Setback for Vicente: Judge dismisses property damages despite abundant evidence

On Friday, February 17th, the final decision was to be made regarding property damages on Vicente's land. On September 13th, workers of Santa Emilia Estates, owned by José Esteban McEwan and Victor Yanovich, invaded the 3 manzanas of land in dispute, ripping out fence posts, cutting and stealing the barbed wire fencing, and cutting down banana plants.

For this final decision, McEwan appeared in the San Ramon couthouse escorted by his armed guards and this time accompanied by truckloads of farmworkers from other farms his family owns. These workers, carrying signs saying "Abajo los cheles" ("down with the foreigners"), ironically are unaware that 80% of Santa Emilia Estates is owned by a US citizen, Victor Yanovich. Vicente spoke with some of them and they did not even know why they were brought there and showed surprise that it was a property dispute in which McEwan was taking land from a poor peasant like themselves.

Vicente was supported by some human rights activists from Managua and a few people from his community. Since it is an expense to transport people from the community to San Ramon, Vicente did not have many people from La Grecia there. In retrospect, he feels this was a good thing, since he suspects McEwan had hoped to create a confrontation between his workers and Vicente's supporters.

During the trial Matagalpa policeman Rafael García was called to testify. García had been the policeman sent to the farm to verify the damages after the Sept. 13th incident. During his testimony his legs were bouncing up and down as he would glance over at McEwan and his armed bodyguards. García testified that he had not seen any damages despite the fact that he had months before inspected the property and written up an assetment that indeed there were damages. His contradiction in his verbal testimony and his written and signed inspection report did not seem to interest the judge Maribel Parrilla.

After this obvious perjury, the prosecutor insisted that the judge visit the farm to see for herself. While she apparently did not want to go, in the end she did. The judge, lawyers, and Vicente were accompanied in the site inspection by journalists from Channels 2 and 8 (TV), radio stations Radio Vos and Radio Corporación, and the newspaper La Prensa. The judge and all the journalists saw the damages. The judge reluctantly signed a document stating that there were damages, but upon arriving in San Ramon after the inspection found McEwan and his workers "not guilty."

According to witnesses judge Parrilla made a comment to the effect that while that was her verdict, higher authorities might disagree.

Vicente's analysis is that the judge lacked the courage to find a large landowner, such as McEwan, guilty of a crime despite abundant evidence. She knew that Vicente can appeal the verdict, which he intends to. She, quite simply, passed the buck.