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACC), access to information, procurement, and civil service. To put this in a comparative context, most presidents start out with high approval ratings, a sort of honeymoon period. They fall over time. That the fall was starting so soon was what was interesting. Was it being driven by our work with civil society and the media? We were not playing a partisan role. But if the Ortega Administration was not respecting the rule of law, the civil service, or other fundamental aspects of democratic governance, he was fair game. Otega’s first 100 days were also filled with secrecy, double-talk, the dismissal of thousands of career civil service employees, and new efforts to withhold financing in advertising from press outlets that didn’t tow the party line. Electrical blackouts, which had also occurred under Bola~ nos, spread and lengthened. The press reported that Ortega had gone out of his way to tag the United States as responsible for narcotrafficking, not compensating Nicaragua for the mining of harbors during the 1980s, and for international human rights abuses in Iraq and Guantanamo. He looked to remove the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from Nicaragua. Yet another continued oddity was Ortega’s insistence on running government

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from his party headquarters and personal residence, rather than from the official government presidency offices. The Ortega government also had a strange set of personnel changeovers. Three new ministers, all women, were fired. Education Minister Miguel de Castilla was attacked fiercely in the press and by human rights groups for allowing a CubanNicaraguan to accompany a teachers’ strike and take out property out of a school and physically take out the school’s director while the National Police stood by motionless. Inexplicably, Ortega defended that incident in the press. While on his trip to Caracas, Ortega gave a rare manuscript of poetry from Ruben Darıo to Chavez, property that belonged to the Republic of Nicaragua. When the Culture minister questioned that gift, that was the last anyone heard of the Culture Minister. The Family Minister’s departure seemed somehow caught up in a dispute between Rosario Murrillo and Bayardo Arce, which to be honest, I could not figure out given the press accounts. From April 9th through April 14th, USAID and the Colombian Institute of Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine carried out the sixth training module for medical doctors from the Nicaraguan Forensic Medicine Institute pursuing a medical graduate degree program in forensic medicine. I was learning that making my vision of CSI: Managua a reality was a tough, day-in, day-out affair, but I felt in may heart we were making a difference. One unusual thing all Foreign Service officers have to do from time to time is to serve as a ‘‘Duty Officer.’’ This basically means that, for one week, if anything weird happens outside of normal business hours, you get the call. It may be an American who gets arrested somewhere, or an American dies in the country, or there is a hurricane or an earthquake, or something. But if anything happens outside of business hours and someone calls the Embassy for help, the call gets forwarded to the Duty Officer. My week came April 17th to 24th. I was not looking forward to this. Being a Duty Officer for me was like babysitting. I hated it. I didn’t want to deal with the issues of lost tourists or natural events. But it is part of the job. During my week, I got a call from an American in Managua. She had lost her official credentials. Apparently, she worked with Homeland Security and had a badge that not only would allow her to walk into practically any government building, but also would allow her to get onto aircraft with a gun. And she didn’t know where the badge was. And now it was my problem. Also, this woman was not on the list of official visitors. Any U.S. government employee traveling overseas must get ‘‘country clearance’’ from the Embassy before coming to the country. The Ambassador, as the chief of mission, is responsible for all U.S. government (‘‘Official American’’) employees at the post. If you don’t tell the Embassy you are coming or where you will be, and the Embassy has no notice, how can the Embassy be responsible for you while you are there? It gets really complex, as you might imagine, when someone shows up without advance clearance. I had one of these cases now, and she had lost her credentials! My blood pressure was off the charts. I asked her, if you work for DHS, why are you here? It turns out she was visiting family. She was here on a personal trip, not ‘‘official’’ travel with the government.

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When you travel on your personal dime, you are treated like any other U.S. citizen abroad. You don’t need an advance country clearance, but you don’t get any special treatment or privileges either. At least I didn’t have to worry about an ‘‘Official American’’ being in country without clearance. One issue solved. Now, what about the lost credentials? The first thing I did was call the Embassy detachment of Marines to give them a heads up. I didn’t want someone using her credentials to get into our Embassy compound or the Ambassador’s residence. Next I called the Embassy’s regional security officer (RSO). Anyone could use her badge to get into buildings and compromise security in a thousand different ways. What was I to do? The first thing the RSO did was laugh at me. You have to have a sense of humor in these jobs. After he peeled me off the proverbial ceiling and got me settled down, he asked me to call the DHS woman back, have her contact the security unit in Homeland Security, and follow the instructions they gave. I did that, and she called her office back in the States to notify them (which must have been humiliating for her). She called me back to let me know the process had started. I began to calm down. A few hours later, she called me again. In retracing her steps, she found her DHS credentials in the fold of the car seat. Apparently she had lost them getting in or out of the car with her luggage. It begged the question for me why she had them with her in the first place. If she was on a private trip to Nicaragua, as a private citizen, and she knew that the DHS credential was so critical, why not leave it safe at home? What was she thinking? But that wasn’t my problem; that was an issue for DHS to worry about later. My problem was solved. I called the Marines and the RSO back to let them know we could all stand down. The RSO laughed at me again—welcome to his world! RSOs deal with these kinds of weird problems every day of the year around the globe. I only was Duty Officer for a week. I noted that this was probably the last time I would have to do this in Nicaragua since I was leaving the post the next summer, so at least it was now over. When you live overseas, your family lives with you. And if you have children, they attend the local schools. My son Daniel went to the Lincoln International Academy, and my wife taught English in the high school there. They both loved Lincoln and had great opportunities there. On the evening of April 27th, I went to a Shakespeare play at the school, The Taming of the Shrew. Daniel was one of the stars, playing the character Gremio. Julia was the play’s assistant director. It was an immense pleasure to see Daniel in this role, and I was very impressed how at Julia managed to orchestrate this production. As the month drew to a close, on April 27th, the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation and the UCA Law School held a forum on access to public information in the justice sector. The keynote speaker was Eduardo Bertoni, executive director of the Due Process of Law Foundation, based in Washington, DC. Bertoni provided comparative analysis of judicial sector transparency throughout the region, including merit-based selection of judicial officials.

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24

Information Access (May 2007)

Why is there so much poverty? Misery is the result of corruption. —from the song ‘‘Transparency Nicaragua’’ by D uo Guarabarranco Most of the world celebrates Labor Day on May 1st, also known as May Day. This is also a very politicized day. The FSLN scheduled busloads of marchers to pour into Managua to show their support for the Ortega administration. The FSLN had seemingly organized the march as if it were an opposition party rather than the one in power, as a protest on a massive scale. The roads would be clogged with protesters, and I thought that was a good reason to stay at home for the day, a sort of Nicaraguan ‘‘snow day.’’ The Embassy granted all of us a day’s leave. We lived in the Managua neighborhood called Las Colinas. This was on the outskirts of town on the path between the Huembes Central Market and the road to Masaya and Granada. Buses waited on that main highway to take protesters back home, but they were expected to walk through the neighborhood to get near the market where the big rally was held. So watching out our front yard, I saw thousands and thousands of protesters walking by. Once in a while, someone would stop and ask directions. I smiled to myself thinking, ‘‘Sure, ask the gringo how to get to the rally to bash the Americans.’’ But they were uniformly polite, and I gave the best instructions I could. The global theme of May Day is to recognize the working poor, those who are the backbone of our countries and our economies. By making May Day about the FSLN, the party in effect was capturing the moral high ground, and putting the FSLN at the center of doing right by the people. It was good theater. While the speeches flowed, it was clear that the FSLN was leading the country down another path, one they preferred not to talk about. Through our CEPPS partners, we contributed $5,000 to Movimiento for its leadership in presenting a more balanced assessment of government performance

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on May Day. We also encouraged Movimiento to join the workers’ march and demonstrate that it was on their side. Obviously, in a public relations fight on May Day, the FSLN was going to win. But we had to put up resistance and let the public know that the Pact was not going to go unchallenged. Also, we were not against the FSLN. As from the start, ‘‘it is not about left or right, but about right and wrong.’’ By May 2nd, it was back to work. Danika had led our cobbling together of an assistance package for the National Assembly by bringing together the various USAID service providers from our Health, Education, Economic Growth, and Democracy partners under a single umbrella. That day, she led our democracy and economic growth partners (NDI, IRI, CASALS, CHECCHI, and Pro-CAFTA) to the Assembly to provide briefings to representatives from the FSLN, ALN, and PLC on current program activities and the types of technical assistance available to the bancadas. A separate briefing was provided to the MRS, since due to scheduling, they were unavailable for the original brief. We didn’t have a ‘‘project’’ for the National Assembly, but thanks to Danika, we now had a coordinated program. While Danika was ‘‘working on results,’’ I had taken vacation time (‘‘annual leave’’ in the government parlance) to fly back to Washington. Since I was a law student, I have been a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) ABA and its International Section. Since 2002, I had been on the administration committee of that organization. When I joined the section, we had about 12,000 international attorneys, about a fourth of which are non-American attorneys and another fourth of which are U.S. attorneys spread all over the world. Each year, the Section holds quarterly meetings. I was now attending the spring meeting, this year in Washington. I had actually helped with some of the organization of this meeting, being a chair for a series of programs on the rule of law. At one of the meeting’s main lunches, I was sitting next to the top legal advisers from the Departments of the Navy, Air Force, Army, and the Marines, along with the ABA President Karen Mathis. We were discussing international events, Guantanamo, Iraq, and so on, when the ABA International Chair, Deborah Enix-Ross, began to make several announcements. I was absolutely stunned when she called me to the front of the room and presented me with the ‘‘Certificate of Recognition’’ for Rule of Law signed by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. I wasn’t the only one getting special international recognition. Cigar Aficionado magazine in May had a feature on business leader and FSLN politician Alejandro Martınez Cuenca. They featured him as the man behind the rebirth of Nicaragua’s oldest cigar brand, Joya de Nicaragua. While not running against Daniel Ortega for leadership of the FSLN, he ran his own tobacco store and cultivated the historic national brand. Our program was also getting attention back in Washington. The ‘‘Tuesday Group’’ was a meeting in Washington for the USAID staff based there to hear about cutting-edge best practices from around the world with a new program featured every Tuesday morning. This format keeps the Washington crowd in the loop on the latest development around the globe. In May, one of the Tuesday Group

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meetings featured a discussion of the Nicaragua rule of law program, giving our expanded team members in Washington a chance to hear from Mark Williams (from our program) on what we were doing back in Managua. We were doing a lot of innovative, cutting-edge programs on the electoral and anticorruption side, so I was thrilled to see our rule of law program have an opportunity for a day in the sun. It was credit well-deserved to Carlos Marıa Jimenez, Javier Agosto, Alex Rodrıguez, Mark Williams, Luıs Fernando Ubeda, and the entire team. On Friday, May 6th, all Nicaragua stopped for the Mayorga vs. de la Hoya fight. Nicaraguan Mayorga dedicated his fight to Daniel Ortega and the FSLN. He got pummeled. Nicaraguans have a lot of pride and at times can wear their nationality on their sleeves. The fight had been built up as the time when the FSLN and Nicaragua itself would be on the world stage. But Mayorga was disgraced. The following Monday, I spoke to the Ambassador about this. ‘‘This kind of thing could end up having some sort of strange impact,’’ Ambassador Trivelli remarked to me. We weren’t sure what it meant, but the Nicaraguan psyche had to have taken a hit. Back in Managua, as a follow-up to the NGO boot camp (the real name was the ‘‘Organizational Management for Sustainability Workshop,’’ or OMS; I was the one who kept calling it the ‘‘NGO boot camp’’ since that seems to be more apropos), on May 4th we held a new workshop targeted at grants management and reporting requirements (technical, administrative, and financial) to new USAID transparency program subgrantees, particularly those that would be implementing the strategic subgrants package for the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACC). This was particularly important as we continued to broaden and reach out to new and nontraditional partners. Putting together budgets and proposals was not an intuitively obvious exercise, and the partners benefited immensely from the course. That opening week of May, Carlos Marıa Jimenez, Javier Agosto, and Alex Rodriguez pulled together a workshop this week on access to justice and juvenile criminal law for 37 members of the Youth and Adolescents Rights Coalition from Juigalpa and Chontales. At the same time, we braced ourselves for the worst. IRI continued to work with ALN, PC, and MRS on party strengthening activities and leadership development. In the meantime, IRI began preparing regional workshops for Movimiento por Nicaragua to teach civil society how to be successful in a shrinking, adverse democratic environment. JUDENIC continued to work on its Youth Agenda, which would eventually be rolled out to the National Assembly. Also with IRI help, IPADE started watchdog activities to hold the Administration accountable for campaign promises. NDI’s technical team was in Managua the second week of May. They joined Etica and Transparancia (ET) to meet with the National Assembly Governance Committee on May 8th to present the voter ID (c e dula) study. ALN, PLC, and PRN members attended the briefing; none of the FSLN members attended. The Deputies acknowledged that the inability of citizens to acquire a ce dula is a human rights issue, not just an electoral issue. ET suggested administrative improvements as an essential first step in addressing the inability of the CSE to efficiently

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produce and distribute c e dulas. The Commission agreed to a follow-up meeting with NDI, IFES, ET, and the CSE to discuss c e dula and civil registry reform proposals. Enrique Quinonez, the president of the Governance Committee, noted there may be an opportunity to include c e dula and civil registry reform in the national budget in the not-too-distant future. NDI’s technical team also helped to roll out its Second Democracy Survey, which builds on a baseline study carried out the summer of 2005. This second version was presented to civil society and the donor community on May 10th. They also briefed the political parties separately on the results of the study. If democracy meant anything to the Nicaraguan politicians, they should have listened very carefully and followed instructions. If NDI and IRI were the sticks, getting civil society to clamor for reform, the carrot was the world-class technical assistance we gave to the CSE through IFES to improve the quality of electoral administration. The second week of May, IFES held a third civil registry workshop in the South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS). From these initial workshops, institutional weaknesses were attributed to politicization of the registrar appointment process (appointed by mayors), high employee turnover rates, low levels of education, and the lack of training for registry employees. It was interesting that the workshop participants themselves identified these causes, not international donors, IFES, or CSE officials from Managua. The workshops were ground-truthing what we had suspected all along. CSE President Rivas finally approved the release of an IFES-sponsored CSE self assessment of the Electoral Commission’s management of the 2006 electoral process. The report accurately reflected weaknesses and shortfalls in electoral management. This was a big step forward for an organization that felt very attacked during the electoral campaign and at times had exhibited paranoia about any possible criticism. The CSE was admitting it had a problem. More importantly, the CSE was taking this to the donor community with briefings on necessary steps to implement the CSE Modernization Plan, including budgetary, personnel, and logistical needs and timelines for implementation. Again, this was a very positive step forward for the CSE, a step taken with careful accompaniment by IFES. The Grupo Promotor (the USAID-assisted NGO coalition drafting a civil society electoral reform package) met with Rodrigo Barreto, chief of staff of the president of the CSE, on May 14th to discuss c e dula and civil registry reform. This was another remarkable step for the CSE, which has historically maintained an adversarial relationship with civil society. I didn’t think that the leopard had changed its spots, but I did think that our carrot (first rate international quality technical assistance via IFES) and stick (civil society and media pressure via NDI and political party pressure via IRI) approach to the CSE was having some success. NDI brought Costa Rican electoral expert Alberto Cordero of the Arias Foundation to Nicaragua on May 18th to provide even more technical assistance to the Grupo Promotor. We wanted to do everything we could to help them be as successful as possible. If I had been a magistrate on the CSE, I know I would have been tired of being labeled the ‘‘bad boy’’ every day in the press. I couldn’t imagine going to a public

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restaurant or grocery store and having to face the public, the way they had to, given their past performance. We wondered at times if they were completely shameless. Was there nothing they weren’t ashamed to be caught doing? Perhaps now, we were reaching the point where shame could begin to work. With the FSLN owning the electoral authority, the legislature, the Courts, and most mayoral offices, shame was about all civil society could use to get better behavior out of the public officials. But at least for the moment, the CSE was trying to be more serious. IFES identified $1 million in start up funds needed to initiate the $30 million, four-year CSE Modernization Plan. Working closely with the CSE, IFES briefed the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), European Union (EU), Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Japan, and the U.S. Embassy on priority contribution areas. As proposed by the CSE itself, all funds would be channeled through IFES to ensure accountability. So far, USAID and IDB were the only donors prepared to contribute to the Modernization Plan in 2007. The EU, Sweden, and Germany promised funding in 2008 and 2009. The Spanish Government approved a roughly $8 million loan in order to jumpstart the new c e dula process and update the voter rolls, but did not put any cash on the table. On Tuesday, May 9th, I inaugurated a new Mediation Center at the Christian Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UCAN) in Chinandega with Luıs Ubeda, the UCAN Rector, the Mayor of Chinandega, the Chief of Police, and the new director of the Center. There was good local TV, radio, and press coverage, and the event had a standing-room-only packed audience. Back in Managua, the event got very good coverage in Friday’s Bolsa de Noticias. With the Chinandega Center, we had inaugurated fourteen Centers, and six more were now ready for rollout and unveiling! I loved the Mediation Centers because they immediately touched the lives of local citizens and solved local problems. Having a Center in Chinandega was a ‘‘two-fer’’ since the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) also had programs in the area, and we liked to work in places and ways that could make the MCC program more successful. Within the justice sector, we continued to plug away with grassroots groups. Working with Juventud por la Democracia de Nicaragua (JUDENIC), we conducted a workshop for university and high school students from Rivas (on the Pacific Coast). The workshop focused on rule of law issues and transparency. During the week, USAID also organized a justice fair focused on youth and adolescent issues, again in Rivas. One area I was frustrated about in Nicaragua was help for victims, especially women, the indigenous, and the poor. This is something I worked very hard on in my previous posting in Guatemala (1997–2002). Customer service for victims of crime in most Latin American countries is close to non-existent. In Guatemala, when I arrived, it took an average wait of four hours just to report a crime. Victims and witnesses would clog hallways while kids ran around out of boredom. When a victim finally was able to talk with a case intake official, the official had no forms for recording the testimony. There was no computer tracking, and

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consequently, there was no case management ability, no investigative use of data collected for identifying, for example, modus operandi, and no ability to generate statistics on crime. Citizens perhaps rightly felt that it was a complete waste of time to report crime or cooperate with public prosecution. In Guatemala, I spent a great deal of time talking with prosecutors, case intake receptionists, crime victims, and the public in general, along with targeted groups of crime victims and their families. I assembled a design team and began to tackle the problem using standard project design methodologies and re-engineering principles. Today, the plan is mostly implemented. The wait for presenting a criminal complaint has dropped from an average of about four hours to less than fifteen minutes. A new Victims Assistance Unit, the first in a capital city in Latin America, began to provide immediate assistance to rape and assault victims, or anyone arriving at the Public Ministry needing emotional or medical help. The Guatemalan Public Ministry began publishing reliable statistics for the first time in its history. This in turn has helped the institution document its workload and seek additional funding from Congress to address crime. Computerization also allowed for improved use of physical plant space, which in turn has allowed for new seating areas for the public. In short, the Victims Assistance office provided cost-effective, tangible, and measurable benefit to crime victims at their most vulnerable moment. Now in Nicaragua, I wanted to see if we could take advantage of this ‘‘best practice’’ in victims’ assistance. Rebeca Gonzalez Leche had just left her position in Guatemala as the director of the Victims Assistance Program, and she remained a good friend. I invited her to Nicaragua to help us think through how to construct a similar program to the one in Guatemala with the Public Ministry in Nicaragua. The idea would not be to impose a Guatemalan model or parachute in a structure designed for somewhere else. Instead, Rebeca’s job would be to explore the feasibility of such a model in the Nicaraguan context and test how it could be adapted and refined for a better fit with Nicaragua. Taking advantage of Rebeca’s visit, she helped the National Inter-Institutional Commission (NITC) in developing interinstitutional policies for the protection of victims. A working group was created with the task of developing a guidance manual for such policies. This activity really excited me since I could see the direct links between it and other issues we cared deeply about like the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and trafficking. It also illustrated something we often do in development—bring people together, who ordinarily don’t talk to each other even though they are in the same country, to work toward a common goal. That’s not all we did with the National Inter-Institutional Commission (NITC). We called a separate meeting among the Public Defender’s Office, the Public Ministry, and the Forensic Medicine Institute to discuss monitoring and evaluation instruments to measure the impact of the criminal reform. Within USAID, we were accustomed to tracking and measuring our performance, but this was something completely new for our counterparts. Our program was lending a helping hand to bring modern public administration to the Nicaraguan justice sector.

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On the Access to Information Law front, the National Assembly Justice Commission finally reported that the law was nearly set for final consideration. However, Justice Commission President Jose Pallais (PLC) was supporting a motion whereby deputies could declare a ‘‘reserve’’ from access to information. USAID and the ‘‘Grupo Promotor’’ (Chamorro Foundation, IPADE, ET, and others) met with the Commission about this. At USAID, we received a formal request from Pallais, the first under our new facility for coordinating assistance with the Assembly, concerning the Ley de Acceso a la Informaci on, the C odigo Penal, and other legislation. We wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding in our position and approach, so we asked Peter Brennan as DCM and Victoria Alvarado as the political counselor to the Embassy to speak with Pallais first, which they did. Then I followed up with my own meeting with Pallais, to discuss Access to Information, the pending Criminal Code, and other justice sector issues. After all our work together with the media and civil society, working with the Assembly and government institutions, coordinating with our Embassy, and working the National Assembly hallways ourselves, the Access to Information Law finally passed. This was the capstone of an 18-month effort which never would have happened were it not for the media campaign and civil society coalition (‘‘Grupo Promotor’’) that we pulled together. Incredibly, some of the initial media coverage was actually not favorable, causing the Inter-American Press Association to offer to come to support us with public opinion. On balance, we all knew this was a major advance. We did not get 100 percent of what we were looking for (it was after all the Assembly’s product, not ours, and the Grupo Promotor chronicled the issues), but we did get most of what the civil society coalition sought, and they would continue to press over the coming year for the remaining items. Alfredo Chirino, the author of the model OAS law on access to information, characterized this legislation as one of the best in the region. By way of comparison, the most ambitious legislation in the Latin America region was probably Mexico. There, there were tremendous problems once the legislation was passed because there were not any implementing mechanisms. We in Nicaragua avoided that problem. For the past year, we had been working on a ‘‘Voluntary Access to Information Strategy’’ with various government ministries to implement the Access to Information Law, even while it was still pending in the legislature. As a result, we had an experience base and track record for immediate implementation. National Assembly Justice Commission Deputy Jose Pallais immediately asked USAID to help the government with the drafting of the administrative rules (‘‘reglamentos’’) to implement and operationalize the new legislation. But with the voluntary access strategy already in place, that work was already done. We were so ahead of the game! No other country in the world had approached implementation in this way, based on the lessons learned and difficulties experienced in other jurisdictions. We were a first and a model. Reflecting now on this achievement, it was an amazing amount of work to get past the finish line. Throughout the past year, we had supported the Grupo

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Promotor de la Ley de Acceso a la Informaci on P ublica, particularly in various public awareness campaigns that not only demanded the approval of the law but also justified from different citizens’ perspectives why a Law on Access to Public Information was important. In December 2006 and January 2007, our transparency program supported the production of five mini-story documentaries where Nicaraguans from key sectors told a story of how the lack of an access to public information law limits their opportunities and choices in life; an artisan, a student looking for employment, a farmer, a consultant, and people infected with the HIV virus told their stories in their own words. Also impressive was how our limited funding was able to leverage other funding with a four to one match. Fresh from our success with the National Assembly, we also kept up momentum on our municipal-level transparency work. On May 8th, Gerardo and Luz met with Jose Marıa Saravia (Director of Nicaraguan public procurement, the Direcci on General de Contrataciones del Estado, or DGCE) and Alan Clerk (InterAmerican Development Bank coordinator with the public procurement project, PREFTEC, to which USAID was a contributor) to discuss possible areas for collaboration for the next seven months. While creating new citizen involvement tools at the local level, we also kept up surveillance of the National Assembly. The Legislative Watch activity, as its name suggests (Bar ometro Legislativo), was another sort of governance scorecard. It measured the Assembly’s performance and analyzed decisions made in the Assembly. The May edition of the Bar ometro included a more in-depth coverage of the Commissions’ work. This provided a better overview of the National Assembly’s functions, progresses, and setbacks. Ambassador Trivelli suggested to me that Hagamos Democracia might like to have press conferences upon release of reports. That would give the work greater weight with possibly greater impact. We took the idea to the Hagamos Board of Directors. But they felt that the success of this Legislative Project relied on the credibility and open door policy that Hagamos currently had in the National Assembly. They felt that holding press conferences could compromise their position in the Assembly. Afterwards, Mariela and Gerardo noted that if Hagamos’ final decision were negative, an option could be to take advantage of other coalition groups, including Citizenship for Transparency in Politics and the CSO-IACC Follow-Up Group to promote the Bar ometro and its dissemination. Those groups could always use the Bar ometro as a reference in their own press conferences because the Bar ometro was a public document. In the end, Hagamos Democracia is a grantee, not a contractor. When USAID makes a ‘‘grant’’ to a grantee, it is a gift. The beneficiary decides what to do with the gift. We cannot tell the beneficiary how to use the gift. In the end, Hagamos considered the idea, but decided, based on the sensitivities, to go slow for the time being and not push for press conferences. On May 17th, NDI and the Carter Center cohosted a seminar on democracy and electoral reform. CSE President Rivas, who had been asked to provide a

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briefing on the CSE Modernization Plan, was not able to attend and failed to send a replacement. Also notably absent from the conference was the FSLN participant on the political party electoral reform panel. MRS and ALN participants highlighted weaknesses in the current electoral process and presented detailed reform plans. The PLC panelists’ briefing lacked substantive reform proposals, underscoring the preferential treatment afforded PACT parties by the current system. The Carter Center presented a summary of their observation findings in the second panel. While the report itself was accurate, the Carter Center presentation was disappointingly weak, downplaying many of the deficiencies identified in the report. I did not think the Carter Center ‘‘called it as they saw it.’’ Instead, they pulled punches. At least the final panel with Ignacio Avalos Gutierrez, an ex-Venezuelan electoral magistrate, provided a short history of the Venezuelan electoral process. According to Avalos, while the current Venezuelan electoral law meets international standards, democracy will never flourish in the current, highly politicized environment. That was an important wake-up call for the Nicaraguans to hear. After the event, we met with local civil society leaders and discussed the Carter Center report. They described the Carter Center meeting with the CSE magistrates prior to the release of the election observation report as ‘‘tragicomic.’’ Recommendations in the report were taken as personal affronts by the magistrates, who ultimately decided not to acknowledge the report. They also cautioned that democratic space for electoral observers may be narrowing, underscoring comments by CSE President Rivas that observers are only allowed to judge the quality of the election, not to provide any recommendations to improve electoral management. All this had ominous implications for both domestic and international observers. Given personnel changes at the Carter Center and President Carter’s advancing age, The civil society leaders predicted the Carter Center would not observe the next Nicaraguan national elections. They noted, however, that President Carter did plan to stay involved in Nicaragua, perhaps as a mediator, if the political situation continued to deteriorate. Month after month, we plodded along putting in the institutional building blocks to slowly, slowly, slowly build a new justice system. For anyone who has ever worked to build up a new organization like a school, or church, or nonprofit, you know this takes constant, continuous, day-after-day support. In a lot of ways, it is like raising children. They need constant care and nourishment with the hope that someday they will become self-sustaining. Our training with the Nicaraguan justice system was kind of like that, and the month of May 2007 was typical of that effort. We were, in effect, creating new institutional structures, and training was just one element of that package. In providing training, we never ‘‘parachuted’’ in generic classes designed for other countries. Such courses rarely fit the local institutional context, often reflect technological assumptions not present, and worse, can present legal frameworks inapplicable to the local situation. Instead, we always work with institutionalized training units. Our assistance begins with an institutional needs assessment. It is no use training people in skills

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they don’t need, and it is most effective to focus on what they do need—that sounds like the most basic of things, but incredibly, most international donors don’t do that. They just drop courses that they think the beneficiaries ought to have! Our programs, at least, are demand-driven, responsive to empirically proven need, and have measurable impact. It is not sufficient to just ask institutions what training they want or need. They will ask for anything. After all, it’s free for them. They like getting seminars at beach resort hotels with per diems paid by foreign donors. They like to hear about skills they will never use or need. They will even tell the donor that the course has been a life changing experience if that is what they think the donor wants to hear. Beware the testimonial! In our courses, we test for what is really needed first. Then we design a course particularly for that institution, given the local law and local context and challenges. We design measures to test whether the course really teaches what it is designed to teach, and we follow up to make sure that the students are then using their new skills in the workplace. If the follow-up shows the skills are not being used, we need to diagnose if this is because the course failed, the institutional structure has some problem, or the student has a problem. Ultimately, this implies a full integration of the course into a training unit and a full integration of the training unit into the personnel system of the institution. After all, the employees have to be at least minimally ‘‘trainable’’ in the first place. Also, the personnel system has to value the training, reward employees for getting the training, and for using the new skills acquired. In other words, personnel systems should work to assure the right people attend and that the skills they learn are needed and will be put to use. Implementing all this at a systemic level is in fact immensely time-consuming and complex. Without this implementation, however, training is almost always just about worthless. For better or worse, Nicaragua was the last country in Central America to adopt the USAID-inspired criminal procedure code reforms. That meant, however, that the Code reflected the ‘‘lessons learned’’ from each of the other countries. Furthermore, Nicaragua has clearly had the fastest transition from the written system to an adversarial, oral approach. To accelerate implementation, we helped the government to create a Public Defense Service and a new Public Ministry. Judges, however, remained the weakest link in the chain. Today, the accused can confront witnesses and enjoy a right to an attorney and a presumption of innocence; victims can witness trials; and the public can participate. Under the old Criminal Procedure Code, it was common for defendants to be jailed waiting for trial for an amount of time longer than what they would get if convicted. Today, no one waits more than three months. The new system is much more transparent and efficient. Finally, without a clerk of court system, there are many inefficiencies and opportunities for corruption (especially at the secretary and law clerk level), and the system is unable to produce reliable statistics or performance measures. (Don’t believe the litigation statistics the government produces now!). While ‘‘before and after’’ snapshots are therefore difficult, as we moved forward, we began to produce more reliable data while squeezing out corruption opportunities.

