Interview with Compañeros Luis Cañas, Vice Minister of the Interior, and Carlos Emilio López, Sandinista National Assembly Deputy , by journalist Alberto Moro
En Vivo Magazine, Canal 4
September 9th 2018
Alberto Mora : We are pleased to receive this morning the Compañeros Luis Cañas, Vice Minister of the Interior, and Sandinista National Assembly Deputy Carlos Emilio López, and expert and human rights matters. Thank you both for being with us this morning.
It’s a reality here that there is speculation about the number of detainees, about what conditions they are in. This also happens with the figures you have said, Carlos Emilio, of the number of deaths due to the attempted coup. They also want to lump in those who died by common crimes, in an attempt to magnify things.
We are clear that no one should have died, and they died because these people tried to overthrow the government in an unconstitutional manner and using it in any way. And that included death, unfortunately, and (the death of) 22 police officers. What is the official information that we have, Luis, if we can know it, about the number of detainees, women, men, and in which detention centers?
Luis Cañas : Good morning, Nicaraguan families. Good morning, Alberto, thanks for the invitation to the program.
In the Ministry of the Interior, we have been listening to different people, representatives of organizations, speaking about this issue as if they were in charge of prisons in our country. And we have even heard it in international forums, endorsing figures, certifying numbers that never come close to reality.
The Ministry of the Interior and the National prison System is regulated by Law 473, the prison Regime Law, and it has been operated on that basis, working and overseeing all the prisoners in the country. On the matter that concerns us, up to yesterday the number of prisoners the prison system has in its facilities in Tipitapa and in women’s prisons is 184 men and 17 women, for a total of 204 prisoners. Of these, 6 men and 1 woman are already convicted, for a total of 7 convicted and 197 accused. All are at the disposal of the competent Judicial Authority. No one is unlawfully imprisoned This is how the prison System operates, regulated by Law 473.
Every prisoner who arrives at a prison center or establishment is received by a reception committee that evaluates prisoners individually. On arrival, a medical check is made. Our medical unit checks them over and also reviews their file as such in order to know the level of danger the prisoner has, and thus where to locate them. From that moment, it is determined that they are in good health, or what their state of health is by a whole committee, a whole commission. They are received. Their uniform is assigned. Their mattress is assigned. And they are taken to the place where they will be detained.
Proof of this . . . We read the headlines, for example, that Mr. Medardo Mairena was being tortured, that he could not walk, that he could not be transferred because of his physical condition, ill-treated, and this is the moment that he entered the prison system, and the doctors gave him a check up, also taking their general data.
At that moment the prisoner says what people they are interested in coming to see them. That is not decided by the prison system. They have the right to name 8 people, relatives, who can visit them. First, each inmate has an initial visit for 20 minutes. In that visit the general information is given to the relative and they are told: Look, the visiting calendar is this. There are 2 schedules: One that is monthly, and another that are every two weeks, twice a month. But in addition to the family visit, they have the right to a conjugal visit.
Alberto Mora: Let me understand then, they are entitled to two visits per month, one every fortnight for family and additionally you have two conjugal visits. It becomes four.
Luis Cañas: Four visits. In addition, we must take into account the regime’s gradation of visits. Because there are some who, according to the danger, are only entitled to 1 visit per month, and a conjugal visit. If your danger is not high level, then you are entitled to 2 visits per month, or every 15 days, and 2 conjugal visits.
Alberto Mora: And of those 8 names that they have given, can all go at once? Or does the number decrease?
Luis Cañas: Listen carefully . . . They can go all at once or those who are able to arrive, but it is on the day and the time that they were told. It's not because I'm listed on the business card of a prisoner I'm going to turn up on the day or time I want, because then it would be chaotic.
Alberto Mora: As happens everywhere.
Luis Cañas: Here even to play baseball or volleyball there are rules that regulate how things work. To a school, no father of a family arrives at mid-morning when they are giving classes, saying: “I want to talk with my son.” “No,” says the principal or teacher, “wait for her to come out” or “wait for the parent meeting.” Now, do you imagine that we in the prison system are there for people who wants to arrive when they want? It would be total chaos.
So, in addition to the visits they have -- familial, spousal -- they have the right to pass packages. That means, if they get visited every 15 days, during those 15 days, a week, they have the right to have a package with basic products for personal use, and food. They have outdoor activity twice a week. There you can all see the graphics, and they get taken to judicial proceedings, according to the programming of the Judicial Authority to which they subject.
