Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS-NICARAGUA: Mudslinging Match Between Gov’t, Activists

José Adán Silva

MANAGUA, Nov 6 2009 (IPS) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has been accused before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of responsibility for a series of violent incidents, which in the view of some analysts and civil society organisations have harmed democracy in the country.

The government, meanwhile, complained about a U.S.-orchestrated smear campaign by rightwing sectors.

The non-governmental Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights (CENIDH) attended a hearing at the 137th Period of Sessions of the Commission, part of the human rights system of the Organisation of American States (OAS), held until this Friday in its Washington headquarters.

CENIDH argues that there is an official strategy of threats and repression against opponents and civil society organisations that are critical of the Ortega government of the ex guerrilla Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), now a political party. “Official justice bodies and law enforcement agents have been merged with members of youth patrols, armed with home-made mortars, machetes, sticks and stones, whose aim is to crack down on expressions of dissidence on the streets and in public places,” complained Vilma Núñez, the head of CENIDH.

The lawyer and human rights activist told IPS that her organisation has received testimony on dozens of cases of physical attacks against civilians, journalists, women’s rights activists, students and rights workers since October.

“Every case has been documented, the attackers identified, and their links with the government verified. Yet no one has been detained, investigated or punished,” she said.

Núñez told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that the attacks have worsened since Oct. 19, when the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing consecutive presidential reelection in Nicaragua.

The leftwing FSLN came to power in 1979 when it overthrew the Somoza family dictatorship, which had ruled with an iron fist for four decades. It installed a Junta of National Reconstruction, made up of Ortega and four others from different social sectors.

With Ortega as its presidential candidate, the FSLN won the 1984 elections, the first to be held after the transition period, and governed until 1990 while waging a civil war against the far-right “Contra” forces, organised and financed by the United States.

After three unsuccessful bids, Ortega was re-elected to the presidency with 37.9 percent of the vote, and took office in January 2007. Virtually from the start of his current term he campaigned to be able to run again for president in 2011.

Political parties, non-governmental, business and religious organisations, media and ambassadors have protested the verdict, which according to experts violates the constitution and undermines democracy.

The Nicaraguan state’s representative at the IACHR hearings in Washington was the country’s ambassador to the OAS, Denis Moncada, who rejected the complaints and stated that “violations of human rights and promoting violence as a means of political expression are not state policies of President Ortega.”

“Nicaragua is not a dictatorship, and neither the police nor the army are repressing its citizens,” Moncada said in reply to the human rights activists’ denunciations.

“What is happening in the country is an increase in political struggle by the right, which is trying to destabilise the government. Within that struggle, confrontations have occurred which have nothing to do with state policy,” Moncada added.

CENIDH insisted at the hearing on the need for the IACHR Rapporteur on Human Rights for Nicaragua, Felipe González, to visit the Central American country in order to verify the accusations.

However, Moncada refused to seek an official state invitation for the Rapporteur, without which a visit cannot take place.

Ambassador Moncada said guarantees of freedom of expression were in place in Nicaragua, and that what is occurring is a destabilisation campaign promoted by the United States and rightwing local political sectors.

The United States takes a hand

U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan accused the Ortega administration last week of promoting and organising a protest march by Sandinista supporters who attacked the U.S. embassy with home-made mortars, stones and Molotov cocktails on Oct. 29.

The demonstrators, FSLN leaders and unions of government employees demanded the expulsion of Callahan after he criticised the Supreme Court ruling.

Callahan told a group of opposition politicians and members of the business community last week that the court “acted improperly, with unusual speed, and in secret.”

The Foreign Ministry sent him a note of protest and he was criticised by government officials and FSLN leaders.

In another protest action, on Oct. 30 university organisations and unions supporting the FSLN blocked gates and streets around the Central American University, where Callahan was an invited guest at an academic event.

The ambassador left the premises escorted by Nicaraguan riot police. Neither the White House nor the State Department have commented on the incidents, and the Nicaraguan government has stated officially that it will not expel Callahan.

Other violent incidents related to the issue have been reported, such as physical aggression against civil society organisation activists and journalists, injuries inflicted on rightwing party activists, and attacks on public and private buildings.

Nicaragua’s ombudsman, former Sandinista guerrilla Omar Cabezas, defended the protests against the U.S. embassy. “Protesting is valid, it is a right and a duty, because the ‘gringos’ have blood on their hands.”

“Those who applaud U.S. meddling are traitors and betrayers of their country,” Cabezas said.

For his part, Vice President Jaime Morales Carazo told IPS that the complaint to the IACHR “was an unbelievable over-reaction, unheard-of, disgraceful, making us look like cavemen in the eyes of the world.”

According to the vice president, Callahan was speaking for Washington, repeating the position of the State Department and the criticisms voiced by Democratic Senator John Ferry with respect to the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Ortega to stand for reelection.

Law professor Alejandro Serrano told IPS that the climate of hostility on the streets against members of the opposition and people who do not agree with the government’s ideas “has deteriorated the quality of democratic life in the country.”

“In the exercise of government, when violence becomes the norm, without exception, and not the exception to the norm, then democracy is in grave danger of turning into a dictatorship,” said the political analyst.

In his view, the spiral of political violence that has taken control of the country since the 2008 municipal elections – when the opposition alleged fraud – not only harms the country’s image, but also the right of Nicaraguans to freedom of expression.

With respect to the Supreme Court ruling which allows Ortega to run again for president, Serrano said “it is counterproductive to speak of democratic openness and at the same time to shut the door on other candidates and use violence to silence those who think differently.”