Nicaragua to claim US money

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday February 23, 2004 04:21 by anonymous

Never were Nicaraguans' chances better to get what the International Court ruled the US owed to them. A new initiative at the United Nations Security Council may be worthwhile given the current member situation.

In 1984, Nicaragua went to the International Court in the case of "Military
and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua".
http://212.153.43.18/icjwww/icases/inus/inusframe.htm
http://212.153.43.18/icjwww/icases/inus/inus_ijudgment/inus_ijudgment_19860627.pdf
Judgment
(most interesting page 136)

Since the US, when found guilty, refused to pay, the United Nations made a resolution:
http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r031.htm
Resolution
The only three countries that voted against the resolution where http://unbisnet.un.org/ipac-cgi/ipac?ipac=on&sp1=.vm&se=A%2FRES%2F41%2F31&Search.x=11&Search.y=10&Search=%5BSearch%5D&tm=summary&pt=g_srch_c&ts=bluemarble&mc=use&bc=dhl&lb=ipac&ut=voting&sd=ipac&bd=ipac&cs=0101097723075543&cl=1&ls=2&sw=&st=A&ww=20&lm=x&ld=&db=ipac
the US, Israel and El Salvador.
Now China, Russia, France, Germany, and Pakistan still angry about the Iraq war, are trying to bring this up at the Security Council, using the fact that the current situation particularly defavorizes US interests. With Chile, the Philippines, Romania, Algeria, Angola, Benin, and Brazil in the Council, it will be easy to find an anti-American majority. Algeria is an islamic country, and Brazil’s Lula and Chile’s government will do anything to please the yankee-hating feelings in their populations. Angola as a portuguese speaking country is said to be following its important trading partner. The Philippine government sees this as a way to please Muslim extremists and development fundamentalists, and so does Benin. Romanian officials want to calm down the people who still have not forgotten that the administration backed the Iraq war against widespread opposition.
Only Spain and the United Kingdom can be counted on as partners in this battle that could come at a significant cost to a country already fighting with a historic deficit.
The CIA explains in its World Factbook why of course the money was not paid:
"Violent opposition to governmental manipulation and corruption spread to all classes by 1978 and resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power in 1979. Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s. Free elections in 1990, 1996, and again in 2001 saw the Sandinistas defeated. The country has slowly rebuilt its economy during the 1990s, but was hard hit by Hurricane Mitch in 1998."
GDP: purchasing power parity - $12.3 billion (2001 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $2,500 (2001 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nu.html
CIA World Factbook on Nicaragua
The damage of US actions was found to be higher than Nicaragua's GDP.
Just for comparison some US data.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $10.082 trillion (2001 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $36,300 (2001 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html
CIA World Factbook on the US