By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jun 16 2008 (IPS)

Civil society groups are facing smear campaigns and threats in Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, according to human rights activists and information gathered by IPS.

In Managua, activist Georgina Muñoz with the Coordinadora Civil complained that the government of leftist President Daniel Ortega had lashed out at non-governmental organisations (NGOs) because of their criticism of measures taken by the administration.

Muñoz, representing more than 24 NGOs that form part of the Coordinadora Civil, said officials of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government harass activists and threaten to revoke their licences to operate as NGOs and audit their books.

"Ortega himself has began a campaign in his speeches in public squares, calling us ‘pawns of the empire’ and CIA agents and accusing us of ‘selling out the country’," said the activist.

Earlier, Ortega and several legislators from the ruling party had denounced that NGOs are receiving financing from the United States to undermine and weaken the Sandinista government.

In late May, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) donated more than 300,000 dollars to 15 civil society groups for social development projects, academic research and the strengthening of institutions and civil rights.

The head of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Centre, Vilma Núñez de Escorcia, told IPS that her group has been pressured and insulted by public officials when its activists file complaints in public offices.

"Since he took office (in January 2007), Ortega has taken an aggressive stance towards many sectors not aligned with the government. His followers verbally and physically attack journalists, accuse NGOs of mismanaging funds and disparage women," said Núñez, a former FSLN militant.

She said the worst reactions target women’s organisations fighting for the legalisation of therapeutic abortion (for cases where pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, the foetus has a deformity that would prevent survival outside the womb, or the expectant mother’s health or life is in danger), which was banned during the 2006 election campaign, when the FSLN forged closer ties with the Catholic Church.

"We can see that Ortega has especially targeted women, to the extreme that a complaint has been filed with the Attorney General’s Office, accusing a group of nine women activists of criminal activity," said Núñez.

The government has also stopped providing official information to some NGOs, such as the Institute of Strategic Studies on Public Policies after it complained of a lack of transparency in government management of cooperation funds from Venezuela, said the group’s director, Javier Meléndez.

The Permanent Human Rights Commission, which has been active in the country for more than three decades, has received anonymous death threats, as well as warnings that its licence could be revoked, since it accepted a lawsuit by public employees who had been dismissed, according to the Commission’s spokesman, Marcos Carmona.

The Supreme Electoral Court announced that it would push for a law to keep the Ethics and Transparency Civic Group, the national branch of the Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, from observing elections in the country.

A majority of the members of the electoral court belong to the FSLN and its ally, the Constitutionalist Liberal Party, led by former president Arnoldo Alemán (1997-2002), who was convicted of embezzlement and money laundering.

The Civic Group has warned of irregularities in the preparations for the municipal elections to be held in November, the organisation’s executive director, Roberto Courtney, told IPS.

But Nicaragua is not an exception in Latin America. Attempts at thwarting the activities of NGOs have also been seen in Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, according to information gathered by IPS correspondents.

In December 2006, the Peruvian government of Alan García attempted to legally require NGOs to register with the governmental Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI), and to submit to oversight of the funds they received from abroad.

Although parts of the law were declared unconstitutional in September 2007, the government has continued its smear campaign against activists, says a January 2008 National Human Rights Commission report.

The Commission says the government has attempted to clamp down on NGOs because they have "promoted judicial action for human rights violations committed during García’s first term (1985-1990), especially in the case of the June 1986 massacre of prisoners in the El Frontón prison."

Factions within the government and followers of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) have accused the National Human Rights Commission, the Legal Defence Institute and the Human Rights Association (APRODEH) of "terrorism."

These human rights groups provide legal assistance and advice to the families of victims of massacres carried out by special military intelligence commandos during Fujimori’s first term in office.

Colombia’s rightwing President Álvaro Uribe, the U.S. government’s chief ally in the region, has constantly lashed out at NGOs since taking office in late 2003.

He called the authors of a critical report on his first year in office, titled "The Authoritarian Spell", "traffickers of human rights" and "mouthpieces for terrorism".

The report was produced by the Colombian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development, which represents about 80 civil society groups.

At the same time, civic groups and NGOs directly run by demobilised far-right paramilitaries have begun to crop up in Colombia, which is in the grip of a nearly five-decade civil war.

After each verbal attack targeting activists by Uribe or his advisers, death threats against human rights defenders and their organisations increase in number.

In 2004, the Uribe administration "began to clamp down on human rights groups, which it saw as waging opposition with aid funds from abroad," Camilo González Posso, director of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (INDEPAZ), told IPS.

In mid-2005, the government issued "Guidelines for international cooperation projects" which asked United Nations agencies, development aid agencies and international humanitarian groups active in Colombia to avoid using certain terms like "armed conflict," armed actors," "humanitarian crisis" or "peace community," and banned financing of attempts to bring about peace talks or negotiations.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) threatened to pull out of Colombia, which has the second-largest population of displaced persons in the world, after Sudan.

The pressure on NGOs has continued, and some have decided to tone down their criticism of the government, said González Posso.

"There was an outcry over the new guidelines" – but, for example, the role of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights "was completely watered down," he added.

The office "took quite an independent stance" after it was opened in 1997, until around a year and a half ago, he said. "Now it has fallen into de facto subordination to government directions and instructions," said the head of INDEPAZ.

In Venezuela, governed by leftwing President Hugo Chávez for nearly a decade, a report by the Episcopal Vicariate of Human Rights, issued in December 2007 and updated this month, said "the conditions in which human rights defenders work have significantly deteriorated, a situation for which the Venezuelan state has a fundamental responsibility."

Most violations of the human rights of activists are committed by agents of the state, and go unpunished, says the report.

Since 1997, there have been six murders of members of civil society groups and physical and psychological attacks on 38 others, including blows, arrests and threats.

* With additional reporting from Constanza Vieira in Bogotá, Humberto Márquez in Caracas and Ángel Páez in Lima.

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