Nicaragua
Abductions in the Countryside: A Counterrevolutionary Tactic
Envío team
Over the last few years, almost every bit of Nicaraguan military information makes mention of the abductions carried out by the counterrevolutionaries. These abductions or kidnappings are accompanied by other types of military activity: ambushes, attacks, sabotage, etc.
Foreigners have asked many questions about the nature of these abductions. Their questions reveal the connotations that the word “abduction” holds in their countries. Here in Nicaragua, “important” people are not abducted; no ransom is demanded; there is no carefully pieced-together information concerning their whereabouts; and the newspapers publish only scarce information about specific cases. In Nicaragua, those kidnapped are poor and anonymous peasant farmers. In many instances, no one over hears of them again. In certain areas of Nicaragua, the counterrevolutionaries use abductions as a continual means of recruiting men for their forces and intimidating the civilian population.
During the month of February, the Central American Historical Institute carried out a brief but thorough series of interviews with victims of the contras operating in northwestern Nicaragua near the Honduran border, in the region of the Western Segovias and the department of Chinandega.
Abductions are a phenomenon that many people living in these areas have suffered and with which all are familiar. The accounts of numerous people who have escaped from the contras coincide in a number of details that have enabled us to provide a general characterization of this phenomenon.
An impoverished but politically conscious populationThe advances of agro-export capitalism began to pauperize the small farmers of this region in the 1950s. Coffee production had dominated the area since the end of the 19th century. The introduction of the cotton crop accelerated the tendency toward the formation of extensive estates, and when this crop was later abandoned, the result was an increase in unemployment. Other examples of capitalistic progress in the area were cattle farming, with close ties to the Somoza dynasty, and the tapping of lumber resources, a systematic plunder organized by US companies.
Rich landowners bought up most of the area. Shortly after the 1979 Sandinista victory, almost all the large estates were confiscated because of their owners’ close ties to the Somozas. The estates were truly enormous, and 75% of the confiscated land (58,650 acres) had belonged to approximately ten landowners.
The tremendous inequality between the increasingly powerful agrarian bourgeoisie and the increasingly impoverished peasant farmers produced an explosive situation. The fuel for the eventual explosion was the memory of Sandino’s presence in the region.
The small farmers who had land gradually lost it. Those who did not suffered the consequences of unemployment. Already in the 1950s, 50% of the area’s farmers were without land. Moreover, this poor peasant sector spent 30% of its time totally unemployed.
This state of chronic unemployment turned some localities into hotbeds for the National Guard. Because of their poverty, and not owing to any ideological motivation, many people chose to join Somoza’s National Guard rather than emigrate with their families to the inhospitable regions of the “agricultural frontier.” Many of these people were trained to kill in the local headquarters of the National Guard. The bitter taste of the dictator’s repression was dramatically present in this region of Nicaragua.
The people ate badly and also very little. The only components of their diet were corn, sorghum, beans, and rice. They never tasted milk, eggs, or meat. Lunches and dinners often consisted of nothing more than tortillas and salt. In 1977, according to figures furnished by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), 70% of the children in this region were undernourished. (Even in 1983, following the great efforts made since July 1979, 45% of the region’s children were undernourished.) Infant mortality in the area was higher than anywhere else in the country: 200 per 1000 live births, as compared to the national average of 115. One out of every five children died before their first birthday, and one person out of 20 suffered from tuberculosis. The region’s health statistics were the worst in Nicaragua.
Progressive priests and religious workers played a decisive role in helping the inhabitants of the region to become aware of the injustice ingrained in the system. The local Delegates of the Word movement contributed to the consolidation of Christian communities that had a deep-rooted faith in both the gospel and reality and that were willing to commit themselves to social and collective tasks. As a result of the work carried out over the years by priests, nuns, and other religious workers, the region later provided the revolution with an enormous source of leaders and organizational capacity. Moreover, the area became strongly polarized between families that favored the revolution and those that unemployment had drawn into line with the National Guard.
The benefits of the revolutionDevelopment projects in the region began immediately after the Sandinista triumph in July 1979. Two large-scale projects (PRONORTE and CHINORTE) with funding from the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Switzerland were set in motion to transform the area’s agrarian, transportation, and social structures.
