Vilma Núñez

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Vilma Núñez
Vilma Nunez in 2016A.jpg
Núñez in 2016
Born (1938-11-25) 25 November 1938 (age 82)
NationalityNicaraguan
Alma materNational Autonomous University of Nicaragua
OccupationLawyer, human rights activist
OrganizationNicaraguan Center for Human Rights
Websitecenidh.org

Vilma Núñez de Escorcia, born Vilma Núñez Ruiz (25 November 1938) is a Nicaraguan lawyer and human-rights activist. After being tortured during the Somoza regime, she founded the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) in 1990.

Early life[]

Vilma Núñez was born on 25 November 1938 to unmarried parents, causing a series of exclusions in her young life in the conservative country: she and her mother Tomasa Núñez Ruiz were unwelcome at school, church and social clubs in Acoyapa, Chontales, perhaps also because of the local influence of her father's wife.[1] Her father, Humberto Núñez Sevilla (no blood relation to her mother), was a Conservative Party leader and Somoza critic who was often imprisoned during Núñez’s childhood, though he also served as a deputy in parliament during Anastasio Somoza Garcia’s rule.[1] Núñez Sevilla died in 1947, leaving an inheritance to Vilma Núñez and two of her siblings, Léon and Indiana, but this again left their mother subordinate, at the mercy of the trustee empowered to disburse the funds.[1] These early experiences motivated Núñez’s later human rights activism as well as her desire to go to law school, though her mother wanted her to study architecture.[1]

She did not begin school until age eight, and eventually moved to Managua to find a good secondary school that would accept Núñez, successfully enrolling at .[1] At 19 she enrolled at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in Léon, studying law.[1] This brought her into contact with Carlos Tünnerman, then a young professor[1] who became a member of the Group of Twelve leading supporters of the Sandinista (FSLN) rebels and later the Minister of Education for the FSLN government.[2]

Núñez is a survivor of the student massacre of 23 July 1959.[1]

In 1963, Núñez married Otto Escorcia, a dentist, thereafter going by Vilma Núñez de Escorcia.[1]

Career[]

Early career and FSLN[]

After graduating, Núñez began working as a litigator as well as taking pro bono cases defending political prisoners held by the Somoza government.[1] Among her clients were campesinos (peasants) fighting to have confiscated land restored to them; only later did they learn it was in fact Sandinistas who had taken the land.[1]

On 30 April 1979, she was taken prisoner by the Somozas government; she was freed 11 July, just days before the fall of the regime (19 July).[1] On 20 July, she was asked to join the Supreme Court, and served as vice-president until 1987.[3] The Sandinistas then appointed her director of the newly formed National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, where she served until 1990.[3]

Founding CENIDH[]

In 1990, when Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeated FSLN incumbent Daniel Ortega and assumed the Presidency, Núñez was in Geneva, Switzerland to give a speech.[1] With an assistant, Núñez began discussing the possible creation of a body to monitor the new government, and another activist at the conference encouraged her to start a human rights foundation, donating $2500 to seed the project.[1] This began the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos, or CENIDH), founded on 16 May 1990.[1] They were granted legal status in September of that year and began their work by focusing on capacity-building with training programs teaching Nicaraguans that access to education and health care were human rights.[4] Later they also started investigating allegations of human rights violations, problems Núñez recalled as developing after conservative Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) President Arnoldo Alemán took office in 1997 (Nicaragua's constitution prevented Chamorro from seeking a second term).[4] Alemán responded by accusing Núñez of being a member of the (FUAC), a group of former members of the army who had re-armed.[4] In fact CENIDH had been sought out to mediate disarmament negotiations and the dismissed the allegations against Núñez.[4]

Break with the FSLN[]

Until this point Núñez was still a strong supporter of the FSLN, although the party did not contribute to CENIDH (largely funded by foreign donations).[1] Nevertheless CENIDH supported dissidents protesting the Chamorro and then Alemán governments.[1][4] When the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) broke away from the FSLN in 1995, Núñez remained loyal.[1] Her relationship became strained when she ran against Daniel Ortega in 1996 to be the party's candidate for President;[5] former comrades began to attack her.[1] The final straw came in 1998 when Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo came forward with allegations that her stepfather Daniel Ortega had raped her as a child.[6] Zoilamérica reported the allegations to CENIDH and despite the arrival of Rosario Murillo attempting to insist Núñez refuse the case (Murillo sided with her husband against her daughter's allegations), Núñez took up the case, sealing her fate as an enemy of the presidential couple and their supporters.[1] Her house was vandalized and she became subject to death threats.[1]

