Moscow Sister City Association Newsletter March 2021

March 2021

This newsletter was sent via the City of Moscow on behalf of the Moscow Sister City Association. This newsletter was written by Moscow Sister City Association authors and may not necessarily reflect the views of the City of Moscow.

In this issue:

A problem
How to keep going

1. The problem

In October of 2020, the Ortega/Murillo government of Nicaragua, ever vigilant in its attempt to stifle opposition, passed a law called the Law of Regulation of Foreign Agents. A “foreign agent” is anyone within Nicaragua who receives funding or other support from outside Nicaragua. Agentes Extranjeros are required to register with a governmental department and to provide detailed information about the aid they receive, its specific uses and the sources of the aid. Records would have to be kept, using attorneys and accountants, in both the giving and the receiving countries.

To deal with this issue, the board of directors met, in conjunction with our long-time liaisons Ana Julia Castillo and Mario Mendoza, in a Zoom call on February 17. The minutes of this meeting appear at the bottom of this newsletter. The basic conclusions were these:

A. Mario and Ana, who both work for the government in the Ministry of Education, feel that for them to become “foreign agents” would jeopardize their jobs and relationship to the government; therefore, we cannot openly send funds to them as we have done for more than 20 years.

B. Mario and Ana are willing to circumvent the law by traveling outside the country to receive the funds, or by having someone from Moscow travel to Nicaragua, but at present the board of directors are not willing to put them in danger of discovery through such a tactic. Nor are we willing to submit to all the registering and recording requirements for MSCA.

C. Thus we are currently stymied. We have the money to fund the scholarships to which we are committed, but no way to get the funds to the students. We may find a way, through information from ongoing contacts with other sister cities and NGO’s working in Nicaragua. Or we may have to wait until November, when Nicaragua is scheduled to have national elections, to see if the government changes.

2. How to keep going

I (Dave) am in contact with about two dozen Nicaraguans; the core group, besides Ana and Mario, includes the former and current scholarship students. Many of them would like to be in contact with us, to have their voices heard, to learn about the U.S., to tell us about their personal and national experience. To this end, we are trying to set up regular conversation meetings, probably using Google Meet but maybe Zoom, between interested people here and in Villa El Carmen (or Managua). Language issues will need to be negotiated. Writing by email is also possible. (At present snail mail is not going between the U.S. and Nicaragua; whether that’s a USPS or a government problem I’m not sure.)

If you are interested in experimenting with this dialogue project, please let me know at dbarber@uidaho.edu or david.barber70@gmail.com. I’d like to try to have a session in about a week.
Some Nicaraguans who are interested in conversing with (or writing to) people here:

Mario and Ana

Yanci

Dayana

Yerlan

Nancy

Raymond

Yahosca

José Manuel

Roberto

Laura

Isayana

Geilin

Brandon and Gracemary

José Isaac

Minutes of Meeting of the Board of Directors, Moscow Sister City Association - February 17, 2021

Present by Zoom: Board members Dave Barber, chr., Elisabeth Berlinger, Lubia Cajas Cano, Linda Christenson, Amy Garwood, Aengus Kennedy, Cindy Magnuson, Debbie McLaughlin, Jim Reece, Susie Wiese; and our Villa El Carmen liaisons Ana Julia Castillo and Mario Mendoza

1. Dave began with an overview: since the new government law concerning “foreign agents” [Ley de Regulación de Agentes Extranjeros, passed October 2020] is preventing us from sending funds to Nicaragua at this time, we can work to further enhance communication between the people of our two cities and study the developing political situation in Nicaragua during this presidential election year.

2. Some funds are already Ana’s bank account in Nicaragua. It was MSC (Jim, Debbie) that Ana and Mario handle those existing funds in their possession. Ana and Mario clarified that there was enough for the last of our original group of scholarship students to finish her final semester this spring. All the funds designated for 2020, for parents of elementary school children in the area schools, have been delivered.
Dave said he will inform the school principals and the four 2^nd-year students currently on scholarship that we are unable to send funds at this time.

3. Elisabeth suggested that if we continue to be unable to send money to Villa El Carmen, we can consider bringing someone from there to Moscow, as we have four times in the past. Post covid, of course.

4. A discussion followed regarding options for sending money informally to Ana and Mario, by having them travel to Miami or Costa Rica. Lubia also suggested that her contacts in Guatemala might be able to relay funds to Nicaragua. It is legal for an incoming traveler to bring up to $10,000 into Nicaragua.

Mario and Ana, who have inquired of government officials about how the law will work, explained that the requirements are many and detailed, and would necessitate use of attorneys and accountants. They said that because the law is stated so vaguely, further requirements could be imposed at any time, making approval (of receiving funds from us) uncertain.

They also said that because they work for the government, being labeled as “foreign agents” might be a political or legal problem for them. So they are not willing to undertake registration within the law. Nor are board members willing to do the authentication work (with lawyers and accountants) at our end.

It was MSC (Amy, Debbie) that we delay all funding until either the law changes or it is modified, or we know it is safe to send funds without harm to Ana and Mario, the student scholarship recipients, or the school principals.

[Post-meeting note: Although Ana and Mario in the meeting welcomed the idea of receiving funds privately and without the government’s knowledge, board members generally felt, in post-meeting messages, that we should not do this; that is, we should not try to circumvent the foreign agents law since chances of the government finding out and punishing the recipients is real.]

5. Dave said that he is in touch with the Bainbridge/Ometepe Sister Island Association; they are currently waiting to see how implementation of the foreign agents law unfolds. Dave is also attempting to get information from Sister Cities International and from other sister cities with Nicaraguan connections.

Respectfully submitted,

Amy Garwood and Dave Barber

Officers of Moscow Sister City Association:

Dave Barber, president; newsletter editor

Lubia Cajas Cano, vice-president
Amy Garwood, secretary
Jim Reece, treasurer
Elisabeth Berlinger, board member
Linda Christenson, board member
Aengus Kennedy, board member
Cindy Magnuson, board member
Susie Wiese, board member

Contact:

Dave Barber

dbarber@uidaho.edu

208-301-3342

MSCA Mailing Address:

PO Box 8367

Moscow, ID 83843