Peasant farmers received land that had been confiscated through the agrarian reform, and cooperatives started to appear. The majority of the co-ops in the area were formed in 1980. In the same year, 3,500 producers belonged to co-ops. By 1982, that figure had increased to 5,368, more than half the families in the entire rural population.
During 1980 and 1981, the government poured resources into the region in the form of loans, technical assistance, social services, and facilities for the storage and distribution of supplies. In 1980, loans to small farmers totaled 12 times more than in 1978.
Two years after the Literacy Crusade had ended, one out of every ten adults was still involved in some kind of studies. By 1982, doctors were providing everyone in the region with a checkup at least once a year.
A past filled with repression and poverty, as well as the revolution’s tangible benefits, contributed to the formation of a peasant class that was willing to organize and make sacrifices when outside aggression came. These people were also ready to take up arms in order to defend their land, cooperatives, schools, the revolution, and their nation. A study of the 1984 election results in the region reveals massive participation and support for the FSLN.
Victims of the contras’ terrorCounterrevolutionary violence has varied in form over the years. In 1980, the contras’ activity consisted mainly of plundering, cattle theft, and occasional killings. By 1984, the contras had been transformed into “regional commands” capable of “controlling” certain remote and uninhabited mountainous areas. Most recently, the contras have regularly ambushed civilians, murdered technicians, teachers and co-op leaders, and carried out sabotage on private and state farms. The contras have perfected their violence with increasingly organized and sophisticated support from the US.
The contras’ overall objectives comprise more than simply winning battles. They also need to take over stretches of territory and establish a social base if they are to overthrow the Sandinista government. They must receive support from the peasant farmers in order to maintain their presence in the country, and they must convince some of these farmers to rebel if they plan to sell the idea that a “civil war” or “liberation war” is taking place in Nicaragua.
The contras have used different means in their attempt to gain support and provoke a rebellion. The counterrevolutionary radio stations in Honduras and Costa Rica are one of those means. Their broadcasts are intended to give Nicaraguans the impression that the contras are winning the war. Similarly, the CIA manual was written in order to instruct the contras in basic psychological warfare tactics with which to impress people and win them over to the counterrevolutionary cause. Arguments touching on religion are prominent in both the radio broadcasts and the CIA manual.
In the region to which the present article refers, neither the radio propaganda nor the psychological warfare has had any success. Therefore, the area has been subject to the most direct forms of pressure and repression, one of these being kidnappings. By abducting people and forcing them to join their ranks, the contras hope to bring about a general state of revolt or, if that fails, to spread fear, anguish, and terror throughout a population that has demonstrated majority support for the revolution. This terror also means economic losses—less planting, less harvesting—and a massive relocation of the population, which is forced to abandon its land. Contacts with the families of former members of the National Guard have helped the contras to make inroads into certain sectors in this rural area.
Personal accounts of people kidnapped in the regionThe following characteristics of abductions carried out by the contras have been gleaned from the personal accounts of numerous people.
- Victims are taken far from their communities to Honduras, where they are subjected to intense anti-Sandinista propaganda, trained military, and compelled to perform manual labor for the contra army. All this is done with the idea that the victims will eventually return to Nicaragua as part of the FDN forces. Abduction is thus a forceful means of recruiting people who are knowledgeable about given areas and communities. Most of those abducted have been young males suitable for combat.
- Even though those abducted are guarded both en route to and inside the various types of contra encampments in Honduras, many manage to escape and return to their communities. Some are kidnapped again, always for the same purpose. This laxness on the part of the counterrevolutionaries may be a result of the large numbers of people sometimes kidnapped, the difficult nature of the terrain, and the lack of conviction on the part of individual members of the groups responsible for the abductions. To a large extent, these groups seem to be composed of peasant farmers who were abducted themselves and by family members of former National Guardsmen.
- Even when, with their abductions, the contras do not succeed in incorporating new members into their ranks, they nonetheless intimidate and disrupt isolated peasant communities. Like all repression, contra kidnappings have created new political awareness among the inhabitants; however, they have also worn people down and eroded their capacity to resist the continued aggression.
Below are a few of the most representative accounts of abductions, as reported by the individual victims. The details recounted here were common in the accounts collected.