For example, Mr. Medardo Mairena has 7 relatives: 1 daughter, 1 son, 2 brothers, 2 sisters, and his spouse; but they came to see him on July 26; for the August visit, the 27th, they did not show up, and now they have to visit on September 25. However, his brother José Alfredo Mairena Sequeira has brought food packages that we talked about, and with basic necessities.
Alberto Mora: Can that be at any time?
Luis Cañas: No. They are told what day of the week they can bring packages.
Alberto Mora: Not necessarily the visit, but the package delivery?
Luis Cañas: On the visit they can bring things, the same, but also additionally, if they want. And Mr. Medardo Mairena has been given packages of that nature on August 21, August 28, September 6. His brother José Alfredo Mairena Sequeira has brought them.
But if you read (or) listen to the news, the media says they have so many months of not seeing him, of not knowing about him. Even his lawyer is saying that. We have responded to a letter that the lawyer made, and they were sent the program of visits: Here is the program until December. He has a visit on September 25, October 29, November 30 and December 27. They already have the annual program of the visits, so also the conjugal visits are already planned, and they are told to them and they are also shown them, and the passes of packages.
Here they have the medical check-up as explained. We also have Mr. Pedro Mena here, whom they said was subject to torture... He is the one who accompanied Mr. Medardo Mairena, there he is, a photo says more than a thousand words.
Alberto Mora: This gentleman to whom he refers is Mr. Pedro Mena Amador. Here he is also in the medical check-up.
Luis Cañas: When they enter the prison system. Here is, for example, Tomás Maldonado and Carlos Brenes Sánchez, who said they were being tortured, that they could not walk, that their state of health was deplorable. Here they are on their entrance. There is a mechanism to enter; it's not a matter that they arrive, we open a cell, we put them in and that's it. No! A whole series of documentation is filled, how are their vital signs, how is their blood pressure …
Alberto Mora: And are their reports delivered?
Luis Cañas: Immediately they are given reports. The rules of the prison center are made known to them. Here you can see the delivery of packages for Tomás Maldonado and Carlos Brenes Sánchez. There you can see the visits that their relatives are making. What many say, what many people in these human rights organizations say is that they are isolated. So here are the photos to dispel these slanders.
On e has to make clear that the policy of our Government of Reconciliation and National Unity in terms of prison activity has been of great humanism. In 2007 we found the prison infrastructure in a deplorable state, practically in a state of collapse without any type of investment; personnel who had not been trained or prepared. And the facilities have practically been totally rebuilt, and others renovated, which costs more than building.
Alberto Mora: To make the spaces dignified.
Luis Cañas: Exactly, worthy ... There there is Dignity!
Here are the communications. Here are the visitors. They are given information. Here are the relatives of Edwin Carcache, who said he was isolated, that they had not seen him for so long, that they did not know how he was. There they are checking, because they have to requisition what is in a package. There we are constantly seizing in these packages forbidden substances and objects.
The governance of a penal center is not easy. It is not easy. I would like to tell these human rights promoters: “Let's see, here you are, administer this prison” ... I want to see them!
Alberto Mora: Or they should really go to the visitors to see what happens, and not to talk lightly.
Luis Cañas: Here are the relatives of Carcache fulfilling all the procedures to access the inside of the prison. To enter a bank here, there are rules. Even to enter a Penal Center it is also required to meet elementary requirements. There he is being visited by his wife, his father, his grandmother, and you can see this chart which is the state of health of Carcache, withdrawing his package with food products and basic essentials. This visit was made on September 14, for many a holiday. For the prison Staff, 24 hours, 365 days is served in the penal establishment.
Here is another charts with family visits and you can see on the table the products that they bring to each of them. Here is the gallery where they are located.
Alberto Mora: In that image it looks like they are new facilities. I see new mats, new uniforms.
Luis Cañas: The state of health can be verified with what they present on their faces. This is the men’s side. Let's get to the women's side. Here are the families.
Alberto Mora: Look, these are the family meetings that take place in Tipitapa.
Luis Cañas: And these are the facilities that you can see. They are not a disgrace. These are new facilities within the dignity enhancing policy for prisoners in our country. And this is not from April to today. This is at all times, seeking to restore the Dignity and Facilities of the prisoners in our country.
Look how ironic. This is a protest they did in front of the Women's Prison on September 13th. There they are. They were saying that they were not allowed to see them, that they were isolated, that they were being tortured. Immediately they suspended or left the protest. They went to see their prisoners as they had scheduled.
