NICARAGUA:
Asylum for
Refugees - At Last
By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA (IPS) -
Salvadoran refugee
Matías Carazo has lived
in legal limbo in
Nicaragua for more than
26 years. In 1982 he
fled from the military
in his country who
accused him of being a
sympathiser of the
leftwing guerrillas, and
only now is he able to
seek protection under a
law granting him
official refugee status.
For all these years,
Carazo has been an
immigrant without
residence or citizenship
documents in Nicaragua
or even El Salvador. His
children had to find
sponsors and witnesses
in order to register at
schools and hospitals,
under the surnames of
their guardians.
"My children carry my
blood in their veins,
but they don’t carry my
surname. I’m a poor
campesino (peasant
farmer), and I never
knew what to do, and now
they tell me they’re
going to make me legal.
I hope so, because then
I can live legally," he
told IPS with a happy
smile.
Carazo’s new opportunity
came on Jun. 3, when
after five years of
debate, the Nicaraguan
Congress approved the
Law for the Protection
of Refugees which will
benefit 3,986 people who
have fled to this
country for asylum since
1980.
Most of them are
campesinos who live in
rural areas, according
to a census by the
United Nations High
Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) and the
national Office of
Migration and Alien
Affairs.
Blanca Fonseca, the
UNHCR delegate in
Nicaragua, welcomed the
parliamentary decision
and told IPS that the
law fills a vacuum that
has existed since 1984,
when the then government
of the leftwing
Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN)
opened the country’s
borders to foreigners
who were persecuted for
political and
ideological reasons.
Fonseca said that at
that time refugees were
temporarily registered
in the Nicaraguan Social
Security Institute, but
that in 1990, after the
FSLN was voted out of
government, the law was
changed and foreigners
were excluded from
social security
benefits. Now the FSLN,
headed by President
Daniel Ortega, is ruling
the country once again.
"There has been no law
on the matter until now,
and refugees have had to
resign themselves to
living without
documents, or seek
temporary solutions with
the Office of Migration
and Alien Affairs," she
said.
According to the
president of Congress,
René Núñez Téllez, the
new law "addresses
important concepts such
as the definition of
‘refugee’,
non-discrimination, the
principle of family
unity, the principle of
non-refoulement (no
forced return), the
prohibition of expulsion
and the mediating role
of the UNHCR."
The law provides for the
creation of a national
council made up of
migration, human rights
and social security
authorities, and
delegates from the UNHCR,
religious and human
rights organisations and
other civil society
groups.
Núñez Téllez said that
legal counsel will also
be provided for asylum
seekers, particularly
unaccompanied minors and
vulnerable adults, and
that asylum seekers and
refugees will have the
right to work and will
have access to all state
services.
At the same time, the
law obliges security and
migration officials to
identify and promptly
refer asylum seekers to
the eligibility
procedure established by
the law.
The law was approved
unanimously and was
applauded by civil
society organisations
and representatives of
the UNHCR.
"The passing of the
Nicaraguan refugee law
demonstrates how the
refugee experience of a
country can translate
into a positive step
forward in upholding
refugee rights as human
rights," said Marion
Hoffmann, the Mexico
City-based regional
representative for the
UNHCR.
The U.N. agency noted
that Nicaragua is a
transit country for
migrants rather than a
destination country,
located as it is along a
major migration route to
the United States.
However, migrants are
frequently detained, and
left with neither money
nor alternatives, many
end up staying on in the
country.
UNHCR statistics
indicate that in the
past two years, over 94
people have requested
asylum in Nicaragua.
"Asylum seekers from
Angola, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Pakistan, and
Somalia have arrived in
Nicaragua, some having
stowed away on ships in
Africa. The Nicaraguan
refugee law will assist
authorities in
identifying and
assisting those persons
who are in need of
international
protection," says a
UNHCR communiqué dated
Jun. 5.
Nicaraguan Human Rights
Centre (CENIDH)
representative Gonzalo
Carrión, one of the
authors of the law, said
the UNHCR was
instrumental in
reuniting Nicaraguans
after more than 10 years
of civil war between
FSLN leftwing guerrillas
and the dictatorship of
Anastasio Somoza
(1967-1979), when many
of the country’s
citizens were dispersed
throughout the rest of
Central America and the
United States.
The parliamentary debate
was unexpectedly heated
because two months ago
the Ortega
administration granted
diplomatic asylum to
three young women who
survived a Colombian
army attack on a
Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC)
guerrilla camp in
Ecuadorean territory,
which unleashed a
serious regional
diplomatic crisis.
Managua granted Mexican
citizen Lucía Morett
refugee status and
humanitarian asylum to
21-year old Doris Torres
Bohórquez and
24-year-old Martha Pérez
Gutiérrez, both
Colombian nationals, who
were in the FARC camp
when it was bombed on
Mar. 1. Twenty-six
people died in the
bombing raid, including
one of the FARC’s top
leaders, "Raúl Reyes".
The three women were
rescued by Ecuadorean
soldiers after the
attack.
Carrión said there is a
difference between the
power of each country to
grant asylum to those
whom the authorities
deem to be qualified,
and the status of
refugees, whom the
Nicaraguan state is
legally bound to
protect.
"Refugees, legally
speaking, are persons
who are in this country
and apply for protection
because of well-founded
fears of persecution in
their country of
origin," Carrión said.
In 1980, Nicaragua
ratified the 1951
Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees
and its 1967 Protocol.
Martha Cranshaw, of the
Nicaraguan Civil Society
Network for Migration,
said the law "is the
outcome of a
consultation effort
lasting more than four
years, which included
the voice of civil
society and that of
expert international
organisations on the
subject."
Cranshaw said the most
positive aspects of the
law are that it
establishes the right to
family reunification,
prioritises protection
of children and
adolescents, and regards
gender violence and
sexual discrimination as
valid arguments for
seeking asylum. |
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