Most governments around the world denounced the elections of Nov 7 as a farce, after the Sandinista government jailed the principal opposing candidates and effectively prevented any organizing by non Sandinista allied groups. The lack of election propaganda was striking. In response, the United States, Canada and the European Union announced new sanctions against leaders throughout the different branches of the government, including all branches of the government and key economic entities linked to the government, restricting their travel to the United States, Canada and Europe, in their respective cases. Partially in response the Ortega government is now restricting the travel of their own mid level associates to prevent their denouncement internationally of their involvement in government human rights abuses.
“You cannot travel”: Ortega and Murillo also impose country arrest on Sandinista allies
By Divergentes, Nov 18, 2021
In recent weeks, associates of the Sandinista regime have not been able to leave Nicaragua. For example, immigration authorities in the Managua International Airport have prohibited the son of Álvaro Baltodano Cantarero, retired general and Presidential Delegate for the Promotion of Investments, from leaving. The order was intensified by the international sanctions. “They are not going to allow anyone who might have official information to leave,” they state. Meanwhile, the border seige against opponents is even stricter.
Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have imposed country arrest not just on opponents of their regime, but on their own “Sandinista allies.” For some weeks now, the immigration authorities of the Managua International Airport have prevented the departure from Nicaragua of associates of the regime, like Álvaro Baltadano Monroy, son of the retired general Álvaro Baltodano Cantarero, Presidential Delegate for the Promotion of Investments. According to sources from the Ministry of the Interior and the party in power, the decision is based on the fact that the presidential couple “is not going to allow anyone who have official information to leave the territory.”
Baltodano Monroy protested with immigration at the Airport over the decision, but was sent back home. He is the legal representative of Grupo Integra, a business dedicated to the acquisition and development of businesses in Central America and Mexico. Even though he is a business person with little public exposure, these new migratory restrictions on departures have affected him. The son of the retired general Álvaro Baltodano Cantarero is also the nephew of the businessman and general manager of Café Soluble, Gerardo José Baltodano Cantarero, who the police of the dictatorship are looking for, under the argument that as a former board member of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES) he is suspected of illicit operations.
Another one of the associates of the government not allowed to leave has been Leonardo Torres, the president of the Nicaraguan Council for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CONIMIPYME). Torres is a key ally of the government after the rupture with the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP). They did not allow him to board his plane either. Torres is also a member of the board of the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN) and replaced the former president of COSEP, José Adán Aguerri, in that post.
Sources from immigration also report that they prevented the departure of a daughter of retired general Javier Carrión who, since he left the Army, has kept out of politics. The information was confirmed by an associate of the Carrión family.
New orders for their own
According to one of the officials from the Ministry of the Interior who agreed to talk with DIVERGENTES under condition of anonymity, restrictions on leaving the country were applied previously in a selective way against opponents who questioned the Sandinista administration. Nevertheless, since the latest sanctions imposed by the United States and other governments in the international community, the order is more radical. The sign that alerted the regime in terms of its allies and functionaries was the departure of the major commissioner from Nueva Segovia, Javier Martínez, who requested asylum some weeks ago in the United States.
Even though Martínez had not made any public statements in the United States against the government, the source from migration maintains that within the regime they now consider him a “traitor”. “That is why there are more restictions on the air and land borders. They are not going to repeat the same mistake,” sustained the official.
This restrictive order on departures is carried out by the Ministry of Migration and Immigration and coordinated with the Ministry of the Interior. In the case of Nicaraguans who are traveling by air, the employees of immigration request the passenger lists from the airlines 24 hours in advance. This allows them to investigate people who want to leave the country.
“Prior to 2018 and COVID-19, Migration requested the lists one hour before boarding. Then with the pandemic they asked for it 24 hours in advance, because they alleged that they needed to know this information in other countries,” revealed a source connected to the Interior, who explained that the regime is using a “legal” mechanism to control who enters and who leaves the country.
The daily newspaper La Prensa reported this week that the Ortega Murillo regime had expanded a list of citizens who could not leave the country, and who, if they tried to, would have their passports detained. According to the journalistic note, now they would include peasants, leaders of private enterprises, activists and independent journalists.
