Timeline Nicaragua
Return to home
CIA Factbook: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nu.html
Emulate: http://www.emulateme.com/nicaragua.htm
TravelDocs: http://www.traveldocs.com/ni/index.htm
USLC: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/nitoc.html
The Nicoya are an indigenous people of Nicaragua.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.E1)
1524
Hernandez de Cordoba founded Granada and Leon in
Nicaragua. Granada, also known as La Gran Sultana (The Grand
Sultan), is the oldest city in Central America.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1526 Conquistador Francisco
Hernandez de Cordoba (b.~1475) was beheaded by Pedrarias
Dávila, a superior officer, over his claims to Nicaragua.
(SSFC, 6/26/11, p.G3)
1543-1773 The Palacio de los Capitanes in Antigua,
Guatemala, was the center for Spanish rule over Chiapas, Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua during this period.
(SFEM, 6/13/99, p.32)
1610 Leon, Nicaragua, was
buried by the Mombotombo volcano.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F5)
1663 Abraham Blauvelt, Dutch
pirate, died about this time. In the early 1630's He explored the
coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua. Afterwards, he went to England and
with a proposal for a settlement at site in Nicaragua, which is near
the town and river of Bluefields, Nicaragua.
(www.thepirateking.com/bios/blauvelt_abraham.htm)
1806 A ruling by the Spanish
king set a boundary between Honduras and Nicaragua projecting
eastward along the 15th parallel from the mouth of the Coco River.
In 1999 Nicaragua filed a border case against Honduras with the UN.
It was resolved in 2007.
(AP, 10/8/07)
1821 Sep 15, A junta convened
by the captain-general in Guatemala declared independence for its
provinces Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua San Salvador
and Chiapas.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/15/97)(EWH, 1968,
p.843)
1823 Jul 1, The United
Provinces of Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua and San Salvador) gained independence from Mexico. The
union dissolved by 1840.
(PC, 1992, p.393)(ON, 12/99, p.5)
1823 The Momotomba volcano, 18
miles from Managua and on the northwest shore of Lake Nicaragua,
went dormant. In the 17th cent. it had destroyed the capital of
Leon.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-15)
1824 May 8, William Walker,
president of Nicaragua, was born.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1835 Jan, Consiguina volcano in
Nicaragua erupted and threw ash as far away as Mexico and Jamaica.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F5)
1839-1840 The Liberals of the United Provinces of
Central America under leader Francisco Morazan were defeated in a
civil war led by Rafael Carrera. The confederation dissolved into
its 4 component states: El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa
Rica.
(EWH, 1968, p.857)
1850-1854 About this time English adopted the form
filibuster, from Spanish filibustero. It was applied to certain
adventurers who committed unsanctioned activities in the West Indies
and Central America. [See William Walker Sep 12, 1860]
(www.wordsources.info/words-mod-filibuster.html)
1853 Cornelius Vanderbilt, who
had established a steamship route in Nicaragua to get from the
Caribbean to the Pacific coast, left Cornelius Garrison and Charles
Morgan in charge of his operations as he traveled to Europe. The 2
men soon took over the company later helped William Walker take over
the country.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W7)
1854 Jul 13, US forces shelled
and burned San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1855 Jun 1, William Walker
(1824-1860), US adventurer, stormed into Granada, Nicaragua. On July
12, 1857, he declared himself president. Walker reestablished
slavery and planned an 18-mile canal from Lake Nicaragua to the
Pacific. (SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/walker.html)
1856 Apr 11, Battle of Rivas;
Costa Rica beat William Walker's invading Nicaraguans.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1856 Jul 12, William Walker, an
American, declared himself president of Nicaragua. His execution a
few years later in Honduras was rumored to have been staged.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))
1856 Sep 14, At the Battle of
San Jacinto, Nicaragua defeated invaders. General José
Dolores Estrada led his men against the powerful forces of William
Walker and his filibusters, who sought to take over Nicaragua and
all of Central America.
(http://www.guideofnicaragua.com/0102/MatagalpaEN.html)
1857 May 1, William Walker,
conqueror of Nicaragua, surrendered to the US Navy. Cornelius
Vanderbilt helped finance a Costa Rican army, which defeated
Walker’s forces, and paid men under Walker’s command to defect.
Walker later sought protection on a British naval vessel, whose
captain turned him over to Hondurans, who executed him in 1860.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))(WSJ,
8/30/08, p.W7)
1860 Sep 12, William Walker
(b.1824), conqueror of Nicaragua, was convicted and executed by the
government of Honduras. The British had arrested him and turned him
over to the government. In 2008 Stephen Dando-Collins authored
“Tycoon’s War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to
Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))(SSFC,
4/10/05, p.F4)
1876 Managua, Nicaragua,
experienced heavy flooding.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1885 Managua, Nicaragua, was
leveled by an earthquake.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1896 Mar 20, U.S. Marines
landed in Nicaragua to protect U.S. citizens in the wake of a
revolution.
(AP, 3/20/97)
1900 Feb 5, The United States
and Great Britain signed the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, giving the
United States the right to build a canal in Nicaragua but not to
fortify it.
(HN, 2/5/99)
1902 Jan 4, The French offered
to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the U.S.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1902 May, The Momotomba volcano
erupted.
(ON, 1/00, p.2)
1902 Managua, Nicaragua, was
damaged by the explosion of a military arsenal.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1905 Sep 13, U.S. warships
headed to Nicaragua on behalf of American William Albers, who was
accused of evading tobacco taxes.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1909 Nov 18, US invaded
Nicaragua and later overthrew Pres Zelaya.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1909 Nov 27, U.S. troops land
in Bluefields, Nicaragua, to protect American interests there.
(HN, 11/27/99)
1909 Dec 1, President Taft
severed official relations with Nicaragua’s Zelaya government, and
declared support for the revolutionaries.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1912 May 30, U.S. Marines were
sent to Nicaragua to protect American interests.
(HN, 5/30/99)
1912 Aug 4, The 1st detachment
of American forces requested by President Diaz, arrived at Managua,
Nicaragua, from Corinto. It was a handful of seamen from the USS
ANNAPOLIS.
(http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/usmcnic3.html)
1912 Aug 14, The JUSTIN,
carrying a US battalion of 354 men and its equipment, arrived at
Corinto, Nicaragua, and anchored near the Annapolis. US forces
remained until 1925.
(http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/usmcnic3.html)
1912 Sep 14, The United States
government notified Nicaragua that it would protect American lives
and property there and uphold the government against rebels.
(MC,
9/14/01)(http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/usmcnic3.html)
1912 Oct 4, Gen. Zeledon,
Nicaraguan opponent of US occupation, was executed.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1912 Managua, Nicaragua, was
destroyed by civil war.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1916 Feb 6, Ruben Dario
(b.1867), Nicaraguan poet, died. Dario, one of Nicaragua's
best-known poets, is considered the father of the Modernismo
movement.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028777/Ruben-Dario)
1925 Dec 25, U.S. Admiral
Latimer disarmed Nicaraguan insurgents in support of the Diaz
regime.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1926 May 2, US military
"intervened" in Nicaragua. [see May 3]
(MC, 5/2/02)
1926 May 3, U.S. marines
landed in Nicaragua and remained until 1933. [see May 2]
(HN, 5/3/98)
1926 Gen. Emiliano Chamorro
overthrew the government of Pres. Carlos Solorzano, who fled to San
Francisco, Ca.
(SFC, 9/28/01, WB p.6)
1927 Jan 12, U.S. Secretary of
State Kellogg claimed that Mexican rebel Plutarco Calles was aiding
the communist plot in Nicaragua.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1927 Jun 14, President Porfirio
Diaz of Nicaragua signed a treaty with the U.S. allowing American
intervention in his country.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1927 Jul 16, Augusto Sandino
began a 5-year war against the US occupation of Nicaragua.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1928 Mar 16 The U.S. planned to
send 1,000 more Marines to Nicaragua.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1931
Apr 1, An Earthquake devastated Managua,
Nicaragua, killing 2,000.
(OTD)
1931 Managua, Nicaragua, was
torched by fire.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1934 Feb 21, Nicaraguan patriot
Augusto Cesar Sandino was assassinated by National Guard.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1934 Pablo Cuadro (d.2002),
poet, authored “Nicaragua Poems.”
(SFC, 1/14/02, p.B5)
1934 US troops entered
Nicaragua to fight nationalist rebel leader Augusto Cesar Sandino.
(SFC, 1/14/02, p.B5)
1936 Jun 2, Gen Anastasio
Somoza took over as dictator of Nicaragua.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1936 Dec 8, Anastasio Somoza
was elected president of Nicaragua. The Somoza family led Nicaragua
until 1979.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A1)(MC, 12/8/01)
1945 Jul 6, Nicaragua became
the first nation to formally accept the United Nations Charter.
