The decision of the government of Daniel Ortega to expel the Vatican ambassador in Managua has been criticized and has created despair in the face of mediation or the role that the Church can play in the crisis in Nicaragua.
The diplomat is credited with having been key to the release of more than 600 political prisoners in 2018, and is currently promoting the freedom of presidential candidates and a new dialogue between the opposition and the ruling party.
Prisoner and activist Gabriel Putoy highlights the voice of america that his freedom and that of other prisoners in 2019 was thanks to the management of the Vatican ambassador in Managua, Monsignor Stanislaw Somertang, who facilitated the second dialogue between the government and the opposition.
“The Nuncio has had his pros and cons and we appreciate his efforts, thanks to which we were released more than 600 political prisoners,” said the opponent, who is in exile in Costa Rica.
Other released prisoners have also highlighted the role of the diplomat, such as the journalist Lucía Pineda Ubau, who was arrested in 2018 after the political crisis.
Ubau said the nuncio “saved lives through his humanly possible diplomatic efforts” and welcomed his role in Managua, which lasted four years after his credentials were suddenly annulled.
Similarly, the student organization AUN highlighted in a statement on Twitter Somertang’s efforts “in favor of the release of political prisoners.”
According to Nicaraguan media, such as the weekly Confidentialrelations between the Vatican diplomat and the ruling party were at a bad time for different reasons, one of which was his absence from the inauguration of a new presidential term of Daniel Ortega in January of this year.
The Holy See reported that its ambassador was expelled by the Nicaraguan government and described it as an “unjustified unilateral decision.”
International organizations have criticized Managua’s position and have warned that what Ortega has done “has no precedent in Latin America for three decades.
“It is something extreme, an outrage that we have never seen,” he told VOA Michael Shifter, president of the thinktank Inter-American Dialogue.
And although the government has still not ruled on the Nuncio’s expulsion, pro-government deputies accuse the Catholic Church of promoting confrontation and have even branded them “satanic” for questioning the authoritarian measures of the Daniel Ortega government, which has been in office for more than 15 years. in the power.
Beyond the tensions, some sectors of society see the possibility that the Catholic Church could once again mediate in the political crisis in the Central American country as remote.
“They are isolating our country internationally and they are leaving no way out so that we can understand each other in a dialogue,” says Putoy, who believes that it will be an international instance that will mediate a new attempt at understanding in Managua.
*Journalist Houston Castillo, from VOA, contributed to this report.
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