One of the sources consulted by DIVERGENTES confirmed that prior to the radicalization of this measure, there did exist a list which included well known political and business figures, as well as independent journalists critical of the government and priests of the Catholic Church. Even though they might be on that list, they were not abruptly detained and many times it depended, whether they traveled or not, on the disposition of the migrations official that dealt with them.
The sources insist that this iron-clad control on departures imposed on opponents and Sandinista associates responds to the sanctions that the international community has applied after not recognizing the results of the “electoral farse” of this past November 7, when the presidential couple sealed their continuity in power. In the last nine days the administration of Joe Biden has increased pressure on the Ortega Murillos, approving laws, sanctions and decrees. This series of measures form part of the recently approved Renacer Law, and seeks to have political and economic impacts which might cause the inability of public officials to move about.
Last Tuesday Biden decreed migratory restrictions on members of the regime, including Ortega and Murillo. This measure emulates what president Ronald Reagan imposed in 1988, during the war of the 1980s between the Sandinistas and the counterrevolution. Simultaneously the president of the United States issued a declaration of emergency which the Trump administration implemented in November 2019, after the violations committed by the Sandinistas in the protests of that year.
“The only option is to leave through blind spots, but surely they are going to increase the presence of Police and military. We will end up like Cuba” stated one of the sources from the official party consulted for this article. More and more, he added, there is more uncertainty and discontent among mid-range public officials.
“They look for you in Google and do not let you leave.”
Departures by land are also watched by immigration officials. Some months ago, only those who were on the list were detained and returned to their cities of origin. In many cases their passports were confiscated. Also, some members of business chambers had imposed de facto migratory restrictions (who are not speaking out of fear).
Recently, Alejandro Martínez Cuenca, who directs the International Foundation for the Global Economic Challenge (FIDEG), the same institution which was raided this past November 4th, was not able to travel. Martínez Cuenca did not respond to our call to learn more details about his case. The sources maintain that the wife of businessman Gerardo Baltodano, María Caridad González Chamorro, also was not able to leave through the airport.
The restrictive measure affects the relatives of political prisoners as well. They did not allow María Josefina Gurdián, better known as Pinita, to enter Costa Rica for a medical checkup. She is the mother of Ana Margarita Vijíl and grandmother of Tamara Dávila, prisoners in the El Chipote jail. Gurdián was traveling with one of her daughters in a bus and on arriving at the Peñas Blancas post, an immigration official with a list in hand read their names, went up to both of them, and asked them to turn over their passports.
Another recent case is that of Mons. Silvio Fonseca. He was traveling on November 7th to the United States, but on getting to where the immigration agents were, one of them informed him that he could not leave the country, because his documentation presented problems and that it could not be read by the system.
A source at the airport consulted for this article revealed that the “expansion of the list” that they had, in order to keep opponents or allies from leaving the country, now is fed with information that the migration officials “fish up” from social networks ,like Facebook, Twitter or any statements offered in the communications media.
“They look you up on Google, they find you and then they do not let you leave”, explained the source. Another official consulted added that one of the excuses that they used before the order became more strict was to report that the passport was bad, or that the system was down, as what happened with Mons. Silvio Fonseca.
Focus on middle range officials
Even though the regime expanded “the list” of opponents and businesspeople who question the violation of human rights that they carried out in the country, in the judgement of the political scientist José Alcázar, the departure restriction measure and oversight is aimed at mid-range officials who participated in the repression and human rights violations starting in 2018, but who were not as involved as those of higher rank.
“It functions this way in Cuba. There is no functionary who is safe. And in Nicaragua it will be similar. Most are going to be the object of oversight. To the extent that the paranoia continues to grow, and the regime continues deteriorating, the pressure will be much greater. The high ranking people are clear that the rats are going to jump off the ship, so they are going to keep them in a cage,” said Alcázar.
These mid-range officials who Alcázar refers to are prosecutors, judges, majors, or captains in the National Army. “The measure is not for Gustavo Porras, Edwin Castro or Ramón Avellán, who are already well marked. It is for people who are under that level,