“The same National Guard as before”Constantino Espinoza is a 45-year-old peasant farmer from San Francisco del Norte. In July 1982, the contras attacked this village and killed 14 people, including Constantino’s son, brother, cousin, and two nephews. Constantino was forcefully taken to a makeshift encampment in Cacamuyá, Honduras.
“They took seven of us. We were barefoot and had to walk from 9 in the morning till 7 at night. There were about 200 of them. They tied our hands behind our backs, and we had to march about 18 kilometers until we got to the camp in Honduras. My feet were bleeding. There were about 300 well-armed and equipped men at the camp. The arms there appeared to be from the United States: hand grenades, mortars, machine guns, and FALs. There was new equipment marked “made in USA,” and there were waterproof packs and boots. They seemed really well equipped with all that stuff. I was a prisoner there. The nights were freezing cold, and I had to sleep without a shirt, tied up until sunrise. They fed us only once a day and we bathed only once a month. They were always saying there was communism in Nicaragua and that they were fighting against it. That’s all they know.
“But they acted like monsters. They would talk about the Bible, but there was nothing religious about them. What they do is murder and rob; those are their main activities. They have a slogan: “With God and patriotism, we will triumph over communism.” They repeat this over and over.
“After three months there, they stopped tying us up and beating us and took us to a place called Danlí, in southern Honduras. They took all of us who had been kidnapped together and moved us in nine official Honduran army trucks. They took us to a military training school. You could see there that the Honduran army worked with the Americans in the counterrevolution. They made us wear the same blue uniforms that they do and planned to send us to Nicaragua to fight.
“In Danlí, we were going to prepare for this fighting. I remember that this was at the same time that Reagan visited Honduras; you could hear people talking about it there. In Danlí, they trained us for about 20 days. Then they armed us and sent us with them to Nicaragua. But how the hell was I going to fight on the side of the ones who’d murdered people from my family and my village? After three days, I was able to escape because I was familiar with the part of Nicaragua where we were. Of the seven captured when they got me, four of us returned. There are still three who haven’t returned.
“I’m telling you what I saw: it’s the same National Guard as before, the same system: the Guardsmen against the people, against humanity. Those people have no mercy on anybody.”
“I don’t want to leave my home”Lucío Madariaga is about 40 years old. He is a peasant farmer from El Tizo, a town situated between Ocotal and Santa María. He has had three encounters with the contras, and each time he has avoided abduction.
“One day I was on my way back home after working on my little plot of land when I ran into them. They made me sit down and began to investigate me. They were wearing blue uniforms. There were four of them there with me and four more a ways up. They had the letters FDN on their uniforms, and they were well armed.
“They already knew that I belonged to the Defense Committee. They asked me why we sang the Sandinista anthem after our prayers, and I told them we didn’t. They said the Frente Sandinista was going to be defeated. They offered me money to cooperate with them, but there’s no way I could accept that. I know they’re going to lose. They showed me the cash. They had Nicaraguan money and Honduran lempiras. All this happened on January 12, 1983.
“Another time, I’d just come home after spending four days is Ocotal. I was sitting on my bed playing my guitar when I realized that someone was pointing a gun at me. They told me that they’d come to take me off. I asked them why, but they just told me that they had orders to come for me. What else could I do? I had to follow them. At the time, I was the coordinator of adult education.
“When we reached El Hato, they forced me to carry a heavy backpack. There were bullets in it: that’s why it was so heavy. You can see that all those packs are made in the US. Next I saw that my children had come running after me. Fernanda, my little girl, was tugging on their clothes and begging them to let me go. The kids were crying. They were going to take one of them with them, but they ended up letting him go. Then, not far from El Hato, they let me free and continued on their way.
“From then on, my family and I were uneasy. It’s tough when they’re after you for things that don’t harm anybody, that only do good for people. We can’t live in peace; they’re always on our tails. All of this was happening at the end of 1983.
“Another time, I was at home in the afternoon when a friend from El Aguacate arrived and told me that the contras were coming. So that they wouldn’t grab me again, I took off for Santa María and then toward Ocotal. But in La Rastra we ran into an ambush. They made us all get out of the truck, but I was the only one they held. They knew who I was. Then they stuck another one of those heavy packs with bullets on my back. It had the same tag from the United States. We walked all day until we reached the base in Honduras. We had to go through the hills, around El Yure, right along the border. There were 50 of them with me.
