The proposal of Daniel Ortega’s regime on the issue of justice for the victims of repression is to let the official Truth Commission, known as the Porras Commission, along with six other institutions, including the Orteguista Police (PO), which is accused of committing acts of repression, investigate the crimes in order to verify them.
It does not recognize the State’s responsibility in the attacks on the population, nor does it offer compensation to the families of the dead.
The four-page document, which was released Wednesday and has been approved by members of the opposition and the Mothers of April Association, states that in order to achieve “the objective of seeking peace and reconciliation,” an Integral System will be established to address the issues of truth, justice, reparation and how to avoid the events being repeated.
This system would be made up of the Porras Commission, the Ministry of Health, the Attorney General’s Office, the PO, the Institute of Legal Medicine, the Ministry of Family, the Ministry of the Interior, the Public Defender’s Office, the Courts, the Nicaraguan Institute of Municipal Development and the Office of the Procurator for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH).
The idea echoes the policy devised by Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, in which the State assures that it will contribute to the culture of peace and which was later finalized in the “Law for a culture of dialogue, reconciliation, security, work and peace.”
However, the regime claims that the citizen protests were an attempt at a coup d’état and ignores the massacre perpetrated by the PO and the paramilitaries that left between 325 and 535 dead, thousands wounded, some 814 political prisoners and thousands exiled.
In Point A of the state proposal, referring to the actions of the Integral System, it is suggested that the National Assembly extend the term of the Porras Commission “with the incorporation of two new members,” which does not detail which sectors they would represent.
Francis Valdivia, president of the Association of Mothers of April (AMA), made up of the families of those murdered during the days of protests against the regime, told LA PRENSA that this proposal “leaves all government crimes unpunished.”
“With this proposal, Ortega is mocking our pain, it’s a total mockery,” Valdivia said. “It increases the pain of those of us who lost our siblings, children, parents. […] We will not accept any settlement on justice for our relatives unless it involves our participation and the government’s proposal is a mockery since the government is incapable of administering or guaranteeing justice
“The Truth Commission that we demand is a Commission with notable impartial specialists, such as the IACHR, because the Commission that exists is pro-government and does not even acknowledge the murder of our relatives.”
The chancellor Denis Moncada continues to promise to deliver
Daniel Ortega’s chancellor, Denis Moncada, said Wednesday that the regime will comply with the agreements signed last Friday with the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy at the negotiating table.
“We fulfill the commitments, we fulfill what we signed,” said Moncada, despite the fact that last Saturday, one day after signing the agreements that restored citizens’ rights, the Orteguista Police shut-down the protests at the Metrocentro shopping center.
To this day, the dictatorship still refuses to allow the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations to return to the country to guarantee the agreements in the negotiations, and now prefers that their own government be the guarantor through all the public institutions mentioned.
Ortega’s government has also denied the proposal to advance elections, as proposed by the Civic Alliance.
“We want to express to our people and to the international community the permanent responsibility of our government to continue on the path of dialogue and conversation that is the way to find a solution to Nicaragua’s problems,” said Moncada at the entrance to the INCAE, the site of the talks between the opposition and the executive.
However, Moncada refused to respond to LA PRENSA about whether the government would consider the issues of justice and democracy. Opposition leader José Pallais said this morning that the government today has an opportunity to meet the Nicaraguan people’s demands for freedom, justice and democracy.
Read the original story in Spanish at La Prensa, first published on April 3, 2019.
This story was translated into English and republished in The Tico Times as part of a partnership with La Prensa to help bring their coverage of the Nicaraguan crisis to an English-speaking audience.
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