The United States demands that Ortega return to democracy and release all political prisoners in Nicaragua

The United States has toughened its position on Thursday on the Government of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Erick Jacobstein, deputy assistant secretary for Central America in the State Department’s Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs, has demanded that Ortega guarantee “a peaceful return to democracy” in his country and release all people detained for dissenting from the regime. “Ortega and [Rosario] Murillo [su esposa y vicepresidenta] “They continue to violate human rights and repress dissent, imprisoning critics and confiscating their property,” Jacobstein said at a press conference in Guatemala City, hours after the arrival in that country of 135 Nicaraguan political prisoners unexpectedly released by the Sandinista regime. Neither Jacobstein nor the Guatemalan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Ramiro Martínez, have given details about the negotiations that led to the release of the detainees. The US official has limited himself to stating that Guatemala is the “great partner” of the United States in Central America.

The government of President Joe Biden reported on Thursday morning that the Ortega regime decided to release 135 political prisoners and send them on a plane bound for Guatemala. “The Biden and Harris Administration today achieved the release of 135 political prisoners unjustly detained in Nicaragua, for humanitarian reasons. No one should be imprisoned for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights to free expression, association, and practice of their religion,” Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the United States Government, told through a statement. Jacobstein said this afternoon that his country is maintaining contacts with other states in the region to achieve democratic change in Nicaragua. “There are many allies in the region who are currently fighting for democracy.”

The US official has reported that he has been able to speak with the released people and has expressed that they are in “good spirits and good health,” although he has stated that they will be evaluated by doctors and experts to consider their physical and psychological conditions. “They are people who have been imprisoned, tortured. They were unjustly imprisoned, with unfounded charges, for exercising their fundamental rights,” Jacobstein explained. Among those released are 13 pastors from Puertas de la Montaña, an evangelical organization based in Texas, whose imprisonment had generated strong rejection in Washington, to the point that the US Congress had pressured for their release. The Biden government has assured that there was no direct negotiation with the Sandinista Executive and that “it was a unilateral decision by them to increase the list” of those released.

The Nicaraguans have been welcomed by the government of Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo. They have a 90-day permit to legally remain in the country while they decide what immigration procedures they wish to carry out. Jacobstein has said that his government is willing to provide visas to travel to the United States and that they can begin the process of requesting asylum in that country. Both the American and Guatemalan authorities have refused to make public the list of those released and have said that they hope that they can contact their relatives in Nicaragua in the next few hours. For the moment, those released will receive accommodation, food, psychological and medical support financed by the United States, Guatemala and international organizations such as UNHCR “to help them recover from the difficult conditions and tragedies suffered in prison,” the American official stressed. The United States said that the Arévalo government was open to receiving the released prisoners because Guatemala is “its great partner” and “a leader” in the region. “It is a country with which we can work together to strengthen democracy in the region,” he said.

Jacobstein has issued a harsh warning to Ortega: he said that “it would be a mistake” if the regime of the old guerrilla fighter strips the nationality of these 135 people along with the 222 political prisoners who were sent into exile in the United States last year. Ortega has also stripped the citizenship of writers such as Sergio Ramírez, winner of the Cervantes Prize, and Gioconda Belli, winner of the Reina Sofía Prize for Poetry, and prestigious journalists such as Carlos Fernando Chamorro, one of the most critical voices against the regime. “We know that there are more political prisoners and we continue to tell the Government of Nicaragua to free them all,” the US representative has demanded.