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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 225 | Abril 2000 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Envío team
VETERANS PROTEST
On April 6, hundreds of veterans from the Nicaraguan Resistance set up barricades at various strategic points along major highways. Their single demand was for a definitive resolution to the problems affecting the land they were promised when they demobilized in the early nineties. In Sébaco, where the demonstrators blocked a major bridge, the police response left one veteran dead, six wounded and eighteen detained. Leaders of the Resistance accused the Liberal government of having betrayed them, and ex-Resistance leaders who have been or still are Liberal government officials were among the demonstrators at the barricades. Former Army chief General Joaquín Cuadra claimed that the demonstration could simply have been a government-orchestrated show to draw public attention away from the country’s serious problems. The highways were again blocked four days later, leaving several police officers wounded. A stranger act of protest also occurred that day, when dozens of these former "contras" requested asylum in the Peruvian embassy, claiming they were being politically persecuted.
ZOILAMÉRICA CASE
On March 30, Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) director Vilma Núñez and Daniel Ortega’s former stepdaughter Zoilamérica Narváez denounced what they called the Nicaraguan government’s "faked" response to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH) of the
Organization of American States. In February the CIDH had requested information from the government on the charge, jointly submitted to it by Narváez and CENIDH in October 1999, that the Nicaraguan State had obstructed justice. Narváez had spent over a year fruitlessly urging the National Assembly to deal with her request to strip Ortega of his legislative immunity so he could stand trial on her charge of prolonged sexual abuse. The government did not limit itself to sending copies of all the National Assembly paperwork that had led nowhere, but also included fabricated documents and even altered one with the intent of deceiving the CIDH. According to Narváez, "The only explanation for the Nicaraguan government’s shameful conduct is the pact, which established a political agreement with Daniel Ortega to impede the clearing up of the acts I have denounced." Three days before this press conference, the two petitioners replied to the CIDH, refuting the government’s weak arguments. The government now has 45 days to provide a new response.
LIBERALS VS. JARQUÍN
The operational audit of former Comptroller General Augustín Jarquín’s administration ordered by the National Assembly board in a highly irregular manner concluded at the beginning of April. The auditors held Jarquín responsible for various supposedly anomalous actions and for alleged signs of corrupt administration. When they submitted their report to the National Assembly, legislators split over the issue of whether Jarquín, who is still one of the comptrollers in the new Superior Council, should resign or should be fired. According to Jarquín, the entire process was warped from the beginning. All legal procedures were violated since the effort was a "political audit" whose obvious objective was to "disqualify and discredit the office’s oversight function during my administration and to dress up an accusation of malfeasance of public funds in false legalistic garb in an act of revenge and political persecution that is historically unprecedented in Nicaragua."
FUAC CHIEF KILLED
On March 15, "Camilo Turcios," head of the armed group known as the Andrés Castro United Front (FUAC), was gunned down on the road to Boaco together with his wife and one of his closest lieutenants. Both men were killed and Turcios’ wife will end up with permanent disabilities. "Tito Fuentes," Turcios’ former second in command, had been killed on January 2 in the mining area of Siuna
The pro-Sandinista FUAC, made up mainly of veterans, emerged in the mining region in the nineties and is now formally inactive following agreements signed with the government several years ago, but it is still demanding fulfillment of the government promises made at that time. Substantive data supplied from investigations into both deaths by the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH), which, among other things, demonstrated police negligence in its investigation, sparked an unjustified campaign of threats and disqualifications against CENIDH president Vilma Núñez de Escorcia.
In the country’s current confusing times, Turcios’ murder led some to comment that Nicaragua is turning into another Colombia. Shortly before he was killed, Turcios had traveled to Libya to seek support for a political alliance he had made with the shady banker-politician, Alvaro Robelo.
CONTROLLING THE NGOS
The Ministry of Government reported at the end of March that it is "re-sizing" the functions of its Department of Registry and Control of Non-Profit Associations in order to control the over two thousand NGOs currently operating in Nicaragua more effectively. In making this announcement, Registry Department director Roberto Perezalonso declared that the NGOs "have usurped the representation of civil society," that they "exist and should work to support the state and not vice versa," and that "being authorized for specific aid and cooperation functions does not give them the right to go around saying that aid should be given to them rather than the government because they are better administrators."
POLICE AND GENDER
On March 8, International Women’s Day, the National Police (PN) launched its book Respondiendo a Necesidades de Seguridad Ciudadana de Mujeres y Hombres (Responding to the Citizen Security Needs of Women and Men). The text is based on a study of gender violence and citizen security and will serve as a basic instrument to help all PN officers familiarize themselves with gender issues and practice gender equity in their relations with the population. That same day, the PN inaugurated its Gender Office, set up to analyze the problems women face within the National Police and to institutionalize the gender focus within the police force itself—an effort initiated in 1996 at the same time women’s police stations were set up around the country. At the inauguration, Police Commissioner Eva Sacasa reported that 21% of the PN personnel, 12% of the victims of crimes and 10% of prisoners are women.
DAY OF THE UNBORN CHILD
At the beginning of March, President Alemán announced that he had issued a decree—dated in January—declaring that March 25 will be celebrated annually as the National Day of Still to be Born Children. The decision bolsters the campaign of church sectors and conservative groups who oppose a possible reform to the Penal Code that would decriminalize abortion under certain circumstances, as in the case of therapeutic abortions. The decree states: "National legislation determines that the natural existence of individuals begins with their conception in the womb, and that they must therefore be protected by the state through policies that permit the birth, survival, and integral and harmonic development in a dignified existence." Feminist groups and organizations involved in the struggle for women’s rights, including reproductive rights, lamented a decree that favors the unborn when Nicaragua still lacks policies that defend the lives of children once they are born.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America