Nicaraguan Community Research Articles

Heterogeneity of hunting ability and nutritional status among domestic dogs in lowland Nicaragua

In past and modern human societies, dogs have played an important role as hunting companions. Given considerable ethnographic evidence that dogs vary in their hunting abilities, this paper addresses the effects of key demographic variables, namely age and sex, on the amount of harvested game that dogs contribute in an indigenous Nicaraguan community. Controlling for variation in the time spent potentially hunting, male dogs and older dogs are significantly associated with greater harvests. These results may account for documented preferences for males in both archaeological and ethnographic contexts. Among societies in which dogs are used both as hunting companions and sources of food, the age-related delay in peak hunting ability also suggests a tradeoff that might explain the consumption of dogs shortly after they have reached adult size. Informant rankings of two cohorts of dogs indicate that residents of the community exhibit high agreement about the relative abilities of the dogs, and the rankings indicate that dogs from the same household exhibit comparable skill. There is little evidence that talented, highly-ranked dogs are provided a more nutritious diet, as measured by nitrogen-based and carbon-based isotopic analysis of hair samples. Overall, although dogs can be quite advantageous as hunting companions, this research suggests that the heterogeneity of hunting ability combines with the high mortality of dogs to impose risks on households that depend on dogs as a source of harvested meat.

Tracking progress towards equitable child survival in a Nicaraguan community: neonatal mortality challenges to meet the MDG 4

BackgroundNicaragua has made progress in the reduction of the under-five mortality since 1980s. Data for the national trends indicate that this poor Central American country is on track to reach the Millennium Development Goal-4 by 2015. Despite this progress, neonatal mortality has not showed same progress. The aim of this study is to analyse trends and social differentials in neonatal and under-five mortality in a Nicaraguan community from 1970 to 2005.MethodsTwo linked community-based reproductive surveys in 1993 and 2002 followed by a health and demographic surveillance system providing information on all births and child deaths in urban and rural areas of León municipality, Nicaragua. A total of 49 972 live births were registered.ResultsA rapid reduction in under-five mortality was observed during the late 1970s (from 103 deaths/1000 live births) and the 1980s, followed by a gradual decline to the level of 23 deaths/1000 live births in 2005. This community is on track for the Millennium Development Goal 4 for improved child survival. However, neonatal mortality increased lately in spite of a good coverage of skilled assistance at delivery. After some years in the 1990s with a very small gap in neonatal survival between children of mothers of different educational levels this divide is increasing.ConclusionsAfter the reduction of high under-five mortality that coincided with improved equity in survival in this Nicaraguan community, the current challenge is the neonatal mortality where questions of an equitable perinatal care of good quality must be addressed.

Globalization and Free Trade Agreements: A Profile of a Nicaraguan Factory Community

This study examines a Nicaraguan community 3 years after the signing of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to learn how families, living in a community constructed near a US-owned factory, maintained resilience under growing negative conditions. These conditions relate to family dislocation, loss of support systems, lack of childcare, safe water, and food security, in addition to labor injustices. Although maintaining relatively high scores on a baseline resilience test, these families and others like them in Central America, demonstrate a struggle for survival in a globalized context.

Legal Empowerment of the Poor in Nicaragua

In Nicaragua – one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere - a new type of intervention has been developed to facilitate access to justice for the rural poor.Facilitadores Judiciales are volunteers, selected by the community, who assist judges and other legal authorities in effecting the rule of law in their area. One of their tasks is to facilitate mediations. They work under the supervision of the local judge. This intervention offers a new way to integrate informal alternative dispute resolution operated by representatives of the local communities with the formal justice sector. In this way, it brings the rule of law much closer to the homes of the Nicaraguans. Another remarkable aspect is that the facilitators work on a voluntary basis, so the intervention is low cost, making it scalable and much more affordable for developing countries than other access to justice interventions such as subsidised legal aid and extra funding for state courts. The “Programa de Facilitadores Judiciales” now covers all rural communities in Nicaragua, is being extended to urban areas, and has been introduced in Paraguay (2008) and Panama (2009). This paper explains the intervention and the program supporting it, reports the available data about impact, and explains how this intervention fits in with current theory about access to justice and dispute system design. It concludes with listing its possible strengths and weaknesses.

