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Nicaragua Human Rights
During the Sandinistas' eleven years in power, the
Sandinista
security forces were accused of widespread repression and
numerous violations of human rights, often acting in
conjunction
with the army. These violations included the murder of
perceived
Contra supporters, kidnappings, disappearances, illegal
detentions, and mistreatment and torture of prisoners.
According
to the human rights group Americas Watch, a high
percentage of
DGSE prisoners were coerced into signing confessions by
deception, physical force, or deprivation. The security
forces
were also responsible in 1982 for the summary relocation
of the
Miskito under cruel conditions. Gross human rights abuses
were
also committed by the Contras. These abuses included
systematic
murder, torture, and kidnapping of civilian supporters of
the
FSLN. Undefended farm cooperatives and other facilities
such as
clinics associated with the Sandinistas were attacked, and
many
civilian casualties and executions often accompanied the
raids.
According to local human rights groups, as many as
1,000
persons remained unaccounted for at the close of the
Contra war
in 1990. Numerous clandestine grave sites--most ascribed
to the
Sandinistas but some to the Contras--were discovered,
providing
evidence of the whereabouts of some persons who had
disappeared.
At one site, Correntada Larga on the south Caribbean
coast,
witnesses reported the torture and killing of sixty-seven
peasants by the DGSE during a two-week period in 1981.
The end of armed conflict in 1990 brought improvement
in the
human rights situation, however, sporadic incidents of
political
or extrajudicial killings continue to occur. Rural
violence is
often associated with disputes in which demobilized
Contras and
peasants seek to negotiate a share of state-owned
cooperatives,
producing clashes with police and often resulting in
peasants
occupying the cooperatives. The number of violent deaths
of
former Contras at the hands of the police, the army, or
FSLN
militants rose in 1993. In some incidents in which
civilians were
killed, the government security forces were provoked by
unruly
and sometimes violent protesters. Nevertheless, even when
it
seems that the police have used disproportionate force or
committed wanton murder, police actions are rarely
investigated
or punished.
Data as of December 1993
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