Caribbean & Central America - February 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

President Daniel Ortega’s decision to highlight the Puerto Rican independence movement at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), held in San José at the end of January, brought proceedings to a premature close. Ortega succeeded in irritating Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís, the host, by breaking with diplomatic protocol by ceding his podium time to Rubén Berrios, the leader of the Partido Independista Puertorriqueño (PIP), which seeks the island’s independence from the US.

As a US territory since 1898, Puerto Rico has never been invited to join Celac. Nevertheless Puerto Rico’s status has long been of interest to left-leaning leaders in the region, like Ortega and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Ortega gave Berríos his spot at the Celac roundtable discussion, a place that is otherwise reserved for heads of state. Berríos used the occasion to make his point. “The continuance of colonialism in my homeland, Puerto Rico, constitutes an affront to the dignity of our America,” he said. “Let Puerto Rico be as free as Latin America.”

After Berríos finished, Solís said the act has broken with Celac protocol. Ortega reacted by accusing the Costa Rican leader of disrespecting his voice as president. “Here Nicaragua is speaking as a state, as a nation, and the voice of Puerto Rico is the voice of Nicaragua, so I’m asking you for a little respect,” Ortega said, interrupting the speech of the Panamanian president, Juan Carlos Varela. Nicaragua and Costa Rica are already at loggerheads over a territorial dispute about the San Juan River, which has been at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) since 2010.

Ortega, however, appeared relatively isolated in his decision to break protocol. Rafael Correa, the left-wing leader of Ecuador, who assumed the pro-tempore presidency of Celac after the summit, called the move “a bad precedent”.

Remittances at record level

Nicaragua received US$1.135bn in remittances from ex-patriots in 2014, according to figures released by Nicaragua’s central bank (BCN). Most of the money came from Nicaraguans living in the US, Costa Rica, Spain and Panama. The figure represents a 5.3% increase on the US$1.07bn recorded in 2013. Much of the money went to just five of Nicaragua’s 15 departamentos, with the major recipients being Managua, Chinandega, León, Estelí and Matagalpa.

• Nicaragua’s exports up

Nicaragua’s exports for the third quarter of 2014 were up 10% year-on-year. Not including free zone exports, the country has exported US$2bn up to September 2014, according to the Central Bank of Nicaragua. During this period, the most exported products were coffee, meat, gold, sugar and peanut. The top export destinations during the period were the US, Venezuela, Canada, Europe, and El Salvador.