The dictatorships of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba would be about to enter “gray years” and high pressure exerted by the Government of the newly elected Republican President Donald Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20, the date that marks the beginning of the great expectation of the mass deportations promised during the campaign.
A panel of experts organized by the think tank Open Fileand composed of Cynthia Arnson, former director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program; Evan Ellis, professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the US Army War College, and Manuel Orozco, director of Migration, Remittances and Development at the Inter-American Dialogue; Between the three of them they analyzed what Trump’s foreign policy will be with respect to Latin America and particularly the Nicaraguan, Cuban and Venezuelan dictatorships.
Among the first points of analysis, Arnson referred to the first signals that the new president has sent about what his administration will be like; in matters of foreign policy, by appointing Republican Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, a declared enemy of the region’s dictatorships and a “crusader” against communism.
“Marco Rubio is an anti-communist and will probably take a very hard line against Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba,” said Arnson at the start of his first presentation at the event held on December 16, called “Trump 2.0: perspectives and challenges for Central America, Cuba and Venezuela under a new mandate.
Along those lines, Evan Ellis maintained that the Trump administration will make “efforts to isolate the hosts of threats” against the United States and warned that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been hosts to terrorist organizations.
“We must remember that Venezuela has been the main host of (the terrorist group) Hezbollah in the region,” said the professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the US War College.
Photo: Taken from NuevaYa
The analyst also pointed out that another of the urgent issues for the new US administration is the control of migration that comes from the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America (Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala), linking this strategy with possible cuts to support for security issues. .
The National Directorate of Traffic Security of the Police, in its weekly report presented in official media, revealed that in the last two months, in which it has applied the coercive measure of detention of people who are found behind the wheel without a driver’s license, has detained a total of 2,202 people.
Related news: More than 2,200 people were arrested for not having a license in Nicaragua
The coercive measure of detention of people who drive without a license, for a period of between 24 and 72 hours, has been applied by the institution since last October 21.
Commissioner General Jaime Vanegas, Inspector General of the Police, explained that the people who have been detained are because “they do not have a license, they do not have registration and they expose people to danger.”
In addition, he revealed that for now they continue to be detained for 24 hours if it is the first time that they are found committing this violation of Law 431, and if they are repeat offenders they can spend up to 72 hours in jail and their vehicle sent to the Vehicle Depot of each municipality. .
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has detained at least 25 prominent Sandinistas and state workers whom the dictatorship “punishes” for lack of loyalty to the party or Murillo; However, few names from this list are revealed, since the dictatorship keeps their relatives under threat, as was revealed in the latest report from the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners.
Related news: Ortega keeps 25 Sandinistas “punished” for treason in prison
For the Mechanism, this is a clear reflection that the dictatorship is increasing persecution within its own ranks “carrying out arbitrary detentions without legal bases, manipulated judicial processes and forced disappearances, affecting not only the direct victims, but also their families.” .
In the case of Sandinista sympathizers or state workers, the regime, as part of the “punishment”, denies all information about the detainees, which creates uncertainty for their families. This type of repression, which is also accompanied by purges and coercive labor measures, is intended to instill terror within the state apparatus.
