Managua/Brasilia. Nicaragua’s government has announced that Brazil’s ambassador, Breno de Souza Brasil Dias da Costa, has left the country. Nicaragua’s ambassador to Brazil, Fulvia Patricia Castro, is on her way to Nicaragua.
The press release also announced the expulsion of seven more priests to the Vatican.
The government of President Daniel Ortega did not give any further reason. The statement from Brazil said that Nicaragua’s ambassador was expelled on the basis of “the principle of reciprocity.”
According to the Foreign Ministry in Brasilia, the expulsion of its ambassador “does not mean a severance of diplomatic relations.” All advisory services for the Brazilian population living in Nicaragua would be maintained.
Various media outlets had speculated that da Costa’s expulsion might be related to his failure to attend the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution on July 19, to which he had been invited.
According to media reports, relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent months. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva himself reported on this at a press conference.
“I spoke to the Pope and he asked me to speak to Ortega about a bishop who was in prison,” Lula said. “Ortega didn’t answer the phone and didn’t want to talk to me. So I never spoke to him again,” Lula added.
Lula was referring to the religious Rolando Álvarez, who was sentenced to 26 years in prison for high treason and later expelled from Nicaragua (amerika21 reported).
However, Lula did not limit himself to this description of his attempt as an advocate in the conflict between Nicaragua’s government and the church, but in a press conference he suggested to Ortega that the 1979 revolution also took place because of his claim to power and spoke of the “spirit of a dictator”.
However, the conflict does not seem to have affected Nicaragua’s observation and participation in the other country’s situation: Nicaragua was one of the countries that expressed its solidarity with the people and government of Brazil shortly after the plane crash near São Paulo on Friday, in which all 61 people on board died.
