Caribbean & Central America - May 2020

Local and international human rights groups have denounced a “surge in repression” by the government led by Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega in April. The claims were made against the backdrop of the second anniversary of the start of the protests against the Ortega administration which has left hundreds dead and tens of thousands of Nicaraguans in exile. These complaints come as the government has sparked fresh human rights fears over its handling of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

In a statement released on 18 April, a group of human rights organisations including US-based think-tank Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) and Costa Rica-headquartered Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), as well as local human rights groups such as Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Cenidh) warned of an “exacerbation of government repression as a strategy to inhibit the commemoration of the 2018 crisis”. According to the statement, between the night of 17 April and the early morning of 19 April, 65 incidents had been recorded. Of these, 32 were aggressions directed at women activists and their families, including insults and threats of a sexual nature.

Three days later the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) tweeted that it had received civil-society complaints regarding an intensification of repression in the previous seven days against government opponents on the eve of the anniversary of the protests. According to the IACHR there were 138 cases of surveillance or raids, ten raids without judicial orders, 11 direct threats, 16 acts of aggression, and 39 arbitrary detentions carried out by the national police and parapolice.

The anniversary also prompted the international community to express disappointment about the lack of progress regarding efforts to address democracy and human rights-related concerns relating to the social and political crisis. In a statement dated 23 April, the European Union (EU) said “no tangible advances have been made” in these areas while “repression by security forces and pro-government armed groups of political opponents, demonstrators, journalists, civil society organisations and members of the Catholic Church continues”.  The statement also notes that the three main areas highlighted by the EU Foreign Affairs Council in conclusions adopted in October 2019 where “tangible progress needs to be urgently made remain valid”. These are the reestablishment of political freedoms and the release of the remaining political prisoners; full cooperation with and the return of international human rights bodies to Nicaragua; and an agreement on electoral and institutional reforms between the government and the main opposition groups, aimed at guaranteeing fair and transparent elections.

Fresh human rights concerns

Against this backdrop, the government’s response to the pandemic has attracted condemnation from the IACHR, Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) among other institutions, as further evidence of its failure to take human rights seriously. Unlike the rest of Central America, the Nicaraguan government has failed to impose strict measures to stop the spread of the virus such as a nationwide quarantine, curfews, closure of educational establishments and non-essential business. Rather, its apparent promotion of mass marches and gatherings that contravene recommendations for social distancing, have been a source of bafflement.

In a statement released on 16 April AI said it was “surprising that, after preventing and suppressing any form of social protest for the past two years, [the government] is now promoting mass marches and gatherings, exposing the population to the pandemic”. It cites as examples of these events which took place in April, the organisation of a public mass by state institutions; the promotion of a public event to choose the 2020 summer queen in Managua department and the Nicaraguan tourism institute’s organisation of the Summer Music Fest 2020 festival in several locations.

Human rights groups and medical associations are also complaining about the lack of reliable information regarding the pandemic. The latest bulletin from the Central American integration system (Sica) at the time of writing, based on official figures, showed that as of 29 April there were just 13 Covid-19 cases reported in Nicaragua. This compares with 6,200 in Panama, 738 in Honduras, 705 in Costa Rica, 557 in Guatemala, and 377 in El Salvador. However, Observatorio Ciudadano Covid-19, a collaborative civil-society group set up in March to monitor the outbreak in Nicaragua, reported 370 suspected cases in Nicaragua up to 27 April. These included 13 cases confirmed by the health ministry (Minsa), 15 suspected cases reported by Minsa and 342 suspected cases verified by the Observatorio which bases its reports on information from “civil-society, territorial networks, digital activists, and relatives of those affected by Covid-19” and stresses that it is not an official report.

• Repression

In a statement released on 18 April, Cenidh said it had been working with the opposition group Azul y Blanco to document complaints against sieges, threats, injuries, and detentions in the departments of Masaya, Granada, Chontales, Managua, Matagalpa, Madriz, Bluefields and Nueva Guinea, which, it claims, confirms an increase in governmental repression and “are intended to remind the population that only the government has power and they won’t permit another April of strikes”.