“They Never Broke Me,” States Former Nicaraguan Cop
who spent five years as a political prisoner
“Torture is the everyday bread there inside. (…) I asked for painkillers and the jail director responded that if I continued begging for pills, they’d beat me.”
By David Toro Escobar / EFE (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Former Nicaraguan police sharpshooter Fanor Ramos assures they never “broke him,” despite the physical and psychological torture he was subjected to during his nearly five years as a prisoner. Ramos claims he was imprisoned for refusing to participate as a paramilitary during the 2018 repression of anti-government demonstrations.
Despite his injuries, a week after being released from prison and sent to Guatemala with 134 other Nicaraguan political prisoners, he’s feeling optimistic about the banishment the government of Daniel Ortega has forced on him. He says he desires to see democracy return to his country.
“With the stroke of a pen, they can’t take away my pride at being a thick-lipped native, ugly, Güegüense [character from a colonial-era Nicaraguan theater piece], son of Tamagastad and Cipaltonal, and brother of Quetzalcoatl,” Ramos declared to the EFE news agency when asked about the cancellation of his nationality. A few days after his September 5th release, the Nicaraguan authorities decreed him and the other 134 released political prisoners stateless.
Fanor Ramos, 52, periodically grunts with pain during the interview. He suffered permanent damage to his tailbone from a beating he says he received in February 2023, when he was taken naked and chained hand and foot to cell number 26 of “little hellhole,” as they call Gallery 300 of the maximum-security section of the prison. Other political prisoners were there, including bishop Rolando Alvarez (released and banished to the Vatican in January 2024).
The former police officer was detained in December 2019 and accused of belonging to an organized crime network, a charge he denies. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for supposedly storing over 300 kilos (660 pounds) of cocaine. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights noted that his trial was plagued with irregularities.
Persecution and torture of Fanor Ramos
Fanor Ramos asserts that his detention was the direct result of his refusal to form part of a “paramilitary group” that was violently repressing the anti-government demonstrators with the acquiescence of the police and the government.
“During the social explosion of the 2018 protests, my son was studying mechanical engineering at the National Engineering University (UNI). He went out to demonstrate on April 19th and was shot in the right knee with a shotgun. My son’s blood grieves me. I couldn’t lend myself to being part of something similar,” the former sharpshooter explained. Following this, he had to send his two older sons into exile.
The persecution of Fanor Ramos actually began in 2010, when he was fired from the police. “They said it was for lack of aptitude, but that’s absurd, because the year before they recognized me with an honor called the “medal of valor,” which is awarded to members of the police force who have risked their lives in some operation.
At that time, Fanor was already openly critical of the Ortega regime and was accused of being a “traitor.” “They said I was part of the US Intelligence, and that I had a plan to kill the president. A whole soap opera was invented against me,” he recalls.
“The persecution they maintained against me for so many years, my dismissal, and the torture they subjected me to were clearly for political motives,” he maintains.
“There, inside, torture is the daily bread (…) I would request analgesics to help with the pain, and the prison head came to tell me that if I continued asking for pills, they’d beat me,” Ramos affirms.
The [temperature] in those cells was like 104 degrees. It was a little hell. A lot of people fainted at night. In addition [we were kept] naked, with our hands and feet chained. It was horrible, and I can’t stop thinking about my companions who continue suffering all that,” he tells us.
Ramos says that he received dozens of beatings, and that he put up resistance through a 28-day hunger strike. He lost over 60 pounds during his time in prison.
Seeks justice and a reunion with his family
Now that he is enjoying freedom in Guatemala, he longs to “meet a granddaughter who lives In Spain,” and to rejoin his wife in the United States “who I haven’t seen in many years.”
Ramos, together with the other 134 released prisoners, is being lodged at a Guatemala City hotel while they transmit their asylum requests through the UN Refugee Agency UNHRC. The former police officer would like to reunite with his family in the United States.
“I firmly believe that justice is possible, and I can demonstrate how the Nicaraguan government violated all my rights by abducting and torturing me,” Ramos asserts. He says he’ll seek channels of international justice to have the Ortega regime held responsible.
Amid the pain and the scars of his imprisonment, Ramos is optimistic about being able to one day return to Nicaragua. I’ll go back to my country, on that road planted with yesterdays, farms and pains, like that song by Luis Enrique Mejia says,” said Ramos.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.