For Ortega, the arrested opponents are “agents” of the United States wanting to overthrow him
“We are not judging pre-candidates, but criminals who have attacked the country” declared the Nicaraguan president who arrested 19 opponents five months before the elections.
Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla who had ruled the country from 1979 to 1990, returned to power in 2007 with the Sandinista National Liberation Front. (Photo / Nicaraguan Presidency / AFP)
AFP
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said on Wednesday that the 19 opponents arrested five months before the elections were “criminals” and “agents” of the United States who want to “overthrow the government”.
“We are not judging pre-candidates, but criminals who have attacked the country, who are trying to organize another April 18 (allusion to the anti-government demonstrations of 2018, ed.), This is what we are investigating and this will be punished as required by law, ”the head of state said at a ceremony. The 75-year-old leader accused these opponents of being “agents of the Yankee empire” who “conspire against Nicaragua to overthrow the government.”
As of Wednesday, 19 opponents were in jail for “inciting foreign interference” and “supporting sanctions” against the Sandinista government, including five presidential candidates in November, politicians, a banker and former comrades in arms of Daniel Ortega.
“That they do not tell that they are candidates, there is no registered candidate, the time has not come to be a candidate”, hammered the president. “Right-wing media say pre-candidates are being held, but they weren’t even [précandidats] of their own groups, let alone a unit [alliance] which never existed ”.
Brutal repression
The arrests sharpened international condemnations against his government. On Wednesday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights denounced before the Organization of American States (OAS) “a new phase of repression” in Nicaragua, and asked the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the judicial body of the regional body, to protect four opponents “in extreme risk situation”.
Echoing the demands of the international community to release the detainees, the president assured that “there is no retreat, only a step forward”. Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla who had already led the country from 1979 to 1990, returned to power in 2007 with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN, left), and stayed there after two re-elections. His opponents believe he will run for a fourth term in the November 7 ballot.
He has been accused by the opposition and the international community of governing in an authoritarian manner, following the brutal crackdown on protests against his government in April 2018, which left more than 300 dead and thousands in exiles, according to reports. human rights organizations. The Ortega government believes that these demonstrations were hatched by Washington for a coup.
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