Who are the 94 people stripped of their nationality by Daniel Ortega’s regime in Nicaragua?

The writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli are perhaps the best known faces and names. But they are only two of the 94 Nicaraguan opponents that Daniel Ortega’s regime has decided to do strip yourself of your nationalityin a new advance of its offensive to silence dissenting voices.

The list includes clerics, diplomats, former state officials, human rights defenders, Sandinista dissidents, opponents, journalists, academics, students, businessmen and traders, among others. An appeals court in Managua declared them “traitors to the country” and ordered the confiscation of their assets.

“I love you, homeland of my dreams and my pains”, “stripped of how many moths eat you”, are some of the verses published this Thursday by the poet Gioconda Belli, following the decision announced on Wednesday evening by the Nicaraguan government. Like her, 93 other people were punished. Here, the list.

Veteran human rights defender Vilma Núñez, journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro and former commander Luis Carrión, a former comrade in arms of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, are on the list of 94 Nicaraguans declared stateless by that country’s judicial authorities.

Religious Sandinistas and dissidents

Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua and exiled in the United States, leads the list of religious, which includes the priests Edwin Román -nephew of the Nicaraguan hero Augusto C. Sandino- Harving Padilla and Uriel Vallejos. He is part of the Sandinista regime’s assault on the Catholic Church which has criticized Ortega.

Sergio Ramírez, who was vice president of Nicaragua during the first Sandinista government (1979-1990), also presided over by Ortega, is one of the dissidents deprived of his nationality and declared “traitors to the fatherland”.

Former revolution commander Luis Carrión, poet and writer Gioconda Belli, former guerrilla commander Mónica Baltodano, former Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) international relations secretary Julio López Campos and former member of the Junta de governo after the fall of the dictatorship of Somoza, Moisés Hassan, are others whose citizenship was withdrawn.

Also to former dissident deputies Enrique Sáenz and Edipcia Dubón, retired mayor Roberto Danilo Samcam, Dulce María Porras, Héctor Mairena, Azahalia Solís, among others.

Former officials and diplomats

The list is led by former Supreme Court Justice Rafael Solís, a witness at the wedding of Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, who he accused of failing to act sensibly and sanely in the crisis that the country is experiencing the country since the outbreak of protests that began in April 2018, but rather with the desire to do so impose a “state of terror” with the excessive use of parapolice forces.

Even the former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Arturo McFields Yescas, who rebelled against Ortega, whom he called a “dictator” and for not allowing free elections in his country.

Ligia Gómez, a former senior official of the Central Bank of Nicaragua, also belongs to the group of alleged traitors, who in 2018 declared to the US Congress that Murillo had given the order to respond “with everything” to the anti-government demonstrations that broke out that year and left hundreds dead.

Norman Caldera and Salvador Stadthagen, foreign minister and deputy foreign minister during the administration of Enrique Bolaños (2002-2007), are also on the list of Nicaraguans whose citizenship has been withdrawn.

Others are the sociologist Javier Meléndez, adviser to the Ministry of Defense during the Bolaños government; and former education minister Umberto Belli.

Journalists and human rights defenders

Vilma Núñez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh); Gonzalo Carrión, of the Nicaragua Nunca Más Collective for Human Rights; Álvaro Leiva, of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (Anpdh), is on the list of those affected. All denounced the regime’s abuses against opponents, and in some cases the ill-treatment to which imprisoned dissidents are subjected.

Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, winner of the 38th edition of the Ortega y Gasset journalism award, and Wilfredo Miranda, Nicaraguan correspondent of the Spanish newspaper Village and winner of the 2018 King of Spain Ibero-American Journalism Award, are two of the communicators who were stripped of their nationality and ordered the expropriation of their assets in Nicaragua.

Also to the directors of digital media Lucía Pineda (100% News), Luis Galeano (Café con Voz), Jennyfer Ortíz (Nicaragua Investiga), Patricia Orozco (Onda Local), Manuel Díaz (Bacanal Nica), Álvaro Navarro (Article 66) , David Quintana (Ecological Bulletin), Aníbal Toruño (Radio Darío), Santiago Aburto (BTN News) and Camilo de Castro Belli, son of Gioconda Belli.

academics and politicians

The list ends with academic Ernesto Medina, rector of a private university linked to the Nicaraguan army; researcher Elvira Cuadra, sociologist and journalist Sofía Montenegro, researcher and journalist Uriel Pineda, peasant leader Francisca Ramírez, environmentalist Amaru Ruiz and political scientist Manuel Orozco.

In addition, opponents Alexa Zamora, Jesús Tefel, Luciano García, Haydee Castillo, Mónica López, Kitty Monterrey, Ireland Jérez, Eliseo Núñez, Álvaro Somoza Urcuyo (nephew of dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle), Berta Valle, wife of the freed prisoner and the expatriate Félix Maradiaga, among others.

Source: EFE