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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MANAGUA 002725 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR WHA/CEN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/20/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR KDEM NU
SUBJECT: FSLN ACCORD WITH PRN PRESIDENT TALAVERA PROMISES 
THE MOON, BUT WILL ORTEGA DELIVER? 
 
REF: A. MANAGUA 02662 
 
     ¶B. MANAGUA 02059 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Paul A. Trivelli. Reasons 1.4 (B,D). 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  The September 15 accord that Sandinista 
National Liberation Front (FSLN) leader/President-elect 
Daniel Ortega signed with Nicaraguan Resistance Party (PRN) 
President Salvador Talavera includes the formation of a 
autonomous and decentralized National Peace and 
Reconciliation Council (CONAREP).  According to the 
agreement, CONAREP will receive at least 1% of the annual 
national budget.  Liberal Nicaraguan Alliance (ALN) chief of 
staff Edmundo Leal tells us that Talavera was "forced" to 
sign the accord with Ortega, while they recognize that his 
desertion probably cost ALN thousands of votes.     Leal 
warns us that the FSLN offer is extremely attractive to many 
Resistance leaders, especially those with no independent 
income.  The FSLN's promises are unrealistic, but even if the 
Sandinistas deliver on a fraction of the proposed accord, 
they will accomplish much more for the Resistance than 
previous governments.  Further, the agreement's offer to 
allow PRN members to run on the FSLN ticket for the 2008 
municipal elections could draw more Resistance members into 
the FSLN fold.  End Summary. 
 
AN OFFER TOO GOOD TO BELIEVE, BUT TOO GOOD TO REFUSE 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶2.  (C) On December 18, Eduardo Montealegre's chief of staff, 
Edmundo Leal, shared with poloffs a copy of the September 15 
accord that President-elect Daniel Ortega signed with PRN 
President Salvador Talavera.  Leal -- who maintains contact 
with Talavera and claims that Ortega offered Talavera the 
choice of a stiff jail sentence (for abusing his previous 
wife) or a "lucrative alliance" that would resolve Talavera's 
considerable personal financial debts -- noted that the 
accord includes the formation of an autonomous and 
decentralized National Peace and Reconciliation Council 
(CONAREP).  According to the agreement, CONAREP will receive 
at least 1% of the annual national budget.  An informal 
translation of the accord follows: 
 
Begin text (all unclassified): This current accord which Jose 
Daniel Ortega Saavedra, representing the Sandinista National 
Liberation Front, and Salvador Talavera Alaniz, representing 
the Nicaraguan Resistance Party, aims to consolidate peace 
and achieve economic development within the framework of 
equity and solidarity with our country's impoverished sectors. 
 
Through this accord those individuals involved in 
reconciliation -- the Nicaraguan Resistance Party and the 
Sandinista National Liberation Front -- will work together to 
consolidate peace, an indispensable foundation for 
development, and to foster investor confidence in our 
country.  For all these reasons we agree: 
 
First: We promise that the Nicaraguan family will never 
resort to violent means to settle its differences, thereby 
ensuring that there will never again be another civil war, 
nor a mandatory draft, nor permit Nicaragua to become objects 
of foreign incidents that lead us to armed conflict between 
our Nicaraguan brothers. 
 
Second: Both parties involved in this reconciliation promise 
that there will never again be (property) seizures, nor 
ration cards. 
 
Third: The Sandinista National Liberation Front, whether or 
not it wins these free and democratic elections on November 
5, is committed to create a National Peace and Reconciliation 
Council (CONAREP).  This National Council will be established 
as an autonomous and decentralized institution with financial 
and legal independence, with unlimited duration, and the 
ability to contract and obtain all types of obligations, 
loans and donations. 
 
The National Council will receive the budgetary support 
required to achieve its objectives and activities, and will 
be allocated at least 1% of the national budget. 
 
The National Council will include eleven members -- six 
appointed by the Nicaraguan Resistance Party and five by the 
FSLN.  The Nicaraguan Resistance Party will name the 
 
MANAGUA 00002725  002 OF 003 
 
 
Executive President of the National Commission, who will hold 
the rank of the Secretary of the Presidency.  Similarly, 
there will be Regional, Departmental, and Municipal 
Secretaries, who will be named by the National Peace and 
 
SIPDIS 
Reconciliation Council or by the National Executive President. 
 
The National Peace and Reconciliation Council will channel 
and allocate jointly with the National Government the 
necessary funds to develop, among other areas, the following 
programs: 
 
--Investment in education, special programs to ensure 
school-aged children attend school; nationwide construction 
of sports facilities and sports. 
 
--At least 1,000 scholarships per year to study in public and 
private universities, as well as 25% of the scholarships for 
study abroad. 
 
--Basic health care and special programs to reduce infant 
malnutrition and maternal deaths, especially among young and 
single mothers. 
 
--Review, legalization, and titling of properties, and the 
fulfillment of commitments that are pending to ex-Resistance 
combatants, in accordance with the peace accords. 
 
--Allocate at least 15% of national budget's allocation for 
the development and diversification of agricultural 
production, ranching, agro-business, fishing and forestry to 
this end. 
 
--An urban and rural social housing program that includes new 
construction and home improvements.  At least 15% of the 
national budget's allocation for this area will be channeled 
to benefit the people proposed by CONAREP. 
 
