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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Nicaraguan Farmers Sentenced For Armed
Attack on Debt Collectors
By Black Schmidt
MANAGUA -
Nine Nicaraguan farmers were sentenced to
between three and five years in jail for an
armed attack on employees of a bank that
specializes in loans to the poor, court
spokesman Roberto Larios said today.
The farmers opened fire on employees of the
Local Development Fund who were collecting
debts and beat theirvehicle with a branding iron and bicycle
parts. The May attack took place in Matiguas
in northern Nicaragua, an area that has seen
growing unrest since President Daniel
Ortega’s call last year for indebted farmers
to pressure microfinance banks for lower
interest rates by holding protests.
“The judicial branch’s position is that the
law must be applied to stop the culture of
not paying debts,” Larios said in a phone
interview today. “There’s an explicit order
from the Supreme Court to all judges in the
country to strictly apply laws in cases of
debt defaulters.”
Indebted farmers have held protests at
microfinance banks, Congress and the Supreme
Court, sometimes wielding machetes and
hurling fireworks, since Ortega called for
protests. The former Sandinista
revolutionary leader has since backed off a
bit from his original cry encouraging
indebted poor to protest in front of bank
offices. He discouraged them from blocking
roadways in a February speech.
A proposal in congress would put a 12
percent roof on interest rates. The
Nicaraguan Association of Microfinanciers,
which lends $250 million annually to 350,000
poor farmers at rates as high as 20 percent,
has said it’s “worried” by the proposal,
which would “award” protests by debt
defaulters. Congress may vote on the
proposal this month.
Ortega’s opponents say he’s supporting a
culture of defaulters in Nicaragua, Latin
America’s second poorest country. |
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