Dole withdraws lawsuit against Swedish filmmaker

The Associated Press reports that Dole Food Co. is withdrawing a defamation lawsuit against a Swedish filmmaker after complaints in Sweden that it was trying to limit free speech.

Dole had sued filmmaker Fredrik Gertten for showing the documentary "Bananas!" despite a court ruling that the case on which the film was based had been part of a massive extortion plot against the company.

The documentary shows the alleged plight of Nicaraguan workers who say they were made sterile by a pesticide used at Dole banana plantations during the 1970s.

Dole's lawsuit sparked protests in Sweden, where critics said the food company was trying to interfere with freedom of speech.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Nicaragua's radio stations struggle to stay on the air, reports Knight Center blog

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas news blog reports that media owners, journalists, and opposition politicians have warned of President Daniel Ortega’s intentions to silence critics by shutting down radio frequencies.

"Dozens of stations already face economic harassment and lost revenue due largely to centralized state advertising, and the combined impact of the financial crisis, political pressures, and personal attacks threaten Nicaragua's remaining independent broadcasts.

"Six radio stations and several news and opinion programs have gone off the air in several departments in the last two years, mainly for economic reasons. The owner of one station, Radio Mogotón, says government advertising has disappeared, and commercial ads are scarce."

Read more about Nicaragua's media in this report by the Los Angeles Times' Tracy Wilkinson earlier this year.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Media critics of Nicaragua leader Ortega made to pay

Tracy Wilkinson reports from Nicaragua on how President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 Sandinista revolution, rewards sympathetic news outlets and punishes critical ones. One target is a member of the prominent Chamorro family.

"When he finally emerged from court this year, criminal charges dropped, Carlos Fernando Chamorro had survived his latest battle with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

"Chamorro is almost as emblematic of Nicaragua's 30-year-old Sandinista revolution as Ortega. During Ortega's first presidency, in the decade that followed the 1979 revolution, Chamorro edited the official newspaper Barricada, largely a mouthpiece for the Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN.

"But today, Chamorro is one of the most outspoken critics of Ortega; in a regular television program and a weekly newsletter, he routinely denounces what he says is widespread government corruption and abuse of authority by an increasingly heavy-handed president."

Click here for the rest of the report.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega waves to supporters at a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. Credit: Esteban Felix / Associated Press.

Dole strikes back against "Bananas!" documentary

You might remember this post we did in June on a documentary about Nicaraguan banana-plantation workers and the Dole Food Co.

Well, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Dole accused Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten of slander and libel in making the documentary, which was shown at last month's Los Angeles Film Festival.

The film "Bananas!" chronicles a 2007 case against Dole and prominently features L.A. attorney Juan J. Dominguez, who now faces contempt charges.

The Times' Victoria Kim reports:

In light of the judge's finding of fraud by the plaintiffs' attorneys, Dole attorneys contend in the complaint that "Bananas!" unfairly demonizes Dole and is riddled with factual inaccuracies.

Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney, in a 60-page ruling dismissing two pending lawsuits, said attorneys for the Nicaraguans engaged in a brazen scheme to recruit men who had never worked on banana plantations, train them to lie on the stand and fabricate medical evidence to back up the claims."

Read the rest of Kim's story about the Dole lawsuit here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Daniel Ortega's War Against Nicaraguan Media (CPJ Special Report)

A special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, highlighted on the blog of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, describes what it sees as Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's "policy of ignoring the press except to systematically harass his critics."

"Ortega considers the private media to be his political enemies and has sought to marginalize their influence, CPJ's Carlos Lauría and Joel Simon report. He doesn't grant interviews and prefers to turn to journalists who are his friends to publish his statements and cover public events."

Read more on the Knight Center blog.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Documentary drives Dole Food Co. bananas

In the eyes of Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten, his documentary "Bananas!" is a balanced, nuanced depiction of a trial pitting Nicaraguan banana plantation workers and a prominent L.A. attorney against a powerful multinational agribusiness, reports Reed Johnson.

"It is a classical David-Goliath story," the director said in a phone interview last week.

In the eyes of Dole Food Co., Gertten's film is an egregiously flawed document based on what Dole lawyer Scott Edelman calls "a phony story" that has been discredited by the allegedly fraudulent conduct of Juan J. Dominguez, the L.A. attorney at the film's center. Dole, the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables, is vowing to sue the filmmaker and the Los Angeles Film Festival for defamation if it screens the movie this week.

Read more of Johnson's report here and watch the trailer above.

American design duo launches arts and culture mag in Nicaragua

Nicaragua's culture, arts and music scene is the focus of a new magazine launched by two American designers living in the country's capital, Managua.

Study finds Nicaraguans are practicing self-censorship

Since President Daniel Ortega's return to power in 2007, the number of Nicaraguans who prefer not to speak openly about political topics has grown dramatically, according to a study conducted by CID Gallup that was reported in El Nuevo Diario.

The Knight Center for Journalism "Journalism in the Americas" blog reports that when the public opinion survey asked whether citizens feel safe and respected if they make political commentaries in public places, 68% said no.

At the same time, 77% of respondents said they are "little or not at all" interested in Nicaraguan politics.

The same blog reported earlier this year that freedom of the press in Nicaragua hit a low, saying that "according to the 2007-2008 report of the nonprofit Communications Media Observatory (OMC), the government of Daniel Ortega has limited several freedoms and discriminated in furnishing information to journalists.

"According to the report, 2008 was the worst year for freedom of expression in the country."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Nicaragua moves away from free speech, reports Knight Center

The Knight Center for Journalism's news blog from the Americas writes this morning that freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the Central American nation of Nicaragua have hit a low:

According to the 2007-2008 report of the non-profit Communications Media Observatory (OMC), the government of Daniel Ortega has limited several freedoms and discriminated in furnishing information to journalists. According to the report, 2008 was the worst year for freedom of expression in the country, El Nuevo Diario reported.

The report by the OMC [in Spanish only] also says the government's intimidation and defamation of independent media and opposition figures have become more frequent since Ortega assumed power, La Prensa of Nicaragua adds.

To reverse the growing polarization, secrecy and intolerance, the OMC report proposes the unrestricted compliance with the law of access to information and the centralization of state advertising, among other measures.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Nicaragua's 'culture of corruption'?

The Tico Times of Costa Rica is reporting that a $6-million budget earmark for "emergency spending" by the administration of Managua Mayor Alexis Argüello in Nicaragua has been blasted by critics as a "shameless" effort to "fatten Sandinista coffers and convert public resources into murky discretional funding."

"Civil society is also lamenting the move by the Argüello administration. Luis Aragón, head of the transparency project for the democratic watchdog group Ethics and Transparency, says the move is "very irregular" and only "contributes to the deteriorating perception" of the country's institutional democracy.

"Aragón says that Nicaragua's culture of institutional corruption has been worsening rapidly since the controversial municipal elections last November, which the opposition still claims were stolen by fraudulent means."

Read the full report on Nicaragua's budget dust-up here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City