Police Brand Nicaraguan Student Edwin Carcache as a “Terrorist Leader”
Young people from Leon are also accused of murder
Police: “they are perpetrators of terrorist acts in roadblocks, destruction, looting and burning of a university building and of public and private institutions”
By Maynor Salazar / Wilfredo Miranda (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Edwin Carcache Davila, a leader of the April 19th Student Movement and member of the Justice and Democracy Alliance, arrested on Tuesday, was presented by the National Police on Thursday morning, September 6. Five other young people including four women were abducted with Carcahe.
Senior Commissioner, Farlen Roa, second in command at the feared interrogation prison known as El Chipote, accused Carcache of being the leader of a “terrorist” band that committed aggravated robbery, obstruction of government functions, facilitating tax evasion, illegal possession of firearms, attempted homicide, very serious injuries and fires to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua.
“They are perpetrators of terrorists acts at the roadblocks, destruction, looting and burning of a university building (public and private institutions and buses for collective transportation), torture, kidnapping and robberies,” stated Roa.
According to the police version, last Sunday, September 2, at the traffic lights near the used car dealer “El Chele”, Carcache and five other citizens, identified as Jefferson Padilla, Carlos Lacayo, Jonathan Lacayo and Oscar Rosales, kidnapped, injured and robbed the riot-policeman Cristian Amador.
At 12:30 in the sector of the road to Masaya, terrorists, always led by Carcache, attacked a police patrol. They attacked policemen Melvin Romero and Arli Echeverri. We have photographs when they were beating our fellow policemen. The injuries were caused with a knife. Afterwards, they burned the patrol vehicle,” said Roa.
Illegal arrests, stated human rights organizations
Julio Montenegro, lawyer for the Permanent Commission of Human Rights (CPDH), emphasized that the arrests made by the National Police are illegal, since they do not fulfill any of the requirements by law, and because regularly the police authority carries out activities in the company of hooded civilians.
“These individuals (hooded) are accompanied by officers belonging to the policy force. It is an administrative measure applied by them as an investigation body, but it is a detention that goes in violation of a person, because in many instances it is those civilians who are detaining citizens,” explained Montenegro.
Immediately moved to El Chipote
The students from the University Coalition and members of Justice and Democracy Alliance were arrested on Tuesday by the National Police and immediately transferred to the cells of El Chipote. Hours later, the police released the four women of the group: Judith Belen Mairena, Iskra Malespin, Gresia Ramirez and Arianna Moraga and three days later the other young man, Alejandro Centeno.
The Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI) of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH) informed that the youths were intercepted when they were going to a meeting of the Maria Elena Cuadra Women’s Movement. MESENI urged the Nicaraguan State “to provide information on where the young people are and the motives of the arrest.” Shortly after their detention, Mercedes Davila, mother of Carcache, stood at the main gate of El Chipote and demanded the release of her son.
“My son is here in El Chipote. They recently brought him here and they say he is a murderer, a terrorist…he is nothing like how they paint him. I feel powerless because of so many injustices by this government,” Davila told Confidencial.
On Tuesday night, Davila led a sit-in outside the main gate of the Central American University (UCA), demanding loudly the release of her son and the other students. “Edwin, friend; the people are with you,” she shouted more than a dozen times, until it was interrupted by another cry that broke her voice and made her legs falter to drop her knees on the asphalt: “My dear son, I love you.”
Juan Sebastian Chamorro, member of the Civic Alliance, confirmed that the young people were at El Chipote and were stopped and arrested while they were in a car. Carcache had denounced last Sunday that there were some men following them.
“This suspicious character in company of members of Sandinista mobs in pick-up trucks and motorcycles, wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle in which I was traveling and made a call,” wrote Carcache in his twitter account: (#SOSNicaragua #fueraOrtegaMurillo pic.twitter.com/qUJcAr6CNU).
Davila said that it seemed strange to her that the last connection in WhatsApp of her son was around 12:30 at noon, when he usually stays “online.” “Every time I used to call him to report his location, he would answer. Yesterday (Monday) someone called me and warned me to tell Edwin that the police were after him,” said the mother.
One of the most visible faces of the protests
Carcache is one of the most active university students in the marches against the government of Daniel Ortega. He usually encourages the marches with megaphones and loudspeakers. He is obstinate in his claim for justice and democracy. The young man told Confidencial on August 25th he was very close to being detained in the city of Leon, when paramilitaries and officers shooting broke up a protest in demand of the release of seven students abducted at a march that day.
Carcache and the other students arrested with him stayed together in a safe house due to the constant harassment of the government of Daniel Ortega, who see them as “terrorists.” A week ago, Carcache was on the TV program “Esta Noche” (Tonight) denouncing the persecution of university students by the regime.
The university leader also said that in the recent “March of the Flags,” the message of Ortega-Murillo is that “they do not want to go and are clinging to power by force.”
“They continue to intimidate the people in a selective witch hunt by abducting people away from their homes, and now also against the marches. But, the people continue to go out onto the streets to show that they are not afraid, that we are tired and want a definite change in Nicaragua,” he said.
Carcache also demanded that Ortega and Murillo “must let us protest. Their evil plan is to go and threaten the people. That is why the (government) wants to expel international organizations and threaten us. But, we have no fear and will continue on the streets.”
The mission of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations Organization detailed in its report that “the authorities continue to resort to campaigns of discredit and threats of persecution.”
Accusation against youth in Leon is admitted
A judge in Managua admitted an accusation against two student leaders accused of the death of another university student on April 20th, in the municipality of Leon, in the context of the protests in Nicaragua against the government presided over by Daniel Ortega.
Julio Cesar Arias, the V District Criminal Court Judge of Managua, admitted the accusation against Byron Jose Corea Estrada (23) and Christopher Nairobi Olivas Valdivia (18) indicted by the Prosecutor’s Office of setting fire to the University Center of the National University (CUUN-Leon) last April 20th, in which the student Cristian Emilio Cadena was burned to death.
The Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s Office) also holds the two youths responsible for setting fire to the National Lottery Building and other commercial establishments in the city of Leon, 90 kilometers northwest of Managua, as well as for causing injuries to two other university students.
The Prosecutor accused the two university students of the crimes of aggravated murder, setting fires, terrorism, aggravated damage, aggravated robbery and causing minor and serious injuries.
Corea Estrada is a leader of the April 19th Movement of Leon and student of dentistry at UNAN-Leon; while Olivas Valdivia studies at that same university.
According to the police version, the detainees used conventional firearms, hand-made weapons, mortars and Molotov cocktails to burn the CUUN-Leon and other buildings.
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For those readers who understand Spanish here is an interview with Edwin Carcache’s parents in the day following his arrest.
Why are the views so different? There was not a single camera to identify the terrorists leader exactly?