Indoor Air Pollution Concentrations Assessed During the Baseline Year of an Improved Cookstove Intervention in a Rural Nicaraguan Community

ISEE-0842 Background and Objective: Cooking in many developing countries usually consists of burning solid fuels over open fires or in traditional stoves that emit high levels of air pollutants. Some previous studies have relied on crude proxies of exposure, such as stove type. However, large variations in air pollutant concentrations have been reported within stove types. Methods: During the summer of 2008, we conducted the baseline assessment of an improved cookstove intervention among 119 households using traditional cookstoves in Granada (El Fortin neighborhood), Nicaragua. Indoor carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations were assessed for approximately 48 hours in each home. Several pollutant metrics were calculated, including 48-hr average, 24-hr average (day 1 and day 2), and 1-hr maximum (day 1 and day 2). Results: Mean 48-hr concentrations were 1478.3 μg/m3 (standard deviation [SD], 2270.7) and 26.6 ppm (SD, 24.5) for PM2.5 and CO, respectively. Mean 24-hr PM2.5 concentrations for day 1 and day 2 were 1487.1 μg/m3 and 1456.7 μg/m3, respectively; CO concentrations for day 1 and day 2 were 26.3 ppm and 26.7 ppm, respectively. The 1-hr maximum PM2.5 levels for day 1 and day 2 were 8701.5 μg/m3 and 8372.7 μg/m3, respectively; 1-hr maximum CO levels for day 1 and day 2 were 122.2 ppm and 129.8 ppm, respectively. Mean 24-hr PM2.5 concentrations for day 1 and day 2 were moderately correlated (Spearman correlation coefficients [r] = 0.71); r = 0.87 for day 1 and day 2 mean 24-hr CO concentrations. PM2.5 and CO were correlated with each other (48-hr mean, r = 0.77). Conclusion: Elevated air pollution concentrations with large variations were demonstrated among households using traditional stoves. Baseline exposures will be examined in relation to follow-up concentrations assessed during the summer of 2009 approximately 9 months after the introduction of the improved stoves.

Building social capital in post-conflict communities: Evidence from Nicaragua

Studies of social capital have focused on the static relationship between social capital and health, governance and economic conditions. This study is a first attempt to evaluate interventions designed to improve the levels of social capital in post-conflict communities in Nicaragua and to relate those increases to health and governance issues. The two-year study involved a baseline household survey of approximately 200 households in three communities in Nicaragua, the implementation of systematic interventions designed to increase social capital in two of the locales (with one control group), and a second household survey administered two years after the baseline survey. We found that systematic interventions promoting management and leadership development were effective in improving some aspects of social capital, in particular the cognitive attitudes of trust in the communities. Interventions were also linked to higher levels of civic participation in governance processes. As in other empirical studies, we also found that higher levels of social capital were significantly associated with some positive health behaviors. The behavioral/structural components of social capital (including participation in groups and social networks) were associated with more desirable individual health behaviors such as the use of modern medicine to treat children's respiratory illnesses. Attitudinal components of social capital were positively linked to community health behaviors such as working on community sanitation campaigns. The findings presented here should be of interest to policy makers interested in health policy and social capital, as well as those working in conflict-ridden communities in the developing world.

Contextual Empowerment: The Impact of Health Brigade Involvement on the Women of Miraflor, Nicaragua

This qualitative, descriptive study investigated how working with Health Brigades influenced a sense of empowerment and a resultant shifting of gender-power relationships for women in a rural Nicaraguan community. A convenience sample of 10 women aged 18 to 65 years who had worked with the Brigades were interviewed. Open and axial coding were used to determine core categories and theoretical concepts. From this emerged a grounded theory of contextual empowerment. Key findings included that within this collectivist culture, the concept of contextual empowerment includes psychosocial and structural dimensions. Implications for nursing practice include the impact of unintentional role modeling.

