Nicaraguan Contras - Human Rights Violations

Human Rights Violations

Edgar Chamorro, a former Contra and member of the FDN's political directorate who later became a critic of the Contras, stated that during his time with the Contras, he frequently received reports about atrocities committed by Contra troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners: "As time went on, I became more and more troubled by the frequent reports I received of atrocities committed by our troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners. The atrocities I had heard about were not isolated incidents, but reflected a consistent pattern of behaviour by our troops. There were unit commanders who openly bragged about their murders, mutilations, etc."

A Sandinista militiaman interviewed by The Guardian stated that Contra rebels committed these atrocities against Sandinista prisoners after a battle at a Sandinista rural outpost: "Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off. They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit."

Americas Watch – which subsequently became part of Human Rights Watch – accused the Contras of:

• targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination
• kidnapping civilians
• torturing civilians
• executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat
• raping women
• indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses
• seizing civilian property
• burning civilian houses in captured towns.

Human Rights Watch released a report on the situation in 1989, which stated: " contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners."

Similarly, the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR, now known as "Progressio"), a human rights organization which identifies itself with liberation theology, had summarized Contra operating procedures in their 1987 human rights report: "The record of the contras in the field, as opposed to their official professions of democratic faith, is one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping." Earlier, in December 1984, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs had issued a report condemning the Contras and the United States government as being among the worst human rights violators in Latin America: "The CIA directed forces are among the worst human rights violators in Latin America, responsible for systematic brutality against a civilian population. For its critical role in facilitating the Contra violence, the Administration must share responsibility as a hemispheric violator of human rights. The Contras have killed, tortured, raped, mutilated and abducted hundreds of civilians they suspect of sympathizing with the Sandinistas. Victims have included peasants, teachers, doctors and agricultural workers."