Dec 03, Land Case on Caribbean

[nicoli86]

Wasn't sure if this is a good place to post this however, if people are looking to invest on the Atlantic coast it could be some good info. Thanks.



Copy pasted from Nicanet.com

Maria Luisa Acosta Tells of Progress in Murder Case
Maria Luisa Acosta, the lawyer who has dedicated herself to defending the rights of the indigenous peoples of Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, completed a ten-day speaking tour of the United States for the Nicaragua Network in November. The trip included attendance at Nicanet's National Leadership Meeting in Washington, DC, on November 23rd. Besides Washington, DC, Acosta also visited Santa Cruz and San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Buffalo and Rochester, NY. At her speaking engagements, which included college classrooms, solidarity potlucks and radio interviews, she told the story of the threats to the rights of Nicaragua's indigenous peoples to the land that they have held communally for centuries.

Acosta, who believes her husband was killed because of her work, came a step nearer to proving her contention that the intellectual author of the murder was U.S.-based land speculator Peter Tsokos. Police ballistics experts working on the case announced findings which proved conclusively that the bullet which killed Bluefields university professor and merchant Francisco Garcia came from a pistol owned by Peter Martínez, Tsokos’ lawyer and personal friend. In October, Acosta, accompanied by the President of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), Vilma Nuñez, spoke out strongly at a Managua press conference, maintaining that the new evidence clearly showed that her accusations that the murderers had close links to Tsokos, and that they were, in fact, looking for her, were well-founded.

Tsokos has been acquiring indigenous property titles of dubious legality on the Coast and selling it on internet sites. Tsokos himself has residences in Texas, Florida, and Nicaragua. In supporting the Rama, Miskito, and other affected communities, Acosta has filed a series of legal challenges to his actions. According to the Nicaraguan Constitution, indigenous lands are sacrosanct and can be neither bought nor sold. Because of the enormous amounts of money involved (Tsokos has sold some islands for sums approaching US$500,000) her crusade has meant that she has been seen as the point person in the struggle to preserve these lands and to roll back the process of rampant land speculation.

Vilma Nuñez said, “This new evidence means that the police ‘suspicion’ that this was a ‘crime of passion’ makes even less sense now than it did when, without any basis or proof, they pronounced it in the first instance. We must now pressure them to deepen the investigation.”

Garcia’s killing is seen as one of a series of increasingly violent incidents related to land. Communities living along the Coast, especially in or close to the zone designated as the possible site for a deep water port at the eastern terminus of the proposed “Dry Canal,” have been enduring attacks by gangs of armed men for several years now. Although the Coast is heavily involved in drug trafficking (and police claim most incidents are drug-related) the attacks in fact form a clear pattern, closely fitted to the canal and the properties of foreign “investors.”

Several days after the police made their startling announcement, Martinez counter-attacked, claiming that the whole matter was a plot against him, mounted by "the police themselves," together with other unnamed people, presumably Maria Luisa Acosta. Martinez protested that he had been tricked by the police who told him they were checking all firearms in his neighborhood in Bluefields. In an extraordinary interview on local radio, he managed to insult practically the entire Bluefields police force, calling them "stupid incompetents" and other names not fit to print. However, Danilo Urbina Mayorga, police public relations chief for the Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region, challenged Martinez to substantiate his claims of police malfeasance. To date, no evidence has been produced. To the contrary, as a result of the police finding the Arguello/Martinez/Tsokos link, Acosta is pressing for the case against Tsokos and Martinez to be re-opened, especially since the delay in the police making their ballistics report public led to its dismissal by Bluefields Criminal Judge Julio Acuña. The Nicaragua Emergency Response Network sent a letter (see box) to Nicaraguan Attorney General Julio Centeno asking him to review the case file and make sure that procedures followed in the case are in accord with the law.

The national police offered a reward for information concerning the whereabouts of Ivan Arguello, suspected of having actually carried out the murder of Francisco Garcia. Set at 10,000 Cordobas (US$695.00), this is only the second time ever that such a course has been taken in Nicaragua. It indicates the seriousness with which the police are now taking the crime, after having first offered all kinds of bizarre theories to explain away the murder. Acosta credited the August delegation sponsored by Nicaragua Network, Pastors for Peace, and Quest for Peace with causing the police to realize that they couldn't let the case quietly disappear. Delegations composed of members of the Latin America Working Group, including the Nicaragua Network, Quest for Peace, the Washington Office on Latin America, and the International Human Rights Law Group, have visited the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, DC, several times to urge movement on the case.

Meanwhile, Nicaragua's National Ombudsman for the Environment, Lizandro D'León Mairena, condemned the practices of Peter Tsokos for buying and selling islands and other land-parcels on Nicaragua'a Atlantic Coast. "He buys and sells with no real regard for the law," D'Leon Mairena declared. "His behavior is another bloody chapter in the centuries-old exploitation of that region of the country. The lands he "purchases" cannot be sold legally, and the ‘titles’ he so acquires are vitiated and null."

The ombudsman rejected outright all attempts at justification offered by Tsokos's lawyer, Peter Martinez Fox. "All his talk of litigation between Mr. Tsokos and the State of Nicaragua is completely false and misleading," he explained. "The Civil Code, legally binding since 1904, clearly states that all islands which are to be found in the inshore waters surrounding Nicaragua, together with all its rivers and waterways, are the inalienable property of the state. As such, they can neither be bought nor sold. They are for public use, and for the public good." While he acknowledged that indigenous peoples also claimed these islands as part of their territory, D'Leon Mairena said that they can never cease to be state property. However, their use certainly “belongs to the indigenous peoples by long-established custom." "Further," he went on, "there is no doubt that actual indigenous territories themselves can certainly be neither bought nor sold." This was in reference to Tsokos's apparent acquisition of parcels on the mainland, but in areas belonging to indigenous communities. D'Leon Mairena faulted the National Assembly for delaying the Law Concerning the Communal Property of the Indigenous peoples, which has been held up since 1998.

This had led to uncertainty concerning certain particular land titles, for example, those of certain of the Pearl Cays acquired by Tsokos, but questionable in the extreme. "Instead," he concluded, "the focus around property has been almost exclusively on lands confiscated during the revolutionary years. Some people have had to wait nearly twenty years for a solution, but the indigenous have been waiting for more than five hundred years. Especially considering the ecological damage that Tsokos is causing to these fragile and irreplaceable environments, which should be the priority?"

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Not copy paste:
There are still con-men selling Lands on the Atlantic Coast who don't own a thing there. Advisers and fake investment people should go to jail right with Tsokos. A couple of them still run the rip offs and were the ones who brought Tsokos to Nicaragua in the first place. Do your homework if you are planning to invest. Use local people who LIVE in Nicaragua to help with your dealings. There are kind honest people who thought they were dealing with someone who knew the way, to find out they got had, by a Web con. It is safe to invest and buy homes but, check out your options. Pacific side has some good deals if you buy from local people. Those Time share cons aren't a good bet and keep closing faster then they can build. Good luck and keep smart!
Nicaragua... Beautiful People in a Wonderful land.