Opponents, critics and human rights defenders condemned the recent confiscation of the Nicaraguan Red Cross, by order of the Daniel Ortega regime, who now passes the institution into the hands of the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health (Minsa).
The new action of the Nicaraguan dictatorship took place on the morning of this Wednesday, May 10, after the National Assembly, controlled by the Ortega administration, unanimously approved the initiative of the “Law to Repeal Legislative Decree No. 357 of October 29, 1958» with which it eliminates the Nicaraguan Red Cross, as an autonomous entity.
Related news: Ortega confiscates the Nicaraguan Red Cross and hands it over to the Minsa
for the lawyer Juan Carlos Arce, of the Nunca Más Nicaragua Human Rights Collective, the dictatorship’s strategy focuses on controlling all areas of the population.
It also ensures that the message that the dictators Ortega and Murillo are sending is “that nothing and no one is exempt”, since by ascribing it to the Minsa “it loses all its autonomy and nature and becomes one more political instrument of the regime”. .
«Red Cross has always applied the principle of neutrality»
For his part, the also defender of human rights Gonzalo Carrion He recalled that in Nicaragua all kinds of civic spaces have been closed and that to date more than three thousand non-profit associations have been cancelled.
He said that in the case of the Red Cross, this is a particular association that distinguishes it from other associations due to the type of service it provides. “The Red Cross has been known, for many years in Nicaragua, for applying the principle of neutrality.”
«When the war began to overthrow the other dictatorship, the Red Cross offered aid to the wounded; by the way, the one who plays the dictator now —Daniel Ortega— was on the side of the guerrilla movement, now we would have to ask him how many of his wounded the Red Cross treated,” Carrión reproached.
He also indicated that to date there is no known decision similar to the one made by the Ortega regime, where the legal order of the Red Cross is being changed. “The decision of the Assembly is unanimously an act of shame that is not recorded and that remains for history because it violates decency.”
Héctor Mairena: Ortega has always wanted to take over the Red Cross
Another to react to Ortega’s decision was Hector Mairena, member of the political council of the opposition Blue and White National Unity, who said that the action of the National Assembly is based on only processing the political will of Daniel Ortega.
“This is nothing more than another expression of totalitarianism that we are facing and that the Nicaraguan dictatorship practices, because it does not want to leave any space that has some degree of independence and for that reason it has annulled the legal personality of more than three thousand non-governmental organizations. “, held.
Related news: Observatorio Ciudadano assures that the Red Cross treated 315 Nicaraguans with COVID-19 during hurricanes
In turn, he stressed that for decades it has been “an old dream” of the Nicaraguan dictatorship to take over the Red Cross. “I know that Gustavo Porras, the political operator of Ortega, has set that goal for years and that he is now able to crystallize in the context of the radicalization of the dictatorship.”
He also considered that the robbery against the Red Cross is “an international scandal, because it affirms that Ortega is following the model of other countries where there are totalitarian regimes, in which not even the Red Cross can exist independently.”
According to the activist and human rights defender Ana Quiros This is one more way for the dictatorship to limit health care to the population in general, “but especially to people who are critical of the Government, and for this reason I consider that this is an attack and a reprehensible act, and any day of these we could see expropriation of temples -religious-».
“Five years after the civic insurrection of 2018, the Nicaraguan Red Cross provided care to the injured, which resulted in their work being questioned, thus charging them for having fulfilled their mission and having demonstrated the principles that were in place. their mandates,” he said.
The Nicaraguan Red Cross was founded, according to Executive Agreement number 23, the January 10, 1934 by Dr. Juan Bautista Sacasa, President of the Republic, recognizing it as the “National Society of the Red Cross” with functions throughout the national territory, but now the dictator Ortega annihilates it to make it his property.