This is the front of the facilities of the Women's Prison. This is a panoramic view of the Women's Prison. Here are the relatives complying with the procedures. We have an exclusive department called Attention and Procedure, where the families hand over the products they bring and they are given all the information.
Here we have the family visit of Doña Irlanda Jerez receiving her relatives. There they are with her, at a table in the visiting area in the Women's Prison, and she has the products that the family brings her.
Alberto Mora: She is with her family too…
Luis Cañas: Exactly. There is Irlanda Jerez receiving the corresponding family visit, from September 18th.
Here we have Mr. Carlos Valle, who was leading demonstrations, saying that he was not allowed to see his daughter, saying that his daughter was isolated, that she was being tortured; and there he is in a family visit and bringing food products and basic necessities to his daughter Elsa Albertina Valle. There he is with the family visiting his daughter. Again here he appears someone who says he was not allowed to see his daughter, that he was not allowed to deliver parcels, and here is Mr. Carlos Valle, in the yellow polo shirt, and the rest of the family.
This is another scene of family visits in Women’s Prisons. There again is Elsa Valle. Here are the relatives of Cristian Fajardo, visiting his wife, María Adilia Peralta Serrato, she’s receiving a family visit at the Women's Prison. There you have the products that they bring them.
In the recreational and open air activities that we talked about, which they are entitled to twice a week for two hours, there are the women prisoners playing soccer and receiving sun during the two hours they have by right.
Alberto Mora: Here they are playing sports activities.
Luis Cañas: Yes. And who are they? In that game were Jerez Ireland, Irma Yuri Clear Valerio, Elizabeth Centeno, Albertina Valle, Elsa Albertina, Yolanda del Socorro Sánchez Alberto Moraga, and the Sisters Sánchez Alberto Moraga, Marelli Roque Ordóñez, Maria Adilia Peralta Serrato. There they are. Nobody talks about this.
Alberto Mora: There they are in the sports activities they have the possibility of practicing in jail. It must be said that this prison has also been dignified, and not because of the issue of the coup plotters, but because it has been a commitment with all the prisons.
Luis Cañas: And inside the women's prison there is an area where they can do their shopping. The family leaves them money and they buy basic products. There they are buying. It looks like a college bar. And this is a panoramic view of the area of the mother and child area of the women's prison. It is a new prison. It was inaugurated last year. We are not aware in the countries of the area that there is another facility like this one. This is the maternity ward of the women's prison. There are the prisoners with their babies, each with their bed, crib, their dignified space.
Here we have another panorama. We have the area where they can watch television and tend their babies. That's the women's prison in this country. Here are the bathrooms and the play area for the children. After some time, they have the right to give them to a relative, or to the father, or one of the grandmothers and so on.
All of this we made known to them. We received the IACHR, along with the Chief of the national prison service, on two occasions; We cooperate with the Commission of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and we also cooperate with the Truth Commission. The first two did not pay much attention to these matters.
Alberto Mora: Of course, they had their political agenda.
Luis Cañas: Nor did they want to hear the explanations of how the prison system works in our country. They didn’t care. Moreover, when the IACHR arrived for the first time, it arrived 3-hours late, and on top of that superficially asking for very detailed information. But they did not want to know, even as a matter, I don’t know, of courtesy, to listen to the head of a prison system of a country to see how it works. Like when someone arrives at a factory, the manager receives him and explains the operation. They adopted a rather rude position. They went only to what interested them.
We dare to say that this prison center is the most modern in the Central American Caribbean. This is in the Southern Caribbean Region. There had never been ... There, Deputy Member Carlos Emilio can explain what he experienced from the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office what was there in previous governments. Our Government of Reconciliation and National Unity with its human spirit has dignified this subject that almost nobody pays attention to. Almost nobody pays attention to it.
These are new facilities, a panoramic view of the penal center in Bluefields, in the South Caribbean Coast Region, with its own efforts. There it is...new, modern. A modern system. Before incarcerated prisoners were crammed into a kind of gallery where there were up to 5 levels of hammocks, Now this is what exists in Bluefields, and this is an effort that continues to be sustained. Here prison facilities went decades without attention and maintenance.
The same thing happened with fire fighters. There were no vehicles and fire appliances until our Government of Reconciliation arrived and with Russian cooperation we made it possible for an important fleet of firefighting appliances to come, but before we had hardly anything to attend emergencies. The same in the prison system.
