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Cablegate: Fsln Accord with Prn President Talavera Promises

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TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8471
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS PRIORITY 0877
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORP WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MANAGUA 002725

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR WHA/CEN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/20/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR KDEM NU
SUBJECT: FSLN ACCORD WITH PRN PRESIDENT TALAVERA PROMISES
THE MOON, BUT WILL ORTEGA DELIVER?

REF: A. MANAGUA 02662

B. MANAGUA 02059

Classified By: Ambassador Paul A. Trivelli. Reasons 1.4 (B,D).

1. (C) Summary: The September 15 accord that Sandinista
National Liberation Front (FSLN) leader/President-elect
Daniel Ortega signed with Nicaraguan Resistance Party (PRN)
President Salvador Talavera includes the formation of a
autonomous and decentralized National Peace and
Reconciliation Council (CONAREP). According to the
agreement, CONAREP will receive at least 1% of the annual
national budget. Liberal Nicaraguan Alliance (ALN) chief of
staff Edmundo Leal tells us that Talavera was "forced" to
sign the accord with Ortega, while they recognize that his
desertion probably cost ALN thousands of votes. Leal
warns us that the FSLN offer is extremely attractive to many
Resistance leaders, especially those with no independent
income. The FSLN's promises are unrealistic, but even if the
Sandinistas deliver on a fraction of the proposed accord,
they will accomplish much more for the Resistance than
previous governments. Further, the agreement's offer to
allow PRN members to run on the FSLN ticket for the 2008
municipal elections could draw more Resistance members into
the FSLN fold. End Summary.

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AN OFFER TOO GOOD TO BELIEVE, BUT TOO GOOD TO REFUSE
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2. (C) On December 18, Eduardo Montealegre's chief of staff,
Edmundo Leal, shared with poloffs a copy of the September 15
accord that President-elect Daniel Ortega signed with PRN
President Salvador Talavera. Leal -- who maintains contact
with Talavera and claims that Ortega offered Talavera the
choice of a stiff jail sentence (for abusing his previous
wife) or a "lucrative alliance" that would resolve Talavera's
considerable personal financial debts -- noted that the
accord includes the formation of an autonomous and
decentralized National Peace and Reconciliation Council
(CONAREP). According to the agreement, CONAREP will receive
at least 1% of the annual national budget. An informal
translation of the accord follows:

Begin text (all unclassified): This current accord which Jose
Daniel Ortega Saavedra, representing the Sandinista National
Liberation Front, and Salvador Talavera Alaniz, representing
the Nicaraguan Resistance Party, aims to consolidate peace
and achieve economic development within the framework of
equity and solidarity with our country's impoverished sectors.

Through this accord those individuals involved in
reconciliation -- the Nicaraguan Resistance Party and the
Sandinista National Liberation Front -- will work together to
consolidate peace, an indispensable foundation for
development, and to foster investor confidence in our
country. For all these reasons we agree:

First: We promise that the Nicaraguan family will never
resort to violent means to settle its differences, thereby
ensuring that there will never again be another civil war,
nor a mandatory draft, nor permit Nicaragua to become objects
of foreign incidents that lead us to armed conflict between
our Nicaraguan brothers.

Second: Both parties involved in this reconciliation promise
that there will never again be (property) seizures, nor
ration cards.

Third: The Sandinista National Liberation Front, whether or
not it wins these free and democratic elections on November
5, is committed to create a National Peace and Reconciliation
Council (CONAREP). This National Council will be established
as an autonomous and decentralized institution with financial
and legal independence, with unlimited duration, and the
ability to contract and obtain all types of obligations,
loans and donations.

The National Council will receive the budgetary support
required to achieve its objectives and activities, and will
be allocated at least 1% of the national budget.

The National Council will include eleven members -- six
appointed by the Nicaraguan Resistance Party and five by the
FSLN. The Nicaraguan Resistance Party will name the

MANAGUA 00002725 002 OF 003


Executive President of the National Commission, who will hold
the rank of the Secretary of the Presidency. Similarly,
there will be Regional, Departmental, and Municipal
Secretaries, who will be named by the National Peace and

SIPDIS
Reconciliation Council or by the National Executive President.

The National Peace and Reconciliation Council will channel
and allocate jointly with the National Government the
necessary funds to develop, among other areas, the following
programs:

--Investment in education, special programs to ensure
school-aged children attend school; nationwide construction
of sports facilities and sports.

--At least 1,000 scholarships per year to study in public and
private universities, as well as 25% of the scholarships for
study abroad.

--Basic health care and special programs to reduce infant
malnutrition and maternal deaths, especially among young and
single mothers.

--Review, legalization, and titling of properties, and the
fulfillment of commitments that are pending to ex-Resistance
combatants, in accordance with the peace accords.

--Allocate at least 15% of national budget's allocation for
the development and diversification of agricultural
production, ranching, agro-business, fishing and forestry to
this end.

--An urban and rural social housing program that includes new
construction and home improvements. At least 15% of the
national budget's allocation for this area will be channeled
to benefit the people proposed by CONAREP.

