Tag Archives: President Daniel Ortega

Exclusive-Nicaragua embracing China to insulate against international sanctions – U.S. official

By Matt Spetalnick and Drazen Jorgic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Nicaragua’s sudden diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China was part of efforts by President Daniel Ortega’s government to shield itself from recent international sanctions against Managua, a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday.

The United States is also uncertain whether Honduras could follow suit and open diplomatic ties with Beijing, the U.S. official told Reuters, but added that Washington was prepared to “surge” economic aid to the incoming government of Xiomara Castro.

China and Nicaragua re-established diplomatic ties on Friday after the Central American country broke relations with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, boosting Beijing in a part of the world long considered the United States’ backyard and angering Washington.

Beijing has increased military and political pressure on Taiwan to accept its sovereignty claims, drawing anger from the democratically ruled island, which has repeatedly said it would not be bullied and has the right to international participation.

Nicaragua’s abrupt break with Taiwan followed months of worsening ties between Ortega and U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration.

Washington has imposed new targeted sanctions on Nicaraguan officials following the country’s November elections. Biden called the elections a “pantomime” that was neither free nor fair as Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla and Cold War adversary of the United States, won a fourth consecutive term.

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, cast Nicaragua’s embrace of China as part of Ortega’s effort to consolidate his “authoritarian regime” and also described it as a response to sanctions by Washington and several other countries.

The official said Washington viewed Nicaragua’s diplomatic switch as partly in response to such pressure from the international community.

“They have felt that pressure and perhaps need the PRC support, or think they need the PRC support, for their way forward as they hunker down in a more authoritarian posture,” the official said.

Washington has continued to make the case to Honduras and other countries in the Americas that recognize Taiwan to maintain those ties, and has warned them about China’s intentions and “non-transparent” investment strategy in the region, the official said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Drazen Jorgic in Mexico City; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Franklin Paul and Daniel Wallis)

Nicaragua’s Ortega secures another term, U.S. threatens action

By Daina Beth Solomon

SAN JOSE (Reuters) -Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega easily locked in a fourth consecutive term after suppressing political rivals, results showed on Monday, leading Washington to warn it would press for a “return to democracy” and free and fair elections.

Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council said that with roughly half the ballots counted, a preliminary tally gave Ortega’s Sandinista alliance about 75% of votes.

But in the months leading up to Sunday’s election Western and many Latin American nations had expressed deep concern about the fairness of the vote as Ortega detained opponents and business leaders, canceled rival parties, and criminalized dissent.

Election observers from the European Union and the Organization of American States were not allowed to scrutinize the vote and journalists have been barred from entering the country.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States will work with other democratic governments and was ready to use a range of tools, including possible sanctions, visa restrictions and coordinated actions against those it said were complicit in supporting the Nicaragua government’s “undemocratic acts.”

Democrats in the U.S. Congress pushed for U.S. President Joe Biden to back the so-called Renacer Act that aims to intensify pressure on Ortega and pursue greater regional cooperation to boost democratic institutions.

A statement by all 27 EU members accused Ortega of “systematic incarceration, harassment and intimidation” of opponents, journalists and activists.

The EU said the elections “complete the conversion of Nicaragua into an autocratic regime.” Chile, Costa Rica, Spain and Britain called for detained opposition leaders to be freed.

“Elections were neither, free, nor fair, nor competitive,” said Jose Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister.

On Sunday, Ortega – the longest-serving leader in the Americas – hailed the election as a victory delivered by the “immense majority of Nicaraguans.”

Cuba, Venezuela and Russia all offered him their backing.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said U.S. calls for countries not to recognize the outcome were “unacceptable.”

FORMER REBEL

Ortega’s victory consolidates the increasingly repressive political model he has built in recent years along with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

A former Marxist rebel who helped topple the right-wing Somoza family dictatorship in the late 1970s, Ortega says he is defending Nicaragua against unscrupulous adversaries bent on ousting him with the aid of foreign powers. His government has passed a series of laws that make it easy to prosecute opponents for crimes such as “betraying the homeland.”

Just five little-known candidates of mostly small parties allied to Ortega’s Sandinistas were permitted to run against him.

“Most people I know decided not to vote, they say it’s madness,” said Naomi, an opponent of the government from the eastern port of Bluefields, who declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals.

“What they’re doing here is a joke.”

Nicaragua’s electoral authority said turnout was 65%.

In the 1980s, Ortega served a single term as president before being voted out. He returned to the top job in 2007.

After initially delivering solid economic growth and attracting private investment, Ortega’s government changed course in response to 2018 anti-government protests. More than 300 people were killed during the ensuing crackdown.

Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have since fled the country. Many of them gathered in neighboring Costa Rica on Sunday in a show of defiance against Ortega.

Prolonged discontent is expected to fuel more emigration to Costa Rica and the United States, where record numbers of Nicaraguans have been apprehended at the border this year.

Rights activist Haydee Castillo, who was arrested in 2018 and now lives in the United States, called the election “a farce.”

“He has not conceded anything despite the resolutions and declarations that the international community has made,” Castillo said.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in San Jose; Additional reporting by Alvaro Murillo in San Jose, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City, Natalia Ramos in Santiago, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Moscow, Guy Faulconbridge in London, Inti Landauro in Madrid, Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Jake Kincaid in Mexico City; Editing by Dave Graham, Catherine Evans and Rosalba O’Brien)

Lost hope: Ortega’s crackdown in Nicaragua stirs fast-growing exodus

By Daina Beth Solomon and Alvaro Murillo

MEXICO CITY/SAN JOSE (Reuters) – Nicaraguan activist Jesus Adolfo Tefel has already been detained once, in 2019, when he tried to bring water to mothers on a hunger strike against President Daniel Ortega. The government accused him of planning terrorist acts and, he said, locked him up for 46 days.

