The oak and the bourbon residue in the barrels add to the rum’s aroma and taste, according to Mauricio Solorzano, Flor de Caña’s public relations manager.

“With the wood and with the aging and with the alcohol, we obtain that classical bouquet of the rum.”

After coffee, Flor de Caña’s rum is Nicaragua’s best-known export.

But back in the 1980s, during the Sandinista revolution, Flor de Caña, like many businesses, fell on hard times. Solorzano said supplies were scarce amid the Contra war and a US economic embargo.

“To get the caps of the bottles we had to bring them from Poland. The bottles we used to buy from Cuba because of the embargo and the lack of dollars and everything,” he said.

Then in 1986, the Sandinista government confiscated the sugar mill that supplied the molasses needed to make the rum. Fearing the entire business could be seized, Flor de Caña’s managers began stashing barrels of rum in neighboring Honduras and other hiding places.

“With that threat in our head we started to produce a lot of alcohol, the most possible quantities, and we moved this alcohol to secret places just in case we were confiscated,” Solorzano said.

But the business survived.

After the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990, Flor de Caña got its sugar mill back. And because so many barrels had been stashed away, the company has one of the world’s largest supplies of aged rum.

That would’ve been no big deal a few decades ago. But now the appetite for high-quality rum is growing, like the popularity of single-malt whiskies. Most rum is aged just a few years; Flor de Caña also sells bottles of 12, 18 and 21-year-old rum.

Once the war ended, the company began an aggressive marketing campaign to export Flor de Caña. But from the company’s perspective, something was missing. Nicaragua lacked a national drink.

“Cuba has their mojito, Brazil has their caipirinha. If you are in Vietnam and you try to make a cocktail like a Margarita you are thinking Mexico,” said Solorzano.

So five years ago, the company sponsored a contest that led to the creation of the Macua – it’s rum mixed with orange, lime and guava juice. The Macua’s another way Flor de Caña’s trying to boost sales.

But after the initial excitement of a national drink, the demand for the Macua has died down.

At a sports bar in Managua, waiter Reynaldo Guerrero tells me it’s been three months since anyone ordered a Macua. He says Nicaraguans prefer traditional cocktails, like margaritas, and piña coladas.

But at the Flor de Caña distillery, no one seems especially concerned about the fate of the Macua. Rum-making tours are on the rise amid a boom in tourism, and the company’s building a Flor de Caña museum and theme park.

Besides, employees here claim their rum is so good you don’t need to mix it with anything.

Ahmadinejad is seeking to reinforce ties with the few allies Iran has left – and also possibly to annoy the United States.

Marco Werman speaks with Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Latin America today. He’s on a four-nation tour with visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador. Ahmadinejad is seeking to reinforce ties with his allies in the region. He may also be looking to annoy the United States. Michael Shifter is President of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. Michael, you just wrote a piece in Foreign Policy Magazine with the subtitle “Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest tour of Latin America a waste of time?” Is it?

Michael Shifter: Well, I don’t think he’s going to get very much out of it. He is going to needle and irk the United States and annoy the United States; he’s already accomplished that. There’s been some reaction in Washington. But he’s not getting much play in the major countries of the region that are not very interested in joining alliance with Ahmadinejad; they reject him. He’s really going to four countries that are on the margins politically, so he’s not going to get very much out of it either in economic terms or in diplomatic terms.

Werman: This is his sixth tour, though, of Latin America since he came to power in 2005. What’s his real interest there? Does he want to expand Iranian influence in this hemisphere and what do the Latin Americans make of that influence anyway?

Shifter: I think he wants to expand and there have been some Embassies that have opened up in the region. Trade has increased with a number of countries. There have been some modest investments, but it really hasn’t amounted to very much. The country itself, Iran, is in dire straits and it’s very little what he can do in Latin America. The countries are open to the economic and diplomatic side but certainly are very wary and cautious and understand that he is under enormous international pressure because of the nuclear program.

Werman: If you look across Latin America though, aren’t there economic relations with Iran in place that are pretty significant; trade deals, oil deals, etcetera that many countries would probably prefer not to put at risk, and I’m wondering, will they abide by U.S. sanctions on Iran or not when push comes to shove?

Shifter: They have a number of trading relationships. Brazil is the most significant trading relationship which has more than doubled since 2005, but there have been a lot of projects that have been promised that haven’t delivered. That oil refinery in Ecuador, constructing a port in Nicaragua; Iran really hasn’t come through. So, Latin Americans are waiting to see whether Iran will come through this time, but there’s a lot of skepticism. As far as the sanctions are concerned, there’s not going to be any appetite to really confront Iran. Also, most Latin American countries, the major countries have said they’ve got to go along with sanctions that are supported by the United Nations and by the international community.

