The recent report published by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) entitled “Well, it’s torture”, denounces that the indigenous communities of Nicaragua live under torture, massacres, assassinations of their leaders and forced displacement and that they are serious forms of violence that they suffer and that threaten their survival.
“An example of stigmatization of indigenous peoples is the case of Nicaragua. The state policy of promoting the colonization of the Caribbean Coast has turned the original peoples of that area into minorities in their own territories. This strategy was evidenced when the construction of the canal was promoted through an insistent advertising campaign that installed the discourse that the indigenous people were lazy and did not make the land produce, “says the report prepared by the organization in conjunction with the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) and which exposes abuses in Nicaragua, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
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They remember the massacre perpetrated in January 2020 in the Mayagna Alal community, without the actual number of victims reported by the community being recognized to date. “In the Mayangna Indigenous communities of Bosawás we live with suffering thinking: tomorrow we don’t know which territory will be attacked,” said a Mayangna leader who, out of fear, did not reveal his name to the investigators.
The agency stressed that violence and invasion is not only carried out by armed invaders but is also promoted by the economic and political interests of the State, the most serious case being the concession of the Grand Interoceanic Canal megaproject.
“The most recent examples of abuses against indigenous peoples are: first, the granting of the concession for the megaproject of the Grand Interoceanic Canal of Nicaragua in 2013 without consulting the indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, despite the fact that 52% of its route affects their ancestral territories. Several people who oppose the construction of the canal have had to go into exile,” they denounce.
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They assure that the violent attacks against the indigenous people have been practically absolute. “Faced with the claim that there was not a single prisoner for the attacks against the indigenous people, the National Police responded by capturing three and looking for 11 more people,” the document states.
They request the regime to put an immediate end to all kinds of attacks, acts of harassment, threats and intimidation against the people and communities that defend the Mayangna and Miskitu indigenous rights of the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, through the dismantling and disarmament of all groups and individuals that act illegally in the territory, and the taking of measures to guarantee their security and physical and psychological integrity”.
In addition, it reiterates the need for a process of reorganization of the titled territories “in accordance with the provisions of Nicaraguan law, as a public policy to generate legal security in the territories of indigenous peoples, as well as to strengthen the institutional framework for the prevention of conflicts”.
