|
The recent launch of a new TV channel (13) to be operated by three of President Daniel Ortega’s children, Camila, Luciana and Maurice, has set alarm bells ringing among civil society groups. Prominent organizations such as the human rights NGO Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Cenidh) and the Centre of Media Investigations (Cinco) warn that it represents a fresh threat to the independence of the ‘fourth branch’ of government.
With Channel 13, known as Viva Nicaragua, the Ortega family now operates three of the eight main public TV channels. Run by another son, Carlos Enrique, Channel 4 has been in Sandinista hands since the 1990s. Channel 8 is managed by Carlos’ brother, Juan Carlos, following its purchase in January 2010 from local businessman Carlos Briceño, reportedly with funds from Albanisa, the main local operation of the Venezuela-led Alianza Bolivariana Para los pueblos de Nuestra América (Alba) initiative, which is closely linked to the Ortega family. The transaction was controversial due to the lack of transparency [RC-10-02] and concerns that it violated the telecoms law, which prohibits foreign-controlled entities from owning a majority stake in local media.
With Nicaragua’s First Lady Rosario Murillo serving as the government’s official spokesperson and communications secretary, the new Ortega media dynasty is in line with national tradition. Former president Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro (1990-1997), who unexpectedly defeated the FSLN on the ticket of the briefly united US-backed opposition initially rose to fame via her marriage to Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, editor of an independent (and now leading) national daily La Prensa and a key opponent of the Somoza dictatorship, assassinated in 1978. During the first FSLN government (1979-1990), Chamorro steered the paper back towards its previous opposition stance to the government, although other family members did not agree with her line: in 1980, Nicaragua’s other main broadsheet, El Nuevo Diario, was founded as a pro-Sandinista paper by Pedro Joaquín’s brother Xavier Chamorro, while her son, Carlos –a well-known media figure today as director of analysis weekly, Confidencial (highly critical of Ortega) – edited the FSLN mouthpiece Barricada.
While Chamorro continued her husband’s legacy as a champion of press freedom, lifting press restrictions and establishing the telecoms law creating Telcor, the communications regulatory authority, among other measures, the fact that her family was far from monolithic in its political affiliation meant that the press continued to reflect a wide range of ideologies. This cannot be said for Ortega however, whose various swipes at media independence continue to attract local and international attention – as recently flagged up in two recent reports, one by the NGO Freedom House and the other by the US State Department in its annual human rights report. The former noted the closure of five opposition radio stations over the last couple of years. The US report cited, among other concerns, complaints by opposition news sources that the government “continued to exclude independent media outlets from all official media events and to withhold government advertising contracts”.
- El Nuevo Diario in new hands
Concerns about press freedom were exacerbated by a recent bidding war for the national daily El Nuevo Diario. In May, the newspaper, whose majority shareholders are Xavier Chamorro’s five children, announced it was facing financial problems and was seeking a buyer, prompting fears that the ruling FSLN, which already has a 12% stake, would seek a majority share. After Nicaragua’s leading business group, Grupo Pellas (which is also linked to the Chamorros) offered to step in, another prominent businessman, Ramiro Ortiz Gurdián, of the financial conglomerate Grupo Promérica, eventually put in the winning bid, reportedly offering between US$4m-US$5m for a 62% stake.
|