Measuring dimensions of social capital: Evidence from surveys in poor communities in Nicaragua

A dominant perspective in social capital research emphasizes a “structural” dimension of social capital, consisting of network connections, and a “cognitive” dimension, consisting of attitudes toward trust. Correspondingly, membership in organizations (i.e., membership density) and general trust in people (i.e., social trust) are two indicators commonly used to relate structural and cognitive social capital, respectively, to a variety of health and other outcomes. This study analyzed relationships between membership density, social trust and a more comprehensive set of household-level social capital indicators as well as selected civic and health behaviors in the context of Nicaragua. The sample of respondents was drawn from 6 communities and interviews were conducted with 482 heads of households, resulting in data on 2882 individuals. Factor analyses suggest that membership density loaded strongly (loading=0.81) onto an “organizational participation” factor which contained a number of qualitative characteristics of involvement, including bridging social capital. Further, this structural dimension of social capital appears to be a construct consisting of more than just informal social networks. However, factor analyses suggest that distinctions between levels of trust are warranted in Nicaragua: social trust loaded weakly (loading=0.32) onto a factor characterized by institutional trust in a factor analysis of trust items, and well below 0.30 in a factor analysis of both structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital. A nuanced understanding of these household-level indicators of structural and cognitive social capital held implications for civic and health behaviors. While membership density and institutional trust were positively related to an index of political engagement, social trust was either not related or negatively associated (among urban respondents). Similarly, social trust was associated with over 50% reduced odds of an additional childhood vaccinations whereas institutional trust was associated with increased odds (OR=1.7) of an additional vaccination. The findings highlight the complexity of social capital and the importance of exploring more comprehensive indicators.

The epidemiology of moderate and severe injuries in a Nicaraguan community: A household-based survey

Although injuries constitute a major public health problem worldwide, the magnitude and nature of this problem is difficult to establish in low-income settings due to the lack of valid and representative data. In Nicaragua, several parallel studies have been carried out attempting to assess levels and patterns of injury using various sources of information. The objective of this study was to describe the magnitude and profile of moderate and severe injuries in a well-defined community in Nicaragua. The study was conducted using a household-based survey design. Randomized cluster sampling provided information from 10,797 households (63,886 inhabitants). The outcomes included fatal and non-fatal injuries registered during a recall period of 6 weeks. Seven percent of all injuries were classified as moderate or severe. The estimated annual incidence rate of moderate/severe injuries was 27.6 per 1000 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 26.4-29.2], while the mortality and impairment rates were 108.9 (95% CI: 83.5-134.4) and 95.3 (95% CI: 71.4-119.2) per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. Home and traffic areas were the main environments associated with injury occurrence. The most affected groups were the elderly, children and males. No differences were found between urban and rural areas. Only 9% of all cases, including minor injuries, sought hospital treatment. The main causes of non-fatal injuries were falls, traffic and cuts, whereas fatalities were largely associated with intentional injuries. For every death due to injury, there was one permanent disability, 25 moderate/severe injuries and 354 minor injuries. This study provides a broad description of injury magnitudes and patterns in a defined Nicaraguan community, and demonstrates the aggregate injury pyramid of the same community. It also identifies the issue of severity and concludes with a recommendation to apply different criteria of severity. Our results support the call for a careful evaluation of injury data sources and severity scores when planning injury prevention programmes.

Politics or Economics? International Migration during the Nicaraguan Contra War

The issue of whether Central Americans in the United States are 'political' or 'economic' migrants has been widely debated, yet little empirical research has informed the controversy. Earlier studies have relied primarily on cross-sectional aggregate data. In order to overcome these limitations we draw on recent surveys conducted in five Nicaraguan communities by the Latin American Migration Project. Using retrospective data, we reconstruct a history of a family's migration to the United States and Costa Rica from the date of household formation to the survey date and link these data to national-level data on GDP and Contra War violence. While out migration to both Costa Rica and the United States is predicted by economic trends, US-bound migration was more strongly linked to the level of Contra War violence independent of economic motivations, especially in an interactive model that allows for a higher wartime effect of social networks. We conclude that elevated rates of Nicaraguan migration to the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s were a direct result of the US-Contra intervention. The approach deployed here - which relates to the timing of migration decisions to macro-level country trends - enables us to address the issue of political versus economic motivations for migration with more precision than prior work.

La pauvreté des exploitations familiales nicaraguayennes : retard technique ou manque de terres ?

Sébastien Bainville, Rolando Mena, Elisabeth Rasse-Mercat, Isabelle Tou- ZARD — Family farming poverty in Nicaragua : Technical delay or lack of land ? This study, based on an analysis of farming in ten Nicaraguan communities, presents three main categories depending on land held, salaries and labour force involved : farm work is either carried out solely by hired labour, shared between farmers and extra hired labour, or entirely done by farmers and their families. The comparison of the technical and economical achievements of these groups shows the interest in family farming : it is often more productive and offers more rural employments. This article thus stresses the need to support and maintain small farms, although increasing liberalism seriously threatens favourable land policies.

Contested Discourses on National Identity: Representing Nicaraguan Immigration to Costa Rica

This article explores the ways in which the immigration of Nicaraguans to Costa Rica is represented by Costa Rican institutions and individuals through public discourses and everyday life. Three discourses are considered. First, intellectual claims that immigration poses a threat to Costa Rican national identity, whereby intellectuals portray ‘Costa Rica in crisis’ due to immigration. Second, fictional works seek to represent issues regarding the Nicaraguan community in innovative ways, being open‐ended and including diverse voices. Third, stories written by Nicaraguan children are discussed in view of exploring how hostility towards immigration interpellates them, who face the challenge of negotiating their identities with their peers in everyday life. The article ends by asking for a politics able to defend public institutions and public investment, able to forge networks of solidarity with immigrant communities.

Land cover assessment of indigenous communities in the BOSAWAS region of Nicaragua

Jonathan H. Smith [2] INTRODUCTION In some regions of the world, indigenous peoples still retain control over the lands and resources they and their ancestors have utilized for centuries. However, such control is becoming increasingly rare, as these lands are often coveted by outsiders because of their rich biodiversity and valuable natural resources (Dasmann, 1991; Stevens, 1997). Conservationists are interested in establishing parks and reserves for conservation, timber interests want to harvest trees, and nonindigenous settlers seek to claim seemingly underutilized lands. In response to such pressures, the territories utilized by indigenous peoples have often been designated as national parks or other protected areas. The new management paradigm for these conservation areas calls for the incorporation of the indigenous peoples into the management process (Stevens, 1997). A critical component of such management systems are land cover data that reveal the land covers present and the processes incurring land cover change. Land cover changes re veal the environmental conditions and human actions that have shaped the landscape, including ecological succession, timber removal, and natural disturbances such as hurricanes. This study utilizes remotely sensed images to conduct a land cover analysis of three indigenous communities in Nicaragua that are attempting to develop comprehensive land use management plans compatible with the goals of the government-created BOSAWAS Natural Resource Reserve (Fig. 1). Encompassing 7,300 sq kin, the goals of the Reserve are to conserve a portion of the largest remaining stand of tropical rain forest north of the Amazon Basin, while promoting the sustainable use of its resources (Stocks, 1994). To facilitate the entry of the indigenous communities into the management process, the communities have been working with two nongovernmental organizations (NGO), The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Alistar Foundation. These NGOs have provided technical and legal assistance to the communities as well as training to the indigenous forest rangers to monitor the communities' territories. The goal of this study is to provide land cover data to the communities so that they will be able to work with the Nica raguan Government on planning the sustainable use of the Reserve's resources. Two of the three communities under study are made up of Mayangna (Sumu) peoples (Mayangna Sauni As and Mayangna Sauni Bas), while the other community is made up of Miskitu, Kipla Sait Tasbaika. The Mayangna inhabit the interior valleys of north-central Nicaragua, while the Miskitu are found along the Caribbean coast and the Coco River valley (Sollis, 1989). Approximate 1995 populations of the communities were 500 for Mayangna Sauni Bas and 3,400 for both Mayangna Sauni As and Kipla Sait Tasbaika (Stocks, 1998; Stocks et at., 1998). The three communities are similar in that settlements occur along rivers that provide transportation to agricultural lands, as well as hunting and gathering areas. All three practice subsistence slash-and-burn (swidden) agriculture, clearing plots of primary and secondary forest along the river valleys. Each clearing is used for two or three cropping cycles and then abandoned for new areas. Major crops include maize, rice, beans, bananas, and yucca. As the lands lie fallow, fertili ty regenerates allowing them to be reused in the future. Meat is provided through hunting and fishing, as well as raising chickens, pigs, and in a few circumstances, cattle. All three communities are relatively isolated, with no roads. However both Mayangna communities are located near mestizo mining towns that serve as markets for indigenous goods as well as points of embarkation for settlers seeking land. METHODS Information required to conduct a land cover analysis of the three indigenous communities includes their territorial claims, the current extent of land covers, and recent land cover changes. …

