TITLE: NICACARAGUA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994 AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DATE: FEBRUARY 1995 NICARAGUA Nicaragua is a constitutional democracy, with a directly elected President, Vice President, and a 92-member unicameral National Assembly. President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was elected in a free and fair election in 1990, defeating the incumbent Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). She has delegated significant executive authority to her son-in-law, Presidency Minister Antonio Lacayo. The executive branch coexists with an increasingly independent National Assembly, which has become the central forum for political debate. With an unprecedented degree of cooperation among the FSLN, key parties belonging to the National Opposition Union (UNO) coalition that had supported President Chamorro's election in 1990, and several moderate parties, the Assembly passed significant legislation on labor, civil-military relations, and property compensation bonds, and is currently working on constitutional reforms. The President, in her capacity as commander in chief and Minister of Defense, and the Ministry of Government are legally responsible for overseeing the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS) and the National Police, respectively. In practice, however, in the absence of a defense ministry, Nicaragua's security forces continued to be led by senior officers who maintained ideological and political links to the FSLN and who operated with substantial institutional and legal autonomy. Nevertheless, civilian control over the National Police was more evident in 1994, particularly during two transportation strikes. Moreover, on September 2, President Chamorro signed into law a Military Code, passed by the National Assembly, which established institutional mechanisms intended to strengthen civilian control of the security apparatus. The law provides for the retirement of current EPS Commander General Humberto Ortega in February 1995, presidential appointment of his successor to a term limited to 5 years, civilian court jurisdiction over common crimes committed by military and police personnel, prohibition of "political intelligence activities" by the EPS's Defense Intelligence Directorate (DID), and civilian oversight of the newly created military social security system and of EPS-operated private enterprises. By the end of 1994, it was not clear whether all of these provisions would be implemented sucessfully. The economy is predominantly agricultural, dependent on sugar, beef, seafood and banana exports, with some light manufacturing. After years of hyperinflation and negative growth, the inflation rate was about 20 percent and real growth approximately 3 percent in 1994; per capita annual income was estimated at $410. Unemployment and underemployment totaled over 50 percent, while the investment climate remained unsettled. Although the Government's fiscal deficit has been cut by 80 percent since 1990, Nicaragua remained heavily dependent on foreign aid. The security forces persisted in committing significant human rights abuses, although they are declining in number. Murders, extrajudicial killings, torture, widespread mistreatment of detainees, and violence by paramilitary and criminal bands in rural areas were common. Since President Chamorro assumed office, the focus of international attention has been on safeguarding the human rights of former members of the Nicaraguan Resistance (RN) since most human rights observers, including the Sandinista human rights organization CENIDH, acknowledge that more ex-RN than FSLN members have been homicide victims. The Organization of American States International Support and Verification Commission (OAS/CIAV) estimates that 270 ex-RN were killed from June 1990 through 1994. The conviction rate among killers of ex-RN is so low that a state of impunity for abuses committed against ex-RN can still be said to exist. The Tripartite Commission, composed of the Government, the Catholic Church, and OAS/CIAV, has issued recommendations which the security forces continued to resist implementing in 1994. The Commission, whose meetings the Government convenes, met 18 times during the year, a reduction from 48 meetings in 1993, and failed to produce any reports. A weak judiciary continued to hamper prosecution of human rights abusers. An office of human rights within the Attorney General's office, created in 1992, remained unstaffed; discussions about creating a human rights ombudsman independent of the executive continued during the year. Violence against women, including rape and domestic violence, continued to be a serious problem, with the Government taking little effective action to counter it. RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from: a. Political and Extrajudicial Killing The civil war formally concluded in June 1990 with the demobilization of the Nicaraguan Resistance. However, politically motivated or connoted violence continued into 1994, as Nicaraguan society continued to be both politically polarized and heavily armed. The police, army, and Sandinista militants continued to kill demobilized RN combatants, but the number of such murders dropped from a monthly average of 6.1 in 1990 to 4.0 in 1994. With the demobilization of the 380 Northern Front (FN-380) in April and smaller bands of rearmed ex-RN (recontras) in August, the situation in the trouble-ridden north calmed somewhat. According to OAS/CIAV, the National Police or EPS killed 7 former combatants through November 1994, unknown assailants killed 11, and rearmed EPS veterans (known as recompas) killed 3. However, it attributed the majority--23 deaths--to other ex-RN members or recontras. The total of 44 deaths in 1994 brought to 270 the number of ex-RN members who died under violent circumstances since the beginning of the Chamorro administration. OAS/CIAV and national human rights group continued to report details of these human rights abuses to the Government and the media. To address the issue of ex-RN deaths, President Chamorro established the Tripartite Commission in late 1992. The