Liberty Tested in Nicaragua : Opposition Surviving Despite Sandinista Curbs

The Avendanos, a middle-class family here, are testing the limits of freedom in Nicaragua.

Luz Avendano, 17, and her sister Jenova, 21, helped turn a religious gathering into an opposition political rally. “Christianity yes, communism no,” they chanted with others at the rally, held in June.

Both were arrested and held for four days while being interrogated.

Two months earlier, Fanor Avendano Jr., 23, and his brother Pablo, 19, distributed leaflets protesting economic hardships and criticizing the Sandinista government. They were detained for two hours and warned to watch their step.

The Marxist-oriented Sandinista government has not made Nicaragua a showcase of civil liberties, and conditions here have not been conducive to freedom. The Sandinistas, who came to power six years ago, are trying to carry on with their revolution while fighting a war with the U.S.-supported rebels known as contras.

But neither has Nicaragua become a totalitarian police state, as some critics contend.

The Avendanos have found that their freedom under the Sandinista government is severely and sometimes harshly limited, but they and other Nicaraguans continue to be openly active in opposition parties--evidence that a measure of liberty survives.

The question of what new limits may be imposed on freedom in Nicaragua was raised dramatically last week. The government renewed the state of emergency and broadened its provisions, suspending several civil rights and guarantees.

In the first days after the emergency decree, there was no notable crackdown on freedom and dissent. But some opponents of the government fear the worst.

“With this decree, all freedoms are taken away,” Fanor Avendano Sr. said.

Avendano, 52, is a lawyer and an officer of the opposition Social Christian Party. His son is secretary general of the Social Christian youth organization.

Laws Weren’t Observed

Although Fanor Jr. agreed with his father that the new suspension of civil guarantees was troubling, he said that the guarantees were ineffective even before they were suspended. “Even if the laws are in force, they are not observed when the party in power decides not to observe them,” he said.

President Daniel Ortega, announcing the new suspension of civil guarantees last Tuesday, said the United States was to blame. He said that “agents of imperialism” in political parties, in the press and in religious institutions are trying to sabotage the war effort, disrupt the economy and “provoke confusion and discontent in the grass roots.”

“The brutal aggression of the Americans and their domestic allies has created a truly extraordinary situation,” Ortega charged.

Interior Minister Tomas Borge, commander of the state security agency and the national police, hinted Thursday in a speech that the government is prepared to take drastic measures against the opposition.

“Anything that wounds the stability of the revolution becomes identified with the goal of liquidating Nicaragua as a nation and is, objectively, unpatriotic,” Borge said.

But he emphasized that despite the suspension of guarantees, Nicaraguans are still free to take part in legal political activities, to practice their religion without restriction, to leave and enter the country and to move freely about within it.

‘Only the Enemies’

He said that even though the government is giving itself the legal mechanisms to impose the new restrictions, that does not mean they will be universally applied. It is a state of emergency, he said, “only to tie the hands of the enemies of the people.”

He went on, “This is a state of emergency in which there is no curfew, no martial law, no tear-gas grenades.”

A Sandinista official who asked not to be identified by name said that the suspension of guarantees is intended more as a warning than as a preparatory step for large-scale repression. He said the government is especially fearful that the opposition could undermine popular support for the revolution by destabilizing the already hard-pressed economy and exploiting public discontent.

“The issue is economic destabilization and how that will translate into concerted domestic defiance of the government’s legitimacy,” the official said. “So the response you have at this time is a show of legal force.

“It is a reaffirmation that we are not going to take it lying down. . . . More than anything, it is a warning shot to the opposition.”

He added that the emergency decree also carries a message to the United States: “This revolution is going to survive, no matter what. If you think the economic situation is going to bring us to our knees, you’re wrong.”

U.S. Spurs Opposition

The official asserted that agitation by opposition political parties, business groups, Roman Catholic Church leaders and some labor unions has followed guidelines set by the Reagan Administration.

“We’re in an all-out confrontation with the United States,” he said, “and they are using every single weapon that they have got.”

Actions that have irritated the Sandinista government in recent months include a rash of brief work stoppages by labor unions. Some of the unions are associated with the Nicaraguan Socialist Party, which previously has supported the Sandinistas.

Hours before the emergency decree was announced, security agents arrested Alejandro Solorzano, a Socialist construction-union leader. He had started a hunger strike, demanding legislation to increase year-end bonuses for all workers.

Francisco Medrano, an officer in the same union, said Solorzano was told by a security official that he was “playing into the hands of imperialism.”

Discontent with the government is growing, Medrano said at the construction-union hall. “We’re afraid that there will be a popular outburst that will be very hard to control,” he said.

And he predicted that the new emergency decree will be used to suppress dissent, adding, “We think that this government is heading for totalitarianism.”

Annoyed at Church

The government has also been upset by criticism from Catholic leaders, including Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Managua. Last weekend, the Managua archdiocese started a publication that criticized the government for drafting 11 seminary students into the army and for censoring the diocesan radio station. Security agents confiscated the publication’s first issue and seized the church office where it was printed.

La Prensa, the country’s only opposition daily newspaper, has been under censorship since early in the revolution. The new emergency decree did not result in any immediate tightening of that censorship.

Big headlines on La Prensa’s front page Thursday evening reported that the governments of Spain and the Netherlands have criticized the new emergency decree and that the Nicaraguan Social Christian Party plans to press forward with its opposition activities.

Lino Hernandez, president of the independent Permanent Commission for Human Rights, said in an interview that the decree does not substantially change restrictions on freedom in Nicaragua. However, he added, “I think a system is being installed in Nicaragua that, by nature, violates human rights.”

He said the commission received 91 complaints of rights infractions in September, including reports of 48 arbitrary arrests and seven allegations of torture by security agents.

“The state security agency has always gone beyond the limits of the law,” he said. “Persecution has always existed in the independent unions and the opposition parties.”

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, said in its recent report for 1985 that some union and party leaders are subjected to frequent detention without charges.

Curbs Imposed, Lifted

Nicaragua’s state of emergency was imposed in March, 1982, on the ground that counterrevolutionary efforts made it necessary. Some guarantees suspended at that time were restored in July and August, 1984, during campaigning for the first national elections under Sandinista rule.

The rights that were restored were technically suspended again by last week’s decree, which extends the state of emergency for a year. They include:

--The right to circulate freely in Nicaragua, to choose a place of residence and to leave and enter the country.

--Freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

--The right to assemble peacefully and to hold public demonstrations.

--The right to strike.

--The right to seek legal redress for violation of civil liberties.

Additional Curbs

The state of emergency also continues to suspend:

--Guarantees of freedom from arbitrary arrest and from detention without charges, and the right to a judicial hearing within 24 hours of arrest and to humanitarian treatment while being detained.

--The right of habeas corpus, the right to be considered innocent until proved guilty, the right of a public trial with adequate defense and other judicial rights.

--Freedom from search without warrant, the right to privacy of correspondence and freedom from unwarranted interference in private and family matters.

--The right to create and promote organizations, such as labor unions.

Among rights still guaranteed under Nicaragua’s 1979 Statute of Rights and Guarantees are freedom from discrimination, the right to life, freedom from torture and cruel treatment, religious freedom and freedom from forced work.