UN presents evidence implicating Nicaraguan army in crimes against humanity

The United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) has dismantled one of the Nicaraguan army’s key arguments, specifically the pretext with which it had avoided, as an institution, sanctions from the international community: that they did not participate in the repression of social protests against the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in 2018. For the first time, the UN experts assure that they have “credible information” about the collusion of the military high command in the violent offensive, in which over 350 people were killed and — until now — only Sandinista police and paramilitaries are generally implicated.

According to the latest GHREN report presented on February 26, on April 20, 2018, two days after the start of the mass protests, a meeting was held with the participation of active officers of the Special Operations Command and the Directorates of Doctrine and Teaching, Military Intelligence, and Staff, in which it was said that they were “facing a coup d’état orchestrated by social organizations.”

The experts documented that the 2018 repression was designed and ordered from the highest levels of the government. Both Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo gave the order to crush the protesters, which led to the disproportionate and systematic use of violence after the peremptory order to “go in with everything” was issued to the entire state and Sandinista apparatus, which led to the commission of crimes against humanity that are currently being prosecuted by a court in Argentina.

The report reveals details that were previously unknown. One of them was that the army chief of staff, Bayardo Rodríguez, read a presidential order urging the heads of the various military units to “neutralize” those involved in the demonstrations. For his part, the document continues, the commander-in-chief of the army, Julio César Avilés, ordered the participation of the military in the repression of the demonstrations, despite not having any authority in matters of public security, with full knowledge that their intervention could lead to the loss of lives: what unfolded was the worst bloodshed in Nicaragua since the post-war period.

“For the first time, thanks to testimonies from people who were inside the system, we can say that the Nicaraguan army, despite its denials, actively participated alongside the police and the paramilitaries in the brutal repression,” Reed Brody — the most recent member of GHREN and a lawyer known as the “dictator hunter” for having contributed to bringing to trial human rights violaters including Augusto Pinochet, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Efrain Rios Montt, and Hissène Habré — told EL PAÍS.

Key role in repression

The report notes that the Nicaraguan army not only collaborated with the National Police and pro-government armed groups, but also assumed a fundamental role in the strategy of repression. Among the documented actions are “the use of lethal weapons, intelligence operations, training of civilians and direct intervention in operations.”

“The documented extrajudicial executions were the result of coordinated actions between the police, the army, and pro-government armed groups,” the report insists. The experts explained that “the systematic and deliberate use of lethal weapons — some reserved exclusively for military use — the intervention of snipers, combat tactics designed to kill and not to control crowds, and the high number of victims with bullet wounds in vital parts of the body suggest that their intention was not to disperse the protesters, but to kill them and instill fear in the population.”

The document states that the Defense Information Directorate assumed operational control of the repression of the demonstrations, in coordination with the Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence Directorate, the Police Intelligence Directorate, the Army Special Operations Command and the Police Special Operations Directorate.

“Members of these two latter bodies used specialized weapons and snipers during their interventions. Regional military commands and detachments, the Ecological Battalion and the Special Operations Command, deployed military personnel, wearing police uniforms or civilian clothes, to support the police and pro-government armed groups on the ground,” they note.

The submission of the army

In order to avoid the consequences of the repression and to give the impression that they are a non-partisan and non-belligerent institution as mandated by the Political Constitution, the army has publicly reiterated that its role during the 2018 crisis “was limited to protecting strategic assets” and has denied its participation in the repression. However, in recent years the submission of this institution, including its General Command, to the Ortega and Murillo regime has become evident.

The most recent proof of this came on February 21, when General Avilés was sworn in for his fourth consecutive term as commander-in-chief. With this new mandate from 2025 to 2031, Avilés will have served 21 years in the position he took up in 2010, an unprecedented move in the recent history of Nicaragua. During the swearing-in ceremony, Avilés thanked Ortega for his support and confirmed that he can count on “the firm determination of everyone to continue contributing to the construction of the free, dignified, just, and prosperous Nicaragua that we all deserve.”

Avilés, for his part, has said on several occasions that the army has been the victim of smear campaigns by the opposition and has defended the political violence with which the Sandinista dictatorship governs. However, UN experts identified the existence of a broad surveillance and intelligence structure that responds to orders from Ortega and Murillo.

The structure is composed mainly of members of the army, the National Police, the Ministry of the Interior, the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Post Office (Telcor), the Ministry of Health, and pro-government armed groups, and uses computer centers installed in each municipality.

The government, according to the UN report, uses this information (channeled mainly through the Police Information and Intelligence Center, the National Information Committee, the Financial Analysis Unit and the Sandinista Front structure) to identify opponents, monitor their activities, harass them, or geolocate them. This structure also determines who to detain, expel, prevent from returning, or arbitrarily strip of nationality.

The army also carries out political surveillance through the Directorate of Defense Information, in coordination with the Victory Units — Sandinista structures in the neighborhoods — political secretaries, the leadership of the Sandinista Front, the ruling party, and the intelligence services of the National Police. “This intelligence and control network has permeated all levels of society, from the neighborhoods to the mayor’s offices, departments, and ministerial delegations,” the experts conclude.

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