We cannot be indifferent to the cruel violations of human rights in Nicaragua

The tragedy that our neighbors are going through cannot leave us indifferent.

If a family next to us suffers a huge tragedy and the head of the family violently attacks his family, we must not and cannot remain impassive.

We may need to rely on your friendship to bring the crafts we make out of our home to sell to other neighbors.

But that is not why we can be indifferent if the neighbor attacks, injures and kills his children.

We Christians do not owe it because of the duty of love towards our neighbor that our religion inculcates in us. Democrats shouldn’t because of our duty to respect human rights. Conscious people should not because our natural conscience demands it.

Even considering only our selfish self-interest, we should not do this. His cruel violence must not later turn against us.

Our neighbour, the regime of Ortega y Murillo, is ruthlessly attacking its inhabitants.

I give a brief account of their inhuman actions in violation of the most fundamental human rightsto have a panoramic vision of what is happening in our neighborhood.

Daniel Ortega He returned to the presidency at the beginning of 2007, which he won with only 37% of the vote, thanks to the fact that, through negotiations with a sector of the opposition, he succeeded in lowering the minimum required to be elected to only 35%, since – as a result of the same negotiations – liberalism was divided.

The arrival of this neighbor in the neighborhood aroused suspicion.

For the 2011 election, the Constitution imposed a double impediment on Ortega for re-election. He established that no one who was president (which Ortega did) or who had held it twice (Ortega had done it before) could be elected president. But the Supreme Court ruled that whoever was in power at the time was not bound by any of these prohibitions. Ortega was re-elected in November 2011 in elections described as opaque by European Union observers.

Screams began to be heard in the neighbor’s house.

In January 2014, the Nicaraguan parliament approved constitutional reforms that allow indefinite re-election and by simple majority, regardless of the level reached, which came to increase the power of Ortega, who until 2018 exercised it alongside his wife with strong support from most of the powers that be.

Going into the November 2016 election, Ortega looked clearly headed for victory. However, this did not prevent the concentration of autocratic power that he jointly wields with his wife from growing unduly and massively. Rosario Murillo.

For these 2016 elections, it was announced that they would not accept international observers. Then – by decision of the Supreme Court submitted to the executive – the traditional chief was stripped of the representation of the main opposition party, ceding it to a friend of the sandinismo. Then, the representation of another small opposition party was also invalidated. After the presidential candidacy of the candidate of the National Coalition for Democracy was invalidated clearing the way for an almost uncontested election. Subsequently, the Supreme Electoral Council revoked the credentials of the 28 opposition deputies elected in 2011 and put the icing on the cake with Ortega’s nomination of his wife Rosario Murillo as vice-presidential candidate.

These anti-democratic excesses were concealed under the veil of resources received from the venezuelan oil and for the alliance with private enterprise which has seen its property, businesses and profits respected.

In April 2018, a wave of protests broke out against an increase in contributions to the pension system. Venezuelan oil was already scarce and it did not yield more due to hunger, lack of medicine, inefficiency in its production and endemic corruption in that country.

Protests were atrociously suppressed by the police and government paramilitary organizations. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 355 people were murdered in the streets of Managua. and other towns, mostly young people who had demonstrated peacefully. The government of Ortega and Murillo arbitrarily imprisoned hundreds of people and she went so far as to prevent doctors from treating injured protesters arriving at hospitals. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans emigrated feeling threatened. And in Nicaragua, the businessmen’s peace was momentarily lost in the face of this unbridled violence.

It was already obvious to us that the neighbor tortures and kills his relatives.

After the failure of the talks after the bloody events of April 2018, the killings continued, the wounded, the imprisoned, dozens of thousands of Nicaraguans were forced into exiletotalitarian limitations of the press… the horror lived since.