Commission, composed of the civilian Government, the Catholic Church, and CIAV, issued three reports during 1993, covering investigations of 88 deaths and including 120 recommendations for government followup action, ranging from arrest of known perpetrators to investigations for obstruction of justice. Of these, the Commission has verified that the Government complied fully with three of the recommendations in the first report. Consistent with an expanded mandate granted to CIAV by the June 1993 OAS General Assembly, a fourth Commission report discusses 33 additional cases of both Sandinista and ex-RN deaths, plus an evaluation of the compliance level of all the recommendations contained in the 1993 reports. This report was expected to be released in late 1994 but was delayed into 1995. Senior EPS and police officials continued to impede the work of the Commission by their refusal to implement its recommendations or respond to its requests for information. Only a handful of officials named in the first report, dated January 1993, received criminal or administrative sanctions. Although the EPS claimed that it had punished several soldiers named by the Commission's report as wrongdoers, by year's end the Commission had not received any confirming documentation to this effect. Of those perpetrators named by the Commission, CIAV later listed five who later committed additional human rights abuses. They are police officers Johny Jose Rugama (cases 110 and 113), Captain Benito Diaz Perez (case 149), and Santiago Irias (mentioned in the special case of La Trinidad in the third Tripartite Commission report) as well as Etnio Obregon Ruiz of the EPS (case 61). In December the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH) released the names of four police officials and three EPS officials who were involved in five separate human rights incidents. It said the military convicted and sentenced them, but none is behind bars. One soldier, EPS Lieutenant Jose Antonio Barberena, had been sentenced once before for killing a fellow soldier. In neither instance has he served time in prison. Human rights groups such as CIAV and CENIDH have witnessed continued violence in rural areas of northern Nicaragua, primarily as a result of land disputes and criminal activity. Since July 1993, CIAV has calculated that 45 percent of the homicides it investigated were committed by rearmed former Resistance members (recontras). The majority of the victims were demobilized resistance members or their families who lived in the community. CENIDH reported that during the first quarter of 1994, there were 3 homicides of FSLN members, bringing the total number of FSLN homicides from May 1990 through March 1994 to 169. During the same period, CENIDH reported that 513 "ex-RN and recontras" were homicide victims. Due to the remoteness of many of the conflict zones, coupled with popular fear of retribution or apparent frustration with the inability to bring the perpetrators to justice, an undetermined number of other deaths are believed by some resistance members to go unreported. Other incidents of political and extrajudicial killing dating from 1990 remained unsolved. On March 21, a band of renegade recontras led by Jose "Omar" Castro kidnaped Javier Barahona, a prominent local FSLN offical and ex-mayor of Wiwili in Juigalpa department. They seized Barahona from a public bus in broad daylight and later tortured and murdered him, despite negotiation efforts by both the church and CIAV to secure Barahona's release. At year's end, the authorities had not brought Barahona's killers to justice. In November 1991, the Government dissolved the special presidential commission charged with investigating the February 16, 1991, assassination of former RN commander Enrique Bermudez, claiming a lack of evidence. A British investigative team found no new evidence in 1993, and the Government took no further action in the case in 1994. In June 1994 a military court declared EPS General Humberto Ortega and his bodyguards innocent of organizing or covering up the 1990 killing of high school student Jean Paul Genie, but declared the case still unresolved. This followed the December 1993 decision of the Supreme Court to remand the case to the military courts. Several human rights groups criticized both the Supreme Court's ruling, which rejected an appeal by Raymond Genie, the boy's father, to order the case tried in a civilian court, and the military court's acquittal. They cited numerous irregularities, including the nonadmissibility or disappearance of certain key pieces of evidence, as well as the conflict of interest of one of the Supreme Court judges who, after his retirement, acted as defense attorney for the bodyguards. Raymond Genie filed two appeals with the military court: The court rejected an appeal regarding the June verdict, but in August it accepted the second, requesting the trial be sent to the Supreme Court where the case currently awaits judgment. At the same time, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights referred the Genie case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which heard the case on November 18 on the issue of delay of justice and is expected to render a decision in the spring of 1995. The Government had argued that the Court could not rule on the murder itself, as it took place prior to Nicaragua's acceptance of the Court's special jurisdiction. On March 10, the Leon appellate court reinstated the 20-year prison sentence given to former EPS Lt. Colonel Frank Ibarra, leader of a pro-FSLN paramilitary group, Punitive Forces of the Left (FPI), for the November 23, 1992 assassination of Dr. Arges Sequeira Manga, then director of the Association of Nicaraguan Confiscated Property Owners. The same court overturned an earlier ruling granting Ibarra immunity under an August 1993 amnesty. Ibarra's lawyer appealed the matter to the Supreme Court, which had not ruled by year's end. Ibarra remained at large, and no apparent effort has been made to capture him; the police at one point claimed there was no warrant out for his arrest. The Government petitioned the Leon appellate court to obtain such a