This is roughly how it is. We already said that there are some things that family members should know. There are some defenders of these prisoners who do not even give them the basic or elementary information. As regards visits, the relatives have a program, so do the defense lawyers. But on the day that is scheduled. At the scheduled time, because not only they attend the prisoners. There is a whole series of activities.
In a prison, activities do not stop. You start to prepare breakfast at 1 in the morning. Lunch is prepared from 7 in the morning and dinner from 12 inoon. Then there is a series of activities. Medical care, recreational activities.
Alberto Mora: Do the chronically ill have medical attention?
Luis Cañas: Of course! All have the right to medical attention. We have taken more or less a percentage of the level of medical attention and it is above what the citizen, on the street, receives. We give an average of 8 treatments per year, per prisoner. We are above the visits a normal citizen makes to the doctor.
And for chronic patients, for example, Carlos Brenes Sánchez receives crystalline insulin twice a day. And for all chronic patients there is a schedule for their medication, for their blood pressure, if they are diabetic, or they have some other disease, they are being treated.
The Legal Medicine Office visits to make rigorous, routine checks at each prison center. Only in those cases where the care is already very specific are they taken to a hospital. And when it is highly specialized, the subject is taken to the Legal Medicine Office or to the hospital the Legal Medicine Office designates, or to the dentist, because there have been cases that family members request through the judge that they want their prisoner to be treated by a certain dentist, and that has been allowed, but everything is properly organized. Here there are lawyers who appear at any time of the day, without any formality and want to be attended to. And this cannot be so. There has to be order. There has to be an organization, otherwise it would be anarchy, chaos.
So far, we have had a statistic practically at zero as regards mutiny. We have not had an uprising for more than a decade. There are countries where an uprising leaves 30, 50 dead prisoners, and there is only a mass announcement: Come and collect your dead. Here we have not had that, and it is precisely because there is an established order, because there is discipline in the functioning of the prison activities. And the governance of a prison is not easy.
Alberto Mora: Carlos Emilio, we have seen the images. The conditions look dignified. We have seen the effort of the prison system, but I wanted to start with what they call "political prisoners.” But here it turns out that nobody is authorized to kill, kidnap, torture or kidnap people, and here the accusations are not for political matters, but for common crimes. And as I said in the introduction, the First Commissioner Francisco Díaz explained that these people committed practically all the crimes defined in the Penal Code of Nicaragua.
I remember that in relation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Cairo Amador told me here, and others who participated in the futile and maladroit attempt at dialogue that they tried also told me, that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said: No, what is arson and all that, let the Common Courts deal with it.
Here Denis Schwartz went to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to the Intercontinental Hotel, and they said: Look, we are not interested in what happened to you. So they were practically told: You were burned down, the police should searched for those who burned the Radio and imprison them and judge them, because that is common crime. So where does that leave us?
Carlos Emilio López: I think it is good to put in context the situation of the human rights of detainees. Remember that 5 months ago we had an attempted coup d'etat. A coup d’etat is any action or set of actions that, by force, by violence, by illegal and unconstitutional methods, seeks to change a government democratically elected by the people. And any attempt at a coup d'état is a massive action of violation against the political rights of a people.
That is to say, a people decided, exercising their sovereign right to elect their authorities. Those authorities must complete the term that the supreme law establishes. So, an attempt at a coup d'état is to try and violate those rights of an entire nation, of a whole people that voted, not only of the majority that voted, but also of the minority. That is, majorities and minorities respect the Constitutional Order.
The attempted “soft coup” was not soft. It was hard, drastic because it hit the economy of the country, hit the human infrastructure, hit the emotional stability, the productive capacity of the country; generated unemployment, massive losses of productive spaces and the work of micro- and medium sized businesses; altered the situation of education; violated the right to health.
That is to say, the coup plotters violated individual rights, collective rights and social rights of an entire people and the sacred right to life. Because via the roadblocks, in addition to the torture and ill-treatment, freedom of movement was also impeded. The right to life of men, women, young people, including children, was violated when , for example, the transit of ambulance was obstructed.
In this coup attempt, different methods have been used and one of the methods is psychological warfare and telling lies. Lies about the deaths, and as you said Alberto, about the number of deaths, about who were those who died, in what conditions they died, who caused the deaths.
