The Progressive Alliance for the Americas held a press conference this Tuesday, August 30, where representatives of the Renovating Democratic Union (Unamos) denounced the social and political crisis that Nicaragua has been experiencing since 2018 and that has intensified in 2022.
The objective, according to the organizers, is to give international visibility to the situation in the country at the hands of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Related news: Unite: “The State uses its few resources to strengthen repressive organs”
Luis Carrión, director of Unamos; and Héctor Mairena, secretary of international relations of the organization, pointed out the various situations that the country is going through after the attack against the Catholic Church in the country and how Ortega has closed the doors to a peaceful solution.
For his part, Estaban Paulon, regional coordinator of the Progressive Alliance for the Americas, pointed out that “the light that once filled hope, today with President (Daniel) Ortega and Rosario Murillo has been transformed into one of the most railroads that we have in the region».
He stressed that with the Sandinista government there is a permanent curtailment of freedoms, in addition to the rigging in the presidential elections of November 2021, “as well as political persecution and detention, exile and other series of events that have to call for reflection and action of the international community.”
“We believe as members of the Progressive, Social-Democratic Alliance of the region, that we cannot be indifferent to this. Silence and abstention do not fit. We have seen as a government that claims to be progressive in the region opted for silence, but the idea is to denounce this for a long time with the help of the Unamos organization », he emphasized.
«The Ortega regime is the most ferocious dictatorship in the entire American continent»
Former guerrilla fighter Luis Carrión pointed out that “the Ortega regime is the most ferocious dictatorship in the entire American continent” and that it does not compare with “any of the others —from Venezuela and Cuba— that exist in the region.
He emphasized that the 2018 civic rebellion exposed the “criminal nature of the regime that had been limited by an alliance of Nicaraguan big capital and by a certain economic well-being and by international recognition and by financial organizations.”
Related news: Unamos directors, a year in the cells of “El Chipote”
“This insurrection weakened their support bases; the alliance he had with private enterprise was broken and the Church sided with the people, but Ortega, instead of seeking a political rearrangement, opted for repression, which left more than 300 dead, more than a thousand injured and more than 800 political prisoners,” he stressed.
In addition, he recalled that the agreements with the Civic Alliance —where most of its members are imprisoned— in 2019 to restore freedoms were not fulfilled, “on the contrary, the repression deepened.”
“In 2021, facing the elections in Nicaragua, Ortega realized that he could not win them and imprisoned all the presidential candidates, captured the main leaders of the democratic opposition and legalized the pulpit parties that could give him shelter and currently maintains a campaign of terror,” he said.
Another of the situations that Carrión mentioned is that the Ortega government acts as if “it were at war with its own people, and this mentality of hatred is fed by Ortega and Murillo continuously from the media they control.”
They call on the international community to pay attention in Nicaragua
For his part, Héctor Mairena recalled that there are currently more than 190 political prisoners and about 40 opponents were arrested between May and November 2021, including the leadership of the Unamos party.
“Our Vice President Hugo Torres died in the hands of the dictatorship and most of them, and it should be noted that 27 political prisoners are elderly, some have a house as a prison, but they are still far from the world due to the repression that is being experienced, so that we call on international public opinion to pay attention to the situation that Nicaragua is experiencing,” he denounced.
Related news: Ortega’s dictatorship dares to show Lesther Alemán and Max Jerez. The young men came with their heads held high
Mairena emphasized that the governments committed to democracy “must show more forceful actions in accordance with the drama that continues in Nicaragua.”
After exposing the situation the country is experiencing at the hands of Ortega, Luis Carrión concluded that “Nicaragua is bleeding to death; the police state of the Ortega and Murillo regime is suffocating the country, they want to subject us all to obedience under terror. People do not talk about politics, people look at the sides again when they speak, however hope does not die, the resistance, although weakened, remains and the civic and democratic struggle will continue until that dictatorship is overcome.
