Nicaragua's President Ortega locks up opposition politicians

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Daniel Ortega (archive image)

Photo: MARVIN RECINOS / AFP

The last wave of arrests has drawn sharp international criticism and, in some cases, even new sanctions.

But this does not seem to have made any particular impression on President Daniel Ortega.

The events over the weekend show that.

The police in Nicaragua have arrested five opposition leaders and declared opponents of Ortega. They are accused of wanting to undermine the country's independence and sovereignty and "to call for foreign interference in internal affairs, to request military intervention and to organize it with the help of foreign funding," the police said on Monday.

Among other things, the chairman of the left opposition party Unamos, Suyen Barahona, and the former general Hugo Torres were arrested.

Shortly before, the 73-year-old Torres had published a video in which he accused Ortega of wanting to establish a "second dictatorship" and of betraying the values ​​he once stood for.

"These are desperate acts of a regime that realizes that its time is up," he said.

Torres and Ortega had fought together against the right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza in the late 1970s.

Ortega was president for the first time from 1979 to 1990 after Somoza's fall.

He has been back in office since 2007.

In the past few weeks, Ortega has arrested a dozen members of the opposition, including four potential candidates for the presidential election on November 7th.

USA imposes sanctions on Ortega's daughter

The police relied on a law that the Sandinista party of the Christian Socialist government passed in parliament in December.

Accordingly, anyone who is leading a coup, inciting foreign interference or inciting terrorist acts may not run for an elected office.

After this first series of arrests, the US demanded an immediate release and imposed new sanctions.

These were aimed in response to the repression against four members of the Ortega regime, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.

They are Camila Ortega, a daughter and adviser to the Head of State, his wife and Vice-President Rosario Murillo, the President of the Central Bank of Nicaragua, a Brigadier General of the Army and a Member of Parliament.

Any property of these people in the US is frozen and Americans are prohibited from doing business with them.

jok / Reuters