“When we arrived, they started to investigative me. They threatened me with a knife and told me that they were going to kill me. I said they could kill me if they wanted but what they were doing was unjust. But, at the same time they were threatening me, they were trying to convince me to take up a rifle and join them. I kept refusing, and they kept interrogating and threatening me. I was sitting on a rock. There wasn’t anything around the base. You just live like animals. There aren’t any houses or anything else. When there’s a downpour, there’s no place to take shelter.
“I couldn’t escape from them because I was barefoot. There were 86 of them there at that base, and I was their only prisoner. They were very distrustful with me, as if I were a dangerous murderer. We had to put up with the cold and hunger. Every once in a while, they’d kill and eat a cow that belonged to somebody they knew. The guardsmen there always go around saying that the Sandinistas are nothing but communists. They claim to believe in God and say that’s why they’re going to win. They wear crucifixes around their necks.
“Finally, one day then took me to Lodoza, a camp Honduras where they train. I escaped when we were crossing a river, which was very high that day. They chased after me, and I hid in a cave under some rocks and listened to them cursing me. That was in the afternoon. I waited until night fell to come out from under those rocks, and the next day I made it back home. That was May 13, 1984.
“My wife was worried about me. She’d looked for me everywhere but hadn’t found any trace of me. She thought that they were going to kill me, and my little girl would say every day: “They killed my Daddy.” We’re always afraid now because there’s a constant threat and they say they’re going to kill us all. But I don’t want to leave my home. I’ve got the bed I’m used to sleeping in here, a little house, and somewhere else I won’t find the little bit I’ve got here. Some people have left because the contras have told them em that, if they don’t go to Honduras with them, they’ll kill them. They get them scared, and they go. But it hurts to leave everything we’ve got here.”
“They’re still afraid”The contras sometimes abduct large numbers of people at the same time. In such cases, there usually exists a connection between the kidnappers and a few of those being kidnapped. Otherwise, massive abductions would be practically impossible.
On July 20, 1983, counterrevolutionaries kidnapped and forcefully led to Honduras 175 people from the village of Mozonte. Many of them were kept in a camp that they were able to leave 18 months later thanks to the efforts of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Reynaldo Gómez, the judge of Mozonte, and his 15-year-old daughter Griselda recall the events.
“The contras entered the village shooting their guns at about 6 p.m. They threw bombs into the houses of those who didn’t want to come out. So people came out little by little, and they gathered them up to take them off to Honduras. There were about 300 contras, and we had no defense here. They led the people to Honduras and dumped them in what they call ‘refuges.’ You couldn’t call them refuges, though, because there are prisoners in them. There’s no way to get out, and all they do is put the people to work. The majority of them were children. The UNHCR succeeded in having 120 of them sent home, but they’re still afraid.
“The day we were kidnapped we were on our way to a garden where we were growing tomatoes and cabbages. The contras showed up and forced us to go with them to a hermitage. But they really wanted to take us farther. They told us that in Nicaragua everything was limited and rationed. They were wearing blue uniforms, and we were afraid. They told us that we had to read some leaflets that they were carrying. The leaflets said: ‘Long live the Pope.’ ‘The pope is with us.’ ‘Down with the Sandinistas.’ They told us that the Pope was helping them and that they were on their way to victory with the help of John Paul.”
“Now we’re defending ourselves”Las Cruces is an indigenous village with some picturesque little houses and deeply ingrained religious traditions. It is located on the road between Ocotal and Jalapa. On December 7, 1984, during a religious ceremony, the contras arrived to abduct the men of the village. A member of the community tells the story.
“We were celebrating the Purísima. After we’d finished praying, we were drinking coffee and talking when I noticed that people were gathering together, but it was night and it was hard to see what was going on. Then I realized that the contras were rounding people up, so I ran to hide. Other people hid too, but the contras covered the whole village. I could hear all the racket that the contras and the people were making. The women and children were crying. I think that the operation lasted ten or fifteen minutes. They took the people they’d captured, and those of us who’d hidden went up into the mountains to sleep because we were afraid they’d come back.