Núñez continued her work undeterred, bringing and winning major cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In 2001 she brought a petition for the Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Asla Takanka (YATAMA) party representing indigenous people, primarily the Miskito people of the Caribbean Coast, against the Nicaraguan government for excluding them from elections.[4] In 2005 the Court decided in favor of the YAMATA and ordered remedial measures, but as of 2018 the government still had not fully complied.[4] Núñez and CENIDH also joined , a human rights and indigenous and Afro-Caribbean activist whose husband Francisco García Valle had been assassinated on 8 April 2002, allegedly in retaliation for Acosta's human rights activism and legal representation of communities in the Caribbean coast.[4] The suit against the Nicaraguan government alleged failure to bring justice and to adequately protect Acosta.[4] The Court decided in her favor in 2017, although in this case too the Nicaraguan government has failed to follow through on all the ordered remedies.[4]

In all, Núñez has filed more than 20 cases with the IACHR and documented thousands of allegations of human rights violations; she reports that between 2007 and 2016 (under Daniel Ortega's second presidency), 35% of the allegations (5,584 cases) were against the National Police.[4] Threats against Núñez mounted and in 2008 and renewed annually since, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has issued precautionary measures to protect Núñez and her family, although the FSLN government has not complied with these.[7] In 2017, Murillo (by then Nicaragua's Vice-President as well as First Lady) wrote a letter, signed by nine FSLN officials,[7] to the US embassy in protest after Ambassador presented Núñez with an award on International Women's Day.[1]

Suspension of CENIDH's legal status[]

Núñez attends a march during the 2018 Nicaraguan protests

On 12 December 2018, at the request of the FSLN , the FSLN-controlled National Assembly voted to revoke the legal status of CENIDH, accusing the group of using funds to "destabilize the country".[8] Their offices were raided by some 60 police officers and some of their members were forced to go into exile in Costa Rica.[9] Other NGOs and press outlets faced similar repression.[8] This followed on months of anti-government protests, initially begun in April 2018 in opposition to cuts to social security, then massively expanded following a bloody crackdown by the FSLN government.[8] Diverse sectors of Nicaraguan society joining the opposition to authoritarian repression, including Núñez who called for President Ortega to step down,[10] while the FSLN government insisted the mass resistance was a foreign-orchestrated coup attempt.[9] Núñez rejected the accusation against CENIDH specifically as well as the protestors in general,[9] and vowed to keep fighting for the rights of Nicaraguans.[8] The IACHR,[4] Amnesty International and the World Center against Torture issued statements of support for CENIDH and concern about repression of human rights by the Nicaraguan government.[8]

Núñez accepts an award on behalf of CENIDH from the in December 2019

While it was now more difficult, Núñez continued her work with CENIDH for the next two years until she and other organizations encountered a new hurdle in the form of the , passed by the National Assembly on 15 October 2020.[9] This required any organization receiving foreign funding to register as a foreign agent. Núñez is contesting the constitutionality of this new requirement, which would subject implicated organizations to possible intervention in their property and assets as well as threatens their legal status if the government judges that they're intervening in internal politics.[9] More than 60 organizations have filed appeals to the Supreme Court asking that the law be partially repealed. Núñez critiques both the assertion that foreign funding implies representing external interests, as well as the implication of criminality it carries.[9] She says:

"I'm a Nicaraguan. I was born in Nicaragua, I live in Nicaragua, and I'm going to die in Nicaragua. So, I can't in any way refrain from appealing this law, and I'm not going to register."[9]

Personal life[]

Núñez has two children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.[1]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Cruz, Eduardo (19 March 2017). "La lucha de Vilma Núñez de Escorcia". La Prensa (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  2. ^ Nicaraguan Biographies: A Resource Book. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. 1988. p. 32. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Kruijt, Dirk (4 April 2013). Guerrillas: War and Peace in Central America. Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84813-696-0. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l "CENIDH and its Contributions to the Defense of Nicaraguans' Human Rights – Race and Equality". Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights. 25 February 2019. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  5. ^ Mendez, Jennifer Bickham (7 September 2005). From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor, and Globalization in Nicaragua. Duke University Press. pp. 34–35. ISBN 978-0-8223-8730-5. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  6. ^ "Nicaragua: Zero Tolerance for Scrutiny". Human Rights Watch. 20 December 2018. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Miranda Aburto, Wilfredo (11 March 2017). "Ataque oficial contra Vilma Núñez en Día de la Mujer". Confidencial (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 24 March 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Montoya, Angeline (13 December 2018). "Nicaragua : le régime d'Ortega s'attaque aux organisations de défense des droits humains". Le Monde (in French). Archived from the original on 16 December 2018. Retrieved 16 December 2018.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Robinson, Circles (15 December 2020). "Vilma Nuñez: "We Continue Defending Human Rights"". Havana Times. Archived from the original on 16 December 2020. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  10. ^ Valdés, Florencia (28 November 2018). "Enfoque Internacional – Vilma Nuñez: "Daniel Ortega se tiene que ir de inmediato"". RFI. Archived from the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
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