The death count was continuously manipulated. Of course, no one should die, not a single human being should die. Unfortunately all this violence generated those deaths that have been manipulated, from the beginning doubled and even tripled the number of deaths. The deaths of police, youth belonging to the Sandinista Youth, Sandinista Leaders, among others, were made invisible during this period, as if Sandinistas did not exist or as if they did not have human rights, being forgetten, ignored, because as we know the principle that human rights are universal and that human rights are for all people.
So they systematically lied about the deaths. In the same way, they have lied about detainees. They have lied about the number of detainees about the denomination, that is, how to classify them. They call them "political prisoners" when in Nicaragua there are no political prisoners. They have lied about the conditions in which they are. They have lied about the treatment that the State gives them. They have lied about their procedural status. They he have lied about the the prisoners’ judicial process .
On the issue of calling them political prisoners ... A political prisoner is detainee for expressing a political opinion, for ding politics from a peaceful and civic point of view. That is a political prisoner. In Nicaragua they do not exist. In the United States there are political prisoners. There are hundreds of political prisoners according to some North American human rights organizations and international human rights organizations.
Guantánamo, for example, is a large center for the deprivation of the liberty of political prisoners because they have been detained without a judicial order. They have been detained without initiating a judicial process. They have been deprived of their liberty for years. And there are also political prisoners, according to human rights organizations, in several penitentiaries in the United States.
Here we have detainees for common crime, because they have violated Nicaraguan legislation. They have violated the Penal Code, because they have committed acts that are clearly defined as illicit, such as terrorism, such as murder, illegal possession of weapons, arson, destruction of public property, destruction of private property, among other rights that are clearly defined in the Penal Code.
So, that's the first big lie. There are no political prisoners! What there are are people who have committed acts of violence, who have murdered, killed, raped, destroyed public and private properties, social properties, destroyed preschools, schools, youth training centers, units caring for the elderly. That is to say, they destroyed social assets, goods that serve the people and that made possible the restitution of community rights.
The second lie: The number of detainees. The Public Servant, Vice Minister Luis Cañas, already explained the number of detainees. In all countries of the world, the figures that must be considered are the official figures, that is, to know how many people are being processed within the justice system. You have to find out what the judiciary says, what the Supreme Court says, what Public Ministry says. If you want to know how many people are detainees, you must listen to the official sources of the Ministry of the Interior, of the prison system, to give an opinion.
The third lie: That detainees are being subjected to torture, that they were detained without a judicial order, that they were detained by para-police, that they are detained without initiating a criminal proceeding, that they are deprived of their freedom, as we say Nicaraguans, just for something to say. All those are lies.
The people accused were detained with a legal order. They were detained by accredited national police officers. That is, we can see the videos, the photographs and there is a contradiction, because they say: "Police officers arrest such a person", and we see the police with their faces free, with their uniforms, with the police vans, with the police badge, that is, clearly identified.
Then, they were detained with a judicial order. They were detained by the police authority. They were sent to the judicial authority in the terms that the Political Constitution establishes and a judicial process was initiated. The Deputy Minister already mentioned the number of people who have already received a judicial judgment, and the number of people who are being prosecuted. All this in accordance with the Political Constitution, the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code.
The Nicaraguan Legislation establishes that for a criminal trial that takes place with the person under arrest, the period is 3 months. If the person is not detained, if the trial is in their absence, it can be up to 6 months. So, these people who have already received a judicial sentence are within the terms that the law establishes. That is, they are not accelerated judgments, like another lie that has been said. That is, they are trials being carried out within in the Nicaraguan criminal procedure’s legal framework.
Nicaragua is considered among the countries that hav the lowest rates of delays of justice in Latin America and one of the lowest delay rates of justice in the world. In other words, the speed with which these people have been arrested, prosecuted and sentenced is not different from the ordinary criminal proceedings in Nicaragua.
Alberto Mora: I remember that in one of your campaigns and it is no longer mentioned in any medium, it was the delay of justice in Nicaragua. Do you remember? 10 years ago. I don’t see those headlines anywhere, by the way.
Carlos Emilio López: That’s right. They are being processed within the framework of this expeditious justice, this new model of justice that we live in Nicaragua, thanks to which we have approved and we have created a great number of new codes: New Penal Code, 2008; New Family Code, 2014; New Civil Procedural Code, 2015. That is to say, the entire legal system of the country has been transformed and now we have brief, simple, opportune, expedited judicial processes, with public trials, with the right to defense. And according to what the Vice Minister is informing us, all these people have legal assistance, thus fulfilling a fundamental right of detainees
Alberto Mora: And the conditions how do you see them, Deputy, as an expert in human rights?
