Nine Nicaraguan farmers were sentenced to between three and five years in jail for an armed attack on employees of a bank that specializes in loans to the poor, court spokesman Roberto Larios said today.

The farmers opened fire on employees of the Local Development Fund who were collecting debts and beat their
vehicle with a branding iron and bicycle parts. The May attack took place in Matiguas in northern Nicaragua, an area that has seen growing unrest since President Daniel Ortega’s call last year for indebted farmers to pressure microfinance banks for lower interest rates by holding protests.
“The judicial branch’s position is that the law must be applied to stop the culture of not paying debts,” Larios said in a phone interview today. “There’s an explicit order from the Supreme Court to all judges in the country to strictly apply laws in cases of debt defaulters.”

Indebted farmers have held protests at microfinance banks, Congress and the Supreme Court, sometimes wielding machetes and hurling fireworks, since Ortega called for protests. The former Sandinista revolutionary leader has since backed off a bit from his original cry encouraging indebted poor to protest in front of bank offices. He discouraged them from blocking roadways in a February speech.

A proposal in congress would put a 12 percent roof on interest rates. The Nicaraguan Association of Microfinanciers, which lends $250 million annually to 350,000 poor farmers at rates as high as 20 percent, has said it’s “worried” by the proposal, which would “award” protests by debt defaulters. Congress may vote on the proposal this month.

Ortega’s opponents say he’s supporting a culture of defaulters in Nicaragua, Latin America’s second poorest country.