President Gabriel Boric welcomes his arrival in Limache, in the Valparaíso region. DPA via Europa Press (DPA via Europa Press)
President Gabriel Boric on Saturday indicted the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua, which this week stripped the nationality of 94 citizens, including prominent writers, politicians, intellectuals, activists or religious, after previously releasing and deporting 222 political prisoners were in the United States. Although the Chilean foreign ministry was the first of the most important Latin American countries to categorically condemn Ortega’s offensive, the left-wing president had not yet commented. “The dictator does not know that homeland is in his heart and in his actions and will not be deprived of it by decree,” he wrote on Twitter.
Boric’s message was in response to a poem by Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli, one of 94 people affected by the dispossession who are now charged with “treason on their homeland” and are considered “fugitives from justice.” “A fraternal hug to Gioconda, Sergio [Ramírez, Premio Cervantes]Sofia [Montenegro, escritora y feminista]Carlos [Fernando Chamorro, periodista] and to all those who Ortega tried to revoke their Nicaraguan citizenship,” the Chilean President published on the social network. “You’re not alone!” he added.
Belli thanked the President for the message on Twitter: “Thank you for being consistent and supporting the rule of law and the democratic demand in Nicaragua and Latin America. My respect and affection for Gabriel Boric”. Writer Sergio Ramírez also celebrated the President’s words this morning. “Thank you, President Boric, for embodying dignity and integrity by not remaining silent about Nicaragua. A hug”. The Cervantes Prize, in an interview with this newspaper, criticized the general reaction that the leaders of Latin America had. “There are countries that take refuge in a supposed neutrality and say that they deal with the affairs of another country , and that seems to me to be a mistake,” he explained, adding: “What are the two axes of reaction that seem most important to you? ? That of Chile and that of Spain”. Through Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, Spain offered the 94th Citizenship to opponents of the regimes of Ortega and Rosa Murillo.
Boric has repeatedly spoken out about the abuses and repressions of the regime in Nicaragua and its Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola, which tracked the Central American country’s democratic decay and violations of rights by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) between 2018 and 2021. -One of those affected by the deprivation of citizenship is the lawyer Vilma Núñez, President of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH)-. Foreign Minister Urrejola denounced the situation on Thursday without half measures. “Every day it’s more about a totalitarian dictatorship,” he claimed, as he condemned the persecution of any kind of Nicaraguan dissent.
The commitment accepted by the left government is to continue denouncing the Sandinista regime and to carry out the appropriate actions in support of the persecuted and democratization in Nicaragua. “We hope that the rest of the international community is up to it,” Urrejola said. The government of Gustavo Petro in Colombia has also expressed its “concern” with restrained language, Mexico has avoided criticizing the regime’s drift, while Argentina and Brazil have opted for silence.
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