In response to recent desertions of police who fled to the United States, the National Assembly passed a reform of Law 872 which made clear that the police force is an arm of the Sandinista party and essentially made anyone leaving the police suspect of being a traitor.
By DIVERGENTES, July 18, 2023
There is tension within agents over what could happen if they ask to leave the repressive institution. “The message is clear, if you think about leaving, you will be arrested,” said one of the police interviewed. On the other hand, a source connected to the national chief of Police explained that the reform also sends a message of weakness on the part of the regime while accepting that officers, fed up, are leaving the country, above all to the United States on the [humanitarian] parole program.
The reform of the Law for the Organization, Function, Career and Special Social Security Regime of the National Police (872), which eliminated the “professional and apolitical nature” of the institution, and which imposes jail time on those who desert its ranks, has caused insecurity and nervousness among the officer who make up the police structure, principally because of the issue of desertion. “The message is clear, if you think about leaving, you will be arrested,” said Carlos*, a police agent consulted by DIVERGENTES under condition of anonymity.
Carlos has been working in the institution for four years. He joined the police force out of economic “necessity”. “I had to support my children and my wife,” explained the official, who carefully read the police reform hours after its approval in the National Assembly this past July 5th.
The modification of the law which has to do with the complete subordination of the Police to the dictator Daniel Ortega, with the elimination of the principle of “a professional, apolitical, non-partisan, obedient and non-deliberative institution”, does not represent any concern for Carlos. The officer explained that obedience is something that they had always stressed to him in the institution since entering the ranks of the police.
Nevertheless, what did generate concern for Carlos were the three new articles which have to do with crimes committed by police personnel, dereliction of duty and desertion. The new disposition establishes that whoever abandons service will be tainted as a deserter and will incur serious harm to citizen security, sanctioned by a punishment of two to three years in prison.
According to this official, any police person who abandons their post without notice is considered a traitor. This designation also includes agents who ask for their discharge even with justified reasons. “Those who leave will be deserters for their bosses,” pointed out Carlos.
Another official consulted by DIVERGENTES on this same issue expressed that, even though he does not feel that the reform is an immediate threat to his decision to continue or not working in the police institution, it has made him think about whether some day he will be able to resign to dedicate himself to something else.
“I studied a technical career and in my free time I repair home appliances. At one time I thought about starting a workshop and working full time in that, but I do not know whether this is possible with the reform. Perhaps they are just instilling fear in those who want to leave the country,” the agent said in a dubious tone and who also requested anonymity.
A reform with two messages
Law 872 did not have the term desertion in its articles prior to the reform. Nor did it have a sanction of imprisonment for abandonment. The norm only referred to the term “discharge” and attributed it to the departure of any member of the National Police.
Discharge, according to the old norm, would be granted only for death, retirement, removal, institutional convenience, abandonment of service or disciplinary resolution. And by a final court ruling on intentional crimes or imprudent crimes when the punishment for imprisonment is greater than one year.
“The reform attempts to restrict desertions. The objective is to instill fear in any agent, large or small, so that they do not leave. This is the first clear message: if you leave, first you will be imprisoned,” explained a high-level source connected to the National Police.
The source emphasized that even though the reform does not say anywhere that asking for your discharge is prohibited, the fact that it is not mentioned does not mean that that possibility is open.
“All the police know that those who resign, in other words, ask for their discharge, are considered deserters. This categorization, which does not exist, imposes terror. Now the official is going to think twice about asking to be discharged out of fear of being arrested,” specified the source.
Carlos, the official consulted by DIVERGENTES, mentioned that among his fellow officers there also is uncertainty about the reform and what it might mean for the officers who for justified reasons want to quit working in the institution.
“A fellow officer told me that his mother asked him to take her to the United States. But now he is afraid because he feels that they are on top of him. Previously one could say this, and it was fine, but now it is not. There is a lot of tension,” stated the officer.
The other message that the Sandinista dictatorship is sending, according to the high-level source connected to the Police, is not directly to officials of the institution, but to its bases and the population in general.
“On the one hand they pressure the police to not abandon them. But on the other hand they are demonstrating weakness, they are saying ` I recognize that people are leaving us.´ And they cannot hide this,” indicated the source, who added that in recent months many agents of the institution resigned and abandoned their posts to leave through the [humanitarian] parole program to the United States.
Police desertions since 2018
One of the strongest denouncements was from the mother of officer Faber Antonio López Vivas. She accused the Police of murdering him because her son wanted to desert in the height of the crisis. The mother of the agent explained that her son did not agree with the repression. A few days later he appeared dead in the morgue of the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
In June 2018 the newspaper La Prensa revealed the desertion of 14 police from the Matagalpa station, among them the director of medical services, Hildebrando Toledo. One month later, the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) made public the desertion of at least six police from the Ajax Delgado station in Managua, among them Michael Alejandro Delgado Vargas and Juan José Blandón Gómez. According to the CPDH the officers resigned out of refusal to repress.
In 2018 cases of officials were also made public who were discharged for refusing to participate in the repression. The former Lieutenant María Teófila Aráuz was expelled after what she wrote in her Whatsapp status: “Long live the students!”. While Julio César Espinoza Gallegos was jailed for several months because he refused to report on his neighbors in Diriamba, where he lived.
That same year the case of Michael Caballero Ayala became known, a 31-year-old officer who also deserted for the same reasons, and was jailed in November of that same year. Since then, he was imprisoned in La Modelo, until he was released this past February 9th in the group of 222 political prisoners who were banished to the United States. He was imprisoned for four years and three months.
On June 6, 2019 the antinarcotics lieutenant Edwin Antonio Hernández Figueroa from the León station deserted because he did not want to be part of the repression. Hernández left his testimony in a video where he appeared showing his uniform, pistol, badge, among other gear. Five days later, when he wanted to flee the country, he was arrested by the Police. Hernández, who had been working in the institution for 13 years, was sentenced to six years in jail. He was freed three and a half years later.
Other more recent desertions are the four police from District IV in Managua in May of this year; the assistant commissioner María de Jesús Guzmán Gutiérrez, block boss in Matagalpa, who two years after being promoted to her post, fled to the United States.