“I’ve talked with the people who escaped and came back. The contras kept them in a camp in Honduras where they had no food and they slept outside in wet clothes. When they got back, they were exhausted, and their feet were covered with open sores. They kept the militia members tied up in the nude, and they gave them no food or water. Some were able to escape, but others are still missing. We think they’re probably dead because the contras said they were going to shoot them and they’d already dug a big hole where they were going to throw the bodies.
“They took 15 people away from this village, and 11 have made it back. Four are still missing. We were all feeling very down until the people started coming back. They were a great loss to us. We kept praying to God and the Virgin to send our people back home. When we realized what the contras had done and we got to thinking about how they said they were doing it for Christianity, we decided to take up guns and defend ourselves. We don’t want to go through the same kind of experience again. We don’t want to see the kids suffer, to see them lose their parents. Before the kidnapping, some of us wanted to take up arms, and some didn’t. But after we saw what the contras were like, everybody agreed. Now we’re defending ourselves.”
“I couldn’t take it any longer, so I came to live in Totogalpa”Coronado Muñoz Zamora, a 40-year-old janitor in a school in the Callantú Valley, fled with his family from counterrevolutionary forces in that area and came to live in Totogalpa. The contras kidnapped him in November 1984. Because of these kidnappings, many peasant families have had to abandon their homes in isolated regions and move to better protected areas. To date, more than 150,000 people have been displaced from their homes as a result of the war.
“I’ve suffered plenty. During the literacy campaign, I worked as a coordinator, helping the volunteer teachers. When I returned to my valley, the contras began searching for me. They wanted to kill me. I fled from them for a long time, and instead of living at the school, I slept in the surrounding mountains, enduring the rain and insect bites. When the contras came to my home to take me, I was nowhere to be found, and they soon forgot about me.
“But they finally kidnapped me on November 25, 1984. Six of the arrived at my house during the night and began to talk to me. I knew it was them; I can tell the difference between our army’s way of talking and how the contras talk. When I resisted their orders, they threatened to take away my little girl, but in the end they only took me. They were armed to the teeth. Then, they barged into a different house to get another young man, but he wasn’t home. I noticed they knew exactly who they were looking for.
“We walked for three days with the contras, even during the night. I was sick the whole time with splitting headaches. By this time, the contras had kidnapped 28 people from Río Abajo, Yalagüina, El Jocote, and Terrero Grande. We could see that the contras eat very well. They buy bread and chickens and have meals cooked for them at some houses they know. But all we got to eat was a piece of meat bone and a piece of tortilla at noon, with nothing for supper. Our kidnappers communicated back and forth with each other on very good radio sets.
“The contras explained that they were taking us to Honduras for military training so that we could come back later and attack our very own people. They boasted that the contra forces would win within a month and that the Sandinista army was going nuts. When they won, they claimed, they’d give us all money and we’d be happy. ‘After all, you can hardly feed yourself anymore in Nicaragua,’ they’d say, ‘and Honduras has it all: food, doctors; even the lame are cured and the blind can see there!’ But then they’d say: ‘Look out, cause if any one of you tries to split, you’re dead. What we do to deserters is we catch them, we tie them up to a pole, and we slit their throats.’ The contras kept talking about the United States, that it was the best thing they had going for them, that it was their support, and that, even though they were low on supplies for now, the US would soon be giving them more, as well as a whole lot more cash to guarantee their triumph. That’s the hope they’re banking on. The contras have equipment and really nice backpacks, ponchos, and other supplies from the US.
“When the contras we were traveling with were ambushed by the Nicaraguan army, five of us prisoners escaped in the skirmish. When the bullets started flying, we shot into the ground. I was the first to split. I took off like lightning but ran right into a contra. I threw off the heavy pack they’d forced me to carry and ran off into the dark. I kept on running down an unfamiliar road, lost and barefoot since my shoes had come off earlier. A short while later, the four other deserters and I finally met up. One boy fainted into the dust from hunger, but we didn’t have a thing to give him. We waited for him to come to because we didn’t have anything in our pockets to buy food. Helping the kid along, we arrived at a house and asked the man there if he could spare us a little coffee. So his wife warmed some up for us with a piece of tortilla. And that’s how we managed to move on and arrive home at last.