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Our de facto Central America regional transparency leadership kept pace on May 9th with another ‘‘Citizen Dialogue’’ Regional Videoconference. Gerardo Berthın again hosted the event showcasing social auditing best practices. The cases presented on this occasion were both from Guatemala. One case portrayed the experience of Acci on Ciudadana (Transparency International Guatemalan Chapter with Manfredo Marroquın) with social auditing of the national defense budget. The second case described the social auditing exercise of funds destined for damage repair after Hurricane Stan hit Guatemala. That experience also had special resonance with Nicaraguans, given the experience with Hurricane Mitch and the Aleman administration. Separately, international recording artist Ramon Mejıa (Perro Zompopo) was signed up to make appearances at area high schools in support of the anticorruption message. On the more technical side, we awarded a subcontract to the Nicaraguan Internal Auditors Association (Asociaci on de Auditores Internos de Nicaragua, or AAIN) to provide logistical support and technical follow-up to a series of internal control self-assessment workshops. These workshops would train public officials in the use of new internal control software called AMADEUS. AMADEUS was something USAID (through Casals) had pioneered in Mexico, and not being shy about stealing the best ideas from around the world, we were ready to try it out in Nicaragua. Ever since the November election, Movimiento Por Nicaragua and COSEP had been talking about the need in Nicaragua for youth leadership training. Deborah Ullmer stepped up and took charge, developing a new Youth Leadership Program under the NDI umbrella. In May, NDI received 18 applications from the ALN coalition (five from the ALN itself, eight from the Partido Conservador, and another five from Camino Cristiano), eight from the PLC, five from the MRS, and zero from the FSLN. The FSLN youth leadership coordinator, who was originally enthusiastic about the training opportunity, claimed the lack of participation was due to a complete restructuring of the youth wing of the FSLN. I continued to be impressed with how coincidence, time and time again, meant we never had FSLN participation. For its part, the PLC requested special training for its bancada and legal advisers on the Nicaraguan Constitution, the Ley Ordinaria de la Asemblea Nacional, the Ley Org anica, and constitutional reforms on June 4th and 5th. On May 25th, we had a workshop with the Inter-American Press Association. The topic addressed was the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACC), the role of the media in the monitoring of compliance with IACC commitments and recommendations, and how to report acts of corruption. In terms of impact, we managed to place the IACC on the public agenda in such a successful way that the topic attracted the interest of the two biggest journalist associations in the country. While I work in the Foreign Service, my family is also critical. On May 9th, my son Daniel completed his confirmation with the Catholic Church. Standing in as his Godparents were Luıs Fernando Ubeda and Luz Marina Garcıa. It was

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a rite of passage for Daniel, and those moments, when you are in the Foreign Service, happen overseas. It was a different way of life than I had growing up in New Berlin, Wisconsin. While I am a lifelong Presbyterian, and my wife has strong Episcopalian roots, those were not options really available in Nicaragua— and so like many Foreign Service kids before him, Daniel had to make his own path, which he did. We were very proud of him that day.

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With all of the things we do in the rule of law area, it helped me to keep in mind that most of the rule of law assistance actually goes to civil society for things like the Access to Justice Coalitions (women, children and youth, victims rights, and indigenous rights coalitions); Human Rights Observatories; Judicial Independence Week; the now 15 mediation and arbitration centers; the massive restructuring under way in all of the country’s 23 law schools; the work with media for more effective and more accurate coverage of justice events and stories; and justice reform civil society coalitions (like Pro-Justicia) that lobby for reform and keep the pressure on. Beyond all that, we had the ongoing programs with the Court, Public Ministry (now with the new Victims Assistance Program), Medical Forensics Institute, Public Defense Office, and Solicitor General (with the Citizens’ Complaint Office). It was an impressive rack-up. The first day of June, we kicked off the new judicial management course for select trial court judges at the American University (UAM). Since the course was designed for judges, we had to have a speaker from the Supreme Court. As president of the Court, Martınez was an obvious pick. But as a desvisado, that would politicize the event and give the Embassy heartburn. I wanted to keep this ‘‘technical’’ and not make this about anything bigger. So I talked to Marvin Aguilar. As the representative of the Judicial Career Council, Marvin could represent the Court. Our protocol would be met, and we would not cross the Embassy by giving a desvisado a podium in front of a USAID logo. Marvin immediately understood our predicament. After being set up at the CSE for political ends, any of these sorts of events made me feel absolutely allergic. Marvin made no immediate promise, but I felt he understood our situation, and he promised to see what he

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could do. In the end, it was Marvin nominated by the Court to represent the Judicial Branch at the event. Marvin and I were both key opening speakers. Beyond the judicial management course, we had a lot of other irons in the fire. We conducted a workshop on family rights for 30 justice promoters (5 men and 25 women) from the Women’s Rights Coalition. On June 6th, in collaboration with Juventud por la Democracia de Nicaragua (JUDENIC), we conducted a second workshop for university and high school students from the city of Rivas. The workshop focused on rule of law issues and transparency. During the week, USAID also organized a justice fair focused on youth and adolescent issues. Also with JUDENIC, we held a justice fair at the UCA campus on June 15th. A day earlier, at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua campus in Leon (UNAN-Leon), Alex Dickie and Luıs Fernando Ubeda inaugurated a new moot courtroom to be used not just by students, but also for real trials. On the alternative dispute resolution side, we inaugurated a new mediation and arbitration center in Tipitapa (next to the District 8 Police Center). This center was established in a collaborative effort between USAID and the Court’s Direcci on de Resoluci on Alterna de Conflictos (DIRAC). The event was attended by mediators, police officers, and other justice sector operators. Separately, USAID and AmCham facilitated a three-day workshop to promote international mediation and arbitration services offered by the Centro Internacional de Mediaci on y Arbitraje (CIMA). The workshops were attended by 45 representatives (25 men and 20 women) of various organizations engaged in national and international commercial activities. We also went on the road again with the National Inter-Institutional Commission (NITC), this time to Juigalpa to meet with NITC representatives from the communities of Chontales, Rıo San Juan, Zelaya Central, and Boaco. The purpose of this visit was to improve coordination with local justice operators. The meeting was attended by one hundred and seventy members of NITC including judges, prosecutors, forensic doctors, public defenders, and police officers. From June 4th to 8th, again in collaboration with the Colombian Institute of Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine, we carried out the eighth training module for medical doctors from the Nicaraguan Forensic Medicine Institute who are pursuing medical graduate degrees in forensic medicine. We continued to work with the Judicial School to improve the quality of trial court judges and their courtroom administration. This took the form of implementation of a continuing education program for judges. As part of that program, in June, we sponsored a training course on techniques in the writing of legal resolutions for 30 judges. The course went so well that we had to replicate the course two more times for groups of 35 judges in each of those two sessions. We had a new, innovative program that also came online in June with the Public Defender’s Office. There we inaugurated a new Public Defense Customer Service Platform. Previously, the public waited outside (often in the rain or blazing heat) to see a public defender. Alex Dickie and Maria Marigliano (who was visiting from USAID/Washington’s management office for Latin America) attended

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the opening. This new platform would service about 200,000 poor citizens per year, enhancing procedural due process and human rights. With the Public Ministry, we continued to support the implementation of the Prosecutor Career Law, which requires the Public Ministry to retrain its entire professional staff. With judges, we continued to work with the Judicial School in the design and implementation of a training program for judges. On Friday, June 1st, USAID and the Universidad Americana launched a postgraduate degree program in judicial management for local and district level judges. I represented USAID at the opening ceremony, and Magistrate Marvin Aguilar represented the Judicial Council. Meanwhile, we continued progress toward approval of the Criminal Code. In collaboration with the Justice Commission of the National Assembly, we conducted a three-day training course on basic concepts in the revision of the Criminal Code. Moreover, in an effort to continue raising public awareness about the revision of the draft Criminal Code, we facilitated two conferences in Managua for university students at UNAN and UPOLI. Additionally, USAID’s rule of law program staff attended a work session with the National Assembly Justice Commission which resulted in 15 articles concerning the environment and natural resources being validated for the draft Criminal Code. On the political front, I knew Nicaragua was settling in for a long slog with the Ortega administration with few checks and balances. Nicaragua had to learn how to deal with this quickly. The best lessons learned were from Venezuela. Having lived several years myself in Caracas, I knew people involved in S umate, the civil society opposition movement in Venezuela. I encouraged Movmiento and S umate to exchange ideas and lessons learned. Violeta, Juan Carlos, and Cesar Castillo were the representatives from the Movimiento board and Roberto Ricard (from the Executive Board) and Rosa Rodriguez (the DC office representative), were the representatives from S umate, all of whom along with others met in Mexico during the first week of June. S umate came well-prepared. They explained how they restructured, what worked, and what did not. They explained their current focus and strategy. Movimiento was very attentive, open to all suggestions. There was a fantastic exchange of ideas about how to incorporate best practices into Movimiento. One important takeaway was to not align with political parties, but focus instead on issues and be issue-driven. In terms of follow-up, S umate agreed to bring technical experts to meet with the Movimiento board for a working session. They would help Movimiento with strategy. This would take place in July. There would also be constant contact, with daily updates: this was a new relationship. Finally, the new network would be expanded to include other similarly-situated countries, perhaps Bolivia or Ecuador. While in Mexico, Movimiento had side meetings with the Partido de Acci on Nacional (PAN), including a meeting with Hector M un ~oz at the PAN campaign office. M un ~oz advised Movimiento on strategy and the need for Movimiento to be the voice of civil society. I hoped the lessons from Venezuela and Mexico were not lost on my Nicaraguan colleagues. On the anticorruption side, we learned about the extent of Nicaraguan corruption. The most common experience with corruption in Nicaragua over a year’s

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time is bribery—the mordida—in the justice system (22.9 percent). Also frequent is bribery in municipalities (12.6 percent); hospitals (10.2 percent); the workplace (9.9 percent); schools (9.3 percent) and electrical service (8.2 percent). All these experiences, with the exception of the last one, affect only those who have accessed the services mentioned in the items, but the magnitude of the problem cannot be ignored. Bribery of the police or public officials occurred less often. The aggregate of the experiences from the survey revealed that 18 percent of Nicaraguans have been victims of corruption over the course of one year. Even worse is that the data show an increase in the number of these experiences: from a 16.3 percent victimization rate in 2004 to 18 percent in 2006. To put this in a regional perspective, Haiti, Mexico, Bolivia, and Jamaica have the highest levels of victimization (50.1 percent, 37.1 percent, 34.6 percent, and 34.0 percent respectively) and Chile and Colombia have the lowest levels (9.4 percent and 9.7 percent respectively). We kept working on improving national government budget transparency with the AMADEUS Initiative. ‘‘Internal Control Workshops’’ took place on June 6th, 8th, and 11th. The workshops were co-organized by the Asociaci on de Auditores Internos de Nicaragua and were conducted by two international consultants, Edison Estrella and Tirso Rodrıguez. The workshops intended to measure efficiency and efficacy in operational procedures and management of risk, thus improving institutional transparency. Government institutions that received this training were: Direcci on de Poder Ciudadano para la Etica P ublica, MAGFOR, INAFOR, and the Presidency. In all, fifty-eight Nicaraguan government officials were trained. A third and final internal control workshop was targeted for universities and civil society organizations. Additionally, representatives from the Tax Department (Direcci on General de Ingresos, or DGI) joined this last training. As I prepared for my departure from Nicaragua, I was moved by several events. First, Javier Melendez of the Institute for Strategic and Public Policy Studies organized a farewell party for me. The invitees included ranking military officers and top figures from the National Assembly and armed forces. All parties and walks of life were represented. At the event, Javier presented me with an award for my contributions in promoting transparency within the military with civil society. I was touched that Nicaraguans felt that a foreigner could make that kind of contribution in an area so sensitive to national security. I thanked Javier, but I also understood that he was the one out front on this effort. We backed a vision, but he led the charge. I tipped my hat to Javier. Second, we had reached closure on some training for the graduate degree program for the Medical Forensics Institute. The director recognized me for my leadership in making this happen. He noted that there were two important events that had established forensic medicine in Nicaragua—when the institution was created and when I began supporting an institutional restructuring and reorganization which included the training of the staff for the first time in history. He then presented me with an award from the Nicaraguan Supreme Court recognizing my role in helping extend forensic medicine nationwide and improving the quality of criminal investigation. As the old saying goes, ‘‘Success has a hundred fathers,’’ and I realized that the effort reflected a team of highly dedicated professionals pulling together to make all this possible.

