Operators of the Daniel Ortega regime invaded this Friday, seven NGOs that had been outlawed by the National Assembly: ANIA, the CEPS of Ciudad Sandino, Meeting Points, La Corriente, Operación Sonrisa, Cantera and Centro Humboldt, as confirmed by CONFIDENCIAL.
Two more (who asked not to be identified) were closed last week, said María Teresa Blandón, former president of the La Corriente Feminist Program, in what she and a former Humboldt Center official described as an “announced invasion.”
Since November 2018, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, have canceled the legal status of 870 organizations of civil society, intensifying its totalitarian effort, most of it in the last 13 months. The most recent aggression of that onslaught is the expulsion of the Sisters of Charity and now the new illegal property confiscation.
A former Humboldt Center official who spoke with CONFIDENTIALon condition of anonymity, said they saved as much as they could, after their legal status was withdrawn in March. “There were few things left there. This was predictable. We were already waiting for him, and there is nothing else to do, ”she reiterated, giving everything up for lost.
In a statement, Operation Smile recalled that its closure occurred on March 23after almost 30 years of helping citizens affected by cleft lip and palate, which includes “more than 11,000 free surgical procedures… and more than 128,700 health services”, raising and investing in the process more than five million dollars, promising to remain “always available to return to work with the same love”.
— Operation Smile Ni (@OS_nicaragua) July 8, 2022
ANIA is registered with Mific
“We were surprised by this action carried out by officials from the Managua Mayor’s Office (ALMA), accompanied by a representative from the Attorney General’s Office (PGR),” he told CONFIDENTIAL the general secretary of ANIA, Jaime Matus, because ANIA is registered with the Ministry of Development, Industry and Commerce (Mific), and not with the Ministry of the Interior.
“There is an error because we are legally constituted before the Mific”, explained Matus.
The closed entity was the old legal person that covered ANIA, before Law 876, (which reformed Law 849, or the General Law of Chambers, Federations and Business Union Confederations of Nicaragua), passed them from the control of the Migob to the Mific .
As part of this change, ANIA, like the other entities governed by Law 876, submitted to the Mific in March the financial statements and other reports required by law, but they are still waiting for the compliance letterlike most of the other entities now regulated by the Mific.
Matus recalled that when the registration of the old ANIA was repealed, “the president of the National Assembly, Dr. Gustavo Porras, and the secretary Wilfredo Navarro, explained that ANIA -founded in March 1957- was legally registered in Mific”, and defended that its function is technical, making its associates and experts available to the Government when there are floods, earthquakes, etc., endorsing its apolitical nature and its prestige.
A former director of ANIA, pointed out that “our Association has its papers in order with the Mific. We do not receive money from abroad, and we are solvent with our obligations”.
Messages for the invaders
The invasion of the building where La Corriente operated did not take anyone by surprise, since on May 4 they will cancel their legal status, along with more than a hundred other NGOs. “We went in the middle of a bunch of organizations. That shows that they are very alone”, externalized its former president, Dr. Blandón.
Blandón narrated that when they took away their legal status they decided to open their library to give away their books, and it was then that the young people present “had the idea of leaving graffiti on the walls. It was a kind of sit-in, a moment to express everything that they have been accumulating all these years. It is the synthesis of his indignation, of his rebellion. The demand for freedom, justice and democracy is irreversible”, he observed.
@LaCorrienteNica He taught us but he also saved us, the regime can steal the walls, but how are they going to steal the flame that has been burning for 28 years?
Thanks to all the team ✊
Thank you @MariaTBlandon ! pic.twitter.com/qZAd6vHM5w– Wisthon Noguera (@wisnoguera) July 8, 2022
The May 4th decision had been ‘cooking’ for some time. The leadership of La Corriente saw that several organizations they consider ‘friends’ they had tried to register as ‘foreign agents’, but “the Migob was not receiving reports from anyone, so it was evident that they were creating the conditions to blame us for not complying with the laws, and annul our legal status,” he said.
The decision of the board of directors of the feminist association was not to register as foreign agents, because “it is give legitimacy to a law that is illegal. We declared zero in the General Directorate of Income, and in social security, because we did not have the resources to continue operating. We were advancing the process, before they took it away from us, but we continue working in La Corriente, because we were not going to close it, ”he clarified.
His opinion is that the regime is acting against its own laws, because the law says that when suspending a legal personality, the statutes of each NGO must be complied with, and those of La Corriente say that “in case of dissolution, the assets must be be handed over to a group with which we share objectives, and what we share with the State are antagonistic interests”, so “this disrespects the provisions of its own laws”, he reiterated.
total helplessness
“We have no instance where we can seek justice, appeal against these decisions that lack legality and violate the right of association. There is no independent judiciary where to lodge appeals for unconstitutionality. We are in a state of general defenselessness. They declared us in civil death. We do not exist for the State,” explained Blandón.
“What follows is to see how civil society organizations, even in the midst of such an adverse situation, can resist to defend our right to defend rights, and how to give continuity to the work that we continued to carry out, despite the repression and the persecution… guaranteeing the safety of the people and groups with which we work”, he warned.
