The Public Ministry charged on November 23, less than twenty-four hours after his arrest, the sociologist Oscar René Vargas, an intellectual critical of the Daniel Ortega regime captured while visiting his sister, who is in delicate healthin residential Bolonia in Managua.
The authorities did not specify the crime, but they considered that the State is “victim or offended” by Vargas, who in the eighties was an advisor to the National Directorate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In cases of previous arrests, in similar circumstances, they are later accused of “propagation of false news” or “conspiracy to undermine national integrity.”
The prosecutor is Yubelca del Carmen Pérez Alvarado, who filed the four-page accusation at 12:56 pm last Wednesday before Judge Gloria María Saavedra Corrales, head of the Tenth Criminal Hearing District in Managua. The case is registered under the subject number 025318-ORM4-2022-PN.
Vargas was a member of the FSLN in the 1960s and in November 1967 he rescued Daniel Ortega in the Monseñor Lezcano neighborhood of Managua, when he was about to be captured, a fact that the sociologist never regretted, as he told him in 2019. to the Nicaraguan journalist Fabián Medina in Infobae, while he was in exile.
Vargas would later return discreetly to Nicaragua, where he did not have any public activity, but maintained an intense intellectual work, publishing his critical articles on his blog and exposing his analyzes to different independent media, on the crisis of the FSLN, Ortega and the social and political crisis that impacts Nicaragua.
Judge and prosecutor persecute political prisoners
Both the Prosecutor and the judge assigned in the case of Oscar René Vargas have stood out for executing judicial processes against political prisoners. The academic was arrested in an operation carried out by the Special Operations Directorate (DOEP), made up of the police officers in charge of operations against drug trafficking and terrorism.
The sociologist and economist did not resist, according to the version of sources close to his family. He was transferred to an unknown destination.
One of the most recent cases against political prisoners, by Judge Saavedra Corrales, is related to the Catholic Church, the object of fierce persecution by the dictatorship.
The court imposed 90 days in prison to “investigate” the religious and lay people who accompanied Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa, when he was forcibly transferred—after the police assault on the Curia—on August 19.
Pérez Alvarado is part of the gear of prosecutors and judges who have materialized Ortega’s political order to sentence political prisoners in a repressive escalation unleashed by the regime to impose terror among the citizens. There are currently 219 political prisoners in the country, who are being held in a system that has been denounced for practicing torture and for erasing constitutional guarantees.
These judicial operators would be committing the crime of prevarication and torture, according to an investigation carried out months ago by CONFIDENCIAL. In fact, the prosecutor was sanctioned by the United States last July as part of 23 judicial operators Ortega supporters who are characterized by being executioners of the prisoners of conscience.
Cenidh asks for his release: “His life is at risk!”
Upon learning of the accusation in the electronic system of the Managua courts, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) held the Ortega-Murillo regime responsible for what could happen to the intellectual, who is 76 years old and has a pacemaker.
?? URGENT Dr. Óscar René Vargas is kidnapped in El Chipote. We hold the ORMU regime responsible for what may happen to him, he depends on a pacemaker. His life is at risk. WE DEMAND HIS IMMEDIATE FREEDOM.
? REPORTING IS A RIGHT REPRESSING IS A CRIME. pic.twitter.com/yrHHVR8hpk
— Cenidh (@cenidh) November 24, 2022
“Her life is at risk. We demand his immediate release,” demanded the well-known body, stressing that he is innocent and adding that his relatives and his defense attorney have been able to pass them water, but that he needs specialized health care.
international impact
The arrest of Vargas, author of 36 books and co-author of 20 more, has provoked international reactions. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Oacnudh) described the detention as arbitrary and assured that prison officials, including El Chipote, have denied that they have it.
The Oacnudh affirmed that this pattern is recurring and can be called “short-term forced disappearance.”
#Nicaragua – The sociologist Oscar René Vargas (76 years old) was arbitrarily detained on November 22. In detention centers, including El Chipote, his officials deny holding him, a recurring pattern that can be classified as “short-term forced disappearance.” pic.twitter.com/vzgv2t7jfe
— OACNUDH (@OACNUDH) November 24, 2022
For its part, the Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS) also expressed its strongest protest and highlighted his work in a statement.
“His important analysis and research work has been reflected, among other aspects, in the publication of dozens of books and hundreds of articles both in Nicaragua and abroad,” the agency said.
From the Latin American Association of Sociology, we pronounce on the arrest of the Nicaraguan sociologist Óscar René Vargas
This arrest is intolerable and also all the disappearances, persecutions and murders against hundreds of opponents! All our solidarity! pic.twitter.com/8JvOcYE3so
— Breno Bringel (@brenobringel) November 23, 2022
According to the Electronic page from the Nicaraguan sociologist, Vargas is also an economist. He completed university studies at the University of Laussane (Switzerland), at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (Geneva), among others. He has a PhD in political economy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
in one of his latest articlesVargas analyzed a document from the International Monetary Fund on the case of Nicaragua, issued after a visit by that organization between November 7 and 15.
The multilateral organization said that the economy is recovering and its outlook is favourable. “Despite the fact that the dictatorship does not have any formal agreement with the IMF, the measures that they are going to implement in 2023 are much stronger than those recommended by the IMF in its Structural Adjustment programs. A worse situation than the current one is coming: more unemployment, greater migration, reduced purchasing power, inability to buy the basic food basket, malnutrition, hunger and more discontent among citizens, ”said the sociologist.