Subclinical Health Effects of Environmental Pesticide Contamination in a Developing Country: Cholinesterase Depression in Children

The effect of exposure to pesticides among children in a Nicaraguan community in the path of rain water runoff from a large crop-dusting airport was evaluated by measuring plasma cholinesterase. Mean cholinesterase activity in 17 children in the path of runoff was 2.4 international units/ml blood/min, lower than the 2.9 IU/ml/min measured in a group of 43 children from an unexposed community (difference=0.49 IU/ml/min; 95% C.I. 0.24, 0.76). Six (35%) of the 17 exposed children had abnormally low cholinesterase levels. A possible explanation for this physiological effect of exposure to pesticides is the dermal absorption which may have occurred among children playing barefoot in puddles grossly contaminated by runoff from the airport. Drinking water from a well in the exposed community demonstrated low level residues of cholinesterase-inhibiting pesticides, although contamination with toxaphene (not a cholinesterase inhibitor) exceeded by over 8-fold the United States Environmental Protection Agency maximum permissible concentration in drinking water. The difficulty in measuring health effects resulting from environmental pesticide contamination, and in controlling exposure resulting from the rapidly increasing use of pesticides, is a growing problem for developing countries like Nicaragua.

Disparate diasporas: identity and politics in an African Nicaraguan community

Based on a decade the author spent among the African-Caribbean people on Nicaragua's southern Caribbean coast, Disparate Diasporas is a study of identity formation and politics in that community. Edmund Gordon lived in Bluefields, Nicaragua, during most of the 1980s, a turbulent period during which he participated in the community's search for solutions to problems ranging from a crumbling economic base to the mutual mistrust and animosity between most Creole people and the Sandinista revolutionary government. Disparate Diasporas is not a conventional ethnography. Rather than being just an observer, Gordon actively participated in the life of the community, intent on contributing to its political processes. A basic premise of his book is that engagement and activity can enhance ethnographic insights and sharpen theoretical understanding. Disparate Diasporas shows how a particular Black community can evolve distinct types of diasporic consciousness, and, depending on the historical moment, how different types of memories, consciousness, and politics come to predominate. The author uses the Gramscian notion of common sense to understand the Creole community's history of shifting politics and ideologies, focusing on the period of the 1970s and 1980s. His work explains the inability of the Sandinistas to come to terms with the racial and cultural challenge to the Nicaraguan nation posed by the Creole community.

Symptoms and cholinesterase activity among rural residents living near cotton fields in Nicaragua.