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While the plot continued running, the story was coming to a close for me and several of my key friends in Nicaragua. Danika Walters’ last day in Nicaragua was Friday, June 15th. She had done an outstanding job with USAID in Nicaragua, but due to the way the personnel system works, we were unable to keep her there, or even within USAID for that matter. Danika ended up returning to the State Department in Washington where she had worked previously, with the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Victoria Alvarado from the Embassy’s political section left after June 8th, and Tim Smith, also from the political section, in July. My last day in Nicaragua was June 18th, and after a vacation in Wisconsin, I started a new position in Washington on August 1st. A few months later, in December 2007, Gerardo Berthın also left Nicaragua.

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Postlude Reflections: Why Ortega Won, and Democratic Counterinsurgency

One reaction to this narrative could be that of Camilo Jose Cela. In his masterpiece La colmena, Cela portrayed Franco’s Spain with an overall spirit of gloom, a decidedly deterministic work. Or perhaps Nicaragua reflects more the pessimism and characterization of Spanish society found in La familia de Pascual Duarte, another classic from Cela and one of the first novels about Spain after the Civil War. Cela rings true across the developing world and across Latin American, given the shared parallel histories and sense of foreboding or pessimism. Or perhaps more accurately Nicaragua reflects the ‘‘magic realism’’ of Gabriel Garcıa Marquez: In El coronel no tiene quien le escribe, the retired Colombian military officer sits at home frustrated, angry, and depressed as a bureaucratic, corrupt government denies him the promise of reform and even a pension. Certainly, some of what I saw in Nicaragua could only be described as magic realism although some of what I saw was too weird even for novels. Are there going to be primaries or not? Is Aleman supposed to be in jail or not? Are Ortega’s ‘‘Citizen Power Councils’’ legal or not? The games continue. Is there any room for optimism? Garcıa Marquez couldn’t make up this kind of stuff! Let’s start the inquiry with the biggest question: ‘‘How did Daniel Ortega win?’’ I’ve been asked that a thousand times. There are several answers. My immediate reaction is that our mission was to ensure a free, fair, transparent, and credible election. We were not there to guarantee any certain electoral outcome. ‘‘Let the chips fall where they may,’’ as President Bush said in the Iraq context. Our goal was the process, not the outcome. I had to make sure people could get voter IDs, that the voter registries were up-to-date, that voters knew where to go and where to get their voter ID cards. I was also working on rule of law and anticorruption. We succeeded at exactly what we were asked to do. This was about

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‘‘right versus wrong, not left versus right.’’ We followed Zoellick’s marching orders. We knew going into all this that all polls showed an Ortega win from over two years out. And polls have a way of being sticky—the numbers are hard to change over time. Still, we also knew that if Ortega failed to get the requisite 35% of the vote, and it went to a second round, no matter who he was up against, Ortega would lose decidedly. For anyone who wanted ‘‘anyone but Ortega,’’ the strategy was clear— keep him from getting 35 percent. Force a second round, and Ortega was toast. Having said that, Ortega played the game masterfully. He knew what others knew. For him, it was all about a clear first round win. It started with getting the system rigged so he could win with just 35 percent of the vote. Had he not gotten that deal in advance, he would not be president today. That deal happened before I got to Nicaragua in his agreement with Aleman as part of the Pact. He also made sure that his party, or the PLC with whom he had a Pact, controlled every single voter table in the country from the polling booth up to the Supreme Electoral Council. He owned the system. There is zero campaign finance transparency today in Nicaragua. So it is hard to pin down numbers. But Ortega clearly was way better financed than any of his opponents. The FSLN mayor donated billboards all around Managua in the famous ‘‘shock and awe’’ advertising blitz. Chavez openly poured millions into the FSLN with oil and fertilizer to be doled out to FSLN mayors who delivered votes. The $606,000 stolen from the Supreme Court in narcotics money in October 2005 was rumored to have found its way into the FSLN campaign coffers. Libya and Iran were rumored to be contributing to Ortega (and Iran actually opened a new office in a luxury building, ‘‘INVERCASA,’’ just blocks from USAID). Another rumor I heard was that Carlos Slim, the world’s wealthiest man, a Mexican national, was also bankrolling Ortega, perhaps to gain advantage in later procurements in the cement or telecommunications areas. Ortega was also sitting on assets spread around the world gathered from his previous years in power. I heard another rumor that the FSLN actually paid for PLC advertising in the final moments of the campaign to bolster its fellow Pact member, and to ensure a split in the liberal vote. It actually sounds quite plausible to me that Ortega, the puppet master, would do this although I found no empirical data to support the rumor. On the ‘‘democratic’’ side of the ledger, neither the MRS nor the ALN got a dime from the Americans. Ortega also ensured that the liberals never united. He was able to have Aleman play a deciding influence in ensuring that there never was a liberal primary. No one on the ALN side would agree to a process that simply led to the anointing of Aleman’s pick, so the process had to be outside his control—otherwise no deal. But the PLC candidates were never able to exercise sufficient independence from Aleman to make a primary happen. Ortega was also able to pry away the ALN National Assembly candidate Salvador Talavera with promises of future positions and influence. This in fact was a ‘‘two-fer’’ in that it allowed the PLC to attack the ALN saying the ALN was infested with Sandinistas: ‘‘a vote for Eduardo is a

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vote for Daniel,’’ the PLC asserted. In fact, during the entire PLC campaign, the PLC hardly ever attacked the FSLN, but instead focused almost exclusively in attacking Eduardo and the ALN. The focus of the PLC campaign, in essence, was that only the PLC could defeat Ortega. I met with peasants in a poor neighborhood in Managua, and they told me that they hated Ortega and would never vote FSLN. They knew Aleman was corrupt, but they thought only the PLC could stop the FSLN. The ALN never reached these voters to say it represented a credible alternative. The PLC only attacked the ALN during the campaign and gave the FSLN a pass. For the liberal voters who might have been inclined to vote ALN, the last minute election eve disinformation campaign that Eduardo had quit may have led untold voters to switch back to the PLC. The biggest losers, it seems to me, were Jose Rizo and Jose Antonio Alvarado (los Chepes, as they were called), who could have shown their independence from Aleman, improved their reputation, and who knows, perhaps become the next president and vice president. They refused, the liberals could not unite under a primary around a single candidate, and the liberal vote was split. By attacking only the ALN and not the FSLN, they came off as mere stooges of both corrupt puppetmasters Aleman and Ortega at the same time. When COSEP came out with its poll results, or when El Salvador’s President discussed uniting the liberals in September 2006, los Chepes should have listened. Instead, they walked like ducks and quacked like ducks and served their obvious masters. Another scenario in which Ortega would have lost would have been had the MRS played a stronger role, taking votes from the FSLN left. Herty Lewites was clearly the only charismatic candidate around until his untimely death. Herty had vision, and there was a buzz around him. When he died, the MRS was never the same. Edmundo (‘‘Mundo’’) Jarquın, who even called himself ‘‘the ugly one,’’ el feo, did not have Herty’s charm. Nor did Mundo have Herty’s abilities to attract campaign contributions, preventing the MRS from making a serious run or taking votes from the FSLN. Worse though was Mundo’s gaffe days before the national election in a nationally-televised debate where he came out unequivocally prochoice, in favor of women’s right to choose to have an abortion. That was a green light to the Cardinal to lead the call to all good Catholics to vote against Mundo. In a Catholic country, that gaffe lost it for the MRS. The new vice presidential candidate, folk singer Carlos Mejıa Godoy, seemed like a fish out of water, and he was never very effective. Who would have predicted Herty’s death? Or the abortion gaffe? And why a vice presidential candidate that made Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s 1992 running mate, look attractive? Stockdale’s words could have been those of Mejıa Godoy: ‘‘Who am I? Why am I here?’’ Eduardo Montealegre could have done more to help himself. The political cartoonists had a field day with the ‘‘Ceni’’ bond issue. The ceni bonds became synonymous with corruption and Aleman sleeze. Eduardo made little attempt to explain the ceni bonds and his role. As Aleman’s former finance minister, and as someone who held ceni bonds, Eduardo raised doubts. The public had a right to

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ask questions. Eduardo did little to distance himself from the scandal, other than to accuse the Pact of using it against him for political motives. The issue never went away. Also, at times, I felt we cared more about the ALN than the ALN cared about itself. I was appalled when the ALN executives complained to the NSC about our lack of support for party poll watchers when we had already trained more ALN party poll watchers than there were polls. ALN leadership failed to project confidence, competence, or charisma. This was made most glaringly clear when they failed to even appoint a campaign manager until very late. What were they thinking? When named, Adolfo Arguello never mounted a real fund-raising campaign, lacking both political savvy and experience. The ALN campaign itself never ventured into far-flung rural areas or PLC strongholds. The ALN never did have a final big campaign rally to close the campaign but instead had small meetings around the country. This sent the message to the voters that the party lacked big-time support. Meanwhile, the PLC did have a final rally (which many suspected included FSLN supporters to boost PLC numbers), which projected a party that was a serious contender. I got the sense the ALN never ‘‘really wanted it’’ to start with. Were they expecting the Americans to do a campaign for them? This was their problem, not ours. We were supporting a fair, legitimate, and credible election, not trying to back any single candidate. The Nicaraguan business community only got involved at the very last minute. Until then, it didn’t want to invest too much on one side or the other. Perhaps they thought the Americans would blink and bail out the liberals, either the ALN or the PLC, in which case they could be free riders. I suspect they only wanted to bet on the winning horse and didn’t know where to put their money. Or they were hedging their bets and giving smaller amounts to everyone on all sides. COSEP stayed on the sidelines until the eleventh hour with its poll. Carlos Pellas did eventually back Eduardo publicly although since then, the press has alleged he also contributed to Daniel’s campaign along with the richest man in the world, Mexico’s Carlos Slim. In any case, the ALN did not get much financial backing from the business community and finished the campaign in serious debt. A final factor was the CSE shutting down production and the distribution of new voter IDs. We had bumped up the voter rolls some 20% with new, young voters. No one knew how they would vote although our media campaign certainly showed it was no longer cool to be one of the corrupt dinosaurs. That did not bode well for either the PLC or FSLN. I have no proof of this, but I believe in my heart that when the CSE magistrates saw the numbers and saw what we were doing to get out the vote, they shut down production and delivery of voter ID cards. About half of the youth that wanted to vote, in the end, did not get their voter ID cards in time. There was no technical reason for this. Therefore, I can only reach a political conclusion. The CSE magistrates had the motive and the means. Cardinal Obando y Bravo endorsed the FSLN and Ortega in the campaign. The Catholic Church and Papel Nuncio did little to stop him. The Vatican took no action. Eventually, quiet diplomacy by church leadership had him back off, sort

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of, but this was late in the day, and the citizens knew how he wanted them to vote. For his endorsement, the Cardinal ended up getting a plum job in the Ortega Administration. I think all of these factors combined in a storm to put Ortega over the top with that final bit he needed to go from 34.99 percent to 38 percent. Herty’s death alone probably gave Ortega three or four points. The abortion gaffe, perhaps another three or four. Just before Herty’s death in July, I confided to the Ambassador that I thought it was possible that the polls were wrong and that Ortega might not get out of the twenties in percentage. I did not foresee Herty’s death, the abortion issue, the massive influx of foreign money to the FSLN, or the ALN’s timid attempt to respond. When you add in a split on the liberal side (thanks to the PLC) and a commercial sector asleep, you get ‘‘President Ortega.’’ Another question I often get was whether, in retrospect, the election was ‘‘really free and fair.’’ My electoral observation colleague Ron Perkel noted in January 2008: First, despite the (Nicaraguan) administration’s current and obvious undemocratic and authoritarian tendencies, none of that changes the expressed perception of a generally free and fair election. Second, despite the expressed perception of a generally free and fair election, the administration’s current and obvious undemocratic and authoritarian tendencies are really not that surprising or even unexpected. Thus, the former should not taint the latter, in the first instance (meaning calling a fair election of a potential authoritarian does not make one an appeaser or an enabler), and the former does not excuse the latter, in the second (meaning calling a fair election of one who it was foreseeable could become an authoritarian does not invalidate the facts of calling what was a fair election). That’s democracy, man. I think Ron hit it on the head. Amen, Ron. There is no way the CSE could have administered this election had it not had support from USAID and IFES. USAID ensured that political party poll watchers and civil society could prevent massive voter fraud. For the most part, thanks to USAID, the election was free, fair, transparent, and credible although many citizens could not vote due to their lack of a voter ID card. In the process, USAID supported the maturation of two new democratic alliances, the MRS and ALN, into real political forces which will be able to compete again in the future. Ignacio Aldecoa, Spanish novelist, would have felt at home in Nicaragua. His novel El fulgor y la sangre depicted a post-war Spain in which five women explore their reminiscences of their marriages to members of the Spanish Guardia Civil, tied to their lonely existences in Castile. Aldecoa would have recognized the malaise of the Pact and the pessimism such politics brings. In the movie Where’s Bob?, the psychologist continually tells Bob (actor Bill Murray) that the road to recovery is simply a series of ‘‘baby steps.’’ Perhaps that should now be Nicaragua’s strategy—steady, constant baby steps toward reform. By 2007, the civil society structures (Movimiento, JUDENIC, obervatorios, CPDH,