Carlos Emilio López: Now, around the conditions of infrastructure, of the relationship of the prison authorities with the detainees, we see that there is compliance with what is established in the Political Constitution of the Republic stating that in Nicaragua the prison system is humanitarian, that dignified attention should be given to detainees.
And Law 473, which is the Law of the Prison System, the Law of the Prison System and Execution of Punishment, establishes a catalog of human rights of detainees, within them the right to decent treatment, to be in adequate conditions, to receive medical attention, to have communication with their families. And of all the photographs, the images that we have seen today and the narrative that the Vice Minister has presented to us, we can say that all those human rights of the detainees in Nicaragua are being fulfilled.
When I was in the Legal Office for the Defense of Human Rights, I was constantly visiting the 8 prison Units in Nicaragua. And I can tell you, that is with testimonies, that there is a radical change in the infrastructure of the prison system. What we found in the Legal Office for the Defense of Human Rights at that time, was overcrowding, lack of light. It is unspeakable the situation in which the detainees were.
I remember that in a hole, in very small cells, where there were 15, 20 people in very small cells, in that hole they bathed, defecated, ate. It was an unbearable stench, a mixture of drinking water and sewage. Those detainees were constantly ill, with all kinds of diarrheal diseases, parasitosis, skin diseases. There were suicides, recurrent suicide attempts, riots, among other situations.
Today, in these 11 years we have a state policy -- the Vice Minister Luis Cañas has described it in detail -- a state policy of respect for the human rights of detainees, having changed the infrastructure. In the photographs we can see clean, dignified spaces; suitable new clothes; mattresses; small decent beds ... dignified spaces!
At that time, people slept on the floor, on cement tablets. Half-naked, barefoot. And I ask you, Alberto, and I ask Nicaraguan families, where was the CPDH between 1990 and 2006? Where was the CPDH?
Alberto Mora: Collecting money from Doña Violeta, Alemán and Bolaños. Earning money! That's what they were doing, earning money!
Carlos Emilio López: There was not a single public complaint in those 16 years.
Alberto Mora: Because they worked for those governments. Remember, those were their governments, that was a political issue. And I say it with all the propriety: Earning money! For sure there are human rights organization officials here who had their whole family in the government and there are still some who do. They are not consistent, because they should all resign.
Luis Cañas: I just want to make an observation so that Nicaraguan families know ... When we had to receive, because we took seriously the Mission of the UN High Commissioner who came to the Tipitapa prison where we received them, including a high level comrade from the Foreign Ministry to meet them, and I remember that we prepared a dossier with all these information that we have presented here, with photographs and everything else; and I remember that in the title page we gave it the title: "The Truth will make you Free", we put the verse of the Bible.
They did not pay attention to that, and from the start tried to make out that Medardo Mairena was a forced disappearance. We told him: “No, that can’t be right, because the National Police, which is an institution of our government, announced in an official communication that he was arrested, among other things, and that the Supreme Court already has in its web page the announcement about it.” I say, so they might know. Then they said, “That's not our concern …” “Yes it is, that is for you, so you can see!”
On the other hand, we showed them how the main leaders of human rights organizations in this country tried to disrupt the governance of the largest prison in this country at the Model Prison in Tipitapa, the Jorge Navarro Center. They held an activity, a political rally. They got ready in a nearby house. They had the new media just 200 meters away. They had already set up an activity with cameras, journalists, people who they already had bussed in to disrupt the governance of that criminal center. In any part of the world, for that reason, or for less, they deserve arrest.
So we prudently, adopting the prudence and the moderation of our President and our Vice President, we said: “We are going to take measures of disuasion.” And we put a cordon of unarmed female prison officers. Inside the Penal Center nobody uses weapons, except the security cordon that is in an external area.
We put the female prison officers of the prison system, who are trained. The prison system of our country has a prison school, and the previous administrations had destroyed it. We started in 2007 to remake it. We have highly trained prison officers in prison subjects, in human rights, in everything that is the legislation of our country, in Laws, in self-defense and everything else ... In everything, in how to conduct a prisoner Then we put a line of dogs, because we have canine techniques for attacks and searches. We put them some meters behind. And finally the riot force that we have in the prison system.
But the irresponsible NGO leaders, they know very well, they knew what they were doing. And what was their goal? What was their purpose? We cannot allow human rights organization leaders trying to go to a penal center in that way. Nowhere in the world do they allow it. The IACHR, I do not know if they ever have, but I understand that no one has entered Guantánamo.
