New Year, New Hopes for Nicaragua When the Diplomatic Pouch last reported on Nicaragua in October, the political situation was bleak. A group of high-ranking ministers had just come to Washington to plead their case after having been stripped of immunity in what they called a “rolling coup d’etat,” and President Enrique Bolaños was on the verge of losing his power. The government shakeup, which Nicaraguan Ambassador Salvador Stadthagen described as political “blackmail,” stemmed from what many democratic observers called an unholy alliance between Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista Front and Arnoldo Alemán, the convicted ex-president of Nicaragua who was locked up as a result of Bolaños’s fight against corruption. Now, the country seems to have quelled the political crisis thanks to a precarious agreement that was reached among all the parties, and Bolaños is at last enjoying the final few months of his presidency, doggedly continuing his efforts to slash foreign debt, increase trade and investment, and combat the country’s rampant poverty. Bolaños’s high spirits were evident during his recent visit to Washington, D.C., where he honored two ambassadors to the Organization of American States (OAS) for their work in promoting democracy. Aristides Royo, Panama’s ambassador to the OAS and a former Panamanian president, received the Orden Rubén Darío award, while Lisa Shoman, Belize’s ambassador to the OAS, received the Orden José de Marcoleta award. “We decided to honor these two friends of our nation together,” Bolaños said, “like the goals we all share for more democratic, peaceful and united societies.” The president also met with OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza to discuss the upcoming Nicaraguan elections in 2006, which the OAS will be monitoring. And although the country’s fragile democracy isn’t out of the woods yet—Ortega and Alemán can still wield their influence on the ballot box next year—Bolaños remains optimistic. That optimism is especially impressive when you consider not only the constant turbulence Bolaños has endured in his professional life, but also the many personal setbacks he has overcome. This year alone, Bolaños lost his closest brother and a son to illness, while another is battling leukemia. Nevertheless, the president’s cheerful nature was on display as he spoke with a group of high-ranking officials from the State Department and World Bank—including Otto Reich and Ambassador John J. Danilovich, chief executive officer of the Millennium Challenge Corp.—during a luncheon at the embassy. “We have had in Nicaragua some very difficult years. When I came into the presidency I wanted to tackle corruption, so we could reduce poverty, which is the main shame in such a rich, wealthy country,” Bolaños said. But in the process, he admitted to “stepping on some toes.” “We finally rallied with some international support,” he added. “And all that international backing managed to put the two political bosses in isolation,” he said, referring to Ortega and Alemán. The president said he has high hopes for the recently passed Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to redistribute the country’s wealth by creating more jobs, and that with all the political turmoil dying down, the government can finally enact “laws that are long overdue, precisely because we are committed to improving the welfare of our people.” From left, Ambassador of Panama to the Organization of Ameri can States (OAS) Aristides Royo, Ambassador of Belize to the OAS Lisa Shoman, and OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza attend an awards ceremony at the Nicaraguan Embassy hosted by Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños. Peru Moves Forward With Trade, Reconciliation Efforts Another neighbor to the South is also progressing on the political and economic front. After nearly two years, Peru has just finished negotiations with the U.S. trade representative for a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States, which Peruvian Ambassador Eduardo Ferrero Costa says is a “win-win situation” for both countries. Colombia and Ecuador have also been in discussions for a free trade agreement with the United States, though Peru has advanced the furthest in the talks. Now there will be a period of 90 days before the paperwork is signed and sent to the U.S. and Peruvian congresses for consideration. “We think this a very, very important step forward to enhance the economic and political relations between Peru and the United States,” the ambassador told the Diplomatic Pouch. “I believe that this FTA, though nothing’s perfect, is an important tool for our development.” Ferrero said he hopes to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress “with a bipartisan approach,” so that Peru won’t run into the same political hurdles that CAFTA faced. Next year, the Peruvian government will also embark on an informational campaign to convince the public of the benefits of free trade. At present, according to Ferrero, about 50 percent of Peruvians support the agreement. The FTA will also likely become a hot political issue in the upcoming elections in April 2006. Whether it is ultimately approved or not, this FTA is just one of the latest steps Peru has taken to bolster its economy, which has seen steady growth since implementing market-oriented reforms in the 1990s. “The Peruvian economy, during the last four or five years, has been one of the best performing in all the region,” Ferrero said. “The national reserves also have been doubled over the last four years and the inflation is quite low, so in general terms we have very, very good macroeconomic figures.” Despite the economic reforms under President Alejandro Toledo, public support for his administration remains weak—a problem Ferrero said is endemic throughout the different branches of government because much of the country has yet to see the benefits of democracy and open markets. “It is true Peruvians want to have solutions to the economic and social problems in the short term and that is impossible—this is a middle- and long-term process.” And that type of patience is difficult for a country that remains mired in poverty. “Approximately 52 percent of all Peruvians are in poverty—that’s the biggest challenge we have as a country, and our government is quite concerned with this challenge and we’re trying to tackle it,” the ambassador said. “This free trade agreement is very important because it will open this American market for our products and will contribute to having more American investment in Peru.” Peru has also been in the news lately for the arrest of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in Chile, where he awaits a decision by the Chilean courts as to whether he will be extradited to Peru to face charges of financial corruption and sanctioning death squads. Many believe the former authoritarian president is attempting to run for president in the April elections after having been driven from office in 2000, but Ferrero is hopeful that the only thing Fujimori will see in Peru is the inside of a courtroom. “We believe that Chile will decide that he will be prosecuted. We hope that the Chilean judiciary will accept our request for extradition because there are several crimes where the evidence in our opinion is sufficient to accept the request of extradition,” he said. The move to extradite Fujimori is part of a broader initiative to reconcile and unearth details of the country’s violent past, and bring to justice those who committed human rights abuses. To that end, the government is studying the results of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report on human rights violations committed between 1980 and 2000. Ferrero, a lawyer by training who plans to return to Peru to teach international law once the elections are over, said the reconciliation efforts are vital if his country is to move forward. “We have a lot of information and conclusions in this commission’s report that have been very important for Peru—to know the history, to know really what’s happened, to see who were the guilty ones for the atrocities that happened.” Peruvian Ambassador Eduardo Ferrero Costa says a free trade agreement between Peru and the United States would be a “win-win situation” for both countries.