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the three rule of law civil society coalitions for women’s, youth, and indigenous rights, and 20 mediation centers) were in place. In one sense, Daniel Ortega became a lame duck the day he was sworn in with civil society pitted against him even as he controlled every branch of government, top to bottom. As Woodrow Wilson noted, ‘‘In the last analysis, my fellow countrymen, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government.’’ It is now time for Nicaraguans to own their own destiny and take charge. Put another way: they own the problem. The old-school partisan political maneuvering is now being accompanied for the first time by a much more attentive news media and a relatively vibrant civil society, including numerous NGOs working throughout the country that have successfully provided social services and mobilized citizens over the last several years. In addition, a small number of dedicated reformers, most fostered by USAID, can be found within governmental organizations. While 2007 may have been a very difficult year for civil society and the press, they survived and showed they had staying power. That’s a victory. The civil society watchdog reformers we advanced have had staying power. A year after Ortega came to power, in January 2008, those civil society groups continued to hit back with performance assessments that highlighted lack of transparency in management of Venezuelan funds, a polemical and confrontational discourse, and antidemocratic control of civil society via the Citizen Councils. This continues to shape public debate and Assembly politics. The thinkers, press, and civil society reformists historically were accustomed to waiting for Nicaragua’s caudillos and their cohorts to determine the country’s political future. But today, the degree of initiative they take will be key in determining whether the current political crisis results in a political stalemate that prevents socioeconomic progress (and even leads to violence) or in positive democratic reforms. Even Malcolm X noted, ‘‘Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.’’ Perhaps the silver lining for Nicaraguans is that they learn about democracy through all this. They have the chance to discover what it means to have checks and balances and what it is like without them. So long as Ortega does not go so far as to change the rules that allow for free media or the right to organize as civil society, the opposition can live to fight another day. If Ortega does rig it so that the opposition can never come back, he will in effect have undertaken a coup d’e tat in violation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. Civil society’s job now is to make sure he can’t do that. A 2006 survey showed broad and categorical support among Nicaraguans for electoral democracy (72.4 percent), as opposed to 16.0 percent who prefer an unelected strongman, and 11.6 percent who do not know. So backing away from this will be very difficult for Ortega. Also, even though I am no longer there and no longer play a role, I suspect USAID might be willing to help with these guarantees. A PLC victory could have been worse from at least one perspective. Mexico had the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) for 70 years, and it was nearly

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impossible to dislodge them electorally. Even in the 1990s, Carlos Salinas de Gotari was elected with electoral fraud in Mexico. It took the courageous act of Ernesto Zedillo to allow democracy to start for Mexico to become the country it is now with a potential to grow in democracy for all parties for years to come. El Salvador had been locked in a one party rule state under ARENA since the death of Jose Napole on Duarte back in the 1980s until 2009. I don’t think the Nicaraguans want to replicate that either, and I suspect that most Salvadorans would prefer to have two democratic options to choose from. With luck, perhaps Nicaragua can now establish a democratic alternation in power based on elections, not power structures with options on the democratic left and right. Another silver lining to all this might be that, had the PLC won, the folks in Washington (or Miami) would have relaxed again. In a sense, with Daniel, you know what you are getting. With the PLC, they can appear to be good folk when in reality, like Aleman, they can actually be quite corrupt. Washington will not be lulled into sleep with an Ortega administration as they were in the early years of the Aleman administration. This might be the wake up call, on the left and on the right, that the old corrupt ways of running the country make your future look more like a banana republic than an emerging economic tiger. Nicaraguans have to pick their path. Banana republics work well for the plantation owner, not so well for the workers. If Nicaraguans want the rising tide to lift all boats, they are going to have to find a political model that can deliver the kind of broadly-shared economic growth the hardworking people there deserve. I hope they get it. This was the point that Congressman Dan Burton tried to make when he visited. Instead, NicaNet reported that he was telling people not to vote for the FSLN or PLC. That missed the entire point. He said nothing of the kind. But more importantly, he wanted Nicaraguan voters to think of the consequences of their decisions; he wanted them to succeed. Stepping away from the moment of an election, and looking at the bigger development picture, all is not gloom and doom. On the rule of law side, despite getting started later than any neighbor, and therefore having received less funding over a shorter period of time, despite starting with an institutional structure far inferior to any other country in Central America, and despite profound problems of political will, incredibly, it could be argued that Nicaragua’s achievements and changes rank among the best in Latin America. With USAID help, Nicaragua now has one of the best Criminal Procedure Codes and as of 2007, one of the best Criminal Codes in the Latin America and Caribbean region. All 224 prosecutors and 78 public defenders were trained by USAID. (In 1994, there were only three public defenders; in 2000, there were zero prosecutors.) Again with USAID assistance, Nicaragua has created a new Public Ministry and expanded that institution nationwide. USAID helped establish the Managua Public Defenders Office and then helped expand that nationwide. In 2005, with a view toward CAFTA, USAID assisted the National Assembly in drafting a new Mediation and Arbitration law (legislation that had such widespread public acceptance that the Assembly chose to make it a center of a public ad campaign to promote the image of the institution). Also in 2005, a Judicial

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Career Law became effective, making new judicial appointments subject to competitive processes. Consistent with the President’s Anticorruption Initiative articulated at the Sea Island and Evian Summits, USAID has facilitated a process whereby Nicaraguans have developed a new draft Criminal Code. There is no Central American country that has done this much, this boldly, and this quickly with this limited level of USAID resources. Having a legislative framework is not enough: institutions mean people. USAID supported the first ever selection of prosecutors according to transparent, meritbased procedures. While I was in Nicaragua, 200 prosecutors were selected according to this procedure. USAID has also supported the nationwide coverage of the prosecution services. With assistance from USAID, the Public Defender’s Office has expanded to 72 public defenders, increasing access to justice and promoting the right of citizens to a legal defense. The public defenders have been selected in a merit-based process, and 23 offices have been opened nationwide with program support. In the Forensic Medical Institute, USAID has provided training and equipment to the organization to make it more effective. In a matter of months in early 2007, we helped construct counterweights to an Ortega Administration that currently dominates the Executive, Legislative, Electoral, and Judicial institutions of government, and which also controls most municipalities, unions, and universities. The concerted effort focused on building new civil society entities, strengthening the watchdog function of an independent media, and establishing new legal constraints to unfettered power. With Daniel Ortega at the helm, democracy promotion is a tough business in Nicaragua. But in an incredibly short amount of time, Nicaraguans have given themselves the tools and a strategy to fight for democracy’s survival and for taking a stand against antidemocratic populism and corruption, consistent with Nicaragua’s international commitments under the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, the American Convention on Human Rights, and the Inter-American Democratic Charter. All of these efforts, taken together, constituted a de facto democratic counterinsurgency to an Ortega and Pact blitzkrieg against democracy and the rule of law. An example of where Ortega would like to go down the road came on October 25, 2007. Ortega proposed a series of Constitutional amendments to take effect as of the next national election in the year 2011. One change would help regularize Aleman’s legal limbo. All presidents elected since 1984 would be national deputies for life which could extend prosecutorial immunity to these former presidents: Daniel Ortega, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Arnoldo Aleman, and Enrique Bola~ nos. There would be a new Prime Minister and Supreme Court Magistrates would get life terms on the bench. The Presidential veto would be abolished along with the post of Vice President, among other proposed changes. The proposals, pushed by the Pact, were opposed (predictably) by the ALN and MRS, and eventually, in January 2008, even Ortega’s Vice President, Jaime Morales Carazo, had to admit that the country was not ready for a parliamentary system of this kind. Based on these kinds of political proposals, it might be easy to understand why Nicaraguans like to think their country is completely unlike anywhere else, that

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their history, their culture, and their politicians are somehow unique, and the lessons learned elsewhere somehow don’t apply. But I also found that attitude in Mexico, Venezuela, Guyana, Bolivia, and just about everywhere I have worked. And I guess it is natural. People in Washington or Chicago’s North Shore or Los Angeles or Manhattan all think their particular neighborhood is the center of all civilization. But my fear for Nicaragua is that they think the United States should care and does care about Nicaragua. I’m not sure that’s true. America may not care, and globalization might not care. It’s not Washington that matters anymore, it’s New York (and London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Mexico City, and the world’s financial centers). If Nicaragua ‘‘does the wrong thing,’’ it will be punished. Just not by Washington. Adam Smith’s invisible hand will slap Nicaraguans, and they will be marginalized in a global economy that has no time for corruption, protectionism, and political games. Ambassador Trivelli couldn’t change that if he tried. Nicaraguans have to want to do the right thing, or risk being dismissed as a joke banana republic, a relic of protectionist, corrupt, old-think socialism. Nicaraguans cannot expect the United States to ‘‘save’’ them. Americans tend to embrace national self-determination. Despite our international image and major events like Iraq or Afghanistan, Americans don’t seek to intervene if it can be helped in any way. We granted Cuban independence in 1902 after the Spanish-American War of 1898. We let go of the Philippines in 1946 after World War II. Despite repeated interventions in Central America and the Caribbean in the first half of the past century, the United States never moved toward annexation. Our last intervention in the region was in the 1980s. America really is not interested in a classic empire. If Nicaragua’s investment climate is poor, American capital will just go somewhere else. Nicaragua is desperately poor and badly governed. Overwhelming numbers of Nicaraguans face chronic poverty and cannot depend on their political system to allow them to improve their situation. These governance and socioeconomic conditions make Nicaragua once again a potentially destabilizing force in the region. So like all of Latin America, Nicaragua very much needs to be on the political screen of the United States and the international community over the coming months and then over next 5 or 10 years. Whether because of the ‘‘vicious cycle of violence’’ or because of the rampant corruption that is permitted (e.g., the illicit sale of AK-15s to Colombia’s paramilitaries, its role as the intermediary dropoff point for drug trafficking to the United States, or as the source of large numbers of economic immigrants), Nicaragua can play a very negative role in a region full of fragile democracies. For more fundamental humanitarian interests too, we should be concerned about Nicaraguan governance since, without that, the country will be crippled in trying to deliver basis human services like education, infrastructure, or health care to its citizens. Perhaps Robert Pastor noted it best when he wrote that the challenge faced by the globalization system is really very similar to the challenge faced by the Versailles system after World War I: how to integrate the losers into the winners’ system.

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Based on my experience in Nicaragua and the people I met, I am actually optimistic about the place. Eduardo Montealegre will be a better politician the next time around, and perhaps the next time he will win. Edmundo Jarquın will probably be back too for the MRS, but now more experienced and tempered than before. But there are also many other impressive young leaders emerging, many through Movimiento Por Nicaragua, JUDENIC, Pro-Justicia and the youth, indigenous, and women’s rights coalitions. On the left, I really liked Alejandro Martınez Cuenca. Perhaps he could run with Magistrate Marvin Aguilar, also of the FSLN? The country deserves a democratic left and a democratic right, parties responsive to the people, with serious plans for government and checks and balances. On January 7, 2008, the ALN announced that it had struck a deal to allow for a transparent selection of mayoral candidates with the PLC, allowing for liberal ‘‘unity’’ at least for the November 2, 2008 municipal election. Perhaps at this lower level, at the party bases, where there is more interest in building a country and creating jobs than there is in preserving privilege for political elites, Nicaraguans can have hope for democratization. Democratic civil society and the media will have their work cut out for them if they are to check an Ortega administration with a lock on all branches of government and a good chunk of the mayoralties. The legal context is also being slowly stacked against them: Rosario Murrillo’s Citizen Councils (projected at around 17,000 community organizations representing perhaps a million citizens) modeled on Cuban and Venezuelan experiences; deep fractures on the liberal side and no clear path to unite democratic parties; and a business sector that avoids conflict with the authorities as a survival strategy. But civil society seems to be rising to the occasion: news media reported a march of ten thousand citizens on September 9, 2007, led by Movimiento in Masaya to protest the new Citizen Councils. The march included Eduardo Montealegre and Maria Eugenia Sequeira of the ALN, Jose Rizo and Enrique Qui~ nones of the PLC, and Azalia Aviles of the Conservative Party, affiliated with the ALN alliance. Since then, the legal status of the Citizen Councils has been questioned with the ALN and MRS linking up to override a presidential veto, in effect, turning back the Councils on November 21st, followed immediately with intervention by the Court in favor of Ortega. On December 5th, the Supreme Court reinstated Ortega’s veto and annulled the Assembly’s override of the veto, bringing new life back to the Councils. In January 2008, the Supreme Court not only reaffirmed the Citizen Councils, it declared illegal the two framework laws (the first one suspended the Pact constitutional reforms and the second one extended the suspension for another year), both major victories for Ortega and the Pact. In the end, whether the Councils ever become legalized or not, the Ortega administration no longer gets a blank check. However, in the meantime, they go on distributing beans and rice to almost exclusively FSLN supporters. Democracy in Nicaragua is a messy business. As I reflect back on what we did in Nicaragua with the pennies we had and those stretched beyond comprehension, I am very proud of our work and the team. If any academic wanted to come in and do a hatchet job, it would be easy

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to do. A few years ago, Tom Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published his book Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. I felt that book took a lot of information out of context to depict a na€ive, almost amateurish foreign assistance effort. Similarly, a March 2003 General Accounting Office report was even entitled ‘‘Foreign Assistance: U.S. Democracy Programs in Six Latin American Countries Have Yielded Modest Results.’’ I don’t think either Carothers or the authors of the GAO report fully appreciate how we actually work, how dynamic the situation is, and what we are up against. Carothers did work at USAID at one time, in the general counsel’s office, but never managed a project that I knew of. As a former academic myself, I know that no one ever gets published for saying ‘‘job well done.’’ Neither do auditors. They have to find something to nit-pick. That’s their incentive structure and therefore their bias. Fine. The truth is, on a cost-benefit basis, our program had a huge impact, and if we did more of it, the world might actually look much better. I guess everyone is an armchair development officer or academic, and part of the price we pay for working in this business is taking these shots from time to time. I hope any reader of this work will see that we did have a major impact in Nicaragua in promoting democracy. And by extension, with USAID programs in many other countries, we are also probably having impacts there too. My time in Nicaragua was exciting, and I loved the people I worked with. At the end of the day, however, if things go badly and don’t work out, the Americans can go home. But the Nicaraguans stay there and live with the consequences. They were the true heroes of these programs and efforts. They put themselves on the line every day, trying to make Nicaragua a better, more democratic, and more participatory place for their children and grandchildren. My heart goes out to them. ‘‘¡La lucha continua!’’ I felt particularly bad for Ambassador Trivelli. He walked the knife’s edge, was criticized by left and right on a daily basis, and yet stuck to his principles and his marching orders. He was not only extremely ethical, he was a compassionate and passionate human being who understood politics, understood development, and committed his whole self to doing the best job he possibly could. He staked his career on it! If I had been President, I would have been extremely proud of my representative and Ambassador in Managua. Real Ambassadors work hard, have fun, and make history. No one did more for Nicaragua and for U.S. diplomacy than Ambassador Trivelli did. He spoke the truth and, more than a diplomat, proved to be a prophet of reform. But like many of those who cried in the wilderness, did anyone hear him? My fear is that, in the superficiality of Washington, the false prophets and Oliver North-style pundits would tag him as the guy who ‘‘lost’’ Nicaragua with Ortega’s victory. The old school Nicaraguanists liked the old false prophets more, anyway. The false prophets fed the preconception of Nicaraguan exceptionality and allowed for corruption on the right. They miss the point that all Ambassador Trivelli did, against all odds and with little support, was to do what was right.

