Dictator Daniel Ortega expelled 18 missionaries from the charity of the religious order of Mother Teresa of Calcutta from Nicaragua, after they closed their charitable works and canceled the legal status of their association because they did not register as “foreign agents”.
This triple aggression against religious freedom, the right of association and the right of the poor to receive social assistance on the part of civil society organizations has provoked widespread rejection, even among the regime’s supporters and in international public opinion, which further condemns the censorship and persecution unleashed against the newspaper La Prensa as punishment for covering the news of the expulsion.
In fact, this is not the first time that the regime of Ortega and Rosario Murillo has launched a virulent attack against representatives of the Catholic Church.
After the April rebellion, between 2018 and 2022, they attacked the basilica of Diriamba; they attacked the church of the Divine Mercy, where they killed two university students; they attacked the image of the Blood of Christ in the Cathedral of Managua; provoked the forced exile of Bishop Silvio José Báez; they expelled the apostolic nuncio Waldemar Sommertag from the country; they harassed Monsignor Rolando Álvarez and dozens of priests in the temples; and imprisoned Father Manuel Salvador García.
And, despite these persecutory antecedents, the expulsion of the Sisters of Charity caused astonishment, as they only dedicated themselves to helping the most needy with works of Christian charity.
But this is also not the first time that the regime has criminalized solidarity between people and intends to ban aid to the most vulnerable in a country torn apart by poverty, to those affected by hunger and drought, to victims of official neglect in the face of the Covid pandemic. and to the most disadvantaged by the lack of access to the most basic social services.
The prohibition of solidarity is in the dictatorial DNA of Ortega and Rosario, who are trying to establish themselves as the only social benefactors for the poor, so that every time the population has access to a right they give “thanks to the commander and the companion”, consecrating an act of political submission.
That is why more than 950 NGOs, medical and educational associations, social works of the Catholic Church have already been canceled and, above all, social and community development projects that support active citizenship, with the aim of installing a totalitarian regime in which the State -family-party embodied in the presidential couple is the only interlocutor with the population and, especially, with the poorest.
But even with all this evidence in sight, it is difficult to understand the cruelty towards the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and perhaps the only explanation, which is not justification, is that this hatred has always been present and is fueled by the deep fear that Ortega and Rosario have of the people, and of the exercise of solidarity that is part of the identity of the democratic values of Nicaraguans.
Among the more than 1,400 documents about Nicaragua leaked by WikiLeaks, which are based on diplomatic cables sent by the US ambassador in Managua to the State Department offices in Washington, there is one dated April 27, 2009, more than 13 years ago. , by Ambassador Robert Callahan.
He cites a private meeting with the then first commissioner of the National Police, Aminta Granera, in which the police chief recounts Ortega’s fear and paranoia provoked by the alleged threat of some nuns.
Verbatim, these are the words: “Police Chief Aminta Granera told Ambassador Callahan that President Daniel Ortega is completely insane and poses a threat to the country.” There is the addition that, according to Ortega, there are “some nuns who are praying for his murder.”
In this diplomatic cable written by Callahan, Commissioner Granera does not specify who the nuns Ortega fears are, because they were allegedly plotting against him, through prayer, to take his life.
According to Ortega, it is a “much larger group of nuns” who are praying to be killed, and he considers this a serious threat to national security.
Granera is limited to saying that she feels “insecure” in front of Ortega because he considers her a potential political rival, and that the only thing that allowed her to stand firm in front of him was her “increasing popularity”. She concludes that “the only person who has influence over Ortega is his wife, Rosario Murillo”.
Thirteen years after the publication of this premonitory cable from WikiLeaks, the paranoia of Ortega and Murillo, the fear of citizenship and the loss of power, is what can explain the irrationality of a totalitarian regime that massacred its own people, imprisoned and tortured those who they demand freedom and free elections, close all spaces of civil society and feel threatened by the nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Text originally published on Confidentialfrom Nicaragua
Translation of Giulia Gaspar
