Nicaragua

Nicaraguan Women May Have to Negotiate with their Abusers

From the article from the Inter Press Service news Agency: Conservative sectors in Nicaragua have launched an offensive against the Comprehensive Law Against Violence Toward Women, seeking amendments including an obligation for women victims to negotiate with their abusers, human rights groups reported.

Restorative practices in Latin America

from part one of the two part article by Joshua Wachtel" Throughout Latin America, there are growing efforts to confront the social consequences of poverty and violence. Restorative practices provides an outlook that is appealing to many who are working to bring people together to resolve problems and transform the nature of society. Miguel Tello, originally from Mexico, now lives and works in San Jose, Costa Rica. Tello first got involved with the IIRP when he contacted IIRP founder Ted Wachtel for permission to translate Wachtel’s article “Restorative Justice in Everyday Life” into Spanish to use at a Prison Fellowship International conference. Tello then took IIRP trainings and became an IIRP trainer.

Jantzi, Vernon and King, Tracey. Peacemaking to Peacebuilding: Restorative Justice and Local Peace Commissions in Nicaragua

During the final stages of the Contra War in Nicaragua in the mid and late 1980s, the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission promoted the formation of peace commissions in villages and towns in the most conflicted areas. CEPAD, the development agency of the Nicaraguan Protestant churches, actively worked to form Peace Commissions in the Nueva Guinea region in the southeastern part of the country. The local seven-person Peace Commissions were trained to work in conflict resolution so they could do peacemaking at the grassroots in support of efforts by the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission and other groups to carry forward the national peace processes. After official peace accords were signed the Commissions continued to work on the transition to national peace by helping to facilitate the reintegration of demobilized combatants into their respective communities as part of the post war reconstruction. This rebuilding has taken many years. The Commissions' work has been increasingly valued as their numbers and scope has grown. Today some 140 local peace commissions continue to function, but now their challenge is to work with community problems, some of which might be best addressed with restorative justice informed responses. With decades of war now behind them, their work has shifted from peacemaking and the reintegration of ex-combatants to peacebuilding and the challenges posed by social disorganization and crime in their communities. As the Peace Commissions now work to strengthen civil society in an extended period of social reconstruction, how might, or do, they reframe or reconceptualize their work in peacemaking to also include restorative justice so they can build more peaceful and stronger communities? This paper will explore how this reframing is taking place and the challenges it represents. Abstract courtesy of the Centre for Justice and Peace Development, Massey University, http://justpeace.massey.ac.nz.

Widenbladh, Marlene and Westerlund, Sara. The rural judicial facilitators program in Nicaragua - an exemplary model of restorative justice?

Our purpose is to study the Rural Judicial Facilitators Program in the light of the restorative justice theory, and examine whether it complies with relevant fundamental legal principles. This will be done in three stages: 1. First we will examine the theoretical background of using other means than prosecution to deal with crimes. What is restorative justice and in which ways can it be in conflict with due process- and victims’ rights identified in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights? In relation to this we will look at how the UN Resolution Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters9 answers to the need of protecting these rights. 2. What is the RJF Program and how does it work in theory and in practice? Our primary focus is the mediation process in cases when it is used as an alternative to prosecution of crimes. 3. How does the RJF Program answer to the concerns expressed when using restorative justice programs? Does it comply with the recommendations in the UN Resolution and does it work in a way that is acceptable from a rule of law point of view? (excerpt)

Waging Peace in Nicaragua.

In the 1980s, a small group of pastors decided to work toward ending the civil war engulfing their country. Since that time, the work of these peace commissions has adapted as the needs of their local communities changes. This includes providing reintegration services for ex-combatants in the post-war period and their current work of resolving conflicts and responding to crime. The remaining peace commissioners are now looking to restorative justice theory to inform their work. Tracey King, a student in the Conflict Transformation Programme at Eastern Mennonite University, provides an overview of the work undertaken by the peace commissions since their inception.