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At the same time, the American ‘‘solidarity’’ movement never cut him any slack either and will probably continue to give him flack. He got no credit for keeping us all on the right track and avoiding the mistakes of the past. Implicitly, the internationalist groups seem to buy into the ‘‘Nicaraguan exceptionality’’ bit and therefore assume that the United States must feel compelled to intervene—and then look for data to support the preconceived conclusion. But Paul Trivelli may have been the most important hero of all: he made it possible for Nicaraguan elections to be about right and wrong instead of graft, thuggery, and theft. He worked hard and was extremely ethical, and as a result, changed history. That’s the real story, and he was a real ‘‘Ambassador.’’

Select Bibliography

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258

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William M. LeoGrande. ‘‘Foreign Aid in Central America.’’ In The Global Crisis in Foreign Aid, edited by Richard Grant and Jan Nijman, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Richard Millett. Guardianes de la dinastıa: la hisotiria de la Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 2006. Victor Montejo. Testimony: Death of a Guatemalan Village, New York: Curbstone Press, 1983. Carlos Montemayor. Chiapas: La rebeli on indıgena de Me xico, 2nd edition. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. Ivan Musicant. The Banana Wars. New York: Macmillan Press, 1990. The National Bipartisan Commission on Central America. The Report of the President’s National Bipartisan Commission on Central America. New York: Macmillan, 1984. Conner Cruise O’Brien, ‘‘What Can Become of South Africa.’’ In The Anti-Apartheid Reader: South Africa and the Struggle against White Racist Rule, edited by David Mermelstein. New York: Grove Press, 1987. Manuel Ortega Hegg, Marcelina Castillo Venerio, and Mitchell A. Seligson. ‘‘The Political Culture of Democracy in Nicaragua: 2006’’ (study, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2007). The AmericasBarometer by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), http://www.LapopSurveys.org. David Pion-Berlin and Harold Trinkunas, ‘‘Attention Deficits: Why Politicians Ignore Defense Policy in Latin America.’’ Latin American Research Review. 42 (2007): 76. Karl M. Schmitt. The Roman Catholic Church in Modern Latin America. New York: Knopf, 1972. Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein. The Colonial Heritage of Latin America Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1970. William C. Thiesenhusen. Broken Promises: Agrarian Reform and the Latin American Campesino. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995. Edwin Williamson. The Penguin History of Latin America.I New York: Penguin Books, 1992. Fareed Zakaria. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Index

Access to Information Law. See Freedom of Information Law Access to Justice Coalition: Indigenous Rights Coalition, 122, 174, 239, 250; Justice Fairs, 103, 162, 204, 231, 240; National Inter-Institutional Criminal Justice System Commission (NICJSC), 162; Movimiento de Mujeres Cristina Rugama, 201; Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia (Permanent Civil Society Organization for Justice), 174, 182, 198, 203; Projusticia, 96, 112, 182; Women’s Rights Coalition, 122, 123, 162, 167, 168, 202, 218, 240, 254; Youth and Adolescent Rights Coalition, 122, 162, 168, 202 Acosta, Haydee, 83 Aguirre Sacasa, Francisco, 72 ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana). See Bolivarian Alternative Aleman, Arnoldo: as Mayor of Managua, 2; criminal conviction and house arrest, 5, 14, 27, 33, 66, 86, 206, 217; collaboration with Daniel Ortega, 5, 16, 29, 48, 57–58, 252; involvement with

the Pact, 31, 33, 47, 121, 183, 217, 252; influence on the debate over Primaries, 72; view by Robert Zoellick, 27 Alianza por la Rep ublica (APRE). See Alliance for the Republic Political Party Alliance for the Republic (Alianza por la Rep ublica—APRE) Political Party, 29, 57, 75 Alianza Nacional Liberal (ALN). See National Liberal Alliance Political Party Alternativa Bolivariana (ALBA). See Bolivarian Alternative Alternativa por el Cambio (AC) political party. See Alternative for Change political party Alternative for Change (Alternativa por el Cambio—AC) political party, 75, 114, 121, 132, 141, 152–3 Alvarado, Jose Antonio, 19, 29, 47, 49, 56, 57, 247; Negotiating with Eduardo Montealegre on primaries, 54–55; Involvement with the Pact, 49, 75, 247 Alvarado, Victoria, 16, 129, 138–9, 155, 233, 243

260

INDEX

American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Nicaragua, 83, 108, 169; USAID-sponsored Commercial Arbitration and Mediation Center, 95, 123, 175, 184, 200, 217, 219, 240; Torrente, Adela, 83, 95, 169 American Convention on Human Rights, 17, 55, 190, 250, 252 Anti-Corruption. See Corruption Arbitration and Mediation Centers: Mediation Centers, 111, 123, 175–6, 184, 200–1, 219, 231, 238, 240, 250; USAID-assisted Arbitration and Mediation Law, 6–7, 88, 123, 200, 251; Centro Internacional de Mediaci on y Arbitraje (CIMA), 240; Direcci on de Resoluci on Alterna de Conflictos (DIRAC), 240; USAID-assisted American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Commercial Arbitration and Mediation Center, 95, 123, 175, 184, 200, 217, 219, 240; Mediation Training for Public Defense Auxiliaries, 123, 162; USAID-assisted Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua (C amera de Comercio de Nicaragua—CACONIC) Arbitration and Mediation Center, 76–77, 95, 123, 175, 200, 219 Arbitration Law, 6–7, 88, 123, 200, 251 Atlantic Coast, elections, 19, 22, 34–35, 41, 43–44, 52–70, 78, 93–95, 100, 113 Attorney General from the Public Ministry (Fiscal General del Ministerio P ublico), 97, 124, 129, 184; Merit-Based Selection Process, 77; 86, 96, 112, 156, 161, 174–5, 182–183, 198, 203; Julio Centeno Gomez, 124, 183, 203; As a desvisado, 21, 33, 124 Asemblea Nacional. See National Assembly Association of Auditors (Asociaci on de Auditores), 82–83, 108, 237, 242 Barrios Torres de Chamorro, Violeta (President Chamorro), 2–3, 14, 92, 252 Berthın, Gerardo, 22–23, 47, 107, 130, 157, 173, 185, 199, 205, 221–3, 234, 237, 243 Biehl, John, 43–44, 53

Billboards in Nicaragua, 131–2, 177, 208, 246 Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU), 96, 110, 126–7, 174, 184, 200 Bola~ nos Geyer, Enrique, 17–18, 29, 43, 55, 83, 252; As Vice President and Presidential Candidate, 3, 5, 150; Attempt to Impeach, 4; Involvement with the Millennium Challenge Account, 8; Commitment to Access to Information and Transparency, 47, 83; Methanol crisis, 118 Bolivia, 40, 108–9, 178, 241–2, 253; Bolivia Elections, 44, 55; Evo Morales, 171; Indigenous Groups, 122; Land Rights and Land Markets to benefit the Poor, 175–6; Cost of Corruption, 185, 191 Bolivarian Alternative (Alternativa Bolivariana, ALBA), 171, 223 Borge & Asociados polling firm, 68, 75, 92 Brenes, Leopoldo, Catholic Bishop, 18, 100, 118, 180; Role with regard to the Cardinal, 248 Bureau for Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) of USAID. See Latin America and Caribbean Bureau of USAID Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA), 4, 16, 139, 163 Burton, Dan, Member of Congress, 117, 149, 251 Calderon, Felipe, 102, 136 Calderon, Luıs Enrique (comedian), 51 C amera de Comercio de Nicaragua (CACONIC). See Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua Campaign Finance Reform, Participation on Political Party Assistance, 23, 110, 131–3, 165, 176, 181, 201, 215, 219, 237 Canadian contribution to international electoral observation, 43, 138 Caputo, Dante, 6, 95, 115–16 Cardenal, Rhina, 81, 97 Cardinal Obando y Bravo. See Obando y Bravo, Miguel, Cardinal of the Catholic Church

INDEX

Carter Presidential Center, 41, 234–5; Atlantic Coast Election Observation, 23, 52, 59, 76; David Dye, 92, 197; Granada Election Observation, 23; National Election Electoral Observation, 92–93, 99, 116, 197, 234–5; Lauren Neuman work on Access to Information, 47; Proposal for Funding, 23–24, 92 Casa Grande, 49, 72 Catholic Church, 6, 40, 67–68, 85, 116, 180, 213, 237; 247–8; Bishop Leopoldo Brenes. See Brenes, Leopoldo; Cardinal Obando y Bravo. See also Obando y Bravo, Miguel, Cardinal of the Catholic Church Catholic Relief Services—CRS, 67, 220 C e dulas. See Voter Identification Cards CEELA. See Latin American Council of Election Experts (Consejo Electoral de Expertos Latinoamericanos), 60, 74, 86, 134 CENI, Certificados Negociables de Inversi on. See Negotiable Investment Certificates Centeno Gomez, Julio, 124, 183, 203; as a desvisado, 21, 33, 124 Center for Assistance and Electoral Promotion (Centro de Asesorıa y Promoci on Electoral—CAPEL), 23, 53, 60, 134 Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), 6, 18, 28–29, 77, 89, 108, 121, 163, 171, 223, 228, 251 Central American University (Universidad Centro Americana—UCA), 64; moot court, 64; involvement with the elections, 65, 83, 134; USAIDsponsored access to Justice Coalition, 82–83, 240; student involvement, 172; Access to Information Law promotion, 225 Centro de Asesorıa y Promoci on Electoral (CAPEL). See Center for Assistance and Electoral Promotion Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Ame rica (CEJA). See Justice Studies Center of the Americas CEPPS. See Consortium for Electoral and Political Party Support (CEPPS)

261

Certificados Negociables de Inversi on (CENI). See Negotiable Investment Certificates Challenges (impugnaciones) to nullify acts of electoral authorities, 42, 43, 113–6, 135–8, 155 Chamber of Commerce of Nicaragua (C amera de Comercio de Nicaragua— CACONIC): Arbitration and Mediation Center, 76–77, 95, 123, 175, 200, 219; participation with the USAID-sponsored Justice Week and Promotion of Judicial Independence, 103; involvement with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), 108 Chamorro, Carlos Fernando, 70 Chamorro, Cristiana, 70, 111 Chamorro Foundation (Fundaci on Violeta Chamorro), 47, 70, 110–11, 132–3, 151, 156, 173, 177, 181, 184, 188, 192, 197, 200, 218, 225, 233 Chamorro, Violeta. See Barrios Torres de Chamorro, Violeta Chavez Frıas, Hugo Rafael, 30–31, 60, 84–85, 131–2, 134, 171, 192, 223, 246; gift of rare manuscript from Ruben Darıo, 224. Citizen Attention Centers for the electoral process, 74, 138 Ciudadanıa por la Transparencia en la Polıtica. See Coalition of NGOs on Political Party Finance Reform Coalition of NGOs on Political Party Finance Reform (Ciudadanıa por la Transparencia en la Polıtica), 132, 165, 169, 181 Colombia, 14; 43, 47, 245, 253; start of Rule of Law Programs in Latin America, 7, 113; forensic medicine and the National Institute for Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, 90, 125–6, 176, 224, 240; Political Party Finance, 97; participation in the Judicial Independence Week in Nicaragua, 103, 113; Plan Colombia, 125; civil registries, 174, 187; corruption, 242 Comisi on Nacional Acad e mica de Derecho (CONADER). See National Academic Law Commission

262

INDEX

Comisi on Permanente de los Derechos Humanos (CPDH). See Permanent Commission on Human Rights Commander Zero (Comandante Cero). See Eden Pastora Gomez CONADER—Comisi on Nacional Acad e mica de Derecho. See National Academic Law Commission Consejo Electoral de Expertos Latinoamericanos (CEELA). See Latin Amercan Council of Electoral Experts Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (COSEP), 68, 77, 94, 108–9, 122, 150, 158, 219, 237, 247–8 Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE). See Supreme Electoral Council Conservative Party (Partido Conservador—PC), 87, 197, 254 Consortium for Electoral and Political Party Support (CEPPS), 20–24, 34, 44, 53, 67–68, 71, 100, 102–4, 112, 117, 145–6, 158, 174, 197, 216, 227; See also individual entries for the CEPPS partners, International Foundation for Electoral Assistance (IFES), International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI). Constitutionalist Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Constitucionalista—PLC), 3–4, 14, 30, 37, 75, 81, 121, 149–56, 198, 218, 228–229; control over the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), 18, 22, 42, 51, 58, 70, 74, 81, 97, 99, 114–15, 141–3, 149, 155–56, 235; involvement with the Pact, 3–5, 16, 19, 27, 33, 47–49, 58, 62, 68, 77, 79, 84–86, 115, 121, 146, 149–50, 172, 182–3, 201, 206, 217, 235, 246–48, 250–51; position on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, 18, 29; position vis-a-vis the U.S., 16, 19, 27–29, 47, 61, 117, 132, 251; proposals for primaries and liberal unification, 54–55, 62, 72, 75, 121–2, 207, 249; PLC Mayors, 56, 84, 254; Atlantic Coast elections, 58, 60; support from Oliver North, 68, 149–50; participation

on Political Party Assistance and Campaign Finance Reform, 133, 201, 215, 237; electoral ‘‘dirty tricks,’’ 150–51, 246–248; position on Access to Information, 233 Contras, 2, 58, 75, 85; Oliver North, 150–51 Controlerıa General de la Rep ublica—CGR. See Controller General Controller General (Controlerıa General de la Rep ublica—CGR): Guillermo Arguello Poessy as a desvisado, 21, 33; organic law reform, 131, 164, 187–8, 222 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with COSEP, AmCham. and CACONIC, 108, 169 Corruption: asset declarations, 130, 222; Bureaucratic Simplification Assessments (BSAs), 110, 221; mainstreaming anticorruption strategy, 22, 109, 156–7, 221; campaign finance reform, participation on political party assistance, 23, 110, 131–3, 165, 176, 181, 201, 215, 219, 237; Internal Control workshops, 108, 237, 242; Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC), 17, 38, 82, 107, 109–10, 130, 165–6, 176, 178–9, 190, 199, 206–7, 223, 229, 232, 237, 252; International Day Against Corruption, 165; journalists reporting on corruption, 8, 22, 69, 88, 95, 111, 127–8, 130, 132, 135–06, 156–07, 162–04, 173, 175, 190–91, 198, 200, 216–17, 220; Judicial Independence Week, 77, 103, 111, 126–7, 239; National AntiCorruption Strategy, 129; Oliver North, 63, 68, 149–51, 255; petty corruption survey, 110, 186; social auditing, 81, 107–10, 157, 168, 172–3, 178–9, 190, 219–20, 237; Supreme Court’s missing $609,000, 37, 246; Transparency Fairs, 108, 221; United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), 56, 109, 166, 176, 190 Corte Suprema de Justicia. See Supreme Court