--Enforcement, review, and delivery of pensions, as well as
the expansion of Social Security to benefit all wounded war
veterans, their orphans who are under 18 years old, and
widows of former Resistance combatants with a valid signature
of CONAREP national or departmental representatives.

--Expansion and modernization of basic public services,
potable water, electricity, and telecommunications.

--Improvements, construction and maintenance of roadways to
support agronomic production.

--Concessions for water, air, and roadways at the local,
regional, and Central American levels, in accordance with
petitions presented by CONAREP.

--Personal security and private property guarantees for all
Nicaraguan residents.

--Review of current laws to decree new laws or reform current
legislation to facilitate economic and social development in
Nicaragua.

--At least 15% of the national budget that is earmarked for
housing, health, primary, secondary, technical and
university-level education, property titling and delivery,
pensions, agricultural technology, roads and highways,
improvement of basic service will be allocated to programs
for individuals and relatives of those involved in the
reconciliation.

Fourth: Both parties to the reconciliation are unequivocally
committed to elevating this autonomous institution to the
level of an entity or institution with constitutional
authority, reaffirming as such, that a national Resistance
Party member will preside over the organization.

Fifth: If the FSLN alliance is the new Nicaraguan Government,
it will adhere to its commitment to allocate the necessary
funds to implement the aforementioned programs, or any others
that the CONAREP recommends. In the event the funds cannot
be included in the Budget Law, the Presidency of the Republic
will take care of providing the funds required for its
(CONAREP's) functioning.

Sixth: Both parties are committed to respect the Electoral
Law, which guarantees the immobility of all PRN candidates

MANAGUA 00002725 003 OF 003


running in the national elections that will be held November
5. The same applies to preserving the Nicaraguan Resistance
Party's legal status.

Tenth (Seventh): (Note: The document skips Seventh, Eighth,
Ninth. Leal later clarified that Salvador Talavera told him
it was a "typo"): Both the FSLN and PRN parties involved in
reconciliation will work together so that the Nicaraguan
Resistance Party obtains at least one position each in the
Supreme Court, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), the
Controller General, and the sub-director of the Human Rights
Defense Office as soon as vacancies open. Similarly, the PRN
will enjoy participation in national, departmental or
municipal levels of these entities.

Signed in Managua on September (national month) 15, 2006.
End Text.

RESISTANCE LEADERS STRAYING FROM THE FOLD?
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3. (C) While Leal is skeptical that the FSLN will
"deliver" on all of its promises to the PRN, he fears the
agreement could attract a number of PRN members to the FSLN;
at least many would be curious to test the agreement. He
warned that some of the other ALN-affiliated Resistance
leaders are "straying" and could end up endorsing the FSLN,
citing as one possible "recruit" Salvador Talavera's brother
Jose Angel (The Jackal). For Leal, the PRN was never a
serious party, and its discordant members behave more like
mercenaries than politicians. He warned that the risk lies
in the FSLN's ability to deliver on its promises, while the
"democratic" parties abandoned the Resistance once they won
office.

4. (C) Leal recounted that when he met recently with
Salvador Talavera, FSLN Assembly Deputy Edwin Castro's legal
adviser Alejandro Romero had accompanied Talavera. They
informed Leal that because Talavera intends to retain his
Assembly seat (his alternate is PRN member Oscar Sobalvarro
(Comandante Ruben), who is loyal to the ALN), a token PRN
member will preside over CONAREP, while Salvador runs it
"behind the scenes." Romero has also been selected to work
in the new entity, said Leal.

COMMENT
- - - -

5. (C) Much of the PRN's leadership is fractious and
contentious, and indeed the party functions more as an
interest group than a political party. Salvador Talavera's
desertion of the ALN for Ortega spun the PRN into further
disarray. Many ALN and PRN contacts believe that Talavera's
betrayal cost the ALN thousands of votes to the rival Liberal
Constitutional Party (PLC), especially in deep-rural,
pro-Liberal areas of the country. The FSLN-PRN accord is an
unrealistic, campaign boondoggle, but given Nicaragua's
democratic-leaning governments that followed Daniel Ortega's
disastrous 1980s regime never delivered on their ambitious
campaign promises to the Resistance, even if the FSLN
delivers a fraction of the proposed accord, it will
accomplish much more for the Resistance than previous
governments. And, if the FSLN achieves more, its success
will draw new converts.

6. (C) According to Luis Fley (Ref. A) -- another PRN leader
associated with the ALN who has complained to us that ALN
leader Eduardo Montealegre does not "take him into account"
-- the FSLN has already offered PRN leaders the chance to run
on the FSLN ticket for the 2008 municipal elections in areas
where the PRN enjoys a strong base of support. Part of the
FSLN's success in the 2004 municipal elections can be
attributed to its ability to recruit highly respected
non-Sandinistas to run for office. If the Sandinistas resort
to a similar tactic in 2008, the FSLN could further
consolidate its control over municipal governments, which it
would use as a springboard for the 2011 presidential
elections.
TRIVELLI

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