The Swiss government announced that it has renewed the sanctions applied since 2020 against political operators of the Nicaraguan dictatorship, including Rosario Murillo and several of her children, and some institutions that have participated in the network of corruption and repression against the people of Nicaragua since the beginning of the political and social crisis of 2018.
The Swiss administration has sanctioned 21 political operators of the Sandinista regime led by Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo. The latter is at the head of the sanctioned list, along with her children Laureano, Juan Carlos and Camila Ortega Murillo.
In the official note from switzerland published on the website of the Federal Economic Affairs, it is specified that the Swiss Federal Council applied these sanctions in June 2020, and they have been renewed as of October 22, 2024, so they keep the order of prohibition of designated persons from entering Swiss territory. In addition, any bank accounts, checks or assets they have in that country should be frozen.
They also maintain in force the ban on companies and people from the European country so that they cannot establish business relations with any of those sanctioned. “In this way, Switzerland adheres to the measures adopted by the European Union,” which were announced on October 8 and extend until October 2025, the notification states.
Nicaragua’s economy is excessively dollarized in an “unofficial” way, and although the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, through Laureano “El Chigüín” Ortega, has boasted of its intentions to “de-dollarize” it, that process must be voluntary, no one is It could force you to exchange your dollars for córdobas, warns Nicaraguan economist Néstor Avendaño.
In his Economy blog, updated as of October 20 of this year, economist Avendaño highlights that “until the end of last August, the unofficial dollarization of the Nicaraguan economy, represented by the participation of deposits in foreign currency in the banking system commercial, was equal to 58.7% of the country’s total liquidity (M3A).”
The expert points out that this level of dollarization is “excessive” and that it should be reduced to the maximum of 25%, so that the córdoba recovers and normalizes its 75% participation in the global liquidity of the economy.
Related news: Nicaraguan economy is “excessively dollarized” but “de-dollarizing” cannot be forced, recommends economist
Added to this, according to Avendaño, is that the córdoba, the legal tender in the country, only occupies 30.5% of the economy, when it should be at least 75%. While “the córdoba with value maintenance”, which in reality, as the economist explains, is “a dollar in disguise”, represents 10.8% in the national economy, “with the total balance of savings and term deposits or quasi-money.
The journalist is Julian Navarretewho had to hide behind anonymity to be able to practice his profession, can now say it with relative security and can also accept in public and without fear of being imprisoned, that this work entitled “Nicaragua: life in the catacombs”, which in January did not dare to sign, it is his, and he can receive with joy the news that said report was selected as a finalist for the IV “Carlos Alberto Montaner” Young Journalism Award.
Navarrete’s report portrays precisely the consequences to which opponents, religious people, students and journalists in Nicaragua are subjected. For those who practice their profession it has become a crime that is harshly punished by the Sandinista regime.
«A little more than three months ago I was forced into exile, after the Police persecuted me for my journalistic work… This particular work portrays the way in which the regime persecutes its critics. And that’s what happened to me, just a few months after this report was published,” the journalist tells Article 66 from his new home in San José.
«I have mixed feelings: on the one hand I am happy because, as the director of the Vargas Llosa Chair “Due to the quality of the works presented, the mere fact of being on the list of finalists is already a triumph”… But it is also sad to receive the news far from my homeland.
