ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the background and the results of a psychological study on a number of former members of the National Guard (NG) of Nicaragua serving jail sentences in that country. The prisoners of Somoza's NG were, for a while, a unique opportunity to study the individuals involved in a most repressive system in which massacres, torture and all forms of human rights violations were endemic. The abuses in human rights by the NG are documented in various reports of the Organization of American States and of Amnesty International. The training or indoctrination in the neglect of human rights was generally unsophisticated, relying on propaganda, information control and, to a lesser extent, on punishment and reward methods. The NG was considered an elite corps for the defense of the dictatorial government, with little regard for the protection of human rights. They came from emotionally and materially deprived backgrounds with few of their parents showing positive non-authoritarian or moral religious behavior.