For the November 2021 elections, the already bloody dictatorship of Ortega Murillo could not simply resort to electoral fraud. His unpopularity would no longer hide the rejection of the people. 7 potential opposition candidates were imprisoned and two others opted for exile, more than 30 other political, social, press and business leaders were also illegally sent to prison; dozens of other leaders have been forced into exile; the 3 opposition parties were disqualified; The media have been shut down. Despite this, the electoral farce condemned by the OAS and the European Union alleges the victory of the Ortega y Murillo party with a derisory electoral turnout.

In the neighbor’s house, the shepherds are persecuted and prevented from taking care of their flock

Conflicts against the Catholic Church intensify starting with the demonstrations of April 2018 where the Catholic authorities gave refuge to the persecuted and took part in unfortunately fruitless negotiations.

after these events The Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Msgr. Silvio José Báez, was taken out of his country by the Vatican to prevent him from being assassinated.

Since then, Ortega and Murillo on different occasions They called the priests “terrorists”, “putschists”, “demons in cassocks”. Ortega called the Catholic Church “a dictatorship, the perfect dictatorship is a tyranny, the perfect tyranny”.

In mid-2018, the following events took place against the Catholic Church, in chronological order: paramilitaries attacked bishops and priests in Carazo; attack the church of La Divina Misericordia, in Managuawhere two people died; The image of the Blood of Christ with more than 380 years, in the Cathedral of Managua, catches fire ; the government of Ortega and Murillo withdraws the approval of the Government to the Apostolic Nuncio, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag to leave the country; that the government deports 18 nuns of Charity to Costa Rica without any justification; the authorities of Ortega and Murillo Managua Cathedral is banned from a procession that had been scheduled with the pilgrim image of the Virgin of Fatima; Uriel Vallejos and Harving Padilla, priests of the churches of Sébaco and Masaya, are harassed, tempted to be arrested and cornered; authorities detain 3 priests: the parish priest of the Church of the Nazarene in Nandaime, Granada; the parish priest of Perpetual Help of Boaco and the parish priest of Espírito Santo of Malukuku; the police prevent the faithful from accessing the parish of Santa Lucia in Ciudad Darío.

Moreover, the government of Ortega and Murillo closed 6 radio stations from the headquarters of Matagalpa: Radio Hermanos, Radio Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, Radio Nuestra Señora de Fatima, Radio Alliens, Radio Monte Carmelo and Radio San José. TELCOR subsequently withdrew three other Catholic television stations.

In August of last year, arbitrary and crudely produced the detention in the Episcopal Curia of the Bishop of Matagalpa Monsignor Rolando Álvarez and his companions: the first and second vicar of the cathedral José Luis Díaz and Sadiel Eugarrios; Óscar Escoto, parish priest of Santa María de Guadalupe Church; Ramiro Tijerino, rector of the Juan Pablo II University; Father Raúl González; seminarians Darvin Leyva and Melkin Sequeira and cameraman Sergio Cárdenas.

The couple who hold the neighboring house evict the children they had locked up, and take away their names and their property

A few weeks ago, 222 people arbitrarily imprisoned and without any legitimacy sentenced to prison terms for exercising their basic freedoms were removed from their places of detention and sent as expatriates to the United States. Their citizenship was stripped from them unconstitutionally and in violation of the most basic principles of international law and human rights, they were declared traitors to their country and many of their legitimate assets were expropriated.

The Bishop of Matagalpa refusing to abandon his flock, Ortega and Murillo arbitrarily sentenced him to 26 years in prison.

Ortega and Murillo now declare stateless 94 people who had already managed to flee their relentless terror, seize their property and declare them traitors to their homeland.

Faced with such barbarism, the neighborhood does not even condemn.

Initially, only the governments of Chile and Ecuador denounced the shameful actions of Ortega and Murillo.

Before the complaint of Former Presidents of IDEA (Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas) other nations join. But Only 9 of the 34 inhabitants have denounced the barbarism that reigns in the house that Ortega and Murillo martyrize.

Little and late. Will barbarism be legitimizing?

Continue reading: