A symptom called Managua

New Left Review

Volumn , Issue 49, 2008, Pages 103-120

  Rodgers, Dennis ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 42449118083     PISSN: 00286060     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Pablo Antonio Cuadra, 'Una enfermedad Ilamada Managua', cited in La Prensa, 13 December 2002.
2. In 1900 León's population of 30,000 was still larger than Managua's; Granada had declined, having been burnt to the ground in the 1850s by the US filibuster William Walker who, invited in by León's Liberals, briefly made himself President of the country.
3. John Booth and Thomas Walker, Understanding Central America, Boulder, CO 1989.
4. Francisco Mayorga, Megacapitales de Nicaragua, 2nd edition, Managua 2007, pp. 37-9.
5. Bryan Higgins, 'The place of housing programs and class relations in Latin American cities: The development of Managua before 1980', Economic Geography, vol. 66, no. 4 (1990), p. 380.
6. Harald Jung, 'Behind the Nicaraguan Revolution', NLR 1/117, pp. 72-3.
7. Julio César Godoy Blanco, 'El proceso de estructuración urbana de Managua: 1950-1979', unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, Universidad de Costa Rica 'Rodrigo Faceio', 1983.
8. David Wall, 'City profile: Managua', Cities, vol. 13, no. 1 (1996), pp. 48-9.
9. The Unión Democrática de Liberación (UDEL) was founded in 1974 by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, scion of a prominent Conservative family and editor of Nicaragua's leading newspaper La Prensa, in order to provide a focus for the burgeoning elite opposition to Somoza.
10. Wall, 'Managua', p. 48.
11. Jung, 'Behind the Nicaraguan Revolution', p. 85.
12. The 1982 Plan Regulador de Managua prepared the way for a longer-term Urban Development Scheme (Esquema de Desarrollo Urbano de Managua, 1987-2020), drawn up in 1987 with technical assistance from the Cuban Central Planning Board, but never implemented due to lack of funds.
13. See for example Ministerio de la Vivienda y Asentamientos Humanos (MINVAH), Programa Integral de 2,800 Viviendas para Managua, Managua 1980.
14. Roberto Chavez, 'Urban Planning in Nicaragua: the First Five Years', Latin American Perspectives, vol. 14, no. 2 (1987), p. 234.
15. Mayorga, Megacapitales de Nicaragua, p. 59.
16. Sergio Ramírez Mercado, Adiós muchachos: Una memoria de la revolución sandinista, Mexico 1999, p. 55, my translation.
17. Since much of the property 're-expropriated' in the piñata had belonged to the Somoza clan or related Liberal cronies before their nationalization in 1980, this set in place a major clash of interests between returning Liberal émigrés and ex-Sandinistas, over which Chamorro attempted to adjudicate. Against the Liberals' greater leverage in the legislature, the Sandinistas retained the power to mobilize their base and could threaten mass riots and demonstrations. The conflict was finally resolved in the 'co-governance pact' of 1999 between the FSLN and Alemán's Liberals, in the context of an uptick in foreign investment flows - to maquiladora operations and tourist projects in particular - which raised spirits on both sides. Businesses associated with former FSLN leaders include financial service providers (Fininsa, Interfin, Almacena); the Victoria de Julio and Agroinsa sugar refineries; the INPASA printers; media outlets (Canal 4 and Canal 10 television stations, Ya! and Sandino radio stations); and Agri-Corp, the biggest distributor of rice and flour in Nicaragua. The main players include former FSLN comandante and member of the National Directorate, Bayardo Arce Castaño, a major stakeholder in Agri-Corp and closely associated with real-estate company Inversiones Compostela, whose headquarters in Los Robles are on land obtained via the piñata; the Coronel Kautz brothers; Dionisio Marenco, current Mayor of Managua; the late Herty Lewites, Mayor from 2000-04; Samuel Santos López, FSLN Foreign Minister; and Francisco López Centeno, FSLN treasurer.
18. See La Prensa, 13 February 2005 and 16 May 2005.
19. David Whisnant, Rascally Signs in Sacred Places: The Politics of Culture in Nicaragua, Chapel Hill, NC 1995, p. 448.
20. Police estimates suggest that the number of gang members in Managua increased five-fold during the 1990s: Policía Nacional de Nicaragua, Boletín de la Actividad Delictiva 32, 2001.
21. 'Musical fountain for the President', Envío in English, 218 (1999). In office, Alemán rapidly became a byword for sleaze and corruption. State enterprises were sold to cronies at rock bottom prices, and a significant proportion of the $1 billion of international aid following Hurricane Mitch in 1998 was siphoned off. Alemán is estimated to have embezzled up to $100 million during his five years as President. In 2003 he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for fraud and embezzlement; but in April 2007, FSLN and Liberal MPS proposed a law reducing the maximum penalty for money laundering to five years; if passed, it would enable Alemán to be granted parole as early as mid-2008.
22. In early 2007 the Nicaraguan government attempted to fine Unión Fenosa $2.4 million and threatened to re-nationalize electricity distribution, but back-tracked when it discovered it would be liable to pay the company $53 million in compensation.
23. See Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, 'Housing Rights in Nicaragua: Historical Complexities and Current Challenges', Geneva 2003, pp. 72-6.
24. The Pellas family owns the Banco de América Central financial conglomerate, the fifth largest financial group in the region with $3.1 billion in assets. They had backed the anti-Somoza alliance in 1979 but withdrew their support - and their capital - once the Sandinistas showed that they were serious about dissolving the National Guard and nationalizing Somocista property. Overall, though, this neooligarchy is very small. Francisco Mayorga, a former Nicaraguan Central Bank governor imprisoned under Alemán, claims that there are just 350 individual accounts in the Nicaraguan banking system with deposits amounting to more than $1 million, and that only twelve family groups own assets over $100 million: the Pellas Chamorro, Chamorro Chamorro, Lacayo Lacayo, Baltodano Cabrera, Ortiz Gurdián, Zamora Llanes, Coen Montealegre, Lacayo Gil, Fernández Holmann, Morales Carazo, González Holmann and Montealegre Lacayo.
25. See Mayorga, Megacapitales de Nicaragua, pp. iii, 125.
26. They include not only major Nicaraguan conglomerates such as the Pellas Group but the Nicaraguan Army, which is also a major player in Managua's private real-estate development market, reportedly holding some $5om worth of shares in development companies. It is rumoured that several major Sandinista politicians, including Dionisio Marenco and Daniel Ortega, are also FTZ infrastructure owners. For a listing of FTZS, see www.laguiazf.org; on the Army, see Oliver Bodán, 'IPSM maneja $50 millones', Confidencial, 12-18 December 2004
27. and José Adán Silva, Luis Galeano and Mauricio Miranda, 'Ejército urbanizador', El Nuevo Diario, 10 November 2007.
28. Interviewed by the author in 1996. Names have been changed.
29. During the year I spent living in the barrio from 1996-97, the admonition, cuidado las pandillas! ('be careful of the gangs') became a familiar refrain, punctuating all comings and goings, to the extent that it almost had the equivalent verbal value of hasta luego ('see you later').
30. Interview with the author, 2002.