Alberto Mora: But if they came to La Paz Centro to ask the police to hand over their weapons. In what country of the world does that happen?
Luis Cañas: On the other hand, we gave them a dossier where we had the story of the damages to the infrastructure, to the vehicles, not only of the prison system, to the fire fighters, to the Migration Service, to the Ministry of the Interior, and the stories and photographs of Comrades who had been kidnapped. And to this very day, as they say, we do have not had an answer about it.
Alberto Mora: They have an interventionist mandate, of course. Carlos Emilio, I am struck by what you said: Where were they during all those governments? That's an extraordinary question, and well, what I'm saying is that they were earning money, because that's the way it was.
The other issue is, I remember that the other day you said that in Bluefields the prisoners were packed together like bats, but nobody said anything. There was never anyone there to complain; that is, the conditions were terrible, but it was not a population that interested them. There was nothing to criticize. There was nothing to say, just collect the check, and go to those governments to ask for money.
On the other hand, these commissions are also self-interested. These gentlemen who have come here, who are consultants and who have worked for different governments. Because I notice that they all have a curriculum that let’s them work with God and with the devil. They have been Government, they have been anti-government. They have worked from Patricio Aylwin to Bachelet. That is to say, they have an interventionist mandate. That is what Nicaraguans have seen here. Tell me if I'm wrong, Carlos Emilio?
Carlos Emilio López: We must reiterate that our government, led by Commandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario, has a human rights policy. Human rights are the backbone of all public policies of this government, in the field of youth, children, women, peasants, people with disabilities, indigenous and afro-descendant peoples. And detainees are not the exception, thus fulfilling the principle and the right to non-discrimination.
That is to say, all the human rights that are being implemented in Nicaragua with different groups and populations are also being fulfilled with prisoners. This separation between men and women, these units of maternal and child care, they are in compliance with the human rights of women. This separation of adults and adolescents, for many years we insisted: adolescents have to be separated from the adult; women must receive specialized care in the prison system.
Today, for the first time in the history of Nicaragua, women are receiving specialized, peri-, pre- and postnatal care within the prison unit. In other words, that marks a historic milestone in the matter of the protection of human rights within the prisons -- the contact, the relationship, the coexistence, the conjugal visits.
I remember that detainees cried, begged for the conjugal visit, contact with the family, and when they were recognized they were in situations that can not be described here on television, the conditions of conjugal encounters. Today they are dignified spaces!
We see there all those photographs that are not drama nor are they theater, although the families of many of the prisoners are making public denunciations, there are the photographs of affective contact in dignified spaces. Which does not happen in the United States. We have all seen the movies that when family visits are given in the United States, there is a glass, and the person wants to have contact and they touch hand to hand, but there is a glass that does not allow human contact. In the Nicaraguan prison system there is human contact. Yes, there is that coexistence.
This was what the Deputy Minister told us of the packets of products, that is in addition to the food they receive on a daily basis. I remember that from the Legal Office for the Defense of Human Rights we insisted on improving the diet, on improving the nutritional situation of detainees. Today it has been improved, but besides that what has been improved is that families are allowed to bring packages, and they also have a space where they can buy. So there has been a 180 degree change, a total turnaround in conditions, in all aspects.
Alberto Mora: I reiterate that during all those campaigns that you mentioned and that I actually know were fought, all these people were absent who are now the standard bearers of human rights and who are now activated with money, because this is about money.
Somebody told me, “what a miracle that Mr. Medardo did not include any of his Alliance colleagues to see him. He should really include them so that they go see and stop talking nonsense. Each of them should include one.”
Luis Cañas: Well, that’s what the prisoner decides. The other thing that has not been disclosed, nor is it of interest to these organizations, is that in the prison centers of this country there is education, there is specialized technical preparation for prisoners who wish to study. There is primary education. We have agreements with the MINED. We are working together with the local government as well. There is primary, secondary, baccalaureate programs. There is technical education, agreements with INATEC, and university with the National Agrarian University. We have already graduated prison professionals, who have done their studies, who have done them there.
That is a policy as mentioned by Deputy Carlos Emilio, inside, and Comandante Daniel Ortega is permanently attending to it. Also our Vice President, Compañera Rosario is watching. The issue of the mother and child facility and the entire women's prison system is one of their concerns.