“When I got home, my little girl just about fell over; she was so happy to see me. Thank God they didn’t finish me off. From that point on, I didn’t want to live in my house anymore. I fled to the hills, putting up with the cold, the wind, and the dampness. I moved my family in to live with other people, and we abandoned the house, animals, and all. When we simply couldn’t take it any longer, we came to live in Totogalpa. I’m afraid to return to the valley because I know they’re searching for me there.”
“When we were picking coffee”Francisco López is a 27-year-old agricultural worker from Totogalpa who was kidnapped on January 16, 1984, while picking coffee. Kidnapping is a common tactic used by the contras to disrupt agricultural production.
“Lots of us from Totogalpa went to pick coffee. We arrived at the coffee plantation and, just as we were going to bed and had turned off the lights, a group of 30 contras appeared. They ordered us out of the building we were sleeping in and made us line up. They said we were going to Honduras. There were 40 of us, plus 18 who’d been taken from other farms around there. We set off, and the next day we reached Honduras. We walked the whole way without eating a thing.
“We were headed for a contra camp called La Lodoza, and, when we got there, a doctor told us that the contras would triumph in June. He was sure of that. We stayed in the camp, where they used us to carry munitions. We carried the stuff for miles on foot with only a piece of tortilla to eat. We might be sleeping at night, and they’d get us up to bring them water of food or provisions. We stayed there for about two months. They kept their wounded in this camp and went about curing them.
“They gave us training to be like them, really hard training. I was good and fat when I arrived there, but I got thin pretty fast. We did physical exercises and learned to use their weapons. We had to obey everything they said. They’d order us, “Go kiss that tree!” And we’d have to do it. Or they’d say, “Shout! Laugh like the devil!” And we had to obey. If you did something the instructor didn’t like, he’d punish you good. And if you were caught trying to escape, your punishment would be horrible.
“We had to repair the roads they used to bring in food and weapons. We leveled out gullies and built houses for them to store their supplies in. Sometimes we saw foreigners arrive. They were North Americans, I think, and they’d talk with some of the contras. The weapons they gave us were from the United States; it’s easy to tell just by looking at them.
“Then they sent us out: armed, dressed in blue, an army to fight against the Nicaraguans. We were 260 men. When we were three kilometers within Nicaragua, the Sandinistas ambushed us, and everyone who could, fled back into Honduras. I remained there all by myself. So I took off walking for two days and nights, all the time fearing that they might grab me again. But I reached Totogalpa. The first few nights here, I felt very nervous and afraid and didn’t dare go out, but now I can go to sleep without worrying.
“I don’t understand politics. I only went to pick coffee to earn my living. The contras forced me to go with them and then told us their victory was around the corner. But that day never came.”
“They told us this was pure communism”José Santos López Bautista, a 32-year-old Catholic Delegate of the Word from the small community of Santo Domingo, Totogalpa, has been kidnapped twice by the counterrevolutionaries.
“I’ve been a Delegate of the Word for 14 years. The contras first kidnapped me on November 8, 1983, when I was working in the coffee harvest. We’d been picking coffee for a full day when ten contras arrived in the night to take us away. There were 42 of us, and we were unarmed. They said we all had to go with them or be killed. So they lined us up and made us walk to the border. Some people managed to escape on the way. The next day, we reached a place in Honduras called Las Dificultades. At a Honduran military post, they took down our names and information about us. Then they took us to a contra camp. It was clear to us that the Honduran military officials keep in good contact with the contras.
“In the first camp, they had us cut down trees to build tents. The contras kept pretty loose vigilance over us, and some of our companions escaped. I think they took their chance because only two guards were keeping watch while the others slept. They were exhausted from their kidnapping raid. One of the guys we were working with, a really humble kid, managed to escape but lost his way, and they caught him again. It hurts to remember what they did to him: the commanding contra had him tied up, and they skinned him alive with a knife.
“I was in the camp for 19 days. They told us that all we had in Nicaragua was pure communism. We realized that in this camp there was a contra leader in charge of organizing the abductions. When you arrive at their military camps, they tell you you’ve come voluntarily, but the truth is you’ve been kidnapped. The first thing they focus on is religion. Before setting out on their long marches, they pray the Our Father or chant some Hail Mary’s. All the military equipment they give you is from the United States, uniforms and all.
