Boric: "Ortega does not know that the homeland is carried in the blood and is not removed by decree"

The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, has condemned this Saturday the decision of the Daniel Ortega regime to withdraw the nationality of 94 Nicaraguans, including writers, journalists and human rights defenders.

Boric has taken advantage of his intervention during the Ibero-American Summit, which is being held in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), to forcefully reject the decisions of the Nicaraguan government against its opponents.

"It is not acceptable for us to remain silent before the family dictatorship of Ortega and [Rosario] Murillo in Nicaragua, which has just deprived 94 opponents of their nationality and deported more than 200 political prisoners," he mentioned in his speech.

In February, the Ortega regime announced that it would deprive 94 Nicaraguans of their nationality who live in exile due to pressure from their government.

A few days earlier, 222 political prisoners were surprisingly released and sent to the United States.

Their nationality and their rights as Nicaraguan citizens were also withdrawn.

The regime accused them of "treason" and has since considered them "fugitives from justice."

Boric then expressed, through his Twitter account, his rejection of Ortega's decision and called him a dictator.

A word that most Latin American leaders have avoided, in one way or another, uttering, especially in public.

This is the first international forum in which the Chilean president has expressed his dissatisfaction out loud and he has done so in the same forum and a few meters from where the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua, Denis Moncada, was listening to his speech.

“[Ortega] seems not to know that the homeland is carried in the soul and in the blood and is not removed by decree.

Gioconda Belli, Sergio Ramírez or Dora María Téllez, among many others, know that well”, the president insisted, mentioning some of those affected.

The Chilean has recalled the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and its consequences to make an argument in favor of democracy.

“The Chilean dictatorship brutally taught us the risks of relativizing democracy and human rights.

And we learned that never, but under no circumstances and under no pretext, should this be allowed ”, he mentioned.

Boric added in his message a hint about the lesson learned in his country: "Today we see new risks and threats around the world that threaten the democracy that has cost so much to build (...) the problems of democracy are solved with more democracy and not with less”.

Boric has also taken advantage of his speech to speak in favor of measures that reduce the gender gap, mainly on the issue of unpaid care, as well as trying to use the alliance of Ibero-American countries to jointly undertake measures that allow safe migration throughout the region.

“It must make us angry that a few people take advantage of this crisis and come to our countries with the intention of making migration a business”, he said.

He has also joined the group's environmental projects and the drive for sustainability in the region.

The Chilean president, finally, has shown his concern about the advance of criminal groups operating in Latin America.

"There is no possible well-being if we are not capable of asserting the rule of law", he pointed out.

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