INDEX

COSEP. See Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada (COSEP) Courtney, Roberto, 41, 54, 60, 65, 84, 110, 155 Crazy Rat (Rat on Loco) election issue, 42, 55, 60, 95, 137 Criminal Code, 6, 17, 56, 69, 96, 156, 167, 189, 203–4, 217, 219, 233, 241, 251–52 Criminal Procedure Code, 97, 126, 189, 236, 251 Cuba, 131–2, 171–2, 192, 253–4; Baseball, 17; Doctors and Teachers, 85, 192, 224; Telesur, 197 Defensa P ublica. See Public Defense Defense Ministry. See Ministry of Defense Dickie, Alex: USAID/Nicaragua Mission Director, 31, 35, 44, 113, 127, 145–8, 169, 201, 240; Maya Biosphere Reserve, 130 Disabled voters: Programs for voters with disabilities, voters with differing abilities, 39, 151, 195–196, 215 Divisi on Urbana (heavy metal rock band), 51, 94, 101 Documentos Supletorios. See Provisional Voting Cards Due Process of Law Foundation, Eduardo Bertoni, executive director, 225 D uo Guardabarranco (Nicaraguan folk music duo), 51, 221–2 Education Ministry. See Ministry of Education Education reform. See Legal Education Reform Electoral Law: Articles 47 and 122 (overseas voting), 45–46; Articles 41 and 166, 55, 60, 74, 84, 95, 137; Challenges (impugnaciones) to nullify acts of electoral authorities, 42, 43, 113–16, 135–8, 155 Electoral Registry. See voter registry Elections toll-free hotline, 80, 86, 92, 102, 113, 141, 187 Elections website for the Supreme Electoral Council, 80, 86, 131, 141, 187

263

Etica y Transparencia (ET), 34, 41–43, 59–60, 64–65, 73–76, 80–87, 94–95, 100, 102, 110, 117, 132, 134–6, 148–9, 155–6, 177, 196–7, 215, 229–30, 233; Courtney, Roberto, 41, 54, 60, 65, 84, 110, 155 European Union (EU), 34, 65, 139, 196, 231 Facebook, 101, 133, 137, 138 Fernandez, Gustavo, 55, 74, 99–100, 115, 139, 147 Fire at USAID before the national elections, 147–8, 212 Fiscal General. See Attorney General Foreign Assistance, Foreign Aid, 8, 15, 199, 255 Foreign Service: children overseas, 25, 78, 225; Christmas, 40, 169; classified information, 35; direct hires, 24; duty officer, 224–225; field versus Washington, 1; Foreign Service nationals—local employees—locally engaged staff, 24; housing, 3, 12–13, 25; life in the Foreign Service, 12, 78, 158–9, 213–14, 237–8; shopping and markets, 35; student protesters, 78, 227; Thanksgiving, 25, 35, 158; unaccompanied Posts, 12; visit by Mom, 192–3 Forensic Medicine Institute, 90, 118, 125–6, 162, 176, 198, 224, 232, 239–40, 242, 252 Forth of July Party at the Embassy, 40, 91, 208 Fox News: Oliver North, 63, 68, 149–51, 255 Framework Law (Ley Marco), 18, 29, 62, 64, 100, 254 Fredrick Neuman Foundation, 69, 84–85, 121 Freedom of Information Law (Access to Information Law, Ley de Aceso a la Informaci on P ublica), 47, 108, 111, 128, 156, 167, 172–173, 179, 184–185, 200, 208, 223, 233; Grupo Promotor, 166, 233; Voluntary Access to Information Strategy, 69, 173, 179, 233

264

INDEX

Frente Sandinista de Liberaci on National (Sandinista National Liberation Front, FSLN), Pact (Pacto), 3–5, 16, 19, 27, 33, 47–49, 58, 62, 68, 77, 79, 84–86, 115, 121, 146, 149–50, 172, 182–3, 201, 206, 217, 235, 246–8, 250–1; position vis-a-vis the U.S., 16, 19, 27–29, 47, 61, 117, 132, 251; primaries, 62 Fujimori, Alberto Kenya, 48, 67, 69, 184, 190 Gajardo, Patricio, 43, 54, 95, 99, 142, 147, 177 Garcıa, Luz Marina, 14, 17, 40, 69–70, 81, 156–7, 205, 221, 234, 237 Garcıa Herdocia, Eduardo, 76, 94 Garza, Oliver P., 14, 16, 19 Gender and womens issues, 190, 192; Casa de la Mujer, 201; gender violence specialized unit, 124, 192; Movimiento de Mujeres Cristina Rugama, 201; Women’s Rights Coalition, 123, 162, 167, 202, 219, 240, 254; women’s rights and gender expert Natasha Loayza, 109, 178, 188 Germany: Fredrick Neuman Foundation, 69, 84–85, 121; hosting Donor Elections Assistance Coordination meetings, 34, 43; Germany coordinating European Union efforts at electoral observation and technical assistance, 52, 55, 77, 231 Get Out the Vote (GOTV) election participation campaigns, 53, 67, 71, 101, 115–116, 132–133, 137, 142, 177, 248 Graffiti in Nicaragua calling for primaries, 47, 62 Guar on. See Methanol Crisis Hagamos Democracia, 77, 81, 86, 96, 112, 122–123, 130, 136, 156, 161, 164, 174, 177–178, 182, 188, 199, 209, 219–222, 234 Hallengren, David, 155; Methanol Crisis, 118–119; Fire at USAID, 147–148; Damien Hallengren illness, 212–214

Health Ministry. See Ministry of Health Human Rights, 17, 39, 48, 59, 61–62, 66–67, 112, 122, 125–126, 128–130, 156, 162–163, 203–204, 212, 214, 219, 223–224, 229, 241; American Convention on Human Rights, 17, 55, 190, 250, 252; Roberto Cuellar, 53, 134; Inter-American Institute for Human Rights (Instituto Interamericano para los Derechos Humanos—IIDH), 53, 60, 82, 105, 125, 134; Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH), 66–67, 81–82, 112, 128–129, 156, 160, 174, 182, 201, 216, 249; Red Christmas human rights atrocity (Navidad Roja), 66, 82, 128; Universidad Aut onoma de Nicaragua— Leon (UNAN-Leon) Human Rights Observatory, 69, 239; Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU) Human Rights Observatory, 92, 174, 239; Omar Cabezas Lacayo, 82; InterAmerican Coalition for the Prevention of Violence, 105, 112; Public Defense (Defensa P ublica), 48, 78, 96, 111, 123, 167, 189, 236, 239–240 Hurricane Beta. See Waspan Hurricane Mitch, 3, 38, 237 IFES. See International Foundation for Electoral Assistance (IFES) Impugnaciones. See Challenges to nullify acts of electoral authorities Instituto de Estudios Estrat e gicos y Politicas P ublicas—IEEPP. See Institute for Statistics and Surveys on Public Policies Institute for Statistics and Surveys on Public Policies (Instituto de Estudios Estrate gicos y Politicas P ublicas—IEEPP), 109, 157, 165, 172–173, 190, 220 Instituto Interamericano para los Derechos Humanos (IIDH). See Inter-American Institute for Human Rights Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Demoracia (IPADE), 34, 41–43, 52–54, 59–60, 64, 73–74, 79, 93, 97, 113–116, 132, 137, 149, 157, 177, 181, 197, 219,

INDEX

222–223, 229, 233; Mauricio Z uniga, 53, 64, 70, 113, 208, 222–223 Inter-American Coalition for the Prevention of Violence, 105, 112 Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC), 17, 38, 82, 107, 109–110, 130, 165–166, 176, 178–179, 190, 199, 206–207, 223, 229, 232, 237, 252 Inter-American Democratic Charter, 17, 27, 55, 147, 204, 250, 252 Inter-American Institute for Human Rights (Instituto Interamericano para los Derechos Humanos—IIDH), 53, 60, 82, 105, 125, 134; Roberto Cuellar, 53, 134 International Day Against Corruption, 165 International Foundation for Electoral Assistance (IFES), 20–22, 43–44, 53, 55, 60, 70, 77, 93, 99, 138, 140, 147, 155, 249; IFES involvement with Voter ID cards (cedulas), 52, 60, 65, 74–75, 80, 83, 86, 92, 100, 102, 112–113, 116, 141–143, 196–197, 211, 230–231; Pablo Galarce 23, 110, 219; IFES involvement with Disabled Voters, Programs for voters with disabilities, voters with differing abilities, 39, 151, 195–196, 215; IFES and Campaign Finance Reform, Participation on Political Party Assistance, 23, 110, 131–133, 165, 176, 181, 201, 215, 219, 237; IFES work on comparative frameworks for civil registry reform, 174, 187; involvement on the Atlantic Coast with the regional elections, 34, 55; IFES Lessons Learned for future application, 174, 187, 215; Rafael Lopez Pintor, 65, 80, 147, 155, 187, 196, 214 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), 22–23 International Republican Institute (IRI), 21–22, 44, 72, 77, 80, 138, 140, 174; Atlantic Coast, 57, 59; internal political party strengthening and improvement, 186, 215, 229; involvement with Get Out the Vote (GOTV), 53, 67, 101–2, 115, 133; political party poll watcher

265

(Fiscal) training, 113, 117, 135; polling, 46, 84; poll watcher manuals and allegations of ‘‘illegality’’, 56–57, 81, 101, 3–14, 116, 128, 136, 143, 148, 183; support for the National Assembly, 228; voter education, 34, 81, 84, 93–94, 100, 132, 137, 215, 230; Valdez, Gilberto, 81, 94, 101, 114, 137 Interventionism, 58, 61, 74, 82, 116–17, 132, 138–9, 169, 179, 198, 211–12, 253; Council on Hemispheric Relations, 87; NicaNet, 87, 251; Nicaraguan president Adolfo Dıaz’s plea for American intervention, 150; Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, 87 IPADE. See Instituto para el Desarrollo y la Demoracia Impunity. See corruption Insulza, Jose Miguel, 116 Jarquın Calderon, Edmundo (‘‘Mundo’’), 92, 121, 153, 247, 254 Journalists, 8, 22, 69, 88, 95, 111, 127–8, 130, 132, 135–6, 156–7, 162–4, 173, 175, 190–91, 198, 200, 216–17, 220 Judicial Career Law and Judicial Career Council, 6, 123, 126, 161, 163–4, 183, 199, 216, 239 Judicial independence: Court Management course at Universidad Americana (UAM), 199; generally, 3, 126, 182, 189, 211; ‘‘Good Judges’’ training program, 216; Judicial Career Law and Judicial Career Council, 6, 123, 126, 161, 163–4, 183, 199, 216, 239; Judicial Independence Week, 77, 103, 123, 126–8, 239; Merit-Based Selection Campaign for Magistrates and Justice Sector Officials, 96–97, 112, 127, 161, 182, 184, 198–9, 203, 252 JUDENIC. See Youth for a Democratic Nicaragua (Juventud por la Democracia Nicarag€ uense—JUDENIC) Juntas Receptoras de Voto (JRV). See Voting Stations Justice Studies Center of the Americas (Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Ame ricas—CEJA), 125

266

INDEX

Juventud por la Democracia Nicarag€ uense (JUDENIC). See Youth for a Democratic Nicaragua Lang, Emit, 18, 44, 46, 60, 100, 113, Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Bureau of USAID, 92, 251 Latin Amercan Council of Electoral Experts (Consejo Electoral de Expertos Latinoamericanos—CEELA), 60, 74, 86, 134, Legal Education Reform, 64, 88–90, 128, 157; National Academic Law Commission (Comisi on Nacional Acad e mica de Derecho—CONADER), 83, 89–90, 103, 128, 156–7 Legislative Monitoring Project (‘‘Legislative Watch,’’ Observatorio Legislativo), 130, 164, 173, 188, 199, 234 Lewites, Herty, 29, 47, 49, 56–57, 91–92, 121, 148, 247 Ley Marco. See Framework law Libro Blanco on military affairs. See White Book Lopez Pintor, Rafael, 65, 80, 147, 155, 187, 196, 214 Mainstreaming anti-corruption strategy, 22, 109, 156–7, 221 Maisto, John, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States and former U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, 41, 53, 95 Manpads, SAM-7, 39–40, 68 Marenco, Dionisio (‘‘Mincho’’), Mayor of Managua, 108, 133, 177 Martınez, Manuel, Supreme Court President, 164, 216 Martınez Cuenca, Alejandro, 29, 47, 62, 223, 228, 254 Maya Biosphere Reserve, 130 Mediation. See Arbitration and Mediation Centers Mejıa, Ramon. See Perrozompopo Mejıa Godoy, Carlos, Enrique and Luıs, folk singers, 51, 94, 218; Carlos Mejıa Godoy as Vice Presidential candidate with MRS, 247

