Amnesty International Report 2003 - Nicaragua

Covering events from January - December 2002

REPUBLIC OF NICARAGUA
Head of state and government: Enrique Bolaños
Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes
International Criminal Court: not signed

Human rights defenders and public officials faced attacks and threats. The National Police used excessive force against demonstrators.

Background

Enrique Bolaños, elected President in November 2001, took office in January. His predecessor, Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo, who secured a seat in parliament through the 1999 agreement with the opposition Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), Sandinista National Liberation Front, manipulated the system to become President of the National Assembly.

Attempts to punish corruption, one of the main commitments of the new President, led to a political crisis. Investigations into corruption led in August to charges, including embezzlement of public funds, fraud and money laundering, against Arnoldo Alemán and 13 others. In September Judge Juana Méndez ruled against most of the accused, including Arnoldo Alemán, and imposed prison sentences. However, Arnoldo Alemán refused to renounce his parliamentary immunity which protected him from prosecution. The National Assembly, after a long and difficult process, finally removed his immunity in December and he was put under house arrest.

Extreme poverty aggravated by unemployment in the agricultural sector led to dozens of children and adults dying from malnutrition. The authorities were slow to react to the needs of peasants especially in northern Nicaragua. Malnutrition was widespread among the rural population.

Human rights defenders under attack

Human rights defenders, judicial personnel and members of parliament were attacked and threatened as a result of their activities.

• María Luisa Acosta, a lawyer defending indigenous communities, received death threats and in April her husband Francisco García Valle was shot dead at their home in Bluefields, Autonomous South Atlantic Region. He was found with his hands tied behind his back. Nothing was taken from the house. It was feared that María Luisa Acosta was the real target and that the attack was connected to her work. According to reports, there were irregularities in the judicial process which identified the actual killer (who remained at large) but acquitted others believed to have planned the murder.
• In September Judge Juana Méndez received anonymous death threats by telephone against her children and herself. Previously she had received a similar threat and was involved in an incident where a vehicle blocked her way when she was travelling to work. The authorities provided police protection for her and her family. Judge Méndez was in charge of the case against Arnoldo Alemán and others charged with corruption. In the context of this case some members of parliament also received threats and had explosives detonated near their homes reportedly because of their intention to vote for the withdrawal of Arnoldo Alemán's immunity.

• In February, 12 families in Mérida, Altagracia, Omepete Island, were removed by the police from land where they had lived for decades. Their homes and possessions were destroyed by employees of a landowner who claimed the land belonged to him. A judicial official present was strongly criticized by human rights organizations for allowing the destruction without intervening. In the course of the expulsion the police fired their weapons injuring four demonstrators; some policemen were also injured when demonstrators used stones and sticks. In May, eight policemen were sentenced to prison terms for exposing people to danger, abuse of authority and causing injury. They appealed, but a decision was still pending at the end of the year.