The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has confiscated at least 67 properties from civil society organizations stripped of their legal personality and assaulted media outlets “manu militari”, from the end of 2018 to September 2022, according to a count made by CONFIDENTIAL.
These data are still conservative because many of the organizations banned by the Parliament, dominated by the Sandinista Front, have not publicly denounced the occupation of their properties or the confiscation of their headquarters is only known through journalistic reports and complaints from the NGOs. –which constitute the basis of this count–.
Between November and December 2018, the regime of Daniel Ortega closed nine civil society organizations, arguing their alleged participation in the “failed coup attempt,” as Ortega calls the Civic Rebellion that exploded that year. He also raided the offices of the media CONFIDENTIAL, This week Y Tonightand the channel 100% News. In total, that year he confiscated 30 de facto properties with the complicity of the National Police.
Fundación del Río, the most confiscated NGO
Amaru Ruiz, president of Fundación del Río, one of the NGOs closed in 2018, affirmed that the regime has occupied, from that year to date, 22 properties that belonged to the environmental organization, based in San Carlos, Río San Juan. The NGO, with 28 years of existence, managed two community stations: Radio Humedales and Radio Voz Juvenil, a biological station, a private wildlife reserve, two forest conservation areas and a reforestation farm, among several other properties.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), led by the veteran defender, Vilma Núñez, reported the occupation of its headquarters in Managua, -located in the surroundings of Ortega’s residence and office, El Carmen-, and its departmental headquarters in Juigalpa, Chontales. The Government used the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) to disguise the illegality in 2018 and, through a statement, reported that all the assets and “any other assets of the organizations” canceled passed to the administration of the State of Nicaragua for “the creation of the Comprehensive Care and Reparation Fund for the victims of terrorism”, without giving further details at that time.
That was the beginning of the crusade against organized civil society, which in four years has accumulated 2107 organizations annulled by Ortega; 96% have been closed during the first nine months of 2022.
FSLN operators in charge of confiscations
The Daniel Ortega regime has de facto confiscated universities, civil society organizations, diplomatic representations and the media since the social outbreak of 2018, despite the fact that the Political Constitution prohibits it. However, with the “urgent procedure” approval of the new General Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations (OSFL), A “robbery protected by law” has been facilitated, according to the lawyer and notary public, Martha Patricia Molina, in April.
The law establishes in article 47 nine causes for the cancellation of legal personality of an NGO and the transfer of its assets to the State, which constitutes a “confiscation,” according to Nicaraguan lawyers. But they do not comply with that legality manufactured by the Government either and they continue to carry out the seizures of the buildings through operators of the Sandinista Front supported by the Police, the main repressive organ of the regime.
Of the 67 properties confiscated, 29 were occupied by Sandinista operators –or representatives of State institutions–, 13 were assaulted and raided by the Police, breaking locks and padlocks to enter; in four cases there was only a search by police agents, but they did not find assets because the organizations had already removed their documentation and office equipment anticipating that they would be occupied.
In February, the Ortega regime closed six universities and seized their assets. The Police, unlike the NGO takeover, did not show up at the campuses, because university autonomy prohibits their entry.
The National Council of Universities (CNU) was in charge of legitimizing the illegality, which the Government disguised with a new law creating three new state universities to supposedly guarantee the continuity of training for young people enrolled in arbitrarily closed higher education institutions. In total, they have confiscated at least 13 campuses from six different study houses.
In addition, three other organizations have not yet been raided, but are constantly monitored by the Police.
The analysis of CONFIDENTIAL It also details that among the 67 properties confiscated by the regime there is a protection shelter for women who fight against sexist violence, 60 buildings, a biological station, a farm and three nature reserves.
complicit institutions
Confiscations to non-profit organizations have been made at a different pace from their closure. So far in 2022, the National Assembly – and now directly the Interior – cancels 200 NGOs per week.
The properties of Cenidh, the Center for Information and Health Advisory Services (CISAS), the Institute for Development and Democracy (Ipade) and the media CONFIDENTIAL communication and the 100% News Channel remained busy by the regime Police for more than a year, until – at the end of 2020 – they began to put up signs announcing that the properties had been transferred to the Ministry of Health (Minsa) and, in February 2021, they consummated the robbery of the buildings, turning them into facades of maternity homes, health centers, and care centers for people with addiction, as verified at the time by a tour of this medium.
The president of Fundación del Río explains that the taking of their properties – valued at 1,500,000 dollars – was little by little, starting in 2018. “Various institutions have taken possession of the properties”, placing signs, he explained. “All the forest areas were appropriated by Marena – Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Marena) –”, he confirmed.
The Center for Studies and Social Promotion Association (CEPS), founded by the epidemiologist Leonel Argüello, has five confiscated properties. The first building, located in front of channel 13 -in the security circuit of El Carmen- was occupied by the Police in July 2021, a year later, the agents entered an NGO clinic, located in Ciudad Sandino, and maintain surveillance in the three remaining places, where they have not yet entered: Rural Development Center, Jinotega; Rural Development Center, Mozonte, and Training Center and offices, in Ocotal.
It is unknown what use the regime will provide to these confiscated properties, whose estimated value is around 2.5 million dollars, confirmed Dr. Argüello.
Of the 67 properties accounted for by CONFIDENTIAL, 13 are in the hands of the CNU, nine were awarded to Marena, eight are in charge of the Minsa, two to the National Technological Institute (Inactec), two to the Ministry of the Family, one to the Public Ministry, one to the UNAN-Managua. Another 13 were distributed to various public entities not explicitly defined and 18 have not yet been designated.
Dr. Argüello explained that they have not made any efforts to register the confiscation of the properties because they were never notified about the dispossession of the legal personality of the NGO in accordance with the law. In addition, before the annulment of the organization, he learned that the Police took over the property located in El Carmen.
Supposedly the agents appeared accompanied by a civilian, who claimed to work for Migob, but did not identify himself either and did not agree to “sign the list of delivery of all accounting documents and books for 31 years, nor the keys of the computers what we had,” he said.
“In the Migob they do not receive any letter or document, nor do they sign the date you take it, so there is no way to keep a record,” he said.
Amaru Ruiz added that in the case of the Fundación del Río, the regime took away “the installed capacities they had, training centers in three municipalities, we had hotels where we carried out activities,” two community radio stations that reached the territories in Río San Juan , in the southeast of the country, a comprehensive care center for children and adolescents.
“There is a situation of violation of our rights, both freedom of association and property rights, that the members of the organizations had, including, personally, I was affected by the confiscation of one of the farms, which belonged to my father and which I received as an inheritance, but unfortunately it was also taken by the regime,” he said. They filed legal appeals questioning the government’s actions without receiving answers and, in addition, they have denounced the case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The former representatives of the properties taken have explained that in Nicaragua there is no way to claim their rights. They cannot question the annulment of their legal personality or the confiscation of their properties. One of the buildings recently taken over was that of Diario La Prensa, with an estimated value of 10,000,000 dollars and converted by the regime into the “José Coronel Urtecho Cultural and Polytechnic Center”, run by Inatec.
