VZCZCXYZ0010
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHMU #0599 0742158
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 152158Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY MANAGUA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5613

C O N F I D E N T I A L MANAGUA 000599 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR WHA/EX AND WHA/CEN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/15/2016 
TAGS: APER PHUM NU
SUBJECT: EMBASSY MANAGUA REQUEST FOR TDY FOR GREG MAGGIO 
(DRL/CA) 
 
REF: JANUARY-MARCH MAGGIO-GIAUQUE-ALVARADO EMAILS AND 
 
     TELCONS 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR PAUL TRIVELLI. REASONS 1.4 (B,D). 
 
¶1.  (U) Embassy Managua strongly endorses a proposed 
three-week TDY for Greg Maggio of DRL/CRA to Nicaragua in 
June 2006.  Post has established a close, effective working 
relationship with Greg while collaborating on the 2005 Human 
Rights Report and numerous cases of Nicaraguan asylum 
applicants.  Post would like Greg to spend three weeks in 
Managua to work on several high-profile human rights issues 
that have considerable election year significance.  Post will 
make every effort to provide housing for Greg in the Embassy 
housing pool; it is possible that he will have to share a 
house.  Post requests that WHA/EX fund Greg's round trip 
airfare to Managua in order to further assist DRL in 
defraying the costs of the proposed TDY. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) With national elections in November, emboffs have 
already launched a busy schedule of political and economic 
reporting trips to all seventeen of Nicaragua's departments. 
These trips will continue throughout the year, and reporting 
on them reaches the highest levels of the Department.  By 
participating in several of these trips to select regions, 
such as the Atlantic Coast, Greg could contribute to post's 
elections reporting, as well as have the opportunity to 
investigate, gain familiarity with, and report on human 
rights issues in many parts of the country.  Greg has 
expressed a particular interest in investigating the subject 
of gang violence and analyzing the much-debated subject of 
why the problem, although growing, is not as severe in 
Nicaragua as in most of its Central American neighbors. 
 
¶3.  (C) Additionally, Greg could contribute to ongoing human 
rights projects supported by post and the Department that are 
intended to highlight abuses by the 1980s Sandinista regime 
and its leaders, including the pending complaint before the 
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) submitted 
by Zoilamerica Narvaez against the Nicaraguan state for its 
failure to provide justice in her credible allegations of 
rape and sexual abuse against her step-father, Sandinista 
leader Daniel Ortega. 
 
¶4.  (C) Post would also like Greg to work with several 
sections of the Mission as they assist a local human rights 
NGO, the Nicaraguan Permanent Commission on Human Rights 
(CPDH), as it completes field work on complaints of crimes 
against humanity and genocide committed against the Miskito 
indigenous group by the FSLN regime in the early 1980s.  By 
June the CPDH will be completing phase one of this project, 
compiling witness depositions in Nicaragua and submitting the 
case to national institutions, and will be commencing phase 
two, preparing to submit the case to the IACHR in Washington. 
 Because the second phase of the CPDH effort will require 
considerable support and follow up by the Department, post 
believes that Greg could contribute significantly to the 
ultimate success of the project, both while he is in Managua 
and when he returns to Washington to resume his duties 
covering Nicaragua at DRL. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Greg's June TDY would also help post to provide 
continuity on these and other pressing human rights issues, 
as the human rights officer who has worked on all of these 
issues for the last two years will be departing post in May 
and his successor will not arrive until late June.  Greg's 
proposed TDY would significantly shorten the time that a 
crucial Embassy position is empty during a pivotal election 
year.  With the experience he would gain on the ground, Greg 
would also subsequently be in a position to provide extra 
assistance to the new human rights officer in July and 
thereafter as the new officer works to master a large and 
complex portfolio. 
TRIVELLI