warrant, although it continued to argue that Ibarra's conviction made this step superfluous. On March 12, the EPS publicly denounced the Leon court's ruling, claiming it would lead to instability regarding those who had received previous amnesties from the Government. b. Disappearance There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances. c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights recorded 118 cases of inhuman and degrading treatment in 1994. In the majority of the cases, those accused of the abuses were the National Police, who often held the victims for days, only to release them without formally charging them with any crime. There were other credible reports during the year that the police beat and otherwise physically mistreated detainees, often to obtain confessions. Three nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) worked together in 1994 to improve prison conditions as a result of innumerable complaints regarding police brutality in prisons as well as in police holding cells. Following complaints of mistreatment in police detention cells, representatives from the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) visited the holding cell of the criminal investigation office and found the cells poorly ventilated due in part to solid metal doors and metal sheeting in the ceiling. In June the prison population was 2,900, of which more than 10 percent were between ages 15 and 18, owing to the complete lack of juvenile detention facilities. The prisons had overcrowded cells, medical attention was nonexistent, and there was extensive malnutrition. Following accusations that prisoners received dietary intake of only 500 calories per day, the Government announced plans to increase the budget by $1 million, allowing each prisoner an average of $0.91 per day for food. Ministry of Government officials stated that they did not have sufficient funds to improve the conditions of prisons under their jurisdiction. The office of civil inspection for professional responsibility of the Ministry of Government, established in 1991, is charged with monitoring prison conditions. However, due to the unit's small budget and staff, it is able to investigate few complaints. d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile Arbitrary arrest and detention by the police were common. The Police Functions Law establishes procedures for the arrest of criminal suspects, which require police to obtain a warrant from a police official prior to detaining a suspect. The law requires police to notify family members of a detainee's whereabouts within 24 hours, but the police rarely comply. Detainees do not have the right to an attorney until they have been formally charged with a crime. Local human rights groups criticized the law for providing inadequate judicial oversight of police arrests. The Constitution declares that all detained persons have the right to be brought before a judge within 72 hours, but the authorities frequently ignored this in practice. Local human rights groups reported that the authorities routinely detained suspects far beyond the limits established under the Constitution. The civil inspection unit also monitors police wrongdoing, including illegal detention. Through October 1994, the civil inspection unit received 360 complaints of abuse of power, illegal detention, and negligence. Victims filed 80 percent of the complaints against the police and the other 20 percent against prison guards, immigration officials, and other enforcement authorities. No internal mechanism exists to verify what official actions, if any, the Ministry of Government takes against these officials, once the unit submits the complaint to it. The location of the civil inspection unit in the Ministry building, which during the Sandinista era was the site of the feared Interior Ministry, is cited by members of the unit as an intimidating factor for those seeking to lodge complaints of police or prison abuse. Although the Constitution provides access to legal counsel for detainees after they have been charged with a crime, in practice police do not act to protect this right. The Reform Law of Penal Procedures provides for the release on bail of persons accused of certain crimes. Previously, the law permitted detainees to remain at liberty prior to trial only for compelling personal reasons, such as ill health. ANPDH recorded 183 complaints of illegal detention through 1994. Over half of the incidents of illegal detention occurred in the north central region of the country, most of which were attributable to the National Police. CENIDH also criticized the police, noting that, from January 1993 to March 1994, 48 percent of all complaints involved abuses by the police. CENIDH and other observers cited many impediments to improved police performance and responsiveness to the public, including the lack of professional training, low salaries, and inadequate resources, as well as the physical remoteness of judicial centers that prevented relatives of prisoners from personally inquiring into the status of ongoing cases. Exile is not practiced. e. Denial of Fair Public Trial The judicial system, comprising both civilian and military courts, is headed by a nine-member Supreme Court of Justice. The Supreme Court names appeals court and lower court judges. On December 13, 1993, the National Assembly approved the nominations of four Supreme Court replacements, giving the court a non-Sandinista majority for the first time since President Chamorro took office. Nonetheless, the inability to obtain a working quorum hampered the work of the Supreme Court, in part due to internal divisions in the Court and in part due to the Assembly's refusal to act on an executive branch nomination in May to fill a vacancy on the Court. Two of the nine seats on the Supreme Court remained vacant at the end of the year. The Ministry of Government and Attorney General's office attempted several times during 1993 and 1994 to issue summonses to former Sandinista Ministry of the Interior and Immigration Service official Luis Guzman to testify in the Santa Rosa arms cache investigation. The Sandinista judge in charge of the case