Nicaragua prisoner release pressure valve for Ortega regime

United States sanctions and public criticism of Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega had been building for months, but both U.S. and Nicaraguan officials say the decision to put 222 dissidents on a plane to Washington came suddenly.

The plane was barely off the ground Thursday when word began to spread of the surprise release of opposition figures, journalists, activists and priests that most considered political prisoners.

The majority had been sentenced in the past couple years to lengthy prison sentences. They had little contact with each other and even less with the outside world.

In Ortega’s mind, they are terrorists. Funded by foreign governments, they worked to destabilize his government after huge street protests broke out in April 2018, he maintains.

Ortega said Vice President Rosario Murillo, his wife, first came to him with the idea of expelling the prisoners.

“Rosario says to me, ‘Why don’t we tell the ambassador to take all of these terrorists,’” Ortega recounted in a rambling speech Thursday night. In a matter of days, it was done.

“The timeline, again, was very short,” said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggesting it the transfer together in as little as two days. “Once we were aware of this, we were able to spring into action and ensure the safe transportation of these individuals.”

Nicaragua came up with a list of 228 prisoners it wanted off its hands. The U.S. struck four of them of the list, and then two more refused to get on the plane Thursday, officials from both countries said.

On Friday, Emily Medrala, a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, emphasized to reporters that it was Nicaragua’s decision.

“It could be that the pressure of the sanctions had an impact, but it was a unilateral decision,” she said. “There was no negotiation, and Nicaragua didn’t ask for anything.”

Ortega had said as much the night before. He framed it as an issue of principle and sovereignty.

“We aren’t asking that they lift the sanctions. We aren’t asking for anything in exchange,” he said. “They should take their mercenaries.”

Jared Genser, a human rights lawyer who handled the cases of opposition leaders Felix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastian Chamorro, said Friday that “dictators never release political prisoners because they want to, they release them when they have to, when releasing them is the least worst choice.”

It could have been that the constant attention to the prisoners' plight from human rights organizations, the United Nations and foreign governments made them more a liability than simply expelling them from Nicaragua.

“This seems to be some sort of escape valve because there has been a lot of international advocacy, of pressure from the EU, from from the U.S., from others,” said Antonio Garrastazu, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Republican Institute in Washington.

Ortega may have wanted to get them out and avoid the “they do more harm inside of Nicaragua than they do outside,” Garrastazu said.

Ortega upped his pursuit of political opponents in early 2021, looking to clear the field ahead of presidential elections in November of that year. Security forces arrested seven potential presidential contenders and Ortega romped to a fourth consecutive term in elections that the U.S. and other countries termed a farce.

Nicaraguan judges sentenced several opposition leaders, including former high-level officials of the governing Sandinista movement and former presidential contenders, to prison terms for “conspiracy to undermine national integrity.”

The United States has given the released prisoners two years of humanitarian parole during which time they will be able to work and seek asylum.

Spain on Friday offered Spanish nationality to the Nicaraguans and added that it would take in any other Nicaraguans who find themselves in the same situation as the released prisoners.

Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said the offer is being made because Nicaragua is moving to strip the freed prisoners of their citizenship. He made the announcement in comments to the Spanish private news agency Servimedia and his ministry confirmed them.

While the plane was still in the air Thursday, Nicaragua’s congress voted to approve a proposed constitutional change that would allow the government to take away their citizenship.

Maradiaga and Chamorro, both opposition leaders and potential challengers to Ortega for the presidency, told journalists Friday they would continue to fight for Nicaraguan democracy from outside the country.

Maradiaga compared Nicaragua's expulsion to the Roman empire, when banishment was an alternative to death. He said such a step was taken when a dictator could no longer put up with opponents, but recognized there would be consequences to killing them.

Chamorro, who was arrested in 2021, and sentenced to 13 years in prison, said that no "single generation in the 200 years of Nicaragua’s independent life has not suffered war, abduction ... exile or murder and that has to change.”

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Salomon reported from Miami. AP reporter Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Spain contributed to this report.