Daniel Ortega, born in November 1945, appeared on the Nicaraguan political scene more than four decades ago as one of the leaders of the FSLN, and became a permanent figure in the country’s history. Since 1979, when he assumed the coordination of the National Reconstruction Governing Board after the triumph of the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship, Ortega has been a constant face for Nicaraguans, including the 4.5 million under 43 years of age (almost a 70% of the national population) who had not been born by then.
During these more than forty years, the eternal leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has accumulated 27 years in power, in two different stages. The first during the eighties, and the second from January 2007, when he returned to the Presidency and has remained in it, annulling constitutional locks against re-election and any trace of political competition. After the massacre and repression against the April 2018 Rebellion, which left more than 325 dead, Ortega imposed a de facto police state, there are more than 230 political prisoners and hundreds of thousands of exiles for the political persecution of the operators and sympathizers of he.
Ortega is thus the president with the longest in power in Nicaragua, even surpassing the dictators Anastasio Somoza García and Anastasio Somoza Debayle together. He is also the main annihilator of the human rights and public liberties of Nicaraguans.
CONFIDENTIAL analyzed each of the rights violated by Ortega, whose self-isolated dictatorship from the democratic community is not internationally recognized, except by other regimes like his in Cuba and Venezuela, and equally condemned allies in the world such as Russia and China.
After 27 years in power, of which the last sixteen have been consecutive – now together with his wife, vice president and spokesperson, Rosario Murillo – Ortega violates at least 29 of the thirty rights and freedoms recognized under the heading of “Rights, duties and guarantees of the Nicaraguan people” of the Political Constitution of the country, which are also supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The right to be Nicaraguan
“Juan” has an expired passport and that is the only thing that accredits him as a Nicaraguan in the United States. He tried to renew the document in Nicaragua, but after several obstacles an alert came to him: he could be imprisoned again for his connection to the 2018 citizen protests, and he decided to leave the country. “In Nicaragua they denied me my passport”, he recounts now from his exile.
“You need an identity, something that supports you,” he says worried, because without a valid document, access to other services in a country that is not his own is more difficult. The story of “Juan” is repeated with the requests for an identity card, safe conduct of exit for minors and other personal documents, which are rights converted by the Ortega dictatorship into instruments of punishment and control against political prisoners, relatives of opponents, religious, students or any citizen whom Ortega places on its “red list”, including their sympathizers, public servants and family members.
This is the last of the rights violated by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, in a situation that continues to worsen since 2018. Five months after the social outbreak of the April Rebellion, CONFIDENTIAL listed 18 human rights violated by Ortegaand that number has now grown to 29.
The systematic violation of human rights is characteristic of a tyrannical regime that oppresses whatever rights it considers a danger to its “absolutist and single-party” claims, values the lawyer Gonzalo Carrión, a member of the Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective and exiled in Costa Rica. Taking a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the guarantees recognized in the Political Constitution, Carrión believes that it is “rare” for an article to remain “unharmed.”
Ortega remains in power through blood and fire, after the cry for freedom, justice and democracy raised in 2018.
Like “Juan’s,” the lives of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans have changed since that year. He did not want to leave Nicaragua. He managed the renewal of his passport to request a visa for his children in February 2022, but saw the delay in delivering the document as a threat of imprisonment and went into exile. He left a legal power to continue the management, but after months of waiting, the answer is the same: “It is not ready.”
Immigration repression, the denial of documents, tax extortion, administrative reprisals against companies, with social benefits and public services are part of the political violence and human rights violations of the Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua.
Olga Valle, a researcher for the citizen electoral and political observation body, Urnas Abiertas, points out that the country is experiencing a “totalitarian escalation”, due to the perpetuation of Daniel Ortega in power, as a result of electoral fraud in 2021, when he was re-elected together his wife Rosario Murillo after imprisoning seven presidential candidates and annulling the opposition political parties. “They are not leaving any kind of dimension so that citizens can exercise their rights or enjoy fundamental freedoms,” denounces Valle.
With the denial of identity and travel documents, the dictatorship violates article 31 of the individual rights contemplated in the Political Constitution, which guarantees Nicaraguans to circulate, enter and leave the country freely. Since 2020, taking advantage of the sanitary requirements, as part of the covid-19 protocol, immigration authorities have prevented dozens of Nicaraguans from entering or leaving the country, and have even confiscated their passports.
The Ortega dictatorship violates fifteen other individual rights, including the right to life, after the murder of more than 325 Nicaraguans between April and September 2018; the rights to freedom and inviolability of the home with arbitrary detention and the imprisonment of more than a thousand political prisoners, of whom more than 230 remain in prison or under a “house by jail” regime. In addition, the rights of equality before the law, due criminal process, judicial protection and respect for physical, mental and moral integrity.
Non-existent political rights
Participating in a march or joining a political party in Nicaragua means exposing yourself to arbitrary arrest, siege and persecution. In September 2018, the Ortega regime it prohibited any citizen expression – which four years later even includes religious processions – and empowered the Police to decide who could use the street. The ruling party has the green light, and any other Nicaraguan receives a club and jail.
In the last quarter of 2020, it passed new laws to fabricate cases against opposition leaders, journalists, and activists, confining them to prisons with sentences of seven to thirteen years in prison. It has also dismantled organized civil society, through the cancellation of legal status of more than 3,000 Non-Profit Organizations (OSFL) from the end of 2018 to date, invalidating the political right to establish organizations, established in article 49 of the Political Constitution.
The violation of the rights of Nicaraguans has worsened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other international bodies. Social rights are also on the list of violations.
No rights to health and information
In 2018, the victims of state repression were not cared for in public hospitals. Two years later, with the covid-19 pandemic, epidemiologists and health personnel questioned the management of the health emergency that left tens of thousands of deaths, although the regime only recognizes 245.
Politically released prisoners and their families have also denounced that in the public health services they are discriminated against for political reasons, and in some cases they have been denied health care, despite the fact that article 59 of social rights in the Political Constitution indicates that “the Nicaraguans have an equal right to health.”
Nor has Ortega respected the people’s right to information, freedom of the press and expression. Since Daniel Ortega’s return to power, more than 50 media outlets have been shut down in Nicaragua. In addition, the newsrooms of CONFIDENTIAL, La Prensa and the television channel 100% Noticias. They have also persecuted journalists and criminalized the trade, leading to the exile of reporters and media personnel.
Article 86 of the Constitution indicates that all Nicaraguans have the right to freely choose and exercise their profession or trade with no other requirements than an academic degree, but the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega has imposed political affiliation, accredited with a Sandinista Front card, on the academic preparation for a person to access a position in any state entity.
State workers, subjected to participating in party activities, even outside working hours, have denounced the political surveillance in the institutions, extended to their families.
An unprecedented exodus
The systematized repression of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has caused an “exodus” of Nicaraguans never seen before, not even in times of war, warns Gonzalo Carrión. In a Nicaragua with “the worst human rights scenario imaginable” the family, which the regime proclaims to take care of in official propaganda, is the most affected.
The defender points out that a forced displacement prevails with “heartbreaking connotations of a human tragedy.” There are dozens of families that suffer from the uncertainty of losing their husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, during the journey to the United States. They expose themselves to kidnappings, rapes, extortion and death, in search of safety or better opportunities.
Between 2018 and 2022, 604,485 Nicaraguans have left the country, and 328,443 of them did so during 2022, mainly to the United States and Costa Rica, according to calculations by political scientist and researcher Manuel Orozco. A never seen before exodus In Nicaragua.
