Wow! Sure glad to get God's word on Daniel. I don't know in what part of Nicaragua you live in, Howard, but to say that Nicaragua is a "police state" is beyond ridiculous. There is absolute freedom of the press--to lie and libel the president and anyone else at will, with no punishment; there are no death squads; no arbitrary imprisonments; no reports of torture by the State. You should have lived in Brazil in the period of the dictatorship, as I did, and you would never have the gall to call Nicaragua a police state.
The main reason outdside observers are not being welcomed is because too many such organizations gave their blessing to the robbery of the elections in 1995, when Aleman stole the victory from the Sandinistas; and again when Bolanos won.
As for the municipal elections of 2008, there were tons of allegations of fraud, but no documentation was presented to the CSE to substantiate those allegations. The Embassy made outrageous claims, but, again, no evidence was ever presented. This is an old CIA trick: make a claim and repeat it a hundred times in a hundred places and then people begin to think it is true.
As for the polling stations: representatives from all of the participating parties in Nicaragua will be present and they will have full freedom to challenge any irregularities.
How did you like the way Jeb Bush stole the elections in Florida in 2000 for his brother? Was that democracy in action? Or the way Karl Rove stole the eletion in Ohio in 2004? Things really move pretty smoothly in Nicaragua.

Elliott, thanks for the fine print. But that doesn't change the fact of the fully recognized (by everyone but Costa Rica) sovereignity of Nicaragua over the river. And, none of the dredging contemplated is going to negatively affect the flow of the Costa Rican tributaries. Quite the contrary--they will flow better once the sludge has been dredge away.

I note that you do not comment on the accusations against Ortega. So I guess you agree with my position on that. Thanks.

Well, once more COHA manages to muddy the water while pretending to clear up issues. This article, as too many in recent months, takes unmerited jabs at Nicaragua and President Ortega, while ignoring a lot of facts in the matter. For instance, the authors say: "Though a 2009 ICJ ruling settled the dispute regarding navigation rights on the river, it failed to address other issues, including Nicaragua’s right to dredge the waters in question." That is factually incorrect. The ICJ ruling in 2009 specifically stated that Nicaragua has every right to dredge the river to reestablish the water flows back to the 1957 levels.
In addition, a cheap shot later on when stating: "President Ortegas’ barely concealed his readiness to undermine the constitution if this would further his own electoral prospects." President Ortega has prepared the way for his reelection following exactly the same path as former-Costa Rican president Oscar Arias. Arias, some 5-6 years ago asked the Costa Rican Supreme Court to rule the artilce denying the President and Vice President the right to immediate re-election, citing the first article of the Constitution that says that all laws must apply equally to all citizens. Since mayors and members of the Legislative Assembly could stand for re-election, the article that excluded the President and VP was unconstitutional. The Costa Rican Supreme Court agreed and thus opened the door for Arias' re-election. Ortega simply did the same thing. The only difference is that the US Embassy in Costa Rica thought Arias was very clever, while the US Embassy in Nicaragua claims that Ortega is a dictator. COHA is playing that same game, to its shame.
As for the disputed island, the ICJ has ruled on four occasions that the entire Rio San Juan belongs to Nicaragua. It is clear and logical to any who don't have some kind of hidden agenda, that islands in the river are, by definition, Nicaraguan. Chinchilla's claims have no basis in fact. And as for the maps you refer to, they are irrelavant under the terms of the various treaties that have defined the Rio San Juan as entirely Nicaraguan. As the river moves along, it is natural and normal that it may meander a bit from time to time: the Mississippii does this all the time. The border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is defined by the river; the river is not defined by a border.
In addition, Nicaragua has requested repeatedly that Costa Rica meet it on the southern banks of the river to set some permanent stakes to define the Costa Rican border. Costa Rica has consistently refused to do this.
As for alleged ecological damage caused by Nicaragua, there is none. But Costa Rica has been clearcutting the rain forests on its side for years, with resulting runoffs of soil into the river which have clogged its channels. In additon, Costa Rica has allowed gold mining--strip mining--near the river and the mining companies regularly dump cyanide into the river as a by-product of their mining activities. It should be noted that a Costa Rican court has called for the prosecution of Oscar Arias for violating Costa Rican law, as he authorized such mining after the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica declined to do so. The president does not have that right, and Arias has a good chance of becoming the fourth Costa Rican president in a row to do jail time for violating Costa Rican laws.
Come on, COHA, stop shilling for the State Department and do some straight forward reporting.

Dear COHA,

I am getting a bit tired of your repeated subtle (and not-to-subtle) attacks on Chavez, ALBA, Bolivarian Revolution, Ortega, FSLN, and everything else to the left of Atilla the Hun. This piece is much like other written by the same author, which strings together allegations and insinuations to give a distorted picture of what is going on in Nicaragua. It sounds like a somewhat sophisticated rewrite of the crap that La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario publish on a daily basis.

Yes, ALBANISA is funded by Venezuela and yes, it is used by the government to make up for shortfalls caused by reneged funding from the Millenial Fund and others that the US has pressured to withold aid funds to Nicaragua. And, yes, it supports social projects that benefit the poor majority of the Nicaraguan people.

And, yes, the traditional elites and business class hate it for just those reasons. From the time Violetta Chammorro was elected president in 1990 until the FSLN won in 2006, the government of Nicaragua did practically nothing to help the majority of the people in Nicaragua. The FSLN government has done more for the people in the past three years than was done during the entire 16+ year period of the prior governments. And, yes, the FSLN is a leftist government. And your point?

You refer to a series of allegations about corruption, none of which have been proved, as though they were a given. You refer back to the alleged electoral fraud in the municipal elections of 2008, though, once more, no evidence was ever presented to support those allegations.

COHA needs to sharpen up its focus and stop sounding like the State Department.

I am totally appalled by this distorted analysis of Nicaragua under President Ortega. I can only assume that it was written by the CIA, as it parrots clearly the lines of attack that are published daily in the two so-called newspapers that spew hate toward the Sandinstas every day of the week, while the Embassy and its allies protest that there is no freedom of the press.

COHA has sunk to a new depth with this one. It has used inuendo without facts and allegations without basis throughout.

For instance, at the beginning of the article, the author says: Billboards around the capital city, such as one that pictures the president next to the words “Cristiana, Socialista, Solidaria,” illustrate Ortega’s conflicting ideology. What on earth does that mean? There is nothing necessarily conflicting between Christian, Socialist and Solidarity. The author gives himself away right there, parroting the Reaganesque line assuming that anything socialist is communist is atheist. Not very dignified.

It goes on. To jump to another paragraph: about the judicial decision made to allow Ortega to run for re-election. This was exactly the same step taken by Oscar Arias in Costa Rica five years ago to allow himself to run for re-election. No one, including COHA, raised a whisper of concern about this. The fact is that it was fine for Arias, because he is a puppet for the US, but not good for Ortega, because he is a Sandinista. The legal question was/is the same and the decision by the Nicaraguan Supreme Court was the same as that of the Costa Rican Supreme Court.

Besides, what's the problem anyway? Barack Obama can run for re-election if he wants. Why cannot Ortega--or Arias--or Chavez--or Morales--or Correa?

I am too outraged to go into all the errors of this piece, but it goes beyond the limits. As I said at the beginning, it must have been written by the CIA. Shame on COHA.