Nicaraguan Army Accused of Committing Summary Executions.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
A bereaved campesina (agrarian worker) woman has emerged as an unlikely champion for human rights following a deadly military operation carried out two months ago in a remote corner of Nicaragua's Region Autonoma de la Costa Caribe Sur (South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, RACCS).
The violence occurred early on the morning of Nov. 12--exactly one week after nationwide municipal elections took place (NotiCen, Nov. 30, 2017)--and left six people dead, including a man named Rafael Davila Perez. The people responsible for the killings were soldiers with the Army's Sexto Comando Militar Regional (Sixth Regional Military Command, SCMR). On that, all sides with an interest in the events agree. From there, though, accounts of what exactly transpired that morning, in the La Cruz de Rio Grande district of the RACCS, vary significantly.
Speaking the next day with reporters, the SCMR's commanding officer, Col. Marvin Paniagua, confirmed the six deaths but only identified one of the victims, Davila Perez. He said the fatalities were the result of a "shoot-out" between soldiers and "criminal elements" suspected of extortion, rape, growing and selling marijuana, and other crimes. Asked by the daily La Prensa to identify specific cases or wrongdoing by the victims, Col. Paniagua declined "for security reasons."
"All of the farmers in this area are happy," he insisted, "because they now say they can rest assured that their women won't be raped anymore, that they won't be told to pay any more money."
From the outset, the Army's "criminal element" explanation rang hollow for some observers, in large part because Davila Perez, also known as Comandante Colocho, is a former Contra, as the US-backed, counter-revolutionary fighters from the 1980s are known. He is believed to have rearmed in recent years in opposition to the government of President Daniel Ortega. Colocho, La Prensa suggested in its initial report on the killings filed on Nov. 12, may have taken over leadership of a local rearmed Contra group following the death of Enrique Aguinaga, also known as Comandante Invisible. Aguinaga died on April 30, 2016, in what military officials also called a "shootout." Family members said he was executed.
But what really turned the official story of the La Cruz de Rm Grande killings on its head was the testimony, given several days after the events, of a 38-year-old campesina named Elea Valle, a mother of five with almost nothing in the way of formal education...
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