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| Central American University - UCA |
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Number 203 | Junio 1998 |
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Nicaragua
NICARAGUA BRIEFS
Envío team
ELECTION IRREGULARITIES INVESTIGATED
The Interamerican Human Rights Commission (CIDH), a Washington-based agency of the Organization of American States, communicated officially last month that it will process a case filed by the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) charging that the political rights of Nicaraguans were violated due to irregularities committed during the 1996 general elections. The decision of CIDH to look into the charges, which were filed on January 9, 1997, means that, if it accepts the case, the whole 1996 electoral process and its results would be carefully re-examined. The OAS election team was the only one granted "official" status for the 1996 elections and its report is already on record. Whatever the final determination, the slowness of the CIDH proceedings means that an international cloud of doubt will probably cast its shadow on the democratic legitimacy of President Alemán and his government for the rest of its administration, which concludes in 2001.
VILMA NÚÑEZ OPENLY DISSIDENT
On May 18, only a few days before the FSLN congress was to get underway, Vilma Núñez Escorcia, President of CENIDH, released an open letter in which she announced that she would not participate in the Congress, thereby renouncing any post in its national structures. Núñez called these structures "empty of content, which neither decide nor conduct, do not exercise the functions that the party statutes assign them and only serve to dissemble an increasingly less democratic and thus less revolutionary system."
In her letter, Núñez also states that "in the FSLN there are many men and women who are not resigned to being subordinated to those who call on us to `approve' what was already decided beforehand and is geared to debatable objectives. Many are not satisfied to simply sing praises; we aspire to exercise constructive criticism and contribute initiatives for change. We are many who suffer when our leaders are incapable of honestly assuming the errors and lack of ethics that are pointed out to them, I am one of them."
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America