Johns Hopkins’ SAIS Attracts Global Leaders From Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) has been a regular forum for U.S. and world officials over the past six decades. In fact, on the same day that Secretary Rumsfeld recently spoke to students at the SAIS campus along Massachusetts Avenue, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was speaking on the main Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore, Md. Juggling Cabinet members and other high-level figures is just a day’s work for Felisa Neuringer Klubes, who as public affairs director for SAIS, has helped to arrange an impressive line-up of prominent speakers plucked from the top echelons of U.S. and foreign government, including the diplomatic community here in Washington. “Part of the benefit of the school being founded in Washington, even 60 years ago, was incredible access to the players and foreign policy community. It’s been a key component of the school for its entire history, said Klubes, who, during her seven years at SAIS, has heard some of the biggest names in politics speak, from former President Bill Clinton to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Coordinating such political heavyweights can of course be a logistical challenge. One week for example the school hosted Rice, who was then national security advisor, and former Spanish Prime Minister José Aznar. “We had to stick one on a Tuesday and one on a Friday,” Klubes noted. The case of Condoleezza Rice was particularly unusual. She was originally scheduled to speak on Sept. 11, 2001, at 5 p.m. Needless to say, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she was unable to make it, but amid the confusion, SAIS couldn’t get a hold of her office to confirm her cancellation and no one was sure if she wanted to use the discussion as a platform for a major policy speech during a time of crisis. In the end, SAIS made the decision to go ahead and cancel, but with reporters calling the school all day trying to locate her, the entire experience was a surreal one for Klubes. Most scheduled speaking engagements, however, are not nearly as dramatic. Klubes and her team, along with the various research centers at the school, regularly seek out foreign policy experts, and on the flip side, the school also fields requests from interested speakers. Such was the case with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. “We were working with the Embassy of Afghanistan, and we’d already built some relationships with them through our research center,” Klubes recalled. “[B]ecause we had that relationship there, we got a call kind of out of the blue this past spring saying, ‘President Karzai is coming to meet president Bush. This is his first U.S. visit since being democratically elected in his country. He would like to do a major public address, and we would like to do it at SAIS—is that possible?’ So you get that scenario too, which when you get the opportunity to host somebody like Hamid Karzai, you try to make those things happen.” Similarly, the high-profile discussion with Rumsfeld came about rather unexpectedly. The school had put out a long-standing invitation for the defense secretary to speak, and he seized on the opportunity in early December, when the Bush administration began a media blitz in defense of the Iraq war. “In this case I think this is probably one of the shortest notices that we’ve gotten for an event of this magnitude,” Klubes said. “They called us Thursday … and said, ‘You have a standing invitation. We’d like to talk about the war in Iraq—would that be OK? We realize it’s short notice but it would need to be for Monday,’ and obviously we were able to accommodate them. We felt like it was important to get him here and if he wanted to switch the topics, we were OK with that.” Rumsfeld’s discussions wound up becoming one of the livelier ones that Klubes has witnessed. “Obviously some would put him in the category of controversial figures, somebody who can often be a lightening rod for discussion, but he was just great to see in action,” she said. “I think his speech was fairly inside the box, but just watching him engage in the Q&A session with the students and to see how he just didn’t miss a beat, how he was very willing to take them on … it was just a great thing to watch.” Another memorable moment for Klubes was when the school needed to quickly find an American flag for one of its events and no one in the vicinity could help Klubes as she desperately tried to hunt one down—except the nearby Australian Embassy. “We were looking for the American flag not the Australian flag, but they were able to bail us out at the last minute.” Over the years, the diplomatic community has grown very close to the SAIS students. “Absolutely the diplomatic community is very supportive,” Klubes said, “and we’re surrounded by them—on one side of us sits the Embassy of Chile, on the other side of us sits the Embassy of Uzbekistan.” Diplomatic speakers have spanned the global spectrum, including ambassadors from Britain, Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Germany, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, to name a few. Embassies have also gladly provided venues for SAIS students, whether it’s the Italian Embassy hosting the SAIS 60th anniversary gala or the Austrian Embassy hosting a group of students performing a comedy skit. The close relationship formed by SAIS and embassies is no surprise given that there are some 130 SAIS grads who have gone onto become ambassadors, both U.S. and foreign, including British Ambassador David Manning and former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. “When it’s all said and done, the most critical thing is this tremendous exposure for our students—that they have the opportunity to engage with these folks and vice versa,” Klubes said. “[Afghan President] Karzai loved the opportunity to kind of spar with the students and the back and forth with the questions, and that was just a unique opportunity for him. So we hope the speakers get as much out of it as we do.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaks to students at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). photo courtesy of the Department of Defense