Nicaragua: Open Source Software, Machisimo in the Park, and an Immigration Rally

This is a round-up for blogs in Nicaragua in the last week.

Spreading Open Source Philosophy

On March 28th the Grupo Ubuntu Nicaragua (an open source community) coordinated the Festival Latinoamericano de Instalación de Software Libre (FLISOL 2007) for Nicaragua. The Festival is an effort across Latin America to help spread the knowledge of Open Source Technologies. The Group Ubuntu ran the event in León and Managua, with conferences explaining the advantages of Linux and Open Source softwares compared to propietary software and licenses.

Many volunteers were installing and giving away discs with samples of free software, even installing complete linux distributions for the visitors for free.

Barricada.com.ni reported on the event:

Hace falta ver a más gente No Dedicada a esas areas tecnicas exponer sus experiencas; y se hablo poco o nada sobre varios fenómenos web que están sucediendo hoy en dia: Blogs, ciberperiodismo, medios independientes, generación de contenido, etc. Pero esta fue la primera experiencia de este tipo, y todo el esfuerzo fue hecho de manera gratuita por el Grupo UBUNTU de Nicaragua y el Grupo Pro Software Libre, por lo que creemos positivo el esfuerzo.

There's a need for people Non Dedicated to IT to share their experiences, and many trends of the web were not part of the conferences: blogs, ciberjournalism, independent media, user generated content, etc. But this is the first experience of its kind in Nicaragua, and the Grupo Ubuntu gave their time for free, so we think its a positive effort.

Watch more photos on Flickr and a video on Youtube. More comments for the group were made on the Universidad Nacional de Ingeneria Computing Forums

Working With Meat

A new blog called Working With Meat by “Christiane” tells us:

Saturday's field investigations led to the shocking conclusions:

1. Patriarchy is still the foundation of our society
2. It sucks to be a woman in said society

Christiane and Glow went for a photography session at a local park in Managua only to find themselves sexually harassed by “machistas” all day long.

So, that's the sad story of two girls who had the audacity of being young, female, and pedestrians, but more importantly, young female pedestrians with NO MALE CHAPERONE! The horror!

The whole cronicle gives evidence of how far are we from getting a totally equal and respectful societies for ALL our citizens.

Morterazos en Los Angeles

Luciano Cuadra Waters (a nicaraguan in Los Angeles) writes in NacionGueguence [ES] and La Prensa about a Pro Immigration Rally in Los Angeles, which ended with police violence.

Por lo que pude ver, parece que LAPD pretendía obligar a la multitud a evacuar hacia el lado Nor, nor-oeste del parque MacArthur, pero por alguna razón, los agentes que tenían ubicados en ese sector, empezaron a agredir a los manifestantes, los que se sintieron acorralados. En la televisión se puede notar claramente a los oficiales de policía golpeando a personas mayores de edad, también a personas que cargaban con sus hijos pequeños, e incluso a periodistas claramente identificados.

La nicaragüense Martha Lorena Guillén me asegura que uno de los agentes intentó golpearla sin razón alguna, quizá por que ella había filmado a este oficial mientra agredía a otra persona. Aproximadamente una hora más tarde, mientras caminaba en dirección al lugar donde había dejado mi vehículo, me encontré con un muchacho que había sido impactado por una bala de goma en su costado derecho “Fue sin motivo alguno. Yo solo llegué a reclamar mis derechos”…

For what i could see, the LAPD pretended to move the crowd toward the Northwestern area of the MacArthur Park, but for some reason the policemen started to hit the demonstrators… On television you can see the officers hitting elderly people, small children and even properly identified journalists.

The Nicaraguan Martha Lorena Guillén assures me that the officers tried to hit her without any apparent reason; maybe for a video she filmed of an officer using extreme force on other person. About a hour later, while I was walking to my vehicle, I found a boy who had been impacted by a rubber bullet in the backside. “It was without reason” said the boy. “I only showed up to demand my rights”

Biodiesel

The MEL-info mailing list posted this article by Arturo M. Lozza about the use of Biodiesel:

Los movimientos sociales lanzan voces de alerta y no son pocos los investigadores con visiones muy distintas a las planteadas por las petroleras ahora devenidas destiladoras del combustible verde. El periodista británico George Monbiot, por ejemplo, hizo cálculos y descubrió que para mover solamente nuestros coches y autobuses con agrodiesel se requerirían sembrar 25,9 millones de hectáreas. Sin embargo, existen en el Reino Unido solo 5,7 millones de hectáreas.

The social movements have raised the alert and many researchers have a different vision for the future, different from the perspective of the oil companies turned defenders of the green fuels. The British journalist George Monbiot, for example, made calculations and discovered that in order to cover the oil demand in United Kingdom there is the need to grow 25.9 millions hectares of corn. However, there are only 5.9 millions hectares available in the United Kingdom.

MEL-Info is a mailing list with 5000 suscribers dedicated to enviromental and cultural discussion in the country. Sometimes the editors post articles relevant to local events.

On the other side, Sofonías Martín Cisneros Argeñal writes an apology for the biodiesel project in Nicaragua:

La actual campaña de demonización en contra de los proyectos de producción de biodiesel tempate es totalmente infundada, malintencionada e irresponsable.

The demonizing campaign against the biodiesel project is totally unfounded, ill-intentioned and irresponsible.

…Los costos de producción y mantenimiento del tempate y de la palma africana son convenientemente mucho más bajos que los costos por hectárea de maíz. Las ventajas de estos cultivos no se limitan solamente a la simple producción del bendito aceite. Por ejemplo, en el caso del tempate, está conjuntamente ayudando a prevenir y revitalizar exitosamente suelos perdidos por la erosión y desertificación de zonas desérticas de África, Australia, China, India y Latinoamérica.

The production costs of oil with tempate and African palm are conveniently less expensive in costs per hectare of corn. The advantages of this crop doesn't limit the production of the oil. For example, in the case of tempate, it is preventing erosion, helping revitalize the land and stopping the expansion of the desert regions in Africa, Australia, China, India and Latin America.

The La Prensa blogs sometimes serves as ideological supporters of the editorial line of the newspaper, which at this moment is serving as an opposition media to the goverment.

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