(AP, 7/6/05)
1949 Feb 21, Nicaragua and
Costa Rica signed a friendship treaty ending hostilities over their
borders.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1955 Nov 3, Argentine
ex-president Peron arrived in Nicaragua.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1956 Sep 21, Anastasio Somoza
Garcia (b.1896), Nicaraguan dictator, was shot by poet Rigoberto
Lopez Perez. He died on Sep 29 after being sent to a Panama Canal
Zone hospital.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Garc%C3%ADa)
1956 Sep 29, Anastasio Somoza
(b.1896), Nicaraguan dictator, died at a Panama Canal Zone hospital
after being shot on Sep 21 by poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez. He was
succeeded by his son Luis Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1922-1967).
(EWH, 1968,
p.1216)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Garc%C3%ADa)
1957 Nicaragua’s Concepcion
volcano erupted.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1960 Nov 14, President Dwight
Eisenhower ordered U.S. naval units into the Caribbean after
Guatemala and Nicaragua charged Castro with starting uprisings.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1960 The Central American
Common Market was set up by a treaty between El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and later Costa Rica. It fell apart by the end
of the decade.
(Econ, 5/14/05,
p.41)(www.bartleby.com/65/ce/CentrACM.html)
1960s-1970s The pesticide DBCP
(dibromochloropropane) was regularly sprayed to combat insects that
preyed on bananas.
(SFC, 3/15/01, p.A12)
1961 Apr 14, Cuban-American
invasion army departed Nicaragua.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1961 Tomas Borge Martinez
(1930-2012) helped found Nicaragua’s Sandinista front with the
ambition of overthrowing the American-backed dictatorship of the
Somoza family. Students chose the name in tribute to Augusto Cesar
Sandino, the nationalist guerrilla leader who fought American
Marines in the 1920s and 1930s.
(www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/world/americas/tomas-borge-martinez-dies-at-81.html)
1967 May 1, Anastasio Somoza
Debayle became president of Nicaragua.
(AP, 5/1/97)
1968 Oct 23, In Nicaragua the
Cerro Negro volcano began erupting again and continued to Dec 10. It
had first appeared in 1850.
(DD-EVTT,
Illustr.#9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Negro)
1969 The US based Pennwalt
Corp. established a chlorine plant near Lake Managua. The plant shut
down in 1991 and left 60 tons of mercury in the lake.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)
1971 Apr 25, US canal rights in
Nicaragua and rights to Nicaragua’s Corn Islands expired.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Islands)
1971 Managua, Nicaragua, was
struck by a polio epidemic.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)
1972 Dec 23, A 6.25 earthquake
struck Managua, Nicaragua, and over 12,000 were killed. Pres.
Somoza was later believed to have pocketed millions of dollars in
foreign aid. The diversion of funds undermined his government and
helped pave the way for the 1979 revolution.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 11/8/98,
p.A26)(http://tinyurl.com/58jfg)
1972 Roberto Clemente (b.1934),
US baseball player, died in a plane crash while enroute to help
earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
(WSJ, 4/2/01, p.A20)
1978 Jan 10, In Nicaragua Pedro
Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal (b.1924), journalist and editor of La
Prensa, was shot dead. His murder sparked the Sandinista-led
uprising that later toppled Somoza. His wife, Violeta Barrios de
Chamorro, later became head of the country and in 1996 published her
autobiography: "Dreams of the Heart." The murder also inspired Susan
Meiselas, photographer, to go to Nicaragua from NY. She spent ten
years photographing events in the area, later published as
"Nicaragua." The Sandinista Party was founded by Carlos Fonseca.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Joaqu%C3%ADn_Chamorro_Cardenal)(WSJ,
9/11/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)
1978 Mar 9, National Guard
Chief General Raynoldo Perez Vega was assassinated in Nicaragua.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1978 Aug 22, In Managua,
Nicaragua, a group of the Third Way faction, led by Eden Pastora
Gomez (also known as Commander Zero--Comandante Cero), took over the
National Palace and held almost 2,000 government officials and
members of Congress hostage for two days. Sandinista guerrillas
seized hostages at the Nicaraguan Congress building and after a
2-day siege obtained a hefty ransom, exile to Panama and the
liberation of some 70 jailed comrades.
(www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/americas/nicaragua/Nicaragua-national-history.htm)(WSJ,
1/8/97, p.A12)
1978 Sandinistas captured Leon,
Nicaragua, and Pres. Somoza began a massive aerial bombardments.
Suspected Sandinista sympathizers were tortured and killed.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F5)
1979 Jun 20, ABC News
correspondent Bill Stewart was shot to death in Managua, Nicaragua,
by a member of President Anastasio Somoza's national guard.
(AP, 6/20/99)
1979 Jul 17, Nicaraguan
President Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigned and fled to Miami in
exile.
(AP, 7/17/97)(HNQ, 6/29/99)
1979 Jul 19, The Nicaraguan
capital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after
President Anastasio Somoza fled the country.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/19/99)
1980 Sep 17, Former Nicaraguan
president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay. Enrique
Gorriaran Merlo, Argentine super-guerilla, claimed responsibility.
Merlo was captured in Mexico in 10/95 and extradited to Argentina
where he had multiple charges against him.
(AP, 9/17/97)(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)
1980s The US purchased Chinese
and Polish AK-47s to supply the Contra guerillas in Nicaragua. Eden
Pastora, aka Commander Zero, and his comrade Adolfo Calero, denied
knowing in 1996 that their financial backer, Oscar Danilo Blandon,
had earned money by selling crack cocaine in California.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A9)(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A2)
1980s Sergio Palacios Cruz,
Charro, was an explosives expert for the US supported Contra rebels
fighting the leftist Sandinista regime.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A7)
1981 Sep, The CIA was informed
that a major Contra rebel group planned to sell drugs in the US to
pay its bills. At the same time the Reagan administration was
approving a covert CIA program to finance anti-Sandinista exile
organization attempts to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A14)
1981 Dec, In Nicaragua Contra
commander Enrique Bermudez (d.1991), a CIA agent, ordered Meneses
and Blandon to begin trafficking in support of the Contras. Oscar
Danilo Blandon had been recruited by Norwin Meneses to sell cocaine
in California in order to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras.
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A2) (SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.3)
1981-1982 In Nicaragua disagreements escalated
between the English-speaking Indian peoples of the Caribbean coast
who sought greater autonomy and Sandinista government forces. Armed
clashes led to the forced relocation of thousands of Miskitos.
Sandinista responses grew heavier as some Indians joined the
US-backed "Contra" rebellion against the leftist government. At
least 64 Miskito Indians were killed by Nicaraguan troops during
this period.
(AP, 7/27/10)
1982 In El Salvador 10 police
officers were involved in the killing of a Nicaraguan mechanic and a
Honduran farmer suspected of transporting arms to rebels in El
Salvador. They were charged with the murders in July 1995.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A14)
1983 Apr 6, Melida Anaya Montes
("Comandante Ana Maria"), Salvadoran FMLN guerrilla leader, was
killed in Nicaragua, where many Salvadoran guerrillas took refuge
under its leftist government. In 2007 her body was exhumed and
buried in her homeland.
(AP,
6/14/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Mar%C3%ADa)
1983 Jun, James Carney (53) of
St. Louis, Jesuit priest-turned-guerrilla, traveled to Nicaragua,
where he joined leftist guerrillas. He was captured by soldiers in
September as he led a column of 100 rebels across the border into
Honduras. He was never heard from again. Suspected remains found in
early 2003 proved false.
(AP, 1/29/03)(http://tinyurl.com/3ad6ek)
1983 Jul 19, In Honduras Reyes
Mata, a Cuban-trained doctor and guerrilla leader, led a unit of 96
Nicaraguan-trained rebels and Rev. James F. Carney into the Olancho.
They were routed by the Honduran army. American CIA records,
disclosed in 1998, reported that Mata was tortured and executed by
the Honduran army.
(SFC, 11/5/98,
p.C4)(www.fas.org/sgp/congress/hr051198/valladares.html)
1984 Apr 10, The US Senate
condemned the January CIA mining of Nicaraguan harbors.
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/US-mining-nicaragua-harbors.html)
1984 May 10, The International
Court of Justice said the U.S. should halt any actions to blockade
Nicaragua's ports. The U.S. had already said it would not recognize
World Court jurisdiction on this issue.
(AP, 5/10/04)
1984 May 30, There was an
assassination attempt on Eden Pastora Gomez, a Nicaraguan
anticommunist revolutionary, by Sandinistas. The Costa Rica
government of Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez failed to make a serious
investigation. Two Costa Ricans, four Nicaraguan rebels and US
journalist Linda Frazier were killed and more than 20 other people
were wounded in the attack at the village of La Penca, near the
Nicaraguan border. In 2011 a former Nicaraguan official confirmed
that Vital Gaguine (d.1989), a leftist Argentine guerrilla, had been
hired by the Sandinistas to kill Pastora.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Penca_bombing)(WSJ, 12/12/97,
p.A19)(AP, 8/26/11)
1984 May, Marta Healy, a
Nicaraguan exile, contacted George Morales, a champion power boat
racer and big-league drug trafficker under indictment in the US, to
arrange a meeting with contra rebels at her Miami home. Her aim was
to broker a deal to help the rebels financially. The rebels got an
ok from the CIA to accept airplanes and cash from the drug dealer
while still receiving CIA money under the table.
(SFC, 10/31/96,
p.A7)(www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/9712/ch11p1.htm)
1984 Nov 4, Nicaragua held its
1st free elections in 56 years; Sandinistas won by a margin of 63%.
Daniel Ortega won the presidency under the Sandinista Liberation
Front. Sergio Ramirez served as his vice-president until 1990.
(SFC, 5/6/96, p.A-10)(WSJ, 10/9/96, p.A15)
1984 Nov, The CIA told Congress
in 1987 that it had concluded in Nov, 1984 that it could not resume
aid to the Costa Rican-based Contras because “everybody around
Pastora was involved in cocaine.”
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.A7)
1984 The Sandinistas
confiscated four farms that belonged to Juan Manuel Caldera. In 1996
Daniel Ortega promised Caldera control of 7 key economic ministries
in an electoral pact for the presidency.
(WSJ, 10/9/96, p.A15)
1984 The CIA ran the Contra war
in Nicaragua as a covert operation until this year when Congress cut
off funds. The Reagan administration transferred the operation to
Lt. Col. Oliver North, a member of the White House National Security
staff.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A5)
1984 The CIA equipped a plane
belonging to Barry Seal, a drug smuggler and informant, with
cameras. Seal flew the plane to Nicaragua and photographed an
official of the Sandinista government and a leader of a Columbian
drug cartel loading cocaine on the aircraft.
(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A2)
1984 In Costa Rica there was an
assassination attempt on Eden Pastora Gomez, a Nicaraguan
anticommunist revolutionary, by Sandinistas. The government of Luis
Alberto Monge Alvarez failed to make a serious investigation.
(WSJ, 12/12/97, p.A19)
1985 May 1, US president Reagan
ordered an embargo against Nicaragua.
(http://tinyurl.com/2qxpo3)
1985 Jun 12, The US House of
Representatives approved $27 million in aid to the Nicaraguan
contras.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1985 Jan 18, President Reagan
declared that the U.S. would not take part in the World Court ruling
on Nicaraguan charges.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1985 Jun 27, The U.S. House of
Representatives voted to limit the use of combat troops in
Nicaragua.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1985 Sen. John Kerry of Mass.
went to Nicaragua to meet with the Sandinista leadership. Kerry
worked hard against Pres. Reagan’s efforts to fund CIA aid for the
contras.
(WSJ, 7/30/04, p.A11)
1985 A photographer captured
the execution of a peasant ordered by Contra Comandante Mack, who in
1996 accompanied Daniel Ortega on a campaign for the presidency.
(WSJ, 10/9/96, p.A15)
1985 The 3,000 acre cotton
ranch of Enrique Bolanos was expropriated by the Sandinistas.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)
1985-1986 Celerino Castillo III, a US agent for
the DEA, reported Contra drug flights from Nicaragua to the US to US
Embassy officials. His testimony in 1996 followed reports that the
CIA was involved in smuggling drugs to southern California with the
proceeds going to support Contra forces at war with the Sandinista
government.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A7)
1986 Mar 25, President Ronald
Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters
took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1986 Mar 28, The U.S. Senate
passed a $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan contras.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1986 Jun 25, The US Congress
approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1986 Jun 27, World Court ruled
that US aid to Nicaraguan contras was illegal.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1986 Jul 11, President Ronald
Reagan placed the Contras, who were fighting the government of
Nicaragua, under CIA jurisdiction.
(HN, 7/11/98)
1986 Oct 5, American Eugene
Hasenfus was captured by Sandinista soldiers after the weapons plane
he was flying in was shot down over southern Nicaragua. An airplane
named Fat Lady was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of arms
destined for the Contras. Documents found on board the aircraft and
seized by the Sandinistas included logs linking the plane with Area
51, the nation's top-secret nuclear-weapons facility at the Nevada
Test Site. The doomed aircraft was co-piloted by Wallace Blaine
"Buzz" Sawyer, a native of western Arkansas, who died in the crash.
The admissions of the surviving crew member, Eugene Hasenfus, began
a public unraveling of the Iran-Contra episode.
(AP,
10/5/97)(www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/crimesOfMena.html)
1986 Oct, A drug raid was made
in Los Angeles, Ca. The LA County Sheriff's Dept. had documented
that Nicaraguan drug trafficker Daniel Blandon was shipping hundreds
of kilos of cocaine in the Southern California area. In 1998 Gary
Webb published "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack
Cocaine Explosion."
(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.3)
1986 Nov 15, A government
tribunal in Nicaragua convicted American Eugene Hasenfus of charges
related to his role in delivering arms to Contra rebels, and
sentenced him to 30 years in prison. He was pardoned a month later.
(AP, 11/15/97)
1986 Dec 17, Eugene Hasenfus,
the American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to
the Contras, was pardoned, then released.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1987 Jan 1, Nicaragua’s
Sandinista Constitution was promulgated. It provided the final step
in the institutionalization of the Sandinista regime and the
framework under which the Chamorro government would take office.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Nicaragua)
1987 Mar 4, President Reagan
addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair. He took full
responsibility for the affair acknowledging his overtures to Iran
had "deteriorated" into an arms-for-hostages deal. Michael Ledeen,
Pentagon employee, later authored "Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's
Account of the Iran-Contra Affair."
(AP, 3/4/98)(HN, 3/4/98)(SFC, 5/14/03, p.A19)
1987 Apr 28, Contra rebels in
Nicaragua killed Benjamin Ernest Linder (b.1959), an American
engineer working on a hydroelectric project for the Sandinista
government. In 2001 Joan Kruckewitt authored “The Death of Ben
Linder: The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua.”
(AP,
4/28/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Linder)
1987 Aug 6, President Reagan's
new Central America peace initiative ran into problems as the United
States and Nicaragua openly disagreed on procedures for a negotiated
settlement.
(AP, 8/6/97)
1987 Nov 13, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega unveiled an 11-point proposal in Washington
for a cease-fire that called for the Contra rebels to lay down their
weapons and accept an amnesty.
(AP, 11/13/97)
1987 Nov 22, The government of
Nicaragua released 985 political prisoners in a show of compliance
with a Central American peace plan.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1987 The Sultan of Brunei,
leader of the independent sultanate on the northern coast of Borneo,
sent $10 million to support the Nicaraguan contras.
(HNQ, 12/14/98)
1988 Jan 28, Nicaragua's
leftist government and Contra rebels began their first face-to-face
peace talks, meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1988 Jan 29, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega received a coolly polite reception from Pope
John Paul II at the Vatican.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1988 Feb 2, In a speech that
three major television networks declined to broadcast live,
President Reagan pressed his case for aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
(AP, 2/2/97)
1988 Feb 3, The U.S. House of
Representatives handed President Reagan a major defeat, rejecting
his request for at least $36.25 million in aid to the Nicaraguan
Contras.
(AP, 2/3/97)
1988 Mar 3, The U.S. House of
Representatives rejected a package of $30 million in non-lethal aid
for the Nicaraguan Contras.
(AP, 3/3/98)
1988 Mar 30, US House
Democratic and Republican leaders said that they had agreed in
principle on a package of about $50 million to aid the Nicaraguan
rebels.
(http://tinyurl.com/n6uak)
1988 Oct 22, Hurricane Joan hit
Nicaragua and killed 148 people. Hurricane Joan caused 216 deaths in
the Caribbean or Central America. The storm hit Colombia, Costa
Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela.
(WP, 11/8/88, p.A21)
1989 Jan 23, Vital Gaguine,
leftist Argentine guerrilla, during a rebel attack on a military
barracks in Buenos Aires. He was later identified as the bomber
hired by the Sandinistas to kill Eden Pastora Gomez (May 30, 1984),
a Nicaraguan anticommunist revolutionary.
(AP, 8/26/11)
1989 Sep 2, In Nicaragua, a
14-party opposition coalition chose Violeta Barrios de Chamorro as
its presidential candidate. Chamorro went on to win the election the
following February.
(AP, 9/2/99)
1989 Nov 26, El Salvador broke
relations with Nicaragua after a weapons-loaded plane from that
country was downed in El Salvador.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1989 The central bank of
Nicaragua suffered losses worth 13.8% of GDP.
(Econ, 4/30/05, p.74)
1990 Feb 25, Nicaraguans voted
in an election that led to an upset victory for opponents of the
ruling Sandinistas. Violeta Chamorro was elected president.
(WSJ, 3/12/96, p. A-16)(AP, 2/25/98)
1990 Feb 26, Daniel Ortega,
communist president of Nicaragua, suffered a shocking election
defeat at the hands of Violeta Chamorro.
(HN, 2/26/99)
1990 Mar 12, Vice President
Quayle met in Santiago, Chile, with Nicaraguan President Daniel
Ortega, who promised to peacefully relinquish power to Violeta
Chamorro, the U.S.-backed candidate who had won Nicaragua's
presidential election.
(AP, 3/12/00)
1990 Mar 13, President Bush
lifted trade sanctions against Nicaragua in a show of support for
President-elect Violeta Chamorro.
(AP, 3/13/00)
1990 Apr 19, Nicaragua's
nine-year-old civil war appeared near an end as Contra guerrillas,
leftist Sandinistas and the incoming government agreed to a truce
and a deadline for the rebels to disarm.
(AP, 4/19/00)
1990 Apr 25, Violeta Barrios de
Chamorro was inaugurated as president of Nicaragua for a six year
term, ending 11 years of leftist Sandinista rule.
(AP, 4/25/97) (HN, 4/25/98)
1990 Arnoldo Aleman became
mayor of Managua.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A1,12)
1990-1996 Sergio Palacios Cruz, aka Charro, took
up arms again citing threats from the Sandinistas as well as
unfilled government promises. He led a group of about 300 men in the
area around Wanawas and is viewed by some as a protector and by
others as a bandit and robber.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A6,7)
1991 Nov, Norwin Meneses was
arrested in Managua with 1,500 pounds of cocaine, some of it packed
in cars headed for the US.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A1,10)
1991 Susan Meisalas,
photographer, made the film "Pictures From a Revolution," a
documentation of her return to Nicaragua to follow up on people she
had photographed during the Sandinista Revolution.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.E4)
1991 The 4,000-square-mile
Miskito Coast Protected Area was approved by the Nicaraguan
government with the assistance of Bernard Nietschmann (d.2000 at
58).
(SFC, 2/1/00, p.B3)
1991 The US based Pennwalt
Corp. shut down its chlorine plant near Lake Managua and left 60
tons of mercury in the lake. Natural decomposition of the metal was
to take at least 50 years.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A6)
1991 In the US Elliott Abrams
pleaded guilty to 2 misdemeanor charges for keeping information from
Congress in the Iran-Contra affair (arms to Nicaragua).
(WSJ, 6/29/01, p. A1)
1992 Aug, In Nicaragua Norman
Meneses was sentenced to 25 years in prison for possession and
smuggling cocaine. He was released in Nov. 1997.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A10)
1992 Violeta Chamorro cancelled
a 30-year forest concession with a Taiwanese company after a public
outcry.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1992 In Nicaragua a slow
earthquake was followed by a 7.2 earthquake.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A11)
1992 The Cerro Negro volcano
erupted. It is part of a chain of 20 volcanoes known as the
Marrabios or Maribios.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A12)
1993 May, A massive nighttime
explosion rocked Managua, Nicaragua, and revealed not only a massive
weapons cache but also the bunker of an int’l. kidnapping ring that
relied on false papers and passports provided by the Sandinistas.
Tomas Borge, one of the 9 commandants of the Sandinistas, was seen
standing in his pajamas amidst the weapons cache.
(WSJ, 7/30/04, p.A11)
1993 May, Venezuela Pres.
Carlos Andres Perez was impeached. He was later charged with
misusing $17 million security fund for election debts and a lavish
inauguration. He said the money was used to help Violeta Chamorro
win the presidency of Nicaragua.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)(Econ, 1/8/11, p.86)
1993 Sep 9-1993 14, Hurricane
Gert caused 76 deaths. It affected Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and
Nicaragua.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1994 Nov 8-1994 21, Hurricane
Gordon caused 1,137 deaths in the Caribbean and eight in the United
States. The storm hit Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti before striking
Florida.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1995 The Pellas family found a
way to make money in sugar and rum under the rule of two
diametrically opposed regimes: the right-wing Somoza family and the
Marxist Sandinistas.
(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-10)
1995 Arnoldo Aleman resigned
the mayorship of Managua to run for the presidency with running mate
Enrique Bolanos for the right-wing Liberal Party.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)
1995 Ex-Sandinistas formed a
rebel group called the Andres Castro United Front (FUAC) in the
northern region of Siuna. They prevented local crime from marauding
ex-Contra rebels and demanded government compliance with promises of
food, land and jobs.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
1995 The Cerro Negro volcano
erupted.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A12)
1996 Feb 7, During a Central
America tour, Pope John Paul the Second received a warm welcome in
Nicaragua, his first visit there since 1983.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1996 Mar, The government
granted a 30-year, 153,000 acre concession to the Korean company,
Kum-Kyung, for a $20 mil. logging investment. The area overlaps the
land of 364 families of Awas Tingni Indians. The Sumos Indians
assembled a team of lawyers and fought the concession to the Supreme
Court. They then brought a complaint before the Organization of
American States for violations to fundamental Indian rights.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Apr, Four swarms of
Africanized killer bees occurred across Nicaragua and two people
died from stings.
(SFC, 4/6/96, p.A-13)
1996 Apr, Gen. Joaquin Cuadro,
head of the army, told journalists that the rearmados [re-armed
contra rebels] would be neutralized.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A7)
1996 May 31, A US citizen,
Cindy Garsoni, was kidnapped in the town of Wiwili, 350 miles
northeast of Managua. Its believed that a gang is using her to
pressure the government to install a voting center in the town of
Banco Grande before upcoming elections.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May, A Fishing Defense
Plan was created after pirates attacked 23 fishing boats in coastal
waters.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.A26)
1996 Jun 2, Sergio Palacios
Cruz and another contra rebel were killed near the village of Zapote
Dudu by the Nicaraguan army.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)
1996 Jun 20, Mediators began
negotiations for the release of a group of about 30 election workers
recently kidnapped by 15 re-armed contras and taken to Honduras.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A14)(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A13)
1996 Jun 21, 33 workers were
released in Nicaragua after being held for 2 days in Honduras.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 7-28, Hurricane Cesar
caused 51 deaths in Caribbean and Central America. The storm hit
Costa Rica, Curacao, Aruba, San Andres and Nicaragua.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1996 Jul 15, In Nicaragua 6
soldiers were killed and one injured in an ambush in central
Matagalpa province.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul, The Sandinista
Front’s Miami office was firebombed.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A12)
1996 Sep 11, There was a review
of the autobiography of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro: Dreams of the
Heart.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)
1996 Oct 20, Elections were
scheduled and former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega trailed by 5
points against Arnoldo Aleman, former mayor of Managua.
(WSJ, 10/9/96, p.A15)
1996 Oct 22, In Nicaragua the
final vote showed Aleman led Ortega 51 to 37.7%.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)
1997 Jan 10, Arnoldo Aleman
began a 5-year term as president.
(SFC, 1/11/96, p.C1)
1997 The US Nicaraguan
Adjustment and Central American Relief Act was passed. It required
civil war emigrants of the 1980s to face interviews in 1998 on their
eligibility to stay in the US.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.A14)
1998 cMar 1, Zoilamerica
Narvaez (30), the stepdaughter of Daniel Ortega, publicly accused
Her step father of sexual molestation since she was 11, during the
decade that he was president.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A15)
1998 Mar 13, There was a
riverboat accident on Lake Nicaragua that left at least 9 people
dead.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A6)
1998 Mar 20, It was reported
that Pres. Aleman planned to implement a program to register and
control int’l. nongovernmental aid agencies. This was viewed as an
attempt to prevent birth control programs opposed by the Catholic
Church.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar, Zoilamerica Ortega
Murillo (30), the stepdaughter of former Pres. Daniel Ortega, went
public with charges that Ortega had sexually abused her since she
was 11 years old.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A10)
1998 May, Officials in
Nicaragua entered a stolen 1975 Lear jet airplane and found high
levels of cocaine residue. The $3 million plane had been stolen Dec
16 from Fort Lauderdale and taken to Nicaragua. It was used by Jose
Francisco Guasch to transport government officials to various
destinations in Central America at no charge. Guasch slipped out of
the country.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Jun, A group of
ex-Sandinistas called the Revolutionary Armed Forces ambushed a
government army patrol in Matagalpa and killed 4 soldiers.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul, McDonalds returned to
Managua. It had left the country after the 1979 revolution.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 17, The foreign debt
was reported to be $6 billion.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 22-1998 Nov 9,
Hurricane Mitch was one of the Caribbean's deadliest storms ever
causing at least at least 9,000 deaths in Central America. The storm
hit Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama,
Jamaica, and Costa Rica. Later reports put the death toll in
Honduras to 6,076. In Nicaragua the deaths reached 4,000, in
Guatemala it was157, and in El Salvador it was 222. The storm parked
over Honduras and rain poured for 6 days straight. Aid of $66
mil was ordered from the US, $8 mil from the EU, $11.6 mil from
Spain along with pledges from other countries and private
organizations.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A9)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A14)(AP,
9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1998 Oct 30-1998 Nov 1,
Hurricane Mitch caused a major mud slide in Nicaragua when the
Casita Volcano crater lake in Posoltega overflowed. The death toll
was estimated in the thousands. In Honduras Mayor Cesar Castellanos
of Tegucigalpa and 3 others were killed in a helicopter crash while
surveying the flood damage where hundreds were estimated killed.
(SFC, 11/2/98, p.A1,17)(AP, 10/30/99)
1998 Dec 10, Nicaragua filed a
large damage suit against all major US tobacco companies. Guatemala
and Panama already had suits on file.
(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D3)
1998 Paul Rice founded
TransFairUSA in Oakland, Ca., in an effort to assist coffee growers
in Nicaragua. The organization, later renamed Fair Trade USA,
certified products as fair trade. Importers and retailers paid a
premium to farmers committed to producing goods in accordance with
standards that guarantee worker rights and environmental
sustainability.
(SFC, 11/20/08, p.A14)(SSFC, 4/15/12, p.D1)
1999 Mar 8, Pres. Clinton began
a 4-day tour of Central America and the region's efforts to recover
from Hurricane Mitch. Clinton toured Posoltega, Nicaragua, by the
Casita Volcano where a wall of mud took 2,000 lives.
(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 19, Off the Nicaragua
coast a lobster boat with 72 people sank. 64 were rescued and 18
were missing. All 18 were later recovered. A plane with 16 people
was presumed crashed in the Nicaragua jungle.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C2)(SFC, 7/23/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 6, The Cerro Negro
volcano spewed ash from 3 new openings and a maximum state of alert
was declared.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 3, Flooding in Central
America left 21 dead in Honduras, 10 dead in Nicaragua, and 11 dead
in El Salvador and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A13)
1999 A World Bank report said
close to 100% of Miskito lobster divers in Nicaragua showed symptoms
of neurological damage due to inadequate decompression.
(SSFC, 9/29/02, p.A3)
1999 Nicaragua filed the border
case against Honduras, saying international law gave it the right to
"explore and exploit" natural resources, including possible oil
reserves and fish stocks within a zone 200 miles from its coast.
Honduras claimed that a ruling by the Spanish king in 1906 set a
boundary projecting eastward along the 15th parallel from the mouth
of the Coco River. The UN resolved the dispute in 2007.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2000 Mar 16, In Nicaragua
Edmundo Olivas, former leader of the Andres Castro United Front - a
leftists, ex-Sandinista, paramilitary group, was ambushed and killed
near Boaco.
(SFC, 3/17/00, p.D2)
2000 Jul 6, A 5.9 earthquake
was centered in Laguna de Apoyo. At least 4 children died.
(SFC, 7/7/00, p.D6)(SFC, 7/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Jul 7, Another earthquake
struck and at least 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Nov 5, Municipal elections
were held.
(SFC, 11/7/00, p.B2)
2000 Nov 6, Herte Lewites, a
Sandinista candidate, was declared the winner of the mayoral race in
Managua. The Liberal Constitutionalist Party expected to win at
least 90 of the 154 mayoral races.
(SFC, 11/7/00, p.B2)
2001 Aug 18, It was reported
that a month-long drought ravaged Central America. Honduras lost 80%
of its basic grains, El Salvador lost 80% of grains in its eastern
provinces, Nicaragua lost 50% and Guatemala lost 80% of its beans in
the eastern provinces. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were
affected.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 30, A 5th day of rain
on Caribbean coast force 25,000 people from their homes in Honduras.
4 people were reported killed. Heavy damage was also reported from
Nicaragua with 12 people missing.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Nov 4, In presidential
elections former leader Daniel Ortega (54) faced Enrique Bolanos
(73) of the governing Constitutionalist Liberal Party. Enrique
Bolanos won the elections.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D1)(SFC, 11/5/01, p.A13)
2001 Nov 5, Enrique Bolanos
defeated former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua's
presidential election.
(AP, 11/5/02)
2002 Jan 2, Pablo Cuadra (89),
editor and poet, died. He helped found the literary movement “The
Vanguard.” His work included “Nicaragua Poems” (1934).
(SFC, 1/14/02, p.B5)
2002 Sep 12, In Nicaragua
prosecutors have filed new corruption charges against Amelia Aleman,
sister of former President Arnoldo Aleman, accusing her of
embezzling funds from a state-owned construction company and
ordering its work force to handle her private home-improvement
projects.
(AP, 9/13/02)
2002 Dec 11, A Nicaraguan judge
ordered three U.S. companies to pay $490 million to 583 banana
workers allegedly affected by the use of the pesticide Nemagon.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2003 Jan 20, An Organization of
American States report accused Nicaragua of negligence for
authorizing a deal that allowed 3,000 Kalashnikov rifles meant for
Panama to go to a Colombian paramilitary militia.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Mar 23, In Nicaragua the
party of President Enrique Bolanos abandoned him after months of
quarreling over the government's prosecution of his predecessor, a
fellow party member.
(AP, 3/24/03)
2003 Oct 15, In Nicaragua
radical students and teachers drove a truck through a gate and threw
rocks and gasoline bombs at police guarding the legislature as part
of a protest demanding more government spending for education.
(AP, 10/16/03)
2003 Nov 28, The US suspended
$49 million in aid payments to Nicaragua's judiciary, a day after
the court told America to stay out of its business. This followed
escalating tensions between Washington and Nicaragua after a
Sandinista judge released former president Arnoldo Aleman from
prison 2 days earlier to house arrest, citing health concerns.
(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Dec 7, A Nicaraguan judge
sentenced former Pres. Aleman to 20 years for diverting some $100
million in government funds to his campaigns.
(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 17, The Bush
administration reached a free-trade deal with El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua for immediate duty-free access to
half of all US farm exports and 80% of consumer goods.
(WSJ, 12/18/03, p.A1)
2004 Feb 10, In Nicaragua
Carlos Guadamuz, the former director of the state-run radio program,
was shot and killed, days after he said he received death threats.
In 1969, he had dressed up as a woman and tried to hijack a plane to
Cuba. He was then jailed for many years under former President
Anastasio Somoza Dabayle.
(AP, 2/10/04)
2004 Mar 19, In Nicaragua
police officers kicked down the door and led convicted former Pres.
Arnoldo Aleman (58) from house arrest at his ranch to a special cell
at a federal prison. Aleman was sentenced to 20 years in prison and
fined $10 million for illegally diverting some $100 million in
government funds to his party's election campaigns during his tenure
in office, which ended in January 2002.
(AP, 3/20/04)
2004 May 5, Nicaragua said its
army had destroyed 333 surface-to-air missiles at the urging of the
US and that the military planned to destroy another 333 SAM-7s in
late July. More than 2,000 Russian-made SAM-7s, shoulder-fired
missiles capable of taking down a plane, were left over from the
1980s Contra war.
(AP, 5/6/04)
2004 May 28, US officials and 5
Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua) signed a free trade pact (CAFTA), to be
later approved by Congress. The Dominican Republic would be included
later.
(SFC, 5/29/04, p.A4)
2004 Jul 3, In Nicaragua a week
of heavy rains caused floods and mudslides that claimed 25 lives.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Nov 7, Nicaragua held
municipal elections. The leftist Sandinista Front sought to
capitalize on the recent fracturing of a rival party amid ongoing
attempts to remove the country's president from office. Dionisio
Marenco (58) led the mayoral elections in Managua.
(AP, 11/8/04)(AP, 11/9/04)
2004 Nov 12, Pres. Enrique
Bolanos told US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Nicaragua
would completely eliminate a stockpile of hundreds of surface-to-air
missiles with no expectation of compensation from the US.
(AP, 11/12/04)
2004 Nov 25, Nicaragua's
congress voted to give itself the power to ratify and dismiss
Cabinet ministers and other officials in a deepening political
crisis touched off by anti-corruption efforts.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2005 Jan 14, Nicaragua’s
feuding leaders vowed to try to solve a political crisis, a day
after Congress passed a law restricting the powers of President
Enrique Bolanos.
(AP, 1/15/05)
2005 Jan 28, In Nicaragua
Eugenio Hernandez, who served as mayor of El Ayote from 1990 to
2000, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the Nov 9 slaying of
Maria Jose Bravo (26), a reporter who was investigating an electoral
dispute.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Mar 3, The seven Central
American nations (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama) agreed to create a rapid-response
force to combat drug trafficking, terrorism and other regional
threats.
(AP, 3/3/05)
2005 Mar 21, The US State
Department said the US is suspending about $2 million in military
assistance to Nicaragua because President Enrique Bolanos has not
followed through on a promise to destroy surface-to-air-missiles.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Apr 26, In Nicaragua
President Enrique Bolanos' attempt to address protesters demanding
his resignation was met with a barrage of rocks, which missed him
but injured his son.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 May 30, Nicaragua
President Enrique Bolanos issued an emergency decree, allowing him
to raise electric prices as demanded by producers.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Honduras
Central American leaders agreed to create a regional special forces
unit to fight drug trafficking, gang violence and terrorism within
their borders. The 2-day regional meeting included the presidents of
Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico,
Nicaragua, and Panama.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 28, The Concepcion
Volcano on the island of Ometepe in southwestern Lake Nicaragua
erupted at least four times. Concepcion has registered 17 eruptions
since 1883. The last was in 1999.
(AP, 7/28/05)
2005 Aug 18, In Nicaragua
Miskito Indian leaders asked government and human rights
investigators to probe allegations that at least 150 of their people
were killed under the Sandinistas during the 1980s.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 30, Nicaragua's
highest court granted former President Arnoldo Aleman conditional
release from house arrest, overturning the ruling of a previous
court.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Sep 6, Dominican Republic
legislators overwhelmingly approved a free-trade agreement with the
US and five Central American countries, rejecting arguments that the
pact would devastate the domestic sugar industry. The other five
countries are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and
Nicaragua. Costa Rica and Nicaragua had not yet ratified the pact.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 8, A UN agency said a
plague of rats caused by snake hunting is threatening thousands of
Miskito Indians with famine in a remote corner of Nicaragua's
jungle, while vampire bats are raising concerns about rabies. The
rat population has boomed in Miskito territories as people hunt more
snakes, the rats' natural predator, for food and for their skins.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 9, Latin American and
US officials stepped up pressure against legislative efforts to oust
Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos, whose anti-corruption campaign
has driven lawmakers of his own party into alliance with rivals.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Oct 5, Hurricane Stan
knocked down trees, ripped roofs off homes and washed out bridges in
southeastern Mexico, but it was the storms it helped spawn that were
far more destructive, killing more than 65 people in Central
America. Officials in El Salvador said 49 people had been killed,
mostly due to two days of mudslides sparked by rains. 9 people died
in Nicaragua, including six migrants believed to be Ecuadorians
killed in a boat accident. Four deaths were reported in Honduras,
three in Guatemala and one in Costa Rica.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 6-2005 Oct 8, In
Guatemala rescue workers searched for victims of a mudslide near
Lake Atitlan, a volcano-ringed lake popular with tourists. Panabaj
and Tzanchaz were entombed by a mudflow half a mile wide. The death
toll in the region from flooding sparked by Hurricane Stan soon
climbed to 617 with 42 dead in Mexico, 72 dead in El Salvador and 11
dead in Nicaragua.
(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05,
p.43)
2005 Oct 14, In Nicaragua
Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega announced that he has broken a
political pact with opponents of President Enrique Bolanos, a move
that could end a political crisis that threatened the country's
presidency.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 30, Hurricane Beta
pounded Nicaragua's east coast with heavy rains and powerful winds
as thousands sought protection in boarded-up homes or government
shelters.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2006 Feb 13, A transit strike
in Managua, Nicaragua, entered a 2nd week, as workers demanded that
the government subsidize their fuel and gas prices.
(SFC, 2/14/06, p.A5)
2006 May 4, Nicaraguan Foreign
Minister Norman Caldera asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to
butt out of his country's political affairs after Chavez signed a
favorable oil pact with dozens of leftist Nicaraguan mayors.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 May 5, In Nicaragua riot
police stormed a government building and evicted about 200 striking
doctors who invaded it hours earlier in an effort to force President
Enrique Bolanos to restart wage negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/06)
2006 Jul 2, In Nicaragua Herty
Lewites (b.1939), former mayor of Managua (2000-2004) and recent
presidential candidate, died of a heart attack. He broke with the
leftist Sandinista party to run against its leader Daniel Ortega.
(http://tinyurl.com/omz5w)(AP, 7/3/06)(Econ,
11/4/06, p.45)
2006 Sep 11, Nicaragua
officials said at least 35 people have died from drinking
methanol-laced sugarcane liquor in the past week and nearly 600 have
fallen ill, overwhelming hospitals in Nicaragua's worst health
crisis in recent history.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Jul 11, Central American
presidents agreed on a plan to ease border controls and install a
common customs system on the way to negotiating an eventual
free-trade agreement with the EU. The agreement signed by Panama,
Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize
would allow residents to cross borders without passports or visas.
(AP, 7/11/06)
2006 Oct 2, Nicaragua lobbied
for support for an $18 billion canal linking the Pacific and
Atlantic, saying a second international waterway is needed to handle
the world's booming shipping business.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Nicaragua
defense ministers from across the Americas agreed to create an
international land-mine removal center and many called for joint
military missions for disaster relief and peacekeeping worldwide.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 26, Nicaragua's
Congress voted to ban all abortions, including those that could save
a mother's life.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Nov 5, In Nicaragua
Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega makes his fourth attempt to return
to the presidency.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 6, In Nicaragua Daniel
Ortega appeared headed back to the presidency 16 years after a
U.S.-backed rebellion helped oust the former Marxist revolutionary.
Partial results and the country's top electoral watchdog indicated
he had easily defeated four opponents.
(AP, 11/6/06)
2006 Nov 8, Former Marxist
Daniel Ortega, who battled a US-backed insurgency in the 1980s,
returned to Nicaragua's presidency calling for reconciliation,
stability and a renewed fight against poverty. Ortega won 38% of the
vote, a 9 point lead over Eduardo Montealegre.
(AP, 11/8/06)(Econ, 11/11/06, p.43)
2006 Nov 17, Nicaragua’s
President Enrique Bolanos signed a bill banning abortion in all
cases, including when a woman's life is endangered, despite
opposition from doctors, women's rights groups and diplomats.
(AP, 11/18/06)
2006 Nov 19, In northeastern
Nicaragua a giant tree fell on an evangelical church while Rev.
Larry Wayne Poll (64), an American pastor, was delivering his
sermon, killing 11 people including the clergyman.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 21, In Nicaragua Doris
Jimenez (25) was murdered in San Juan. Her boyfriend Eric Volz (27),
an American real estate broker working in Managua, was convicted of
her murder despite evidence that placed him in Managua at the time
her death. In early 2007 Volz began a 30 year sentence as he waited
for an appeal.
(WSJ, 3/17/07, p.A14)
2007 Jan 10, In Nicaragua
former revolutionary Daniel Ortega took office in a ceremony
attended by more than a dozen world leaders.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 14, In Nicaragua
Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad, touring Latin America in search of an
alliance of "revolutionary countries," said the US is trying to hide
its failures in Iraq by accusing his nation of funding insurgents
there.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 22, Leftist Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega, who took power earlier this month, said
that he was slashing his salary and those of Cabinet members.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 24, Nicaraguan
lawmakers approved a bill backed by President Daniel Ortega to
create "people's councils" that some fear will resemble the defense
committees that operated under the Sandinista government of the
1980s.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Feb 5, The US insisted
that Nicaragua destroy hundreds of Soviet-made surface-to-air
missiles after President Daniel Ortega said the weapons were needed
for the country's defense.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 17, Former Nicaraguan
President Arnoldo Aleman acknowledged for the first time that he
spent $1.8 million in government money on jewelry and meals, mostly
while he was abroad seeking aid following the devastation of
Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2007 Mar 16, The Inter-American
Development Bank announced it would forgive $4.4 billion in debt
owed by five of the poorest countries in Latin America and the
Caribbean. The bank excused the foreign debts of Bolivia, Honduras,
Nicaragua, Haiti and Guyana in an announcement ahead of its annual
meeting.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 16, In Nicaragua
former president Arnoldo Aleman, convicted of money laundering and
embezzlement, was freed from the conditions of his parole and
allowed to travel around the country. Critics said was a ploy by
President Daniel Ortega to weaken the opposition.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Apr 16, Nicaraguan police
announced the arrest of more than two dozen local members of
Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel but said they were still
seeking the group's leader.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 28, President Hugo
Chavez said that Venezuela is ready to become the sole energy
supplier to Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti, presenting the
countries with his most generous offer yet of oil-funded diplomacy
in the region.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 May 12, A pregnant
Nicaraguan teenager (17) shot Kenneth A. Kinzel (53), her American
lover, and enlisted her siblings to help dismember the body. She
shot her live-in boyfriend because he threatened to kill her.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 17, Nicaraguan said it
has re-established formal diplomatic relations with North Korea and
rejected criticism of the Asian country's nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 29, In Nicaragua US
embassy confirmed that an American woman, Lemon E. Groves (49), had
died of injuries suffered when she was attacked in her home in the
Nicaraguan city of Grenada last week.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 6, President Hugo
Chavez called for the creation of a common defense pact between
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. The leftist Latin American
bloc announced the creation of a development bank to finance joint
projects.
(AP, 6/7/07)
2007 Sep 4, Hurricane Felix
roared ashore as a fearsome Category 5 storm, the first time in
recorded history that two top-scale storms have made landfall in the
same season. The storm hit near the swampy Nicaragua-Honduras
border, home to thousands of stranded Miskito Indians dependent on
canoes to make their way to safety. Some 332 people left dead or
missing.
(AP, 9/4/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.45)
2007 Sep 6, In Nicaragua the
death toll from Hurricane Felix rose to more than 40 as rescuers
searched the seas and civil defense workers reached isolated
communities devastated by the Category 5 storm. Scores of others
remained missing.
(AP, 9/6/07)
2007 Sep 7, In Nicaragua
rescuers scooped bodies from the open sea as the death toll from
Hurricane Felix neared 100.
(AP, 9/7/07)
2007 Sep 25, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega accused the US of imposing a worldwide
dictatorship and defended the right of Iran and North Korea to
pursue nuclear technology in a speech before the UN General Assembly
meeting.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Oct 8, The UN's highest
court in the Hague granted Honduras sovereignty over four Caribbean
islands in its decades-old dispute with Nicaragua, and carved up
rich fishing grounds and offshore exploration concessions for oil
and gas. Nicaragua filed the case in 1999, saying international law
gave it the right to "explore and exploit" natural resources,
including possible oil reserves and fish stocks within a zone 200
miles from its coast. Honduras claimed that a ruling by the Spanish
king in 1906 set a boundary projecting eastward along the 15th
parallel from the mouth of the Coco River.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Dec 5, Six judges on
Nicaragua's Supreme Court threw out a law meant to block
neighborhood councils that will report directly to President Daniel
Ortega. But other judges call the ruling itself illegal.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 17, A Nicaraguan
appeals court overturned the conviction of Eric Volz, a US man
sentenced to 30 years in prison in the killing of his Nicaraguan
girlfriend. Volz (28) was freed on Dec 21 and quickly left
Nicaragua.
(AP, 12/18/07)(AP, 12/22/07)
2008 Jan 26, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez and allies Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba,
members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA),
launched a regional development bank intended to strengthen their
alliance and promote independence from US-backed lenders like the
World Bank as Chavez hosted a summit with ALBA leaders.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Mar 6, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega announced that he is breaking off relations
with Colombia because of his country's opposition to the Colombian
raid on a guerrilla base in Ecuador.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 May 8, A US diplomatic
cable, unveiled by WikiLeaks in 2010, described Nicaragua’s Pres.
Ortega as a "willing follower" of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The report said Ortega uses Venezuelan oil money to fund Sandinista
campaigns and that "several unconfirmed reports indicate that Ortega
will have as much as 500 million dollars at his disposal over the
course of 2008.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2008 May 30, Tropical Storm
Alma weakened to a tropical depression after slamming into
Nicaragua's coast the day before, forcing tens of thousand of people
to evacuate and flooding low-lying areas before pushing into
neighboring Honduras.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 Jul 17, Six prominent
members of Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC met this day with
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega according to Nicaragua’s La
Prensa newspaper. The members of the guerrilla organization arrived
in Nicaragua in a Cessna airplane from Venezuela. Both Ortega and
Venezuela denied the newspaper report.
(http://colombiareports.com/2008/07/23/ortega-met-with-farc-delegation-says-la-prensa/)
2008 Sep 24, In Nicaragua
Russia's ambassador to Managua said that his country will replace
the Nicaraguan army's aging weaponry.
(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Nov 8, In Guatemala 15
bodies were found after a bus burned on an unpaved road in a
mountain valley about 90 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital,
Guatemala City. The bus had originated in Nicaragua and all the
bodies had been shot before being set on fire. On March 31, 2009,
Investigators in Guatemala announced that a drug gang was
responsible for the grisly killings of 15 Nicaraguans and a Dutch
man aboard the bus.
(AP, 11/10/08)(AP, 4/1/09)
2008 Nov 9, Nicaragua held
municipal elections. In the months before the elections Mr. Ortega’s
government maneuvered to disqualify two opposition parties from the
ballot.
(Econ, 11/15/08, p.45)
2008 Nov 10, In Nicaragua the
ruling Sandinista party (FSLN) claimed victory in nationwide
municipal elections, but rival parties said the early returns were
misleading and the US government expressed concern about the vote.
(AP, 11/11/08)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)
2008 Nov 18, Thousands of
supporters of Nicaragua's leftist ruling party armed with rocks
tried to block an opposition march on the capital to protest alleged
vote fraud, setting off clashes that injured at least five people.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 22, Nicaragua's
opposition pressed on with a bid to cancel disputed elections
despite a presidential decree declaring that effort
unconstitutional.
(AP, 11/23/08)
2008 Nov 25, The US said it
will freeze about $64 million in anti-poverty aid to Nicaragua amid
accusations that local elections were fraudulent.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Nov 29, Georgia said it is
cutting diplomatic relations with Nicaragua after the Central
American nation recognized the breakaway regions of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia.
(AP, 11/29/08)
2008 Nicaragua’s population was
about 5.8 million with a third living in Managua.
(Econ, 11/15/08,
p.45)(www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nu.html)
2009 Jan 16, Nicaragua’s
Supreme Court overturned former President Arnoldo Aleman's
conviction and 20-year prison sentence for money laundering, ending
a long-running legal saga that has been colored by Nicaragua's
political landscape. Hours later Mr. Aleman’s Liberal Constitutional
Party ended a filibuster in the National Assembly and voted to let
the Sandinistas run the legislature’s affairs.
(AP, 1/16/09)(Econ, 2/21/09, p.40)
2009 Mar 14, Nicaragua’s
President Daniel Ortega accused the US of "taking bread" from the
poor by holding back aid. The US said this week it will continue
delaying some $64 million in development aid because of an election
dispute.
(AP, 3/14/09)
2009 Apr 16, Thailand’s former
PM Thaksin was reported to have received a Nicaraguan passport.
(WSJ, 4/16/09, p.A1)
2009 May 15, Nicaraguans awoke
to find that the Central Bank, moving in the night as stealthily as
the Tooth Fairy, had snuck a new legal tender into their economy
while the markets were sound asleep.
(www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900518,00.html?xid=rss-world-cnn)
2009 Jun 8, In Peru indigenous
leader Alberto Pizango sought refuge at Nicaragua's embassy in Lima.
Nicaragua granted Pizango political asylum but he remained at the
embassy, awaiting Peru's agreement to allow him safe passage out of
the country.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 29, Presidents from
around Latin America gathered in Nicaragua for meetings on how to
resolve the coup in Honduras, the fist in Central America in at
least 16 years, while the European Union offered to help start talks
between the two sides. Security forces used tear gas and rubber
bullets to scatter protesters, who hurled rocks and bottles as they
retreated. At least 38 protesters were detained. Zelaya said that
Organization of American States Secretary-General Jose Miguel
Insulza had agreed to accompany him back to Honduras.
(AP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Nicaragua
Managua Mayor Alexis Arguello (b.1952), a three-time world boxing
champion, was found dead at his home. The La Prensa newspaper
reported he was found with a gunshot wound to the chest in an
apparent suicide.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 13, The UN’s highest
court set travel rules for the Nicaraguan river that borders Costa
Rica, affirming freedom for Costa Rican boats while upholding
Nicaragua's right to regulate traffic.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 24, Ousted Honduras
President Manuel Zelaya stood on the edge of his country and called
on his fellow Hondurans to resist the coup-installed government. He
then quickly retreated back to Nicaraguan territory, saying he
wanted to avoid bloodshed and give negotiations another try.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 27, Amnesty Int’l.
launched a campaign to repeal Nicaragua’s 2006 total ban on
abortion.
(SFC, 7/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Aug 2, It was reported
that illegal blast fishing had become rampant in Nicaragua and was
spreading across Central America’s Pacific coast.
(SSFC, 8/2/09, p.A8)
2009 Aug 25, Nicaragua said it
will reroute the San Juan River on the border with Costa Rica. The
river has been at the center of a lengthy dispute between the two
Central American countries. The UN’s highest court last month set
travel rules for the San Juan River, affirming freedom for Costa
Rican boats to navigate the waterway while upholding Nicaragua's
right to regulate traffic. The judgment ended a four-year legal
battle. Under an 1858 treaty, the entire river belongs to Nicaragua
up to the Costa Rican bank, but Costa Rican ships have freedom of
navigation for commerce.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Nov 5, Tropical Storm Ida
grew to hurricane force just off Nicaragua's coast, forcing more
than 2,000 people to flee their homes and knocking out power to some
parts of the impoverished region.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2010 Apr 13, Nicaragua removed
and destroyed its last anti-personnel mine. On June 22 the Geneva
International Center for Humanitarian Demining, or GICHD, said
Nicaragua has become the last country in Central America to clear
its territory of the banned weapon.
(AP, 6/22/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Nicaragua the
opposition Liberal Constitutionalist party accused President Daniel
Ortega of usurping power by issuing a decree extending the terms of
two Supreme Court justices whose terms have ended.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 May 5, The US federal
government said it will allow people from Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Honduras to stay another 18 months in the US with temporary legal
status. A new expiration date was set for Jan 5, 2012. The temporary
legal status has been extended repeatedly since Hurricane Mitch
devastated the region in 1998.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 17, Nicaragua’s navy
chief, Capt. Roger Gonzalez Diaz, said Mexico's La Familia cartel is
moving heavily into Central America and dominates much of the drug
trade through the region. He said officials would take tough
measures to prevent the trade.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 Jun 16, Ruben Dario
Granda, the brother of a top Colombian guerrilla leader, arrived in
Managua, where president Daniel Ortega had granted him political
asylum earlier this month. Granda is the brother of Rodrigo Granda,
known as the "foreign minister" of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jul 2, A Panamanian court
dropped money laundering charges against former Nicaraguan President
Arnoldo Aleman. The court argued the charges against Aleman were
similar to charges he has faced in Nicaragua.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Nicaragua
William Adolfo Cortez of Texas and his wife Jane, an American couple
wanted in Panama in the March 21 death of a US woman, were arrested
by the Nicaraguan army at the border with Costa Rica.
(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Aug 11, Nicaraguan Supreme
Court justices, who support President Daniel Ortega, picked seven
lawyers from Ortega's Sandinista party to replace opposition judges
who have been boycotting court sessions.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Sep 13, Nicaragua
celebrated a special national holiday called by the Sandinista
Party. As the country was on vacation the party ordered the printing
of a rewritten (but bogus) constitution.
(Econ, 11/13/10,
p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/29lqnzq)
2010 Sep 22, In NYC Cesar
Mercado (34), who had worked at the Nicaraguan consulate as acting
consul general, was found dead in his apartment in the Bronx by the
driver who went to pick him up to attend the meeting. On Oct 29 a
medical examiner’s report said he had committed suicide.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Sep 25, Tropical Storm
Matthew roared over Central America, dumping heavy rains on
disaster-prone parts of Honduras and Nicaragua and leading to the
evacuation of thousands amid fears of flooding and mudslides.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Oct 19, Nicaragua health
officials reported 17 deaths and 600 suspected cases of
leptospirosis in the past month. Most of the cases were in Leon and
Chinandega.
(www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=123022)
2010 Oct 22, Costa Rica sent
some 70 police reinforcements to the border area after receiving
reports of Nicaraguan soliders on its soil. This was one day after
Costa Rica formally complained to Nicaragua's ambassador about the
dredging in the San Juan River. Nicaragua's army chief of staff,
Gen. Julio Aviles, later said the soldiers were on the Nicaraguan
side of the border as part of an anti-drug operation.
(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 13, Costa Rica boasted
of a "diplomatic victory" in its border spat with Nicaragua after
the Organization of American States approved a resolution calling
for removal of soldiers and security forces from a disputed area
along the San Juan River.
(AP, 11/13/10)
2010 In Nicaragua the income
per head was about $2,600, the lowest in Central America.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)
2011 Jan 11, Costa Rica accused
Nicaragua of flagrantly breaching international law by putting
troops on disputed land along the river that forms the two nations'
border and asked the highest U.N. court to order their immediate
withdrawal.
(AP, 1/11/11)
2011 Jan 13, Nicaragua
suspended three federal judges and put them under investigation for
ordering the release of 10 alleged drug traffickers.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2011 Feb 12, In Nicaragua Jose
Gabriel Garmendia, a former Contra rebel, was killed by the
Nicaraguan army, which described him as a common criminal. He had
fought Nicaragua's government in the 1980s and launched another
uprising against President Daniel Ortega because of Ortega's plans
to seek re-election.
(AP, 9/24/11)
2011 Mar 8, The International
Court of Justice ordered both Costa Rica and Nicaragua to keep all
military, police and civilian personnel out of a disputed border
region along the San Juan river that separates them.
(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Nicaragua at
least four police officers were injured in clashes as some 1000
demonstrators protested President Daniel Ortega's bid to win
re-election.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Jun 22, In Guatemala the
World Bank unveiled a billion-dollar plan to fund security measures
in Central America, amid other hundred-million-dollar pledges from
donors bidding to cut a wave of drug gang-related violence sweeping
the region. The announcement came as leaders of Belize, Costa Rica,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama attended the
Central American Security Conference aiming to curb crime fueled by
a spillover from Mexico's war on drug cartels.
(AFP, 6/22/11)
2011 Aug 24, In Nicaragua
Catholic priest Marlon de Jesus Garcia was laid to rest. His body
was found earlier this week in La Concepcion, a city south of
Managua. Police said he died of asphyxiation and were treating the
investigation as a homicide case. The priest was a critic of the
government.
(AP, 8/24/11)
2011 Oct 14, Heavy rains
generated by a low-pressure system hammered Central America for a
third day. Mudslides and swollen rivers have already killed 36
people. At least 21 people have been killed in Guatemala, 6 in
Honduras, and 4 in Nicaragua.
(AP, 10/14/11)
2011 Oct 20, Heavy rains
generated by a low-pressure system hammered Central America for 10
days. Mudslides and swollen rivers killed at least 105 people
including 38 in Guatemala, 34 in El Salvador, 15 in Honduras, 13 in
Nicaragua and 5 in Costa Rica.
(AP, 10/20/11)
2011 Nov 6, Nicaragua held
presidential elections. On Nov 8 Daniel Ortega was declared the
winner as he led with 63% of the votes, compared with 31% for his
nearest challenger, Fabio Gadea. International election observers
reported problems with access to voting stations.
(AP, 11/7/11)(AP, 11/8/11)
2011 Nov 8, In Nicaragua two
clashes among rival political groups killed four people and injured
12 following the Nov 6 presidential election.
(AP, 11/10/11)
2012 Jan 12, In Honduras a
decomposed, bullet-riddled body was found near the border with
Nicaragua. The body of Santos Guadalupe Borge was soon identified as
the purported leader of a shadowy Nicaraguan resistance group.
(AP, 1/13/12)
2012 Feb 11, It was reported
that a mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of
Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and
Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic
kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists
say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as
southern Mexico and as far south as Panama. Researchers suspected
chronic dehydration. Elsy Brizuela, a doctor who works with an El
Salvadoran project to treat workers and research the epidemic,
discounts the dehydration theory and insists "the common factor is
exposure to herbicides and poisons." In Nicaragua, the number of
annual deaths from chronic kidney disease more than doubled in a
decade, from 466 in 2000 to 1,047 in 2010. In El Salvador there was
a similar jump, from 1,282 in 2000 to 2,181 in 2010.
(AP, 2/11/12)
2012 Mar 31, In Nicaragua
businessman Henry Farinas and six others were accused of
trafficking, money laundering and ties to organized crime. Farinas
was the apparent target of an attack that claimed the life of
Argentine folk singer Facundo Cabral last year.
(AP, 3/31/12)
2012 Apr 30, Tomas Borge
Martinez (81), the last surviving founder of Nicaragua’s Sandinista
front, died in Managua.
(SFC, 5/2/12, p.A4)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Nicaragua
Return to home