Nicaragua: 'Pepe' Mujica signed a letter of repudiation against Daniel Ortega

07/05/2021 1:51 PM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 07/05/2021 1:56 PM

Former Uruguayan President José Pepe Mujica is one of more than 140 signatories of a letter in which leftist intellectuals in the region

speak out in rejection of the recent actions

of the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

It was also signed by Lucía Topolansky, current senator and former first lady of Uruguay.

"It is difficult to know if Daniel Ortega fell ill from power or is ill from maintaining power or both, but this - now and for practical purposes does not matter," begins the letter that highlights that the Sandinista president "has become

a president. autocrat and authoritarian

, allied until recently, to the great fortunes (Superior Council of Private Enterprise - Cosep- through) capable of mercilessly repressing his people together with whom he did not know, wanted or could, build quality of life or an institutionality democratic, transparent ".

The document accuses the Sandinista Front of

having plunged into a long process of deterioration

"that registers episodes of corruption, abandonment of principles, illicit enrichment, maneuvers and accommodations together with the worst right wing, destined to amass fortunes and perpetuate themselves in power."

In addition to Mujica, the Mexican writer

Elena Poniatowska

added her signature to the political declaration signed by more than 140 intellectuals and leftist leaders in the region.

A mural in Managua by Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega.

Reuters photo

Latin American intellectuals remind him of

his "enormous enrichment"

in the 1990s, the pacts with Arnoldo Alemán and the business community, the persecution of Sandinista veterans, the harassment of the poet Ernesto Cardenal, the violent response against protesters in April 2018 and the recent arrest of presidential candidates, and they make it clear that this does not correspond to the visions of freedom that were conquered with lives in the past Somoza dictatorship.

"Human rights are not a graceful concession by the States and their governments, they are conquests of the peoples. The States that recognize them and embody them in different legal instruments have the duty to promote and respect them," the text says.

The signatories acknowledge that they cannot remain silent

in the face of the outrages committed by the Ortega-Murillo family

in Nicaragua, despite promoting themselves as socialists.

"It is not worthy or decent to defend them

when for" political reasons "it suits us and to shut up when not. Nor is it valid to" justify "their violation because others" violate them more "; nor the hypocrisy of politicians, parties and governments prone to see the straw in the eye of others and not the beam in our own. Once again with concern, with pain and with force, we sympathize with the victims and demand that the Nicaraguan government stop the persecution and repression, release the political prisoners and respect the rule of law, "the letter says.

They also warn "those who were silent yesterday, they must ask themselves how much their silence contributed –inadvertently- to the pride and impunity with which Ortega is leading a new satrapy and

how much harm this silence does to the humanitarian conscience

that we so need to contribute to a more just, free and fraternal world ".

In July 2018,

Pepe Mujica had already made a statement about what happened in Nicaragua.

"I feel that something that was a dream is diverted, falls into autocracy, and I understand that those who were revolutionaries yesterday lost their meaning in life,

there are times when you have to say, I'm leaving"

, dojo Mujica on that occasion.

Many former allies of Daniel Ortega who shared his ideology have decided to turn their backs on him.

The most recent position was taken by Mexico and Argentina, who finally expressed their concern about the repression in Nicaragua and asked the Sandinista president to resume a dialogue with the opposition and guarantee transparent elections and public freedoms in the country.

In response, Daniel Ortega's son, Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo, accused Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of "cowardice" this weekend.

In January 2019, the Socialist International expelled the Sandinista National Liberation Front from its ranks, denouncing serious human rights violations and making it clear that "

socialism is incompatible with tyranny

."

Look also

Jair Bolsonaro, Nicolás Maduro, Daniel Ortega and Miguel Díaz-Canel are on a list of "predators of press freedom"

Oscar René Vargas: "There are no differences between the Somoza dictatorship and that of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua"