Nica: Violent Evictions Lead to 2 Deaths


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


NICARAGUA:
TWO DEATHS IN VIOLENT EVICTIONS FORESHADOW MORE INSTABILITY

by Toby Mailman
for NY Transfer News

MANAGUA, March 7 -- Despite campaign promises by Arnoldo Aleman that
property conflicts in Nicaragua would be settled peacefully by his
administration, a second person lost his life during a violent eviction
yesterdy in the department of Carazo. 

Campesino Holman Chavez Morales was killed, and three other people were
seriously wounded, during the attempted eviction by National Police of the
Santa Gertrudis farm.  The so-called "legal owner" of the farm, Jaime
Solorzano, arrived at the farm yesterday morning, accompanied by Judge
Luis Soto Quiroz and several police agents. Their aim was to evict current
resident Miguel Argueta Marquez, who has title to the land under the
Agrarian Reform program begun during the administration of the Sandinista
National Liberation Front. 

Following two hours of discussion with Argueta, Judge Soto gave the police
agents orders to initiate the eviction.  Chavez, who worked for Argueta
but was apparently assisting in the eviction, was shot when he tried to
force open the door of the house where Argueta and his sons were waiting
with rifles.  Chavez died instantly.  Police Captain Leandro Lara was one
of those seriously wounded.  Argueta's house was later surrounded by
police, but apparently he and his sons escaped through a back door. 

In 1994 one of Solorzano's sons was wounded in a prior attempt to
violently evict Argueta and his family.

Last week in El Jicaral, cooperative member Monico Rivas was killed during
an argument when an alleged owner arrived at the farm where Rivas lived
and worked, also accompanied by a judge and the police, in an attempt to
violent evict the farm residents. 

The National Assembly, with a majority of Liberal Alliance and
Conservative deputies, has refused to even discuss a bill presented by the
FSLN bench to suspend evictions while negotiations and discussions on how
to solve the land conflict are in process.  FSLN negotiators have recently
refused to attend negotiation meetings since, in their view, the
conditions for negotiation do not currently exist. 

The two deaths and continuing eviction attempts have caused campesinos to
organize a demonstration to make clear that they will defend their lands. 
A massive march is planned for Saturday, March 8, in Leon. The campesinos
plan to stop in front of the houses of large landowners, many of whom were
supporters of former dictator Anastasio Somoza. 

The land evictions are just one aspect of the instability caused by
policies being undertaken by the Aleman administration and those who
support the new government. There are also now in process attempts to
return to former owners a number of enterprises, including major sugar
farms and refineries, which were privatized under the Chamorro government
in favor of the workers as part of that administration's "concertation"
efforts. 

What is seen by many here as an attempt to turn back the clock, not only
in the area of property, but in the social arena as well, forebodes a new
wave of protests, violence and instability for the country, precisely what
voters in last October's elections thought would be avoided. 

                              -fin-

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