That time, he stayed in Nicaragua after the government released him without pressing charges. But when the Ortega government began arresting presidential contenders, journalists and activists in June ahead of November elections, Tefel fled across the border to Costa Rica with his family.

“I don’t have the slightest doubt I would have been arrested” again if I stayed, said Tefel, 35, citing his work with opposition leaders aiming to oust the longest-standing president in the Americas, who is seeking a fourth straight term in the elections.

Tefel’s family joined tens of thousands of people who have slipped into exile this year amid the crackdown. The Nicaraguan government did not immediately respond to questions about Tefel, whose earlier arrest was documented by human rights groups and international media including Reuters.

Data from the United States, Costa Rica and Mexico reveal an exodus shaping up to be among the biggest from Nicaragua since a 1980s civil war. It threatens to overwhelm Costa Rica’s asylum system and has swollen already record Central American migration numbers to the United States.

The jump in Nicaraguans going into exile is on track to be higher than in either 2018 or 2019, when repression of opposition protests against Ortega left at least 300 people dead.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection in July logged more than 13,000 Nicaraguans either illegally crossing or seeking asylum at the nation’s borders, almost double the month before. That pushed Nicaragua to overtake El Salvador, traditionally one of the main drivers of Latino migration to the United States.

Some 33,000 Nicaraguans have been apprehended at U.S. borders so far this year, over twice as many as in all of 2019, the year with the most apprehensions of Nicaraguans in at least a decade.

This could be “the year with the most applications since records began,” said Costa Rican official Allan Rodriguez, who oversees the country’s asylum unit.

Ortega’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the rising migration or accusations of political persecution. Ortega has said his opponents seek to topple him and conspire against national interests.

Costa Rica is struggling to process 11,000 Nicaraguan refugee applications received in July and August, more than in the peak months of the last wave of repression.

Asylum officers have a backlog of 52,000 cases to review.

CRACKDOWNS

Ortega first took power after the 1979 overthrow of U.S.-backed right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza by Sandinista rebels, and returned to office in 2007.

Working with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, he has tightened his grip in the second-poorest country in the Americas.

He has abolished presidential term limits, expanded his family’s business empire and piled pressure on independent media, while at the same time using budget and tax laws to take control of at least a dozen media and news outlets .

Over the past three months, Ortega has arrested 35 opposition leaders, suspended a rival party and withheld newsprint, among other tactics that U.N. officials, the United States and Europe have called an abuse of power to stifle free speech and free elections.

“What we are seeing in Nicaragua is an escalating climate of repression, fear, and hopelessness,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to a request for comment.

Under President Joe Biden, the United States has identified bad governance and weak rule of law as a root cause of migration from Central America. It is seeking to cajole the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to tackle these issues to stem flows.

Nicaragua, traditionally a lesser source of immigration to the United States, has been not included in that effort.

However, the State Department said the administration is using “diplomatic and economic tools” to pressure a government it calls undemocratic and authoritarian. Washington has sanctioned several people close to Ortega, including Vice President Murillo.

In Mexico, Nicaraguans are spending weeks or months in southern border towns as they await visas to stay legally or pass through safely to the U.S. border.

Lester Altamirano, 40, lived in the Mexican city of Tapachula for eight months before making it to California with his wife and 8-year-old daughter. He crossed into the United States in late May, a DHS document seen by Reuters showed, and he plans to apply for asylum.

The family first requested asylum in the United States in 2020 but was deported. Back in Nicaragua, Altamirano and his wife were jailed for 11 days for opposing the government, Altamirano said.

Altamirano’s anti-government Facebook posts then drew the attention of officials in his small town in northern Nicaragua.

“It was going to be worse if we stayed. We had to risk it,” he said, echoing others Reuters spoke to for this story, including journalist Carlos Padilla, 26, who said he had been scared to protest on the street at home for fear of arrest.

Tefel, who once ran a tourism company in Nicaragua, said he does not know when he could return home without risking jail.

“I lived it in my own skin,” he said. “I know what it means to be locked up, and unjustly.”

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Alvaro Murillo in San Jose; Additional reporting by Ismael Lopez and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)

U.S. restricts visas of 100 Nicaraguans affiliated with government

By Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Monday imposed visa restrictions on 100 Nicaraguans affiliated with the Nicaraguan National Assembly and judicial system, increasing pressure on the government of President Daniel Ortega as Washington warned of further action.

Scores of prominent Nicaraguans, including six who planned to challenge Ortega’s bid for a fourth consecutive term in office, have been arrested in recent weeks. Many have fled abroad.

Monday’s move targeted those who “helped to enable the Ortega-Murillo regime’s attacks on democracy and human rights,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, including through the arrest of 26 political opponents and pro-democracy advocates and the passing of what he said were repressive laws.

“The United States will continue to use the diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to push for the release of political prisoners and to support Nicaraguans’ calls for greater freedom, accountability, and free and fair elections,” Blinken said in a statement.

The statement did not name the Nicaraguans hit with visa restrictions in the action.

International pressure has mounted on Nicaragua, with Ortega’s crackdown on the opposition described by Washington as a “campaign of terror” that the United Nations said meant November elections are unlikely to be free or fair.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Mark Heinrich)