--Enforcement, review, and delivery of pensions, as well as 
the expansion of Social Security to benefit all wounded war 
veterans, their orphans who are under 18 years old, and 
widows of former Resistance combatants with a valid signature 
of CONAREP national or departmental representatives. 
 
--Expansion and modernization of basic public services, 
potable water, electricity, and telecommunications. 
 
--Improvements, construction and maintenance of roadways to 
support agronomic production. 
 
--Concessions for water, air, and roadways at the local, 
regional, and Central American levels, in accordance with 
petitions presented by CONAREP. 
 
--Personal security and private property guarantees for all 
Nicaraguan residents. 
 
--Review of current laws to decree new laws or reform current 
legislation to facilitate economic and social development in 
Nicaragua. 
 
--At least 15% of the national budget that is earmarked for 
housing, health, primary, secondary, technical and 
university-level education, property titling and delivery, 
pensions, agricultural technology, roads and highways, 
improvement of basic service will be allocated to programs 
for individuals and relatives of those involved in the 
reconciliation. 
 
Fourth:  Both parties to the reconciliation are unequivocally 
committed to elevating this autonomous institution to the 
level of an entity or institution with constitutional 
authority, reaffirming as such, that a national Resistance 
Party member will preside over the organization. 
 
Fifth: If the FSLN alliance is the new Nicaraguan Government, 
it will adhere to its commitment to allocate the necessary 
funds to implement the aforementioned programs, or any others 
that the CONAREP recommends.  In the event the funds cannot 
be included in the Budget Law, the Presidency of the Republic 
will take care of providing the funds required for its 
(CONAREP's) functioning. 
 
Sixth: Both parties are committed to respect the Electoral 
Law, which guarantees the immobility of all PRN candidates 
 
MANAGUA 00002725  003 OF 003 
 
 
running in the national elections that will be held November 
¶5.  The same applies to preserving the Nicaraguan Resistance 
Party's legal status. 
 
Tenth (Seventh): (Note: The document skips Seventh, Eighth, 
Ninth.  Leal later clarified that Salvador Talavera told him 
it was a "typo"):  Both the FSLN and PRN parties involved in 
reconciliation will work together so that the Nicaraguan 
Resistance Party obtains at least one position each in the 
Supreme Court, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), the 
Controller General, and the sub-director of the Human Rights 
Defense Office as soon as vacancies open.  Similarly, the PRN 
will enjoy participation in national, departmental or 
municipal levels of these entities. 
 
Signed in Managua on September (national month) 15, 2006. 
End Text. 
 
RESISTANCE LEADERS STRAYING FROM THE FOLD? 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - 
 
¶3.  (C) While Leal is skeptical that the FSLN will 
"deliver" on all of its promises to the PRN, he fears the 
agreement could attract a number of PRN members to the FSLN; 
at least many would be curious to test the agreement.   He 
warned that some of the other ALN-affiliated Resistance 
leaders are "straying" and could end up endorsing the FSLN, 
citing as one possible "recruit" Salvador Talavera's brother 
Jose Angel (The Jackal).  For Leal, the PRN was never a 
serious party, and its discordant members behave more like 
mercenaries than politicians.  He warned that the risk lies 
in the FSLN's ability to deliver on its promises, while the 
"democratic" parties abandoned the Resistance once they won 
office. 
 
¶4.  (C) Leal recounted that when he met recently with 
Salvador Talavera, FSLN Assembly Deputy Edwin Castro's legal 
adviser Alejandro Romero had accompanied Talavera.  They 
informed Leal that because Talavera intends to retain his 
Assembly seat (his alternate is PRN member Oscar Sobalvarro 
(Comandante Ruben), who is loyal to the ALN), a token PRN 
member will preside over CONAREP, while Salvador runs it 
"behind the scenes."  Romero has also been selected to work 
in the new entity, said Leal. 
 
COMMENT 
- - - - 
 
¶5.  (C) Much of the PRN's leadership is fractious and 
contentious, and indeed the party functions more as an 
interest group than a political party.  Salvador Talavera's 
desertion of the ALN for Ortega spun the PRN into further 
disarray.  Many ALN and PRN contacts believe that Talavera's 
betrayal cost the ALN thousands of votes to the rival Liberal 
Constitutional Party (PLC), especially in deep-rural, 
pro-Liberal areas of the country.  The FSLN-PRN accord is an 
unrealistic, campaign boondoggle, but given Nicaragua's 
democratic-leaning governments that followed Daniel Ortega's 
disastrous 1980s regime never delivered on their ambitious 
campaign promises to the Resistance, even if the FSLN 
delivers a fraction of the proposed accord, it will 
accomplish much more for the Resistance than previous 
governments.  And, if the FSLN achieves more, its success 
will draw new converts. 
 
¶6.  (C) According to Luis Fley (Ref. A) -- another PRN leader 
associated with the ALN who has complained to us that ALN 
leader Eduardo Montealegre does not "take him into account" 
-- the FSLN has already offered PRN leaders the chance to run 
on the FSLN ticket for the 2008 municipal elections in areas 
where the PRN enjoys a strong base of support.  Part of the 
FSLN's success in the 2004 municipal elections can be 
attributed to its ability to recruit highly respected 
non-Sandinistas to run for office.  If the Sandinistas resort 
to a similar tactic in 2008, the FSLN could further 
consolidate its control over municipal governments, which it 
would use as a springboard for the 2011 presidential 
elections. 
TRIVELLI