As of 2018, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has outlawed more than 3,000 Non-Governmental Organizations. It has stripped them of their real estate and has transferred them to State institutions.
It has also done so with the media and now with private individuals after the National Assembly reformed article 20 of the Political Constitution and in which it now establishes that any Nicaraguan who is declared by the regime as a “traitor to the homeland” , they will be stripped of their nationality, but also of their assets, which will become property of the State.
Daniel Ortega has already declared 94 Nicaraguans “traitors to the homeland” without trial, whom he has also stripped of their nationality and of the assets they have in the country, which for many is a clear act of confiscation with which A new edition of the famous “piñata” of the eighties is beginning.
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Article 44 of the Political Constitution of Nicaragua expressly states that “the confiscation of assets is prohibited. Officials who violate this provision will respond with their property at all times for the damages caused.
The same article indicates that real estate can only be expropriated “for reasons of public utility or social interest”, in addition, there must be a “prior payment in cash of fair compensation”.
The “Piñata” was an action carried out by the Sandinistas that allowed them to confiscate properties belonging to the Somoza family and their relatives. In the end, the same revolutionary leaders kept the properties.
Among the properties were luxurious houses, vehicles, companies, farms, farms and lots of land. Even Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo live in a confiscated house.
Decrees and laws
The “Piñata” was armed with various decrees and laws passed from the first day the Sandinistas assumed power.
On July 20, 1979, the National Reconstruction Governing Board, made up of Daniel Ortega, Sergio Ramírez, Moisés Hassán, Alfonso Robelo and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, approved decree number 3, which empowered the Attorney General of Justice to immediately “proceed with the intervention, requisition, and confiscation of all the assets of the Somoza family, soldiers, and officials who had left the country as of December 1977.”
Then, on August 8, 1979, the Governing Board approved decree number 38 with which they could “freeze or preventively intervene any transaction, good or company, of people close to Somocism, from whom a complaint has been received.”
A year later, on July 19, 1981, Decree 760 would be approved, which is known as the “law of absentees”, because it indicated that all assets belonging to a person who was not in the country, or who been out for more than six months, they would become property of the State.
And a fourth decree would be approved on August 21, 1981, which would be the Agrarian Reform Law, with which various lands, companies, and farms were assigned to peasant cooperatives led by party militants.
When the Sandinistas lost the elections in February 1990, they quickly realized that most of the properties they owned had not been renamed, so they devised a combo of laws to keep them after handing over power.
Between March 29 and April 2, 1990, the Sandinista-controlled National Assembly approved Laws 85, 86, and 88, which allowed them to keep all the assets they had up to that date and, in some cases, pay ridiculous amounts for them.
The most benefited
The most benefited from the “Piñata” were the commanders of the Sandinista Revolution Daniel Ortega, Humberto Ortega, Tomás Borge, Bayardo Arce and Jaime Wheelock.
Daniel Ortega bought his “El Carmen” distribution house at ridiculous prices, which belonged to Jaime Morales Carazo, who after claiming it for more than 20 years, in 2007, became his vice president and said at that time that he and Ortega , they had reached “a very satisfactory agreement, very chivalrous, and all settled.”
Humberto Ortega, the brother of the dictator, is now a businessman who has shares in different entities. His business life is divided between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and according to what Moisés Hassan told Magazine in 2021, Humberto Ortega is the richest of all.
For his part, Bayardo Arce is the owner of a mansion located in an exclusive area of Managua and, like Daniel Ortega, he has a house in an “El Carmen” subdivision, which he uses as an office.
In the case of Jaime Wheelock, former Minister of Agriculture in the 1980s, the former Vice President of Nicaragua, Virgilio Godoy, told the Spanish newspaper El País that he owned the San Martín farm, which belonged to Cornelio Hüeck.
In the same way, Tomás Borge acquired several high-value properties and years later it was learned that he used the name of Luz Danelia Talavera Valenzuela to buy several pieces of land that were later sold for almost 700,000 dollars and where a shopping center was built.
Estimates made years later in journalistic investigations revealed that with laws 85, 86 and 88, some 20,000 properties that were delivered to Sandinista families were legalized and also some 125,000 plots of land were distributed to private individuals.
The former owners of all these properties wanted to get them back once the Sandinistas left power, but they couldn’t. Instead, the government of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was forced to pay compensation to all those affected. According to estimates, the debt that the State acquired by the Sandinista “Piñata” was about 2.2 billion dollars, which to date, we Nicaraguans continue to pay.
With the new confiscations that the Daniel Ortega regime is doing to non-governmental organizations, the media and individuals, Nicaraguans will be forced to pay a second Piñata in the event that the dictatorship transfers these properties or decides not to return them to their legitimate owners.
In addition, all those affected in the future will have the right to claim their assets and compensation from the State of Nicaragua, which will once again fall on all Nicaraguans.
By United Voices
