The Argentine government has finally extended its hand to the more than 300 Nicaraguan opponents stripped of their nationality by the Daniel Ortega regime.
The foreign minister, Santiago Cafiero, announced this Tuesday that his country is willing to grant Argentine citizenship to the writer Sergio Ramírez and "to all those who are also suffering from what is happening in Nicaragua."
Chile, for its part, has communicated from the Foreign Ministry that it "will arbitrate the legal means" that allows Ortega's political victims "to reside in the country and obtain Chilean nationality, according to the constitutional norms that regulate it."
On the list are the writer Gioconda Belli;
the Nicaraguan journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro;
the writer and feminist Sofía Montenegro and the activist Azahalea Solís.
Most of them live in exile, but the Ortega-controlled Court of Appeals in Managua has declared them “traitors” and “fugitives” and has ordered the seizure of all their assets in the country.
“Of course [the citizenship process] can be done.
If Ramírez asks for Argentine citizenship, we give it to him.
She should appear at the embassy and the process begins.
Argentina is in a position to do so.
To speak without euphemisms: if he asks for citizenship, it is given to him, ”Cafiero said in an interview with
Radio con Vos
.
The decision was later ratified by the presidential spokesperson, Gabriela Cerruti, who explicitly offered it to Belli.
Sergio Ramírez had lamented in an interview with the
Clarín
newspaper that there had not been a declaration of repudiation from the Casa Rosada to the persecutions perpetrated by Ortega against dozens of writers, politicians, journalists and opposition activists.
On Wednesday the 15th, Managua stripped the nationality of 94 of them.
A week earlier, he had ordered the expulsion to the United States of 222 political prisoners.
The Argentine government is willing to grant Argentine citizenship to @sergioramirezm @GiocondaBelliP and all those who are suffering from what is happening in Nicaragua.
https://t.co/nBaibxcjJT
— Gabriela Cerruti (@gabicerru) February 21, 2023
Foreign Minister Cafiero's announcement is the first official reaction on the situation in the Central American country.
It came after a request where 500 cultural personalities, many of them Argentine, expressed their "concern" about what is happening in Nicaragua.
And days after Ramírez himself said that he was willing to become Argentine if he received an offer from the Casa Rosada.
This Tuesday, the writer thanked the gesture on his social networks, without clarifying whether or not he will request Argentine nationality.
“Very grateful to the foreign minister @SantiagoCafiero for his solidarity gesture of offering me Argentine citizenship.
I always remember that for Rubén Darío Argentina was also his homeland, and it is also mine, ”he wrote.
The Argentine government received criticism from the local political opposition for its diplomatic inaction in the face of the situation in Nicaragua.
The silence of the Casa Rosada contrasted with the public denunciation made by the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, last Saturday.
"The dictator does not know that the homeland is in his heart and in his actions, and is not deprived by decree," the president wrote on Twitter.
“A fraternal hug to Gioconda, Sergio [Ramírez], Sofía [Montenegro], Carlos [Fernando Chamorro] and all those whom Ortega has tried to deprive of their Nicaraguan nationality.
They are not alone!” said the Chilean president, the voice of the left that has most condemned Ortega's totalitarian drift.
#Urgent 🔴|
The government of Chile, of @GabrielBoric, will make available to stateless Nicaraguans "Chilean nationality according to the constitutional and legal norms that regulate it" pic.twitter.com/MfsCPLnRIG
– Wilfredo Miranda Aburto (@PiruloAr) February 21, 2023
This Tuesday, La Moneda went one step further and offered citizenship to the victims of Ortega.
"The Government of Chile makes this alternative available to those who have been unfairly expatriated from Nicaragua and voluntarily decide to take it," says the statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.
Last week, the Chilean Foreign Minister, Atonia Urrejola, said that she hoped that the rest of the international community would be "up to the task" and join the "commitment" of the Chilean government to "support the persecuted and democratization in Nicaragua." .
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