To explore whether symptoms resulted from pesticide spray drift on residentially exposed populations in rural Nicaragua. 100 residents, each 10 years of age or older, were randomly selected from a Nicaraguan community surrounded by actively sprayed cotton fields (the exposed community) and from a socioeconomically similar community far from agricultural spraying (the control community). Subjects working with pesticides were excluded, and the study was conducted at the end of the 1990 cotton spraying season (August-December). Demographic information, exposure questions, and prevalence of 11 acute symptoms and 17 chronic symptoms were gathered from a structured interview. Finger stick erythrocyte cholinesterase (AChE) was measured with a portable colorimeter. Acute symptoms were grouped according to their previously known associations with cholinesterase (ChE) inhibitors into four ordinal categories (asymptomatic, non-specific, possible, probable). Residents from the exposed community were significantly more likely to report recently sighting a spray plane near their community, exposure to pesticide from drift, crossing recently sprayed fields, eating home grown food, and feeling ill after drift exposure. The mean AChE value was significantly lower for residents of the exposed community (4.9 v 5.3 IU/dl). The proportion of subjects complaining of one or more chronic or acute symptoms was significantly higher for the exposed community (87%) than for the controls (53%). Odds ratios for residents in the exposed community, by symptom categories, were non-specific 1.6 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0-8 to 3.2), possible 4.1 (95% CI 1.7 to 10.2), and probable 9.93 (95% CI 2-9 to 34.4). These findings indicate a strong association between exposure to aerial pesticides and symptoms. This study should be replicated with more quantitative exposure measures, for if confirmed, the results have relevance for millions in rural communities worldwide.

Field validation of the Tallstick in marginal communities in Nicaragua.

The Tallstick is a new, simplified anthropometric field tool which allows immediate visual interpretation of height-for-age. This tool was field tested in community-based programmes in Managua, Nicaragua, and the rural community of Los Zarzales, screening 1004 children aged 0-60 months for nutritional stunting. Overall sensitivity and specificity analysis comparing HAZ scores and Tallstick results revealed that the Tallstick correctly identified 83-85 per cent of severely stunted children (HAZ < -2.5) and two-thirds of those with HAZ of -2 and below. It also had good positive predictive value for the mildly stunted. As a screening tool for low weight-for-age, the Tallstick performed better than arm circumference. The best of the community volunteers trained with the Tallstick could use it as well as their trainers. Progressive stunting was found in the 280 children in the sample who did not receive any form of milk. The advantages of the Tallstick for community-level screening and the importance of sustained linear growth are discussed.

Nicaragua's Choice: Old and New Politics in Managua

Nicaragua's ChoiceOld and New Politics in Managua Robert S. Leiken (bio) For Nicaraguans, who have known more than their share of wars and invasions, coups and revolutions, last winter's peaceful vote for change was their most valiant, their finest hour. But did the elections of 25 February 1990 signify that Nicaragua had become democratic or even that the country is securely on the road to democracy? Certainly, the ideological reverberations of 25 February 1990 were profound, certifying that the tide that swept Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 would not be contained magnum in parvo. The humbling of the Sandinistas confirmed what everyone sensed, that "1989" was not transitory and regional (like 1848) but had opened (like 1776) an "age of democratic revolution." The sudden obsolescence of slogans like "Reagan's imperialism: the main danger to peace and self-determination" against which "all progressive forces should unite" may make it too easy to forget how many people regarded the struggle in Nicaragua as a kind of reprise of the Spanish Civil War. Not since Vietnam has a small country attracted so much U.S. media attention or aroused such acrimony in Congress. Predictably, each side in the debate now proclaims that the elections demonstrated the wisdom of its own policy. For Nicaraguans, the elections promised not only liberation but a chance to realize their recurring dream of "democracy without adjectives." Competitive elections, however, do not by themselves [End Page 26] constitute democracy, as the experience of other Central American countries illustrates. Democracy also requires stable and effective representative institutions. In Central America, this first requires subordinating the military to civilian authority. Building such institutions will likely prove even more exacting than Nicaragua's heroic February. Nonetheless, for many interested observers, Violeta Chamorro's victory was more decisive and more resonant in some ways than the sublime events of 1989. After all, it had long been evident that the communist regimes of Eastern Europe lacked any popular legitimacy. The Sandinistas, on the other hand, were still widely believed to represent "popular nationalist feelings." According to the official results, the Nicaraguan Opposition Union (UNO) won last February's election by nearly 14 percentage points (54.7 percent to 40.8 percent)—a margin of victory greater, for instance, than the one George Bush enjoyed in his "landslide" win over Michael Dukakis in 1988. And when one takes into account the government's control of television (which was extravagantly pro-Sandinista) and compares the lavish Sandinista to the penurious opposition campaign, the margin appears even more impressive. All the more so when one considers the massive and widespread Sandinista use of government funds, personnel, vehicles, phones, equipment, and so on; the common fear among state workers and their relatives that casting an opposition vote could cost their jobs; and the Sandinistas' domination of the Supreme Electoral Council. Moreover, as the following items suggest, there is good reason to believe that the official results understated the actual popular sentiment: • Refugees, estimated at 15 to 20 percent of the population, were not able to cast absentee ballots from abroad• Anyone familiar with overseas Nicaraguan communities can attest to how few Sandinista votes would have been found there. • Over 6 percent of the ballots were declared "illegible" or otherwise nullified by the election authorities. Opposition members charge that these were mostly UNO votes fraudulently annulled. • In the isolated southern area of Rio San Juan (Region IX), where opposition poll watchers were forced to resign and could not be replaced, there was little international observation. Besides Region I (Esteli-Madriz-Nueva Segovia), which UNO lost by .02 percent, Rio San Juan was the only region the Sandinistas won. At the heart of past disputes about U.S. policy and current arguments about Nicaragua's future political prospects lies the question of the strength and sincerity of the Sandinistas' democratic intentions. What did [End Page 27] the Sandinistas' handling of the elections reveal about their commitment to democracy? Playing the Electoral Card The Sandinistas' electoral advantages far exceeded the benefits enjoyed by the incumbent party in a democracy. The Sandinista government was Nicaragua's chief employer, banker, and food supplier. Few families were without members...

Health effects of the war in two rural communities in Nicaragua. Nicaragua Health Study Collaborative at Harvard, CIES, and UNAN.

We report on a pilot study to assess the effects of low intensity war in Nicaragua on the health of the civilian population. The study compared data from two regions in Nicaragua, one in an area of intense conflict, the other further removed from the war's violence. Information was obtained from a questionnaire administered to female heads of randomly selected households; structured interviews with community leaders and health workers; group discussions with community residents; and a review of regional and municipal death records. Height and mid-upper arm circumference of children were measured, and immunization records reviewed. The war has had a serious negative effect on the lives of the civilian population in both the war zone and the non-war zone, with the effects most severe in the war zone. In both communities, over half of the respondents reported the death of a friend or relative. In the war zone community, over one-fourth of respondents reported attacks on family members in non-combat situations around their homes. Death by firearms was the leading cause of death in persons over age 6 in the war zone. Vaccination coverage, nutritional indices, and familial disruption were worse in the war zone community. The findings suggest that continued funding of the Nicaraguan contra forces by the United States may be harming the ostensible beneficiaries of that policy, and that use of such low intensity conflict as a foreign policy tool should be questioned.

The Revolutionary Transformation of Nicaragua

This is the third issue of Latin American Perspectives to focus on Nicaragua. As with the preceding two issues (in the spring of 1981 and the spring of 1985) the present issue offers our readers both an overview of the revolutionary process as well as analyses of specific conditions. The topics analyzed in this issue include: the revolutionary ideology of the Sandinistas; the political goals and demands of the indigenous communities in Nicaragua; the relationship between the Sandinista regime and the Miskito people; regional autonomy and national unity; the efforts of the revolutionary government to provide bilingual-bicultural forms of education to the Miskito and Creole peoples; the agrarianreform program; and the effects of the war upon the revolutionary process. In addition to the four substantive analyses presented in this issue, three book reviews are also included to provide our readers with a critical assessment of some of the more recent contributions to the expanding literature on contemporary conditions in Nicaragua. This introductory article provides a brief overview of present conditions in Nicaragua and relates the foci of the various articles in this issue to the larger context of the ongoing revolutionary process.