Mesa Electoral by COSEP, 94 Mesa Global donor coordination forum, 73 Methanol (Guar on) Crisis, David Hallengren, 118–19, 212 Mexico, 233; access to Information Law in Mexico, 47, 233; AMADEUS anticorruption software, 233; bi-national Commission, 48–49; Carlos Slim, 248; David Presiado, 102, 136, 233, 241; elections in 1992, 24, 41, 251; Federal Electoral Institute (Instituto Electoral Federal—IFE), 43, 113; Felipe Calderon, 102, 136; Women’s Leadership Conference, 201, 233 Ministry of Defense, 172 Ministry of Education, 68, 94, 138, 165 Ministry of Health, 110, 118, 126, 165, 221 Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC), 109, 157, 163, 231; compact, 8 Mitch. See Hurricane Mitch Montealegre, Eduardo, 4, 19, 25, 29, 47, 49, 54–56, 62, 68, 72, 75, 86, 92, 103, 114, 122, 139, 149–53, 172, 247, 254 Morales Carazo, Jaime, 75–76, 252 Movimiento Por Nicaragua, 37, 45, 57, 62, 76, 83, 93, 97, 114, 137, 146, 198, 203, 215, 237, 254 Movimiento Renovador del Sandinismo (Sandinista Renovation Movement, MRS), 4–5, 42, 46–47, 57–60, 62, 75, 79, 81, 91–92, 95, 104, 113–15, 121–2, 129, 132–6, 141, 148–55, 172, 183, 186, 191, 201, 215, 228–9, 235, 237, 246–9, 252, 254 Narvaez, Zoilamerica, 66–67, 218 National Academic Law Commission (Comisi on Nacional Acad e mica de Derecho—CONADER), 83, 89–90, 103, 128, 156–7 National Assembly (Asemblea Nacional), 4, 11, 18, 22, 26, 28–29, 31, 62, 69–70, 74–75, 86, 102, 111–12, 130–2, 149, 164–9, 171–4, 181–4, 187, 191, 197–200, 207–08, 215–16, 222, 227–9, 233–4, 241–2, 246, 251; Justice

INDEX

Commission of the National Assembly, 56, 88, 112, 156, 161, 164, 167, 187–9, 203, 241; Who Is Who (Quie n es Qui e n) publication, 131, 178, 227 National Democratic Institute (NDI), 21, 44, 77, 84, 100, 138, 140, 197, 228; involvement with the Atlantic Coast voter registry audit with IPADE, 34, 52–53, 65; involvement with Movimiento Por Nicaragua’s analysis and advocacy on the issue of voter ID cards, 76, 102, 137, 187, 215, 230, 234; involvement with the national voter registry audit with Etica y Transparencia (ET), 76, 80, 85, 95, 100, 102, 117, 228–30; involvement with political party campaign finance reform proposals, 22; involvement with the quick count for the national election via Etica y Transparencia (ET), 73, 134–5, 155; involvement with training on electoral challenges, 113–14, 116; support to the Movimiento Por Nicaragua voter fraud center, 137; support to Movimiento Por Nicaragua’s voter promotion activities, 116; Ullmer, Deborah, 76, 80, 113, 153, 155, 187, 197, 237; Wollack, Ken, 100, 102; Youth Leadership Program, 237 National Inter-Institutional Criminal Justice System Commission (NICJSC), 162 National Liberal Alliance (Alianza Nacional Liberal—ALN) Political Party, 4–5, 42, 46, 56, 58, 60, 62, 72, 75, 81, 84–86, 95, 104, 113–118, 121–122, 129, 132, 135–136, 141, 149, 151–153, 155, 172, 180, 186, 197–198, 201, 207, 212, 215, 222, 228–229, 235, 237, 246–249, 252, 254 Navidad Roja. See Red Christmas human rights atrocity Negotiable Investment Certificates (Certificados Negociables de Inversi on— CENI), 86, 247 Neuman Foundation. See Frederick Neuman Foundation NGO bootcamp, 205, 229

267

Noriega, Manuel, Panamanian strongman, 66–67 Noriega, Roger, 4–5 North, Oliver Laurence, 63, 68, 149–51, 255 Nuevo Diario newspaper, 62, 70, 87, 101, 111, 113–14, 128, 146, 156, 165, 199, 206, 212 Obando y Bravo, Miguel, Cardinal of the Catholic Church, 18, 85, 115, 179–80, 206, 247–9 Organizaci on Permanente de la Sociedad Civil por la Justicia (Permanent Civil Society Organization for Justice), 174, 182, 198, 203 Organization of American States (OAS), 6, 14, 20–22, 24, 29, 34, 41–43, 52–55, 57, 59–60, 63, 65, 67, 74, 79–80, 82–84, 93–95, 99–100, 104, 107, 115–16, 134–5, 138, 139–42, 145–7, 165–6, 176, 191, 199, 233; Biehl, John, 43–44, 53; Caputo, Dante, 6, 95, 115–16; Granada Electoral Observation in 2004 mayoral elections and issues of fraud, 23, 41, 53, 60, 114, 135, 138, 153; Insulza, Jose Miguel, 116; Unit for the Promotion of Democracy (UPD), 53 Overseas voting, 45–46 Pact (Pacto), 3–5, 16, 19, 27, 33, 47–49, 58, 62, 68, 77, 79, 84–86, 115, 121, 146, 149–50, 172, 182–3, 201, 206, 217, 235, 246–8, 250–51; position visa-vis the U.S., 16, 19, 27–29, 47, 61, 117, 132, 251 Padr on Electoral. See Voter Registry, 34, 42, 52, 65, 74–76, 80, 85, 95, 117, 137, 141, 174, 187, 196, 245 Palacios, Dionisio, 22 Pantoja, Ary, 62, 113, 128 Pastora Gomez, Eden (known as Commander Zero or Comandante Cero), 75, 121, 153 Pellas Chamorro, Carlos, 64, 121, 133, 248 Perkel, Ronald, 149, 151, 211, 249

268

INDEX

Permanent Commission on Human Rights (Comisi on Permanente de los Derechos Humanos—CPDH), 66–67, 81–82, 121–2, 128–9, 156, 161, 174, 182, 201, 216, 249; Red Christmas human rights atrocity (Navidad Roja), 66, 82, 128 Perrozompopo (Ramon Mejıa), 51, 85, 94, 209, 218, 222, 237 Political Party: coalition of NGOs on Political Party Finance Reform (Ciudadanıa por la Transparencia en la Polıtica), 132, 165, 169, 181; Finance Conference, XX; IRI Training Manuals, 56–57, 81, 101, 113–14, 116, 128, 136, 143, 148, 183; internal political party strengthening and improvement, 186, 215, 229; political party Campaign Finance Reform Conference, 23, 110, 131–3, 165, 176, 181, 201, 215, 219, 237; poll watcher (fiscal), 113, 117, 135 Poverty in Nicaragua, 38, 60, 130–31, 149, 152, 162, 171, 177, 189, 227, 254 Prensa, La, 28, 60, 62, 70, 111, 146, 165, 173, 192, 197, 199–201, 204, 206 Primaries, 47, 54–55, 62, 71–72, 87, 122, 245 Procurador General. See Solicitor General Prosecutor Career Law, 88, 130, 176, 192, 241 Provisional Voting Cards (Documentos Supletorios), 116, 137, 141–3, 196 Public Defense (Defensa P ublica), 48, 78, 96, 111, 123, 167, 189, 236, 239–40 Public Ministry (public prosecutor’s office, Ministerio P ublico), 7–8, 69, 97, 124, 126, 162, 176, 184, 191–2, 232, 236, 239, 241, 251 Qui~ nones, Enrique, 149, 230, 254 Radio YA, 95, 115, 122, 147, 179 Ramırez Mercado, Sergio, 4, 69 Rat on Loco. See Crazy Rat vote issue Red Christmas human rights atrocity (Navidad Roja), 66, 82, 128 Red Cross (Cruz Roja) participation in the national elections

Rivas, Roberto, President of the Supreme Electoral Council, 18, 22, 42–44, 52–53, 55, 59–60, 65, 84–86, 99–102, 113, 115, 137–8, 142, 164, 196, 215, 230, 234–5 Rizo, Jose, 13, 28–29, 47, 68, 72, 75, 86, 92, 121–2, 149–50, 153, 247, 254 Rule of Law. See Access to Justice Coalition Rumsfeld, Donald, 117 SAM-7, Manpads, 39–40, 68 Sandinista Party. See Frente Sandinista de Liberaci on National and Movimiento Renovador del Sandinismo Sequeira, Marıa Eugenia, 201, 254 Shamelessness Meter (Sinverg€ uens ometro), 26, 43 Shannon, Thomas J., 158, 275 Social auditing anti-corruption measure, 81, 107–10, 157, 168, 172–3, 178–9, 190, 219–20, 237 Solicitor General (Procurador General de la Procuradurıa General de la Rep ublica— PRG), 48, 69, 97, 124–5, 191, 239; Estrada, Hernan, 191, 239; Novoa, Alberto, 48, 69, 97, 124–5; Talavera, Victor Manuel, 124 Solidarity Groups, 61, 87, 101, 117, 178–80, 218, 256 Spying: Cell Phones ‘‘intervened,’’ 35–36, 95, 147 Supreme Court: Aguilar, Magistrate Marvin, 112, 183, 239, 241, 254; Martınez, Manuel, Supreme Court President, 164, 216; merit-based selection process, 77; Ramos, Magistrate Alba Luz, 183, 203; Sandino, Magistrate Guillermo Vargas, 112, 182–183; 86, 96, 112, 156, 161, 174–5, 182–3, 198, 203; Supreme Court’s missing $609,000, 37, 246 Supreme Electoral Council (CSE, Consejo Supremo Electoral): Rivas, Roberto, President of the Supreme Electoral Council, 18, 22, 42–44, 52–53, 55, 59–60, 65, 84–86, 99–102, 113, 115, 137–8, 142, 164, 196, 215, 230, 234–5

INDEX

Sweden, donor country to Nicaragua, 77, 138, 195, 231 Telesur, 197 Text messaging with electoral updates, 136 Tikal Protocol establishing international standards for elections, 134 Torrente, Adela, 83, 95, 169 Trafficking in Persons (TIP), 105, 218, 232 Transparency Fairs, 108, 221 Transparency International, 3, 41, 84, 156, 183, 237 Trivelli, Paul A., U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, 16, 19, 21, 26, 28–29, 35, 43–44, 52, 60, 63, 74, 83, 87–88, 97, 100, 103–4, 113, 116–18, 124, 139, 147, 150, 157–8, 173, 195–6, 207, 212, 215, 218, 229, 234, 253, 255–6 United Nations, 40, 56, 59 United Nations Convention Against Corruption, 56, 109, 166, 176, 190 Valdivieso Center, 156, 177 Valdez, Gilberto, 81, 94, 101, 114, 137; poll watcher manuals and allegations of ‘‘illegality’’, 56–57, 81, 101, 113–14, 116, 128, 136, 143, 148, 183 Vargas Llosa, Jorge Mario Pedro (Mario Vargas Llosa), 69 Vargas Sandino, Guillermo, 112, 182–3 Venezuela: Chavez Frıas, Hugo Rafael, 30–31, 60, 84–85, 131–2, 134, 171, 192, 223–4, 246; Pacto de Punto Fijo, 30; S umate and Venezuelan civil society opposition, 37, 241 Victims’ Assistance, 6–7, 90, 124, 126, 231–2, 236, 239 Visas: withdrawal from the desvisados for corrupt acts, 21–22, 27–28, 33, 44, 124, 126, 164, 182, 239 Voltz, Eric, 211–12 Voter identification cards (ce dulas), 45, 140 Voter Registry (Padr on Electoral), 34, 42, 52, 65, 74–76, 80, 85, 95, 117, 137, 141, 174, 187, 196, 245; IFES work on comparative frameworks for civil registry reform, 174, 187; NDI involvement

269

with the Atlantic Coast voter registry audit with IPADE, 34, 52–53, 65; NDI involvement with the national voter registry audit with Etica y Transparencia (ET), 76, 80, 85, 95, 100, 102, 117, 228–30; Voting Stations (Juntas Receptoras de Voto—JRV), 42, 58–59, 117, 136, 140–2, 149, 151, 155, 195 Walters, Danika, 14, 54, 68, 71, 76, 116, 137–8, 146–148, 153–5, 187, 192, 196–7, 212, 216, 228, 243 Waspan, Hurricane Beta disaster, 31–32 White Book (Libro Blanco) on Military Affairs, 390–40, 109, 172–3; Institute for Statistics and Surveys on Public Policies (Instituto de Estudios Estrat e gicos y Politicas P ublicas—IEEPP), 109, 157, 165, 172–3, 190, 220 Womens Issues. See Gender World Bank, 48, 163, 184–185, 219–20 Yatama Political Party on the Atlantic Coast, 57–58, 60–61, 70 Youth and Adolescent Rights Coalition. See Access to Justice Coalition Youth for a Democratic Nicaragua (Juventud por la Democracia Nicarag€ uense—JUDENIC): leadership and organization, 76, 94, 102, 172, 174, 249, 254; march, 102; merit-based selection for top justice sector officials, participation, 174, 182; Mesa Electoral, 94; political party campaign finance reform proposal participation, 219; Projusticia, 96; Rock the Vote/Get out the Vote campaigns, 94, 101, 133, 137, 177, 215–16; transparency promotion, 231, 240; University Social Auditing for anti-corruption, 108, 157, 168, 172; youth agenda, 229 Zelaya, Rosa Marina, 181, 199 Zoellick, Robert, 19, 27–29, 83, 139, 218, 246 Z uniga, Mauricio, 53, 64, 113, 208, 222–3

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About the Author STEVEN E. HENDRIX led democracy promotion efforts in Nicaragua for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 2005–2007, and witnessed the return to power of Daniel Ortega. He has worked on global development themes as an academic and practitioner since the mid-1980s with over 70 professional journal publications and an award-winning book published in Bolivia in 1994. His work over these years has always focused on improving the lives of ordinary people in tangible, measurable ways. In 2008–2009, he directed the U.S. government’s national capacity development program for Iraq, working with seventeen government ministries and executive offices to improve governance and service delivery in that country in what is now the largest public administration program undertaken by the U.S. government since the Vietnam War. Previously, Steven Hendrix directed rule-of-law programs with the peace accords in Guatemala and then later became the acting democracy team leader for USAID’s Latin America and Caribbean Bureau. With law degrees from Bolivia, Guatemala, and the United States (and corresponding bar admissions), he has a keen understanding of law and development and of the importance of legal reform in a civil law context. As a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School with its emphasis on the ‘‘law in action,’’ his work is immediately identifiable with that tradition. Also, as a fellow with the International Human Rights Institute of DePaul University’s College of Law, his concern for justice for the poor and oppressed is also evident in this work. When not overseas, he lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife Julia and their three children.