Werman: So, you don’t really see this as an Iranian threat in the U.S. backyard?

Shifter: I think it’s something to keep a close watch on, but I don’t think it’s a threat. Given that he’s going to these four countries really doesn’t amount to very much and it really is to provoke and needle the United States which I think he is accomplishing.

Werman: Michael Shifter, President of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, thanks very much.

Shifter: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

In the past decade, the price of gold has jumped from $300 an ounce to more than $1,800. These record prices have provoked a boom in gold mining across Latin America, particularly in Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti.

B2Gold, a company based in Vancouver, Canada, operates Nicaragua’s largest gold mine. Inside the company’s massive mills in La Libertad, ore is crushed then washed with a carbon and cyanide leach solution to isolate the gold.

B2Gold bought this mine in 2009 and has spent $100 million to modernize the operation. The company’s efforts have helped Nicaragua double gold production in the past three years. It’s also created jobs in La Libertad.

“The mine is very important because it has meant jobs for everyone,” said Cristobal Gonzalez, one of the workers at the B2Gold operation. “It’s also helped develop the community.”

People have been mining gold in Nicaragua for centuries, but the industry fell on hard times following the 1979 revolution. The Sandinista government nationalized mines and expelled foreign companies.

A U.S. embargo in the 1980s made it nearly impossible to buy spare parts for American-made mining equipment. In addition, the gold mines were targeted by Contra guerrillas.

Oscar Vega, the manager of the B2Gold mine at La Libertad, said, “There was a lack of investment and a lot of damage caused by the war. The mines were targets because they were located in remote areas. La Libertad was a war zone.”

But now, the country’s mining industry has come back to life amid soaring gold prices. It costs about $500 to produce an ounce of gold that today sells for about $1,600. Ironically, foreign mining firms are being welcomed back to Nicaragua by their old foes, the Sandinistas, led by President Daniel Ortega. The Sandinistas have ditched their Marxist rhetoric and government officials have reached out to mining executives.

“We work together, you know? If there’s a problem we sit down and we solve it and that’s a huge difference,” said Randy Martin, chairman of Hemco, which runs Nicaragua’s second-largest gold mine.

“This is by far – and you can talk to any mining company in Central America – this is by far the best place to operate,” Martin said.

Gold is now the country’s No. 3 export, behind coffee and meat, according to Jose Aguerri, president of Nicaragua’s private business council. He said gold has helped the economy grow by 4 percent annually in the past year, the highest rate in Central America.

“Gold mining means a lot of investment and a lot of employment for the communities where they are. Also, they have a good relation with the communities. And that has been very important for a sector that is not very friendly, traditionally speaking, with the communities,” Aguerri said.

Indeed, gold mining has been hugely controversial elsewhere in Latin America. It’s caused environmental damage, and it’s disrupted local villages. But in Nicaragua, environmental issues are often overshadowed by concerns about poverty and unemployment.

Another factor, according to Martin, is that firms have so far focused on Nicaragua’s traditional mining zones rather than building open-pit and tunnel mines in untouched areas.

“Because remember, the operations that are here right now are the operations that have been here for 60 or 70 years. They are technically the same operations. There hasn’t yet been that great big new discovery yet in Nicaragua,” Martin said.

Mining companies are also winning hearts and minds by sponsoring health, education and recreational programs. Tom Lee, who’s head of corporate social responsibility in Nicaragua for B2Gold, shows me a company project to install lights and a new roof at the town basketball court.

“The idea is to give recreational opportunities to some of the youth, the kids here in La Libertad so that they have something to do in the evenings,” Lee said.

B2Gold has also hired contractors to pave streets and build houses for miners. Lee said the company intends to invest heavily in both mining projects and community development while the price of gold is still high. That way, he said, Nicaragua will have something to fall back on when gold rush ends.

“We know that the price of gold is cyclical,” Lee said. “At some point it is going to drop again and we have to be prepared for that.”

However, Ortega was on the ballot in defiance of a constitutional ban on the re-election of sitting presidents. In fact, his refusal to step down has critics comparing Ortega to the Somoza dictatorship, which ruled Nicaragua for 43 years.

As a guerrilla leader, Ortega helped topple the Somoza regime in 1979 and his Sandinista government confiscated all of the Somoza’s land and businesses.

