After tensions between the government of Gustavo Petro and the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, on October 3, the new Colombian ambassador to Nicaragua, León Fredy Muñoz, took office.
“Today (yesterday, Monday) I took office as Nicaraguan ambassador to the Colombian diplomatic mission in this country,” reported the envoy from Bogotá through his Twitter account. Twitter.
He also stressed that “as we have done for many years, we will continue to work with dedication and especially today, for a brotherhood between the two countries and their cities.”
Related news: Nicaragua ignores criticism of Colombia and appoints new ambassador in Bogotá
On August 11, the Colombian administration appointed Muñoz as ambassador to Nicaragua. “The reestablishment of relations with Nicaragua will be a reality,” said the diplomat after his appointment.
León Muñoz has a degree in Education and is a social and cultural leader. He was a councilor for the municipality of Bello, Antioquia, between 2012 and 2015 and a representative to the Chamber from 2018 to 2022 for the Alianza Verde party.
Colombia had maintained stand-by diplomatic relations with Nicaragua after the dictator Daniel Ortega was re-elected as president in November 2021, in elections described as fraudulent and the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry launched a series of insults against the former ambassador of Bogotá.
Relations bottomed out in February of this year, when the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship expelled the Colombian ambassador, whom he called “interfering”, and attacked the Petro administration, calling it a “narco-state.”
Restoration of diplomatic relations between Colombia and Nicaragua
On September 21, the Daniel Ortega regime appointed Gadiel Francisco Arce Mairena as its new ambassador to Colombia, a position that had been vacant since last December.
The appointment came nine months after the Ortega administration canceled the appointment of Yara Suhyén Pérez Calero, who was the previous Managua representative in Bogotá. The dictator did not provide further details of her withdrawal, but the friction between the two countries could have caused the withdrawal of ambassadors.
Arce was the Nicaraguan ambassador to Iran and later worked as the Sandinista international relations representative in the former Yugoslavia. In addition, he accompanied Tomás Borge during his functions as ambassador to Peru. Arce served as personal assistant to the late Sandinista guerrilla, according to information collected by the now-defunct El Nuevo Diario.
In his career, it also stands out that in 2009, Arce was appointed as consul general with diplomatic equivalence of minister counselor of the Republic of Nicaragua in Quito and in 2013 he was appointed as first consul with diplomatic equivalence of counselor of the Consulate of the Republic of Nicaragua before the City of Liberia, Province of Guanacaste, Republic of Costa Rica.
