- Subject: IMPORTANT LETTERS
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 02:10:01 -0800
From: Gerry Condon
SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS IN NICARAGUA
Dear Colleague:
We are writing to invite you to join us in urging Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman to address a burgeoning human rights crisis in Nicaragua and halt his efforts to deport a U.S. citizen providing health care to a rural community. We believe this case offers President Aleman an excellent opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to human rights and social justice in Nicaragua.
Dorothy Granada, a 70 year old nurse from California, has directed a health clinic in Mulukuku, a rural community in central Nicaragua, for the past 11 years. She won the International Pfeffer Peace Prize in 1997 for her lifelong work for social justice and nonviolence. The health clinic in Mulukuku is the crucial source of health services for a population of 30,000 people. The clinic will not survive without Ms. Granada, the only trained nurse in a region where there are no doctors. The U.S. Agency for International Development recently investigated the clinic and found its work to be excellent and necessary.
This crisis began in early December when Nicaraguan government officials issued a resolution rescinding Dorothy Granada's Nicaraguan residency based on charges that have been found to be false and misleading. They also issued an arrest warrant for Ms. Granada and an immediate order for her deportation. They then closed down the health clinic.
On Friday, January 26, the Appeals Court in Nicaragua upheld a lower court decision which stated that the government had violated Dorothy Granada's due process rights and called on the government to respect her freedom and liberty. It specifically said that she should not be detained. However, the Appeals Court did not directly overturn the deportation order and said that this matter must be resolved in a civil court. Accordingly, Ms. Granada's lawyers have filed a motion to remove the deportation order, and that Court has five days in which to respond.
The Nicaraguan government's Office of the Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights initiated an investigation of the situation. On January 12, 2001, Ombudsman Dr. Benjamin Perez issued a 20-page report detailing the government's endangerment of the constitutional and human rights of Dorothy Granada. The independent Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights also stated that Ms. Granada is being unjustly persecuted by the government. Amnesty International has put out a worldwide action alert in support of the personal safety and due process rights of Dorothy Granada. Despite widespread international pressure, the Nicaraguan government has persisted in their efforts to deport Ms. Granada.
Please join us in signing the attached letter to President Aleman to express our concern for the personal safety of Dorothy Granada and to request that she receive due process under Nicaraguan law. It is essential that Ms. Granada be allowed to return to the health clinic in Mulukuku to continue to provide critical health care to that impoverished region of the country.
For further information, please contact Laura Joshua with Rep. Farr (5-2861) or Jon Fremont with Rep. McKinney (5-1605). Due to the fact that the Nicaraguan court is expected to rule on this issue shortly, the deadline for signing this letter is Thursday, February 1 at the close of business. Thank you for your help in this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
______________________
SAM FARR
Member of Congress
________________________
CYNTHIA McKINNEY
Member of Congress
-------------------------[To read the old "Dear Colleague" letter, click on: "Dear Colleague" Letter in Congress]
And the letter...
-------------------------
President Arnoldo Aleman
Managua, Nicaragua
Dear President Aleman:
At the request of many U.S. citizens from all parts of the United States, we are writing to strongly express our concern about the human rights and legal rights of Dorothy Virginia Granada, a U.S. citizen living in Nicaragua. Ms. Granada is a 70-year-old nurse and healthcare advocate who has been living and working as director of a small health clinic in the poor rural town of Mulukuku in central Nicaragua.
Dorothy Granada is held in very high esteem both in the United States and internationally. In 1997 she was awarded the International Pfeffer Peace Prize for her lifelong work for social justice and nonviolence. She represents the commitment to universal peace, justice, and human rights.
We understand that Ms. Granada has been accused of a number of offenses that would be considered crimes or the basis for deportation. Specifically, your government has accused Ms. Granada and the Women's Clinic in Mulukuku of performing abortions, which are illegal in Nicaragua. Ms. Granada and the clinic staff were also charged with serving only supporters of the opposition Sandinista Party, of using the clinic for the purposes of proselytizing on behalf of the Sandinistas, and of providing medical services to a group of leftist guerrillas. These accusations have been seriously investigated by several Nicaraguan governmental and nongovernmental bodies and each accusation has been found to be unsupported by credible evidence.
We are also concerned about the closing of the women's health clinic which she has been directing for more than 10 years. This clinic is the primary health care facility for a population of 30,000 in one of Nicaragua's poorest regions. The particular focus of the clinic has been maternal and child nutrition, preventive health care, including child survival and reproductive health, child birth services, and family planning, as well as early treatment for cancer. These vital services coincide almost perfectly with the health care priorities of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nicaragua. USAID has also investigated the clinic and found its work to be exemplary.
From 1990 through the year 2000, U.S. economic assistance to Nicaragua has totaled well over $1 billion. One of the stated goals of this assistance is to strengthen democracy in Nicaragua. According to USAID, "We will do so by helping Nicaraguans consolidate the rule of law through accelerated reform and modernization of the judicial system and by strengthening of key democratic institutions: the Human Rights Ombudsman's office, the Public Defender office and the legislature...We will continue to provide civic education and support civil society groups to foster an informed and active citizenry." We understand that some of these same democratic institutions have advocated for an end to the prosecution of Dorothy Granada. We sincerely hope they will be heard.
