The Government of Gustavo Petro has now firmly joined the international condemnation of the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua, after the exile of 222 political prisoners on February 9. The Foreign Ministry has rejected this Thursday “the dictatorial procedures of those who bring to mind the worst moments of the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship”, in reference to the autocrat that the Sandinista Revolution, led by Ortega, overthrew in 1979. “Colombia has registered with repulsion the measures taken arbitrarily by the head of government of the sister and long-suffering Republic of Nicaragua against citizens of their country whose only crime has been to defend democracy, the right to criticism and universal human rights,” the statement read.
The tone of the Foreign Ministry differs from that used a few days ago, when another statement lamented the loss of nationality of the 222 prisoners expelled on February 9 and expressed “concern” over the stripping of the citizenship of another 94 opponents on February 15 . “The Government of Colombia calls for the generation of confidence-building measures that contribute to national reconciliation, respect for the rule of law, and the well-being of the Nicaraguan people,” he declared at the time. According to the text, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was following “carefully” Nicaragua’s decisions regarding an important group of people still detained in that country.
The Andean country is now asking the international community for various measures. He has asked the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, to obtain authorization to visit the prisoners who are still in Nicaragua. “Victims they are. International Humanitarian Law covers them ”, she has justified. In addition, Colombia urges the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to take action: “The authoritarianism that has been imposed in the sister republic has violated norms jus cogens. Those of which it has been defined that they are prevailing, non-derogable, absolute, peremptory, immutable in essence”.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, was the one who finally took the regional leadership against Ortega. “The dictator does not know that the homeland is in his heart and in his actions, and is not deprived by decree,” he wrote on Twitter on February 18. His Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, opted for a more moderate message the next day. “I reiterate Latin America must be a space without political prisoners and without social prisoners. Any violation of human rights must be condemned by the entire international community. My solidarity with the 94 Nicaraguans who were stripped of their nationality,” he noted.
Argentina and Chile on February 21 offered citizenship to writer and former vice president Sergio Ramirez, one of 94 opponents who had their nationality stripped in the second round of reprisals. Colombia informed the following day that it replicated the decision, “Yesterday, in Madrid, Spain, interpreting the solidarity of the country as a whole and the sentiment of President Gustavo Petro, I offered Colombian nationality to the Nicaraguan politician, intellectual and writer,” declared the foreign minister, Alvaro Leyva.
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