Authorities of the Nicaraguan dictatorship expropriated the homes of poet and novelist Gioconda Belli, her son Camilo de Castro and former chancellors Francisco Aguirre Sacasa and Norman Caldera, as they themselves denounced this Tuesday (12).
The homes of former government junta member Moises Hassan, human rights defender Gonzalo Carrión and activist Haydée Castillo were also expropriated, all of whom were deprived of their nationality by the authorities of Daniel Ortega’s regime.
“Yesterday, the dictatorship of Ortega Murillo confiscated my house in Managua, sending the police to occupy it. It is a house that will forever contain the memory of my creative energy, the mark of my books and the landscape that I most I loved him. What I was remains in me”, denounced Gioconda Belli, 74 years old, winner of the Queen Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry, on her account on X (new Twitter name).
“Tyrants believe they can subjugate people by stripping them of what belongs to them. I lost my house occupied yesterday by the police, but they, immersed in paranoia and lies, lost their values, their history, they turned into sick tyrants, worthy of repudiation,” he added.
Belli said that poetry embraced her “on this afternoon when the robbery of my house by the dictatorship was completed.”
Filmmaker, activist and environmentalist Camilo de Castro, son of the writer, also denounced the occupation of his home.
“The dictatorship of Ortega Murillo, through the PGR [Procuradoria Geral da República] and the police, completed the robbery of my house in Nicaragua. We received the news with indignation and sadness, but we are determined to continue denouncing the dictatorship and fighting for a different country. They will never bend us or silence us!” he wrote on his X account.
In the case of Aguirre Sacasa, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs during the government of Arnoldo Alemán (1997-2002), a house and a farm located on the outskirts of Managua were expropriated. In that of Caldera, chancellor in the government of Enrique Bolaños (2002-2007), a house.
Lawless country
Hassan, who was a member of the government junta after the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle’s dictatorship in 1979, confirmed to the newspaper La Prensa that police arrived on Sunday (10) to seize his house in Managua, valued at US$300,000.
He declared himself offended, attacked and stated that “Nicaragua is a lawless country, where the population’s rights are not respected”.
Human rights defender and founder of the Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective, Gonzalo Carrión, was the first to denounce the expropriation of his house, which, according to him, is valued at US$70,000 and has just had financing paid off with a bank linked to the Nicaraguan Army.
“Those who order and carry out the actions are criminals against humanity and thieves. As a defender of human rights, they will not be able to achieve the objective of silencing us. Confiscation is an evil action,” he said.
Confiscation of people with revoked nationality
The Ortega regime revoked the nationality of 94 Nicaraguans on February 15, bringing the total number of people affected by this measure to 317, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison after refusing to be banished by the Ortega dictatorship in the United States.
The Court of Appeals of Managua then ordered “the immobilization and confiscation in favor of the State of Nicaragua of all properties and companies that the defendants registered in their favor, whether personally or as legal entities or companies in which they participate as partners, to respond for the crimes committed.”
Nicaragua has been experiencing a political and social crisis since April 2018, which intensified after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term – in addition to the fourth consecutive term and the second with his wife, Rosario Murillo , as vice president – while his main competitors were imprisoned or in exile.
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