The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo eliminated the name of the prominent Nicaraguan baseball player dennis martinez of the National Baseball Stadium in Managua.
Users on social networks reported that this Wednesday, November 23, the player’s name was erased from the stadium façade, as well as a mural dedicated to Martínez’s career, which was inside the sports infrastructure.
The stadium was named in honor of Martínez to honor his legacy as the greatest baseball player born in Nicaragua, winner of 245 games in the Major Leagues and author of a Perfect Game -launched on July 28, 1991-, becoming the first Latin American to achieve the feat.
The mural, which highlighted the great moments of the career of Martinez, It was a gift from the regime to the baseball player when the stadium was inaugurated, which was widely highlighted by the propaganda of the Ortega dictatorship as a “direct idea of Commander Daniel Ortega”.
The stadium was inaugurated by Ortega on October 20, 2017, in an activity controlled by the regime in which only supporters of the Sandinista Front were allowed to enter.
In an emotional moment, Martínez threw out the first ball at the inauguration, while the screens showed images of the Perfect Game that he launched in 1991. The former baseball player thanked Ortega and Murillo in a few words for having named the stadium after him. “This is something for which I feel extremely grateful,” he said excitedly.
Ortega gave a brief speech, in which he described the stadium as a “work of art” and highlighted the efforts of his government to build it. The dictator did not refer to the legacy of Martínez, nor did he clarify the irregularities that occurred during construction.
The stadium was planned to be built with a Taiwan donation of $30 million. However, this money was suddenly diverted by the regime under the argument that these funds would finance the construction of Ciudad Belén, a citadel in Sabana Grande for victims of the rains that hit Managua in 2017.
In order to build the stadium, the Managua Mayor’s Office made a loan to Banpro and other banks in the national financial system, without it being publicly known how the funds from the Taiwan donation for the stadium were used.
The Asian country also did not claim for these irregularities in the use of its donated funds. In an irony of fate, four years later, the regime virtually expelled the diplomatic representation of Taiwan in Nicaraguaa, to restore relations with the People’s Republic of China.
The authorities of the National Stadium, administered by the Municipal Sports Facilities and Promotion Company (Emipde), attached to the Managua Mayor’s Office, have not ruled on the removal of the name.
The name of the former pitcher was also deletion from social media in which upcoming sporting events at the Stadium are announced.
Paramilitary base of operations
During the massacre of the 2018 citizen protests, the stadium served as a base of operations for the paramilitary forces and the Police who repressed the university students in the nearby streets and avenues.
During the Mother’s Day March, May 30, 2018, from the Stadium, snipers of the regime were stationed who shot the protest participants. That day, eight people were killed in this march, as part of a day in which the repression of the dictatorship bathed Nicaragua in blood, with at least 19 deaths throughout the country due to the violence unleashed by the police and paramilitaries. .
The former baseball player became a direct critic of the dictatorship as a result of the violence unleashed in 2018, and regretted that the stadium was used as a center of repressive operations by the regime. On June 1, 2018, Martinez issued a statement, in which he called not to continue using the stadium for operations of violence against the protests. This was stated in his statement:
Nicaraguan brothers, I want to express my condolences to all the mothers of Nicaragua yesterday and especially to those who have lost a loved one, due to the tragic and painful situation in my country. It is not what a mother deserves, because thank God for them we are here.
I call for Justice, and a resounding NO to violence.
We have to stop this vicious cycle of POWER so that it does not repeat itself. We must set an example for the new generations who trust us with much love to carry out their dreams and goals.
It hurts me to know that the national stadium that bears my name is being occupied for purposes of violence affecting my Nicaraguan brothers.
A place where I dreamed for us Nicaraguans to get together to enjoy the sport that I carry in my heart.
I hope you understand that I do not have any interference in using it in the way the Nicaraguan authorities want to use it, but I would ask you to respect my person, who I made an effort and carried on my shoulders for many years representing my country with very proud stop using it for those purposes. Because those are not the values and principles of my person.
Martínez became a promoter of dialogue
Martínez made constant calls to the regime to open the doors to a dialogue that would restore civil liberties in Nicaragua and put an end to the sociopolitical crisis caused by the violent repression in 2018, but his requests were never heard. The dictatorship responded with a dirty campaign against the former baseball player, through its propaganda media and their political operators.
Subsequently, in an effort to achieve the unity of the opposition political forces in the face of the 2021 electoral process, Martínez joined the Goodwill Commission to mediate between the leadership of the Democratic Restoration Party and the Citizens for Freedom Alliance so that they put their political ambitions before the elections and will form an electoral unit for the elections.
The commission’s attempts failed and Ortega later dynamited the credibility of the electoral process by undertaking a repressive campaign in which he imprisoned seven presidential candidates and the country’s main opposition leaders.
