Political Consequences of Failed Negotiation for  Limi-Nawâh and IDR

The consequences of the failure to negotiate a timely agreement have been severe and unfortunately place the total project and years of investment from the Government of Canada and the Meadow Lake Tribal Council at risk, and more seriously undermines the hopes of the Indigenous people of the 16 communities for any future as citizens of Nicaragua.  Limi-Nawâh is a new company in Nicaragua administrative problems can be expected. IDR has not been a good partner with either Limi-Nawâh or Canada. In fact, IDR has proven to be a large liability and obstacle to development whose litany of inactions, unreasonable and incremental bureaucratic approach, lack of trust, insensitivity to business realities, and ignorance of the unique and desperate situation on Atlantic Nicaragua has contributed to at least 90% of the crisis this project has faced.  Limi-Nawâh entered the proposal in good faith with IDR and now sits on the edge of extreme risk of failure due to the problems encountered with IDR.

This project was operating on  business plan projections of which the IDR money was an important component.  With the delivery of the IDR investment as agreed in April 2004, Limi-Nawâh would have had the capacity to achieve the key milestone of putting a sawmill in place to process the 2000m³ of wood that Canada financed to place in the Alamikanban mill yard in May 2004. Unfortunately IDR either did not read or understand the business plan. This is a plan that IDR appears to have requested only as a matter of process, rather than understanding. Key to this is the incapacity of IDR staff to fully identify all of the requirements for Limi-Nawâh to successfully access the IDR funds early in the submission process, and the reluctance of IDR to assist Limi-Nawâh in finding solutions to these problems.

As President of Limi-Nawâh I am obliged to report to my Board of Directors and the Territorial Authority of the 16 Indigenous communities, and to each of our communities the situation which has arisen with the IDR agreement and the potential consequences. The outlook is simply this: the communities will remain in a dire financial, education and health poverty and will be forced to forgo any dreams of a better future, and return to a relationship with the people who exploit us and our resources for their personal gain. This is something of which the people of IDR know and seem to care absolutely nothing.

Economic and Financial Consequences

The failure of IDR to deliver a sawmill to Limi-Nawâh in July 2004 forced Limi-Nawâh to search for unsatisfactory alternative solutions to saw the 2000m³ of wood in the patio in Alamikanban. As a result most of the production was lost and all cash flow projections generated by Limi-Nawâh have slipped into obsolescence. Limi-Nawah has never recovered from this detrimental reliance on IDR. These financial problems continue to haunt Limi-Nawâh to this day. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic losses and opportunity losses that may well mount into the millions.