The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), considered the highest governing body of Spanish, as a language; and the Academy of the Language of Chile, condemned, separately and through releasesthe closure executed by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, of the homologous Nicaraguan Academy of Language.
Last Friday, May 27, the National Assembly, controlled by Daniel Ortega, reported that it will behead 83 more Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including the Nicaraguan Academy of Language. This action demonstrates the determination of the Sandinista dictatorship to put an end to any civil organization that does not submit to its designs.
«The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) expresses its deep concern by the news of the possible closure of the Nicaraguan Academy of Language proposed to the National Assembly of Nicaragua, which will deprive the Central American corporation of legal personality and will cause its disappearance after ninety-four years of prolific existence at the service of the greatest cultural value of the nation.
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The RAE announced that it “strongly supports and vindicates the legitimate right of the Nicaraguan Academy of Language to serve its fellow citizens and to make possible the participation of Nicaragua, on equal terms, in the preservation of the superior cultural asset of both the nation itself and of the community of nations and peoples who share the same language, today the common heritage of nearly six hundred million people around the world.
At the bottom of its press release, the RAE urges all homologous entities in the world to show solidarity with the Nicaraguan Academy of Language, “in order to avoid disappearance”, which, as they insist, “would mean serious damage and an irreparable loss for the Spanish language.
For its part, the Chilean Academy of Language criticized the Sandinista government’s slap against the intellectual institution. “The Chilean Academy of Language strongly condemns the closure of the Nicaraguan Academy of Language ordered by the government of that country,” says part of the statement.
The counterpart organization in Chile described the imminent closure of its Nicaraguan counterpart as “an attack against culture and freedom of thought” and after expressing its solidarity, demanded that the “unjust order that affects them be reversed as soon as possible.”
With this new attack that could materialize in the coming days, Ortega would have annihilated a total of 329 NGOs, a hunt that began at the end of 2018, when he began to describe non-profit entities as financiers of “terrorists” and promoters of ” coup d’état” against his administration.
Later, the Sandinista government approved a Law on Foreign Agents that would oblige NGOs and natural persons that receive public or private funds from abroad to register with the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) as “foreign agents”, however, some organizations that were prepared to register —as in the case of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH), for example— they were not allowed either and then they were also closed.
In the templates of decrees for the cancellation of legal status, the Sandinista Parliament has accused the organizations of not reporting their financial statements, nor registering their Boards of Directors, nor declaring their funds and donors, which has also been denied by the majority of the entities, who have denounced that on multiple occasions they came to the Migob to leave the documentation but the authorities refused to receive said reports, so that repetitive argument is false.
Among the organizations that have been canceled by Daniel Ortega, using the Ministry of the Interior and the National Assembly, are human rights defenders, medical associations, women’s defenders, democracy promoters, environmentalists, scientists, professionals from different branches, academics and international organizations working in poor communities in the country.