“In the camp, I spoke with a man they called Cuerito. He told me that, before the revolution, he was a National Guardsman and that, when he fled to Honduras, he didn’t even know what it was like to pick coffee or work with a machete. Since he had no way to earn a living and had never learned to do anything else, he joined the counterrevolutionary army.
“After a while, the contras forced us to accompany them on missions into Nicaragua. I hardly knew how to shoot a gun, since they only taught us to assemble and dismantle the weapons. They took me on one mission to kidnap more Nicaraguans. On another, we were supposed to attack the Nicaraguan army, but we fell into their ambush instead. That’s when I escaped. I wandered around Honduras, not knowing which way to go or exactly where the Nicaraguan border was. I was on the run for four days and nights, traveling by moonlight, before I finally reached my village.
“The following year, they kidnapped me again. We were clearing the land after the coffee harvest when 20 contras came and took away all the workers. They threatened to blast us with machine gun fire if we tried to escape. Then we were lined up and taken off. But I ran away at the first chance. I knew what suffering lay ahead, and that’s why I escaped.
“This year, I’ve continued with the coffee harvest as usual. That’s how we earn our living. Of course, we’re scared that they might kidnap us again. They just abducted two girls I know from this area. They’re friends of mine, and it’s painful not knowing where they are. But even though we’re afraid, we keep on going, bringing in the harvest, because the revolution means progress for us. I think some day all this war has to stop. We’re not always going to live like this.”
A scattered population and an offer of amnestyMany of those kidnapped never return to their villages. We do not know of their experiences. If we did, we would discover how some died in the contra camps or how others fell in combat—dressed in blue and supposedly serving the FDN—against the Nicaraguan army. These untold stories would reveal how others ended up submitting to the counterrevolutionaries’ claims, unable to break out of the vicious circle created by new pressures and commitments.
In December 1983, an amnesty law was decreed in Nicaragua. It was successively extended until November 1984. Throughout the electoral campaign, those who had joined the counterrevolution were encouraged to avail themselves of the amnesty and to return and vote. An estimated 1,500 Nicaraguans responded to the call, the majority of them Miskitos. On January 22, 1985, the recently elected National Assembly passed a new amnesty law, which is to remain in effect until July 19, 1985.
At this point, the amnesty law is a political measure included in the broader peace initiative undertaken by the Nicaraguan government. It appears to be an appropriate measure in light of the major military offensive launched by the Nicaraguan army in December, which has led among other things to serious demoralization among contra troops. The amnesty decree is intended to take advantage of this situation by responding to the human and social costs brought on by a war of attrition. In part, the amnesty in intended for those who have been kidnapped and are unable to escape, for those who have decided not to desert or return to their communities for fear of reprisals or misunderstanding on the part of their neighbors, and for those who fear the possibility of unemployment and permanent insecurity if they leave the ranks of the counterrevolution.
The amnesty law contains only five articles, which define the laying down of arms and the time frame for which the amnesty will be in effect. Article 4, which the National Assembly added to the original bill introduced by the executive branch, expresses the law’s campesino orientation: “On behalf of the government of the Republic, the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Agrarian Reform will take all appropriate measures to incorporate into productive work the peasant farmers who avail themselves of this law.”
In their testimonies, many people mention the contras’ tactic of kidnapping. On February 15, 143 peasant farmers laid down their arms and accepted the amnesty in Estelí. A few days later, a smaller group did the same in Wiwilí. Christian Pichardo, a representative of the Ministry of the Interior for Region I, received the first of these groups with the following words: “We want the enemy to know that the revolution will welcome all those who have been kidnapped or want to desert.”
This latest offer of amnesty is being extended to counterrevolutionary leaders, including Edén Pastora, inviting them to return to normal civilian life in Nicaragua and join the civilian opposition—provided they lay down their arms. However, the law is principally oriented toward the thousands of anonymous peasant farmers who have become intimately acquainted with the reality and tactics of President Reagan’s “freedom fighters.” For these victims of kidnapping, constant harassment, intimidation, confusion, and deceit at the hands of the contras, the revolution is offering forgiveness and a new life.
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