Weekly Report - 04 April 2012 (WR-12-14)

PANAMA-NICARAGUA | Ambassadors confirmed. On 29 March the US Senate confirmed the appointments of Phyllis Powers and Jonathan Farrar as ambassadors to Nicaragua and Panama respectively. US President Barack Obama had initially tapped Farrar for the Managua post, a position which has been vacant since July 2011, when Robert Callahan, a former assistant to John Negroponte, who was instrumental in coordinating the Contras during Nicaragua’s civil war in the 1980s, ended his three-year stint. However, his ratification was held up in the US Senate amid complaints from two Cuban-American senators, Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio that Farrar, a former head of the US Interests Section (USINT) in Cuba, was too soft on the Cuban government and that a stronger character was needed in Nicaragua. Powers, a career diplomat, was ambassador to Panama at the time of her appointment.

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