But one member of the Somoza dynasty has since returned to Nicaragua in a quest to rehabilitate his family’s name.

Alvaro Somoza takes me on a tour of what was once the presidential palace, where he grew up.

“This is where I took accordion lessons as a kid,” he said.

Somoza is the son of Luis Somoza, the second of three Somoza dictators who ruled Nicaragua between 1936 and 1979.

By all accounts Luis Somoza was the best of the three Somoza rulers.

“My father started the social security system in this country,” Alvaro said. “The minimum wage was established by my father; the labor code, the right to syndicate. I could go on and on and on and on.”

But Luis Somoza died of a heart attack in 1967 and his younger brother, Anastasio, who was commander of the country’s military, took over. Anastasio Somoza’s corruption, massive wealth and violent crackdowns on the opposition helped fuel the Sandinista revolution.

Shortly before his uncle was overthrown, Alvaro Somoza, who was then 27, fled Managua aboard his Cessna airplane.

“I managed to get to the airport with an overnight bag for three or four days, hoping that the shooting would be over,” he said. “I got in my 1-85 and flew to El Salvador, and I never came back. The shooting never stopped.”

Alvaro Somoza resettled in Florida where he sold luxury cars and started one of the state’s largest landscape nurseries.

After the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990, he became the first Somoza to return to Nicaragua. By then, the Sandinistas had torn down the statue to his father. They also rechristened hospitals and schools built by the Somozas with revolutionary names. Luis Somoza’s former mansion now houses the defense ministry, and it was renamed after a Sandinista guerrilla leader.

According to the guard at the gate, “This was part of the Somoza dynasty and when they were defeated, many things had to be changed, including the names of buildings and anything else that smelled of Somoza.”

The Somoza name remains so controversial that Alvaro has had no luck in persuading the government to return a confiscated cement company and other businesses and properties that he says were legitimately acquired by his family.

Still, Alvaro Somoza, who is now 59 and makes a living running fruit farms in Nicaragua, is well received by many older people who remember his father.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, but in the 1960s when Luis Somoza ruled the country, Nicaragua boasted one of the fastest growing economy in Latin America.

“I knew Alvaro’s father,” said Alberto Quiroz, a 64-year-old security guard. “He would sit down and talk to average people. He was an excellent president, one of the best.”

Hoping to trade in on that nostalgia, Alvaro Somoza has jumped into politics. He was campaign manager for presidential candidate Enrique Quiñones, who finished far behind Ortega in Sunday’s election. Alvaro Somoza is also considering running for mayor of Managua, or even president, in 2016.

As for whether his name would be a liability, Somoza said he thinks it would help.

“People in Nicaragua are clearly aware that they were taken for a ride in 1979, a communist ride that promised everything and delivered little or nothing.”

But economist Mario Flores, who worked in both the Somoza and Sandinista governments, said Alvaro would face long odds because Nicaraguan history books focus on the corruption and human rights violations of the Somoza family dictatorship.

Ironically, Alvaro Somoza now sees many similarities between his Uncle Anastasio, known as “Tacho,” who was overthrown by the Sandinistas, and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, who used dubious legal maneuvers so he could run for a third term in Sunday’s presidential election.

“Though my family did a lot of good things, they made a lot of mistakes,” Somoza said. “Not only that, but I go further to tell the current politicians: ‘Don’t make those same mistakes yourself.’ The last one, I’m telling President Ortega on a regular basis: ‘What is it that you don’t realize. Continuity is not something these people want. Didn’t you understand what happened to Uncle Tacho?’”

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Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

La Aurora factory in Santiago (flickr image: hex1848)

One is the largest country in Central America. The other is the second largest country in the Caribbean, after Cuba. They’re both located just south of the sunny Tropic of Cancer. That’s 23 degrees north of the equator, where the sun shines strong and the tobacco grows nicely.

So, can you name the two nations?

US Customs authorities in Chicago recently seized a record number of illegally imported Cuban cigars. So, which countries provide American smokers with high quality, legal cigars? The answers are many, but two of the most popular cigar producers are the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. That’s according to journalist and cigar aficionado James Suckling who speaks with anchor Lisa Mullins about the recent “cigar crackdown”.
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The Central American nations of Nicaragua and Costa Rica are at odds over a border dispute.

It’s not the first time that’s happened. The two countries have a history of squabbling about where the border is precisely along one particular stretch. The disputed territory is along that part of the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border that follows the San Juan River. It’s where the river meets the Caribbean coast that things get complicated. The area is swampy and there are numerous channels winding through wetlands that make for a confusing landscape.