We have followed the findings of the Nicaraguan institutions investigating this case. Both the independent Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights and *your own government's Human Rights Ombudsman's office have found that Dorothy Granada's constitutional and human rights have been violated and they have called upon you to remedy this situation. Amnesty International has also put out a worldwide action alert in support of the personal safety and due process rights of Dorothy Granada. Several police investigations of Ms. Granada and the Women's Clinic have found no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing or deportable offense. Therefore, many people in both the U.S. and Nicaragua are calling for the Women's Clinic in Mulukuku to be reopened and for Dorothy Granada to return as its director. We wish to add our voices to this call.
As representatives of the U.S. people, we urgently implore you to respect the findings of these human rights, judicial and police institutions and to allow Dorothy Granada to return to Mulukuku and resume her life-giving work in a reopened Women's Clinic. We also implore you to respect and nurture the institutions of Nicaraguan democracy and to support the governmental and nongovernmental organizations that are bringing much needed assistance to Nicaragua's people.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to your prompt reply.
Sincerely,
Your Senator or Representative
- Subject: EMERGENCY FUND APPEAL FOR DOROTHY
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 16:18:17 -0800
From: Jill Winegardner
Dear supporters of Dorothy Granada and the Women's Health Clinic in Mulukuku, Nicaragua,
Dorothy Granada, an American nurse working in Nicaragua, is currently the focus of an international human rights crisis. Somewhere in Nicaragua, she is in hiding from an arrest warrant and a deportation order. We are concerned about her safety.
Dorothy's case has become an electrifying cause in Nicaragua, with marches, protests, and organizing. The government's pursuit of Dorothy has been the top story in Nicaraguan newspapers, radio and television for three weeks. The press and the public are largely sympathetic. The largest human rights organization in Nicaragua is supporting her cause. U.S. officials are also helping, thanks to hundreds of faxes already sent by supporters. This letter is an appeal for your emergency financial help. Your faxes are still needed as well (see the end of the letter).
Dorothy has worked for eleven years in the small rural town of Mulukuku. The town, accessible only by dirt roads, is mired in desolate poverty, post-war violence and crime. Sweltering heat, floods from hurricanes, and a national government that ignores the poor add to the burdens of life in Mulukuku.
Out of this seemingly-impossible situation, a group of women, none of them with more than a few years of school, organized a co-op, and a clinic, and hired Dorothy to run it. Dorothy's healthcare and fundraising skills have been essential to the clinic, which has grown and served thousands, especially women and children. The clinic and other programs have brought dignity, health, and empowerment to the poor of the region. The success of such grassroots groups in Nicaragua is a political threat to the conservative government.
Dorothy is a peacemaker through and through, completely dedicated to nonviolence. Seeking reconciliation between ex-Contras and ex-Sandinistas (former combatants in the U.S.-sponsored war), Dorothy has been heroic in serving everyone. She has risked her life more than once, for example, to take medicine at night to an ex-Contra.
It was especially grievous, then, when the current, conservative, president of Nicaragua, Arnoldo Aleman, closed the clinic, accusing it of serving only Sandinistas. Though untrue, his accusation points to his partisan motivation, as he sees his own popularity plummeting.
The closing of the clinic and the hunt for Dorothy, of course, are part of a larger effort in Nicaragua, and even throughout the world, for an elite to overrun the generous side of human nature and to bind the world's riches to themselves. Our efforts to protect Dorothy and her allies are both specific and in that larger context of repression.
Dorothy has an immediate and urgent need for several thousand dollars to pay necessary legal fees, phone bills and extraordinary costs for herself and others in danger, especially staff and clients of the clinic and co-op. St. Boniface Episcopal Church of Sarasota, Florida, Dorothy's long-time fiscal sponsor, will manage these funds, which are tax-deductible. The money will be handled with the traditional care of this organization.
We do not know the outcome of this story. We do know that the outcome will have profound meaning, for better or for worse, for many poor Nicaraguans. Dorothy's goal, and that of her many supporters in Nicaragua and the U.S., is that she be allowed to continue living and working in Mulukuku, that the Women's Clinic there be allowed to reopen and resume providing much needed basic health care, and that Dorothy's safety and the safety of the 35 women in the co-op be safeguarded.
This is not an ordinary appeal for support, as important as those are. The survival of the Women's clinic and the safety of its staff and volunteers are at stake. If you are able to help financially at this time, it may make a critical difference. Please make out checks to "St. Boniface Episcopal Church." Write "Emergency Fund" in the memo. And send the check to The Women's Empowerment Network, 309 Cedar, PMB 547, Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
The funds will be used for the current crisis. If there is more than enough, the money will go to the clinic's needs, which will also be magnified by this crisis. Any size of donation is a help. Notes to Dorothy are welcome.
Dorothy would send you "abrazos" and, if she were in your presence, fill you with the love that spills from her even as she moves from challenge to challenge. Thank you for considering financial help.
!Abrazos!
Jane Yett
Jill Winegardner
For The Women's Empowerment Network (formerly Friends of Dorothy Granada and the Women's Clinic in Mulukuku, Nicaragua) in Santa Cruz, California.
P.S. If you wish to take other action, please continue to express your concern to your members of Congress via phone calls, faxes and letters.
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