has repeatedly failed to meet legal deadlines for rendering a decision on whether or not the authorities should arrest Guzman for refusing to appear for questioning. Police authorities commonly refused to implement decisions of lower court judges with which the police disagreed. Many Nicaraguans who returned to the country following the 1990 election after a decade in exile sued for the return of their properties confiscated under the Sandinista regime. In several cases, after the presiding magistrate ordered the return of an illegally confiscated property to the original owner, the police refused to enforce eviction orders against occupants, who were frequently prominent members of the FSLN or security forces. In the widely reported case of Jaime Solorzano, police repeatedly refused to arrest the illegal occupants even after they fired on the judge who attempted to serve the eviction order and wounded Mr. Solorzano's son. This case remains unresolved. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled on February 1 that the Government had violated the American Convention on Human Rights by refusing to return properties owned by the Marin family which the Government illegally seized in 1979. The Libyan-Nicaraguan Friendship Association--an arm of the Libyan Government--currently occupies the properties. Until the enactment of the new Military Code on September 2, the military court system was responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and trying common crimes committed by or against members of the armed forces or police. Military courts often failed to investigate complaints or try cases against members of the military brought under the old code. They frequently imposed only light sentences against soldiers, and military authorities often failed to enforce them (see Section 1). The military court's acquittal of General Ortega and his bodyguards of the murder of Jean Paul Genie and the military's lack of compliance with the recommendations of the Tripartite Commission are cases in point. The new Military Code specifies that all common crimes committed by members of the military will be tried in civil court. By year's end, the authorities had begun processing three cases, two involving the police and one involving the EPS, under the new Code. In all criminal cases, the accused has the right to legal counsel, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Publicly funded attorneys to represent indigent defendants do not exist. Obtaining justice is a slow, uncertain process, and the authorities regularly arrested persons and held them without bail for months before they appeared in court. The CPDH estimated that nearly half of all those incarcerated in the prison system had been awaiting trial for between 6 months and 2 years. There were no known political prisoners. f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence The Constitution establishes that all persons have the right to privacy of their family and to the inviolability of their home, correspondence, and communications. It also requires warrants for searches of private homes and excludes from legal proceedings illegally seized letters, documents, and private papers. However, in April the police burst into the home of the Bishop of Leon looking for the driver of an illegally parked truck. The driver and two workmen were delivering material to a nearby chapel and had sought refuge in the Bishop's residence after being chased by the police. The police entered the residence without a warrant, caught the workmen, and beat them in front of the Bishop. The police later released the three uncharged persons, and Vice Minister of Government Frank Cesar personally visited and apologized to the Bishop (the police also apologized). The Bishop made no formal complaint. Article 26 of the new Military Code prohibits the Defense Intelligence Directorate from undertaking "political intelligence activities" and places it under the authority of the President as head of all armed forces. Despite the new law, several political parties have complained that infiltration by the DID into their groups has not ceased. g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian Law in Internal Conflicts In several instances, police and the EPS used indiscriminate or unnecessary force, resulting in deaths or injuries to civilians. Despite the efforts of local human rights organizations, the authorities took no action to discipline senior officials nor to punish those who committed the abuses. An EPS patrol wounded 11 persons on February 8 when it indiscriminately opened fire with machine guns and rocket- propelled grenades on the town of Tomayunca in the mistaken belief that it harbored an armed recontra group. In fact, the group had passed through hours earlier. Both CPDH and ANPDH later testified to the absence of combatants in the village. The EPS publicly acknowledged the attack and accused the patrol leader of "negligence" but took no further action. On May 2, some 300 police officers armed with clubs and guns violently evicted 450 families of squatters, many of whom were former members of the EPS and the RN, and destroyed their makeshift homes in an area known as "Villa Reconciliacion." The land was claimed by a cooperative represented by a former Sandinista official, Oscar Loza, accused of murdering two prisoners during his tenure as operations chief of the FSLN security service. Although the police maintained that they were acting under official orders, the magistrate publicly stated that he had never issued an eviction order, and the police never produced any evidence that one existed. A group of EPS soldiers reportedly chasing a group of local bandits entered the village of Puerto Viejo on April 23 and claimed that several men fired at them from the house of Porfirio Rayo. Mrs. Rayo later said the army opened fire without warning, killing a stranger and her husband, mortally wounding her 23-year-old son and injuring her two other children. She denied any involvement of her family in criminal activity; investigations by ANPDH, CIAV, and CPDH supported Mrs. Rayo's testimony. The authorities took no action to resolve this incident.