We were going crazy over the women’s prison when it was located at Veracruz. All the sewage used to spill into the street. The local residents nearby held protests about it to us. And the women's prison was built in a race against time. The infrastucture is new. But nobody paid attention to it.
Alberto Mora: I remember those 9 or 10 million dollars recovered from the drug traffickers, and Comandante Daniel Ortega said: “We are going to make a dignified jail. We are going to start building it.”
Carlos Emilio López: You mentioned something about the interventionist role of the international organizations. Look, the United States and Canada are the only two countries in the Americas that have not signed the American Convention on Human Rights. This regional human rights treaty creates the protection system for the Americas; creates the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. These two Northern countries have not subscribed to it, therefore they do not submit, are not subject to, nor accept the jurisdiction either of the Commission, or of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Therefore, these organizations cannot conduct investigations, cannot make on-site visits, cannot make binding reports, cannot issue any condemnation against the United States for violating human rights.
However, the United States funds between 80% and 90% of the IACHR. That is, who pays the IACHR personnel is the government of the United States. Who finances its logistics, its administrative expenses, its presentation expenses, its stays in the hotels, etc., is the government of the United States. That is, it does not commit itself to the human rights established in the treaty …
Alberto Mora: But it finances those who are supposed to supervise us. Who do you work for? 2 plus 2 is 4. As Commandante Daniel Ortega said, the one who puts up the money is the one who gives orders and talks. That's it, and so those who pay them maintain them tell them : “Go to Nicaragua to stir things up” and so 4 or 5 of them turn up here.
Carlos Emilio López: The IACHR only produce reports condemning human rights in the case of progressive, revolutionary countries and governments, that have a sense of popular commitment. With the governments that have politics subject to the government of the United States, they keep silent.
Almagro recently visited Costa Rica, in the midst of the crisis it is in, and what he did was congratulate the government of Costa Rica, in the middle of a situation of popular protest, where workers, students consider that this tax reform package is going to massively violate economic and social rights. However, Almagro said nothing.
Alberto Mora: There the police are good and democratic, removing the blockades, putting people in jail. And even a guy shouted there: “I am a Journalist, I am a Journalist,” and the police clubs fell on him. But listen, one has double standards, cynicism, and above all also they think we are idiots, while others who turn themselves into idiots to earn money and lend themselves to that game, also for economic interests.
Here there is a lot of money too, in the NGOs. Brother, a lot of money has flowed here, and I do not know why the Ministry of the Interior does not address this. I’m complaining here to the Vice Minister, because that Ministry is the one that regulates the NGOs. All that interventionist money should have been held up, because they are crimes too. In any country in the world. I don’t believe the United States applauds an organization that is going to destabilize its government. I don’t think it accepts it.
And here in Nicaragua a lot of money has gone around. Yes, they even admit it. A young fellow who is an employee of big business told a journalist: “I haven’t received money from the NED but I have from others. That’s our living,” the guy said. He confessed, brother.
I said to myself, “I hope Vice Minister Luis Cañas is watching. I don’t know if he has seen it, but it’s true.” And joking apart, this is a clearly interventionist situation. Listen to me, there is no two ways about it, and that money is at work there, and the problem is that it is causing death, anxiety, kidnappings, destabilizing a country and causing damage to the economy.
Carlos Emilio López: Cooperation development resources should be used for education, health, food security and sovereignty, to improve the quality of education. That is, these resources should be used to strengthen government programs, development programs, and not for actions of destabilization, violence, and violation of the human rights of the people.
Alberto Mora: Well, time is up. Was there still something left, Vice Minister? We have two minutes.
Luis Cañas: We continue to work from the Ministry of the Interior, from its principal departents, such as the Migration and Immigration Office, our Fire Fighting Service Office together with the Unified Firefighters, the Civil Association of Fire Fighters and the Benemérito Fire Fighters, Firefighters without Borders, and from our national Prison Service, always serving the family, the Nicaraguan community, with the mandate, instructions, and orders of our President and our Vice President.
All the men and women that participate in this Ministry do so in earnest, working and oversoming this barrage of permanent slander. So, to point out one of the many lies, on September 25, the relatives of Medardo Mairena have a visit scheduled. It costs them nothing. I don’t know who may be charging money to tell them a lawyer must arrive. But if a lawyer does want to be there, he has to comply with the requirements that the law sets out.
Alberto Mora: Thank you both, thank you Deputy Carlos Emilio, thanks Vice Minister of the Interior, Luis Luis Cañas, for having accompanied us this morning.