Rafael Solís, probably the Magistrate in the Supreme Court the closest to Ortega, resigned and released a public letter to social media the evening of January 10th. Solís was key to the Supreme Court´s decision to declare unconstitutional the amendment passed in 1995 prohibiting any president from being immediately re-elected, or ever having three terms. He also led the mobs who attacked the opposition deputies in the Holiday Inn in 2010 who were meeting to pass a law that would have annulled a decree by Ortega extending public official terms until new ones are elected, a rule that extended Solís´term on the Supreme Court, and that he mentions in his own resignation letter.
PUBLIC LETTER OF RESIGNATION AND DENUNCIATION
January 8, 2019
Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra
Compañera Rosario Murillo
Dr. Gustavo Porras
Since this past April 17, 2018 when I went to Mexico to have an operation on my back, and I had to learn in that country about all the events that occurred in our country from April 18th on, until my return on May 12th; since the installation of the National Dialogue on May 16th and the following months where for reasons of health I had to come and go from that country up to today when I am writing you this letter, I have been contemplating the possibility of my resignation.
On three different occasions throughout these nine months I have thought about sending you this letter, but I always had the hesitation that through the National Dialogue whatever its nature might be, and even with more actors and mediators, the Government presided by you would be able to correct the serious errors committed throughout this period. Nevertheless, the year 2018 ended and nothing of this occurred; rather just the opposite: the government hardened its positions to the point of taking us to nearly total international isolation, and I sincerely do not see the least possibility that now in 2019 a true and new national dialogue might be taken up that would achieve peace, justice and reconciliation in our country.
That is why I present my immediate and irrevocable resignation at this moment of my post of Magistrate of the Supreme Court, and all the political posts included in militancy in the FSLN. This resignation is independent of the decision that the National Assembly might take to accept or not the resignation, even though there are still three months left to finish my period, but I prefer to do it now, to keep from having applied to me that article of the Constitution that establishes that public officials elected by the National Assembly should remain in their posts, if the Assembly does not name the other Magistrates, and even after their periods have ended, which is what I believe is going to happen in April.
The reality is that beyond the number of the deaths so deeply felt by myself and by the grief of their mothers and families members, that could be more or less the 325 indicated, and the great majority of whom were from the sector in opposition to the government, and in circumstances where in some cases they could be murdered according to the IACHR and the Interdisciplinary Group of International Experts (GIEI); even beyond the more than 500 prisoners, considered political prisoners by the opposition and the great majority of whom I also consider them to be, I always thought that common sense and sanity would prevail in you, and you would move toward a political negotiation that would allow for early elections and some of the other points proposed by the opposition, but the reality has demonstrated to be just the opposite, and truly a State of Terror with the excessive use of para-police forces or even the Police themselves with weapons of war, you have sown fear in our country and there no longer exists any rights that are respected, with the inevitable consequences of the installation and consolidation of at least a dictatorship with the character of an absolute monarchy of two kings who have made all the Branches of the State disappear, leaving the Judicial Branch itself, to which I belong, reduced to its most minimal expression.
The responsibility for these two Nicaraguas, the one before April 18 that at least had very high economic growth in Alliance with the Private Sector, and in general terms a Rule of Law and respect for the Constitution; and the other Nicaragua after April 18th, by your decision all this was done away with and also produced great frustration in me, in spite of my participation in the FSLN for 43 years, and I considered my resignation within the country or in exile since that time, and if I did not do it before, it is because I always thought that things could change, and that is why I sent you on two different occasions documents about different alternatives to negotiate this situation under different scenarios, and I was never taken into account in these proposals.
You hardened your position to the Catholic Church in a way that in the beginning was infantile, and then later with a lot of hate and rejecting them as mediators again, and accused them of supporting the opposition.
But nor did you seek out, like in the decade of the 80s, international mediators as happened in Esquipulas, but you decided to do put an end to the popular protests, the youth and the barricades by fire and the sword with a disproportionate use of force, and armed with weapons of war in an irresponsible manner a large amount of youth, and some now retired Sandinistas who also participated with the Police in this repression.
In this way you believed that the Country had become normal again; you broke with the Private Sector and then the trials began, the great majority of them political even according to my criteria, a large amount of detainees with a number of absurd accusations for crimes that they never committed, you yourselves replacing by your decisions an entire Judicial Branch, including our own judges who I defend because they had no other alternative than obey the orders coming from El Carmen or the Prosecutor´s Office, otherwise they would be removed from their posts.
The Magistrates of the Appeal Courts, or in our case, the Magistrates of the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court, can still reverse those decisions, but it is very difficult because of the State of Terror imposed, some of them might dare to do it in the future, and I myself am going to be outside the Judicial Branch and probably outside of Nicaragua for a time, and I therefore do not have the right to demand that of them, which is why these sentences surely are going to be ratified, and I hope that they are not imprisoned for much time (most are sentenced for 30 years).
Now it is war against the communications media, after you illegally suppressed the right of the people to protest in the streets, and there are journalists killed, journalists jailed, above all a large amount of journalists in exile, and the few that remain in Nicaragua little by little are going to be repressed and will have to go into exile or will end up in jail.
Let´s not even talk about the economy, that practically collapsed and it is expected that for this year 2019 the economic chaos will be total and the possibilities for a new Civil War in the Country, that no one wants, are now seen closer than ever.
I do not want a civil war for Nicaragua, but it is clear to me that you are taking that path, and in the face of an Army that for some reason has not disarmed the armed groups, it is also logical to expect that the opposition groups are going to look for how to get armed, and the country is going to go backward 40 years, and go back, if we are not already there, to the cycles of violence so characteristic throughout our history.
The OAS is going to end up expelling Nicaragua sooner or later with Almagro getting the 24 votes, and the United States is going to continue its policy of applying sanctions to the country until suffocating it economically, and meanwhile, the armed path will gain strength, you are doing to hold on to power and you are not going to leave, if it is not by force, but everyone is clear that it is very difficult to get to the elections of 2021.
I already experienced this so many years ago when I fought against a Dictatorship, and I never believed that history was going to repeat itself, through the fault of those who also fought against that same Dictatorship, but now I am very clear that the solution is going in that direction, and I do not want to participate, out of a decision of conscience and principles, beside a government that no longer has reason nor law, nor the majority support of the people and that only supports itself by the use of force to remain in power.
For this reason, and not out of cowardice or treason, I am resigning, because if it had been a matter of a failed coup or external aggression, in those months of 2018, and so many people would not have been killed, I would be with you and would continue in the Court and in the Frente, but there was no coup, nor external aggression, but rather an irrational use of force and you insist on continuing doing things badly to the extent of taking the country to a civil war of which I do not want to be a participant, much less by your side.
I hope a miracle occurs and you reflect, and take up again the path of the National Dialogue and true reconciliation of the Country, but the history of Nicaragua has taught us something different, and in this case history is going to repeat itself, and if you continue sowing the winds you are going to harvest tempests until you arrive at an end that effectively is going to be inevitable.
May God save Nicaragua
Signature: Rafael Solis
Rafael Solís Cerda
Ex-Magistrate of the Supreme Court
Ex- Sandinista Militant [Copy of his citizen identity card]