Mother of a police officer murdered in Nicaragua denounces that his own colleagues killed him

Last Sunday, after preparing breakfast and cleaning her house in Santo Tomás, in the Nicaraguan department of Chontales, Fátima Vivas got ready and went to church with “a tremendous emptiness and sadness.” The news that arrived about the situation in the country was not good and since Friday she had not heard from the third of her four children, Faber, 23, despite the fact that they used to communicate every day. More than 12 hours after Entering the church and after going through a real Via Crucis, Vivas' worst fears were confirmed: his son, police officer Faber López Vivas, was one of the 38 dead who, according to data from the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, Human Rights (Cenidh), was the most violent day in Nicaragua since the protests against the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo began, which have been strongly repressed by riot police and paramilitaries. But she does not believe the official version that says that López Vivas was attacked by "terrorists with firearms" when trying to lift one of the roadblocks that the population had put up as a protest in the department of Carazo. His mother assures that the young man was tortured and murdered by his own companions after asking to be discharged from the ranks of the police because he refused to repress the protesters. “Nothing fills my void. No one can bring me back from the pain of the uncertainty of knowing that my son was tortured simply for requesting leave. They pinched him to death, they removed my fingernails…”, the woman recounts. roads and lack of public transportation. The decision to travel to the capital was made at 2:00 pm on Sunday, after receiving calls from the El Rama police station, where her son had been stationed until earlier this year. First, no one spoke. Later they told him that they had dialed by mistake.

“I was intrigued by those calls and then a photo of him began to circulate on the networks, saying that he had died,” recalls the woman. “I would call the police and say: ‘I need to be told! I am his mother!’ But they kept me waiting, the call was cut off. At one point they told me that he was injured but fine," he says.

“He died with an accurate shot, 48 hours after requesting sick leave”

Vivas managed to reach Managua thanks to the compassion of a merchant friend who, seeing the pain of her mother, decided to quit her job to help her travel to the capital. According to her account, the people who were blocking the roads at her roadblocks also let her pass when they heard her story. But it was not until 11:00 p.m. on Sunday when a police officer confirmed that her son had died. "It was an angel, an officer who answered the call and told me: 'You are the mother of a colleague and I promise to tell you what happened to him.'" His voice was melancholic. I wanted to scream on the phone: 'I really want to tell you that it's not true, but your son has passed away,'” he informed her. The next morning, Vivas showed up early at the Legal Medicine Institute where, after waiting, he they showed the body of their son covered by a bag. He could only see his face and verified that he had a bullet wound between his eyebrows and that his face was completely disfigured. There he also met members of the police who offered him a coffin for his son and a posthumous tribute for having died carrying out his duty. job, something she flatly rejected. “I was outraged to see everything they had done to him and I told them that I did not want to know anything about tributes. That I was only interested in my son alive. That is not mission accomplishment. They are the first responsible for the death of my son. He died with an accurate shot to the forehead 48 hours after requesting sick leave,” he says.

So your Strokes are the new side effects from this Corona virus in the Jimmy Carter have an infection in his brain?… https://t.co/w32Xr6ZRx3

— Jacqueline Fritz Sun Apr 26 10:39:30 +0000 2020

And although the national police website includes López Vivas among the 13 police officers “killed in the line of duty”, the country's official media barely mentioned his name in front of the tributes to another comrade supposedly killed in the same operation. Once Vivas was handed over the body and returned to her city, the woman saw that her son had been beaten and tortured. “They removed his nails, they gouged out his eyes, he had cigarette burns and stab wounds. He also had about six wounds on each hand, on the cheekbone, a broken finger. That does not make it a bullet impact, as the (death) certificate says, ”he concludes.

“They threaten me but I am no longer afraid” Lawyer Pablo Cuevas, from the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH), accompanied Vivas to pick up the body of his son at the Institute of Legal Medicine and saw the death certificate that It said that López Vivas died between 5:00 and 6:00 on Sunday morning from a shot to the forehead. But he is not surprised by the mother's version that it was a reprisal for wanting to leave the police. One of the reasons for his suspicions is that, when they handed over the body, they were given what he was supposedly wearing at the time of death: “They returned a ski mask and his civilian clothes. But the ski mask did not have the hole that he had in his forehead”, he questions. In addition, the lawyer assures that his agency has documented cases of officers who, after deserting, had to leave the country to avoid retaliation. "Right now it seems that requesting discharge (from the police) is considered treason that is paid for with death," he says. According to his mother, officer López Vivas had asked to be discharged on Friday, but they threatened to kill him. him and his family if he did. “I had already spoken to my son on Friday. I just begged him to get out of the police. Every time they killed a young man, I said: 'Is it my son?' and, even if it wasn't, I felt pain because we are all Nicaraguans," he recalls.This Tuesday, after burying him in a candle that he describes as "beautiful, with mariachis and a video with his history, his good times and his walks", what he regrets most is that Faber has not been able to meet the daughter his wife is expecting, seven months pregnant. "He dreamed of his baby and now it hurts knowing that this girl will not have her father and will not have resources because her father was the one who worked,” says Vivas. “The only one to blame for so much suffering is Daniel Ortega, a president who talks about peace and the only thing he does is kill to stay in power. It is destroying happiness, families."

Fátima Vivas says that it is pain that makes her speak so openly about what is happening in her country, although this has even cost her death threats. She affirms that every so often they call her on the phone and write to her on social networks accusing her of being a "coup leader, an opponent and a drug trafficker." But he assures that he will continue to defend the Nicaragua in which he believes. "I'm not afraid. They killed my son who is the most precious thing I have. They threaten me all the time that they are going to kill me, but the pain I feel makes me stronger."