By treaty, the San Juan river itself belongs entirely to Nicaragua, and Nicaragua has the right to dredge the river. That’s what the Nicaraguans started doing recently, in an operation that involves the country’s military.

Costa Rica claims that Nicaragua invaded its territory in the process. The Costa Rican government filed a protest with the Organization of American States, the regional diplomatic body.

Costa Rican ambassador Enrique Castillo told an OAS meeting that this is not just a border dispute.

“This is an invasion of armed forces on Costa Rican territory,” Castillo told an OAS meeting.

He added it’s an “occupation of this territory by military and civil employees of Nicaragua.”

But Nicaragua isn’t ceding any ground. Ambassador Denis Moncada told the OAS meeting that Nicaragua has NOT violated Costa Rican territory in any way.

He offered to sit down and talk about it. But Costa Rica is refusing to until Nicaragua withdraws its soldiers from the disputed area.

At the moment both sides appear unwilling to give an inch. And both sides continue to invoke the name of Grover Cleveland.

He was President of the United States when Costa Rica and Nicaragua argued over this very same stretch of the border back in the late 1800′s. Cleveland sent a former confederate general named Edward P. Alexander to survey the area. Alexander drew a detailed map in an effort to end the dispute once and for all.

But the squabble between Nicaragua and Costa Rica continues. Now, diplomats at the OAS are urging the two neighbors to negotiate. Ambassador Bayney Karran of Guyana says the two parties must block the impasse, for the good of the region.

“We implore,” says Karran, “that they seek to give our region more reason for optimism in this matter.”

By the way, even Google Maps is confused about where the boundary between Nicaragua and Costa Rica meets the Caribbean. When a Nicaraguan official tried to use Google Maps to support his country’s position, Costa Rica objected and Google was forced to admit its map was wrong.

The company says it will fix the error as soon as possible. The dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica will likely take longer to resolve.

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(courtesy of perrozompopo.com)

A lot of my musical education has to do with my family, says Perrozompopo. His older brother is singer and salsa heartthrob Luis Enrique. Perrozompopo’s uncle is Carlos Mejia Godoy. Godoy, now in his 70s, is something of the folk-music laureate of Nicaragua.

He also ran for vice-president in 2006. Uncle Carlos Mejia Godoy happens to be the father of Camilo Mejia. He’s the US resident and former GI who was the first conscientious objector to the US military operation in Iraq. While that IS another story, Perrozompopo says it shows his family’s commitment to political activism.

Perrozompopo : “We Mejias are taught at an early age that it is important to contribute to your country. Part of what I do is about my family and who they are as musicians and activists. But I also think ALL Nicaraguans believe that as we are faced with new challenges, it’s up to us to bring change to our country.”

That’s a credo Perrozompopo’s been following since he began making music. Perrozompopo’s first single released in Nicaragua was “Rios de Gente,” rivers of people. That was in 2007.

A friend had asked him to help score some music for a new radio soap-opera, a radio-novella. The show dealt with immigration issues. The target audience was 150 rural radio stations across Central America. Perrozompopo loved the idea mostly because he wanted to connect with people often beyond his reach. “Rios de Gente” became the theme for the radio-novella.

Marco: “You address so many current topics: war, poverty, corruption, child abuse…”
Perrozompopo: “There are many people who are activists, but non-musical activists. In Nicaragua, there isn’t much of a music industry. And not having a music industry means you can explore music in a different way, with more of an open mind. It means you can use different language and address different topics. And for me, it’s important to address those topics in Nicaragua. It’s not enough to be an artist. We have to be critical artists.”

These days says Perrozompopo, it’s not a risky thing to be a critical artist in Nicaragua, to make political statements in your music. He also says that he leans toward the poetic, and is neither aggressive nor explicit in his lyrics.

That is true and who knows what Latin Grammy voters think when they cast their ballots. But Perrozompopo must be grabbing their attention with his radio-friendly songs: political lyrics set to music that can soothe you like a lullaby. Download MP3

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Bank bailouts and Wall Street bonuses may enrage many in the United States, but they’re hardly top of mind for most people in places like Nicaragua, Senegal, and Peru. The majority of people in the developing world were poor when the Great Recession began, and they’re poor today. Do the ebbs and flows of the banks in London and New York impact their daily lives? Part I of this two-part podcast looks at econonics and business issues in the developing world.

The World’s science reporter Rhitu Chatterjee explores such aid projects in our latest science podcast. It features an interview Anu Ramaswami, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado in Denver. And listeners have a chance to ask Ramaswami their own questions in our online science forum.

Reporter Eliza Barclay has this story from Nicaragua where two American brothers tried a technological fix to poverty in that Central American country:

Barclay: Mathias Craig is an engineer and social entrepreneur. He’s obsessed with windmills.

M. Craig: To me they seem a perfect mix of an opportunity to do something that has sort of a social good and an environmental good.

Barclay: As a child, Craig spent a lot of time in Nicaragua, visiting impoverished villages that had no electricity. Later, as an adult, he got an idea: why not bring windmills to these villages? The windmills could provide clean power and help people escape poverty by lighting schools and health clinics and…creating jobs. Craig explored this idea as a graduate student at MIT.

M. Craig: I took a class called entrepreneurship in the developing world. So I combined that with my interest in Nicaragua from my childhood, and came up with blueEnergy.

blueEnergy founders Mathias Craig (left)and his brother Guillaume (courtesy of blueEnergy)

Barclay: BlueEnergy is a company Craig founded in 2004. He started it with his brother, Guillaume. Guillaume Craig now oversees the company’s headquarters in the town of Bluefields, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua.

G. Craig: We started here in this workshop. It’s about 30 feet by 40 feet deep. So that was our space for the first couple years…

Barclay: Guillaume Craig walks around the cavernous building where blueEnergy’s technicians build wind turbines. He points to a turbine inside.

G. Craig: It’s got the magnets and the copper coils and the lights that light up…

Barclay: When the brothers arrived here, they had their work cut out for them: 80 percent of the coastal population lacked electricity.

The Craigs installed their first wind turbine in 2005, and since then they’ve added 11 more. Gradually, they’re reaching the forgotten outposts of the Nicaraguan coast, places like Monkey Point.

The

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Barclay: In this tiny community, a spindly white windmill towers above the mango trees and fishing boats.

Last year, blueEnergy installed the wind turbine and a handful of small solar panels. Together, they produce about half the energy consumed by a typical American home. But here it’s enough to power 27 households, a school and a health clinic, at least for part of the day. Locals appreciate the electricity.

Georgina Marque is a young mother of two (Photo: Eliza Barclay)

Marque: “Before we were using candles. Everyone did. Now it’s better that we have light. I use it to cook, make the bed in the evening. “

Barclay: But the arrival of electric power has not transformed this community in quite the way the Craig brothers had hoped. The town is still poor and jobs are scarce. And if you talk to locals, and ask them, what’s the best thing about having electricity? Here’s what they’ll tell you: television.

M. Craig: “We’ve had a lot of debates internally about that.”

Barclay: Mathias Craig says promoting TV was not why he and his partners started their venture.

M. Craig: “Definitely some people within the organization, within BlueEnergy, were a bit frustrated, a bit disappointed that they had worked so hard to bring development and opportunity to the community and here they were using it on television.”

Barclay: Some volunteers who came from America complained about locals frittering away the electricity on TV. In fact, many residents emptied their small savings to buy televisions to watch soap operas.

The Craigs learned a lesson: they can’t dictate how people use the energy they bring.

Now, Monkey Point residents contend television is educational. Wayne MacClean, who manages the windmill, says TV helps kids develop their language skills.

MacClean: “The children them could come and watch TV and develop their minds even with the one word or one letter of the alphabet.”

Wayne MacLean (Photo: Eliza Barclay)

Barclay: But whether or not television is an ideal use of the electricity blueEnergy provides, the Craig brothers say they’ve learned another, deeper lesson. People in places like Monkey Point need many things: good roads, clean water, education. And these may be more important than electricity. Guillaume Craig conceded this point over beers at a bar in Bluefields.

G. Craig: “Their priorities are not always energy. Sometimes they’re drinking water because they’re getting sick and the children are dying from diarrhea. But we don’t impose now energy as the “what we do.”

Barclay: The “what we do” of blueEnergy is now much broader. The Craig brothers have turned their energy company into an organization that takes a holistic approach to poverty. Mathias Craig says he now understands that alleviating poverty is more complex than installing windmills.

M. Craig: “When you come at it from a technology perspective, you think your end goal is you build the system, you install it, and it delivers energy. And you do that, and then you get to the end of the path, and then you realize that that’s not actually the end of the path. That’s somewhere near the beginning of the path.”

Barclay: The new beginning of the path is asking people what they need before deciding what to give them. And that’s something the Craigs are just learning to do.

For The World, I’m Eliza Barclay, Bluefields, Nicaragua.

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