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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 28KB | 517 lines

<text> <title> Nicaragua </title> <article> <hdr> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 Americas Watch: Nicaragua </hdr> <body> Human Rights Developments In 1991, the task of national reconciliation in Nicaragua continued to be threatened by sporadic and sometimes violent unrest, the re-emergence of armed groups composed of both former contras and ex-Sandinista soldiers, and the inability of the judicial system to administer justice. The divisions wrought by the previous decade's bloody conflict continued to be manifest in a highly charged and politically polarized debate about private property, the state's role in the economy, and Sandinista dominance of the armed forces. The resort to violence by persons and groups of different political persuasions was perhaps the most troubling aspect of the still incomplete, and regularly tumultuous, democratic transition. The Nicaraguan police and military did not themselves instigate political violence in urban areas. However, their failure to punish abuses from either official or opposition sources and their passivity in the face of major instances of violent unrest signaled the need for further progress in establishing the rule of law. During the year, the government of President Violeta Chamorro reacted responsibly and prudently to tense situations in the countryside. The integration of former contra rebels in the so-called rural police expanded throughout the year in areas traditionally sympathetic to the contras, reducing the potential for political violence. Some former State Security officials known for human rights abuses who had entered the police force were removed from their posts in conflict areas. An office within the Ministry of Governance the Civil Inspectorate was created to investigate police abuses and became increasingly active throughout the year. The army was reduced in size to about twenty thousand and its role in society greatly diminished. Efforts to retrieve arms in the possession of the civilian population were renewed. Often, however, reforms were implemented only after long-standing problems had gotten out of hand. For example, the tensions that arose from the continued presence of Sandinista military and police in areas sympathetic to the contras and the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) could have been anticipated. The judicial system continued to suffer from poor funding, politicization, and an apparent lack of political will to investigate and prosecute violent crimes. As in 1990, the Chamorro government seemed intentionally to avoid pressing through the justice system cases involving violent crimes committed by persons of one political persuasion against another. (An October 30 report by the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), for example, found that judicial investigations were opened in only fifty-five of the 215 killings it reviewed, and that in only a small percentage of those was anyone detained and prosecuted. See CENIDH, Investigación: El Derecho a la Vida e Impunidad, October 30, 1991.) The government apparently continues to believe that jailing suspects involved in politically motivated crimes would elicit charges of political persecution. However, this failure to enforce the criminal laws has bred further polarization and distrust. Violence perpetrated for political motives whether by UNO, contra or Sandinista partisans should be, but rarely is, investigated and punished by the authorities. The state also has a particularly strong responsibility to prosecute crimes committed by its own agents. A number of high-profile killings and many lesser-known murders were not resolved during the course of 1991. Foremost among the prominent cases was the February 17 assassination of Enrique Bermúdez, who had been the top contra commander during most of the war. His murder was a setback to the process of national reconciliation and did more to create a feeling of insecurity among demobilized rebels than any other single incident in post-war Nicaragua. Less than a month after the murder, President Chamorro appointed a special commission composed of several lawyers and one former contra commander to monitor the government's investigation into the Bermúdez killing. After months of work, including exhuming the body months later for an autopsy in Miami, the commission issued a brief report in early November and disbanded. The report concluded that the one eyewitness named by the police had no credibility and that the forensic capabilities of the police were not sufficient to carry out a decent investigation. (For more information on this and other cases, see Americas Watch, Fitful Peace: Human Rights and Reconciliation in Nicaragua under the Chamorro Government, July 1991.) In another case, several members of the army and police killed Francisco Luis Cano Chavarría, alias Commander "Chapulín," as they attempted to disarm him on April 12 near Wiwilí, Jinotega. "Chapulín" had been suspected of the murder of a former State Security agent. An Americas Watch investigation concluded that "Chapulín's" death, while not necessarily premeditated, was intentional and could have been avoided. The man filling the newly created post of civil inspector investigated the case and recommended that the police lieutenant in charge of the operation be transferred to another zone, that the army not engage in law-enforcement missions, and that special delegates from the Ministry of Governance (formerly Interior) be named in municipalities with deep political divisions. In theory, the naming of Ministry of Governance delegates would provide a civilian authority that could mediate conflicts and investigate abuses by Sandinista military personnel. Months after "Chapulín's" death, and after further violence in July in Wiwilí, the police lieutenant identified by the civil inspector was finally transferred. In late 1991, Ministry of Governance delegates were named in nine conflictive municipalities in the north. However, no one has been charged in "Chapulín's" death. The October 1990 killing of sixteen-year-old Jean Paul Genie was revisited in 1991 by a special National Assembly commission. Genie was allegedly murdered by bodyguards of army General Humberto Ortega as Genie attempted to pass a caravan of four military escort vehicles on the highway between Managua and Masaya. At the request of the Nicaraguan Assembly, the Venezuelan Parliament sent a team of specialists to review the police investigation, which had identified no suspects. Although the Venezuelan team turned up no new evidence, it reiterated the charge made by Nicaragua's Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) and Genie's parents that the prime suspects were General Ortega's bodyguards. The case remains in the civilian court system. Significant urban violence erupted in 1991 during labor disputes as well as when the National Assembly attempted in June to overturn controversial property laws enacted in the closing months of Sandinista rule. The Nicaraguan police intervened aggressively against Sandinista unions in several cases, but in others were accused of standing by passively during violence by Sandinista partisans. In April, for example, the police brutally attacked striking workers affiliated with the pro-Sandinista National Workers' Front outside the Olof Palme conference center, injuring dozens of people. According to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), at least sixteen workers were beaten around the head, back and stomach with rubber truncheons and clubs, and kicked while being forced into police vehicles. In mid-June, political tensions erupted when the National Conservative Party introduced a bill in the National Assembly to repeal two laws passed in the waning months of Sandinista rule. Laws 85 and 86 had privatized some state property (enriching top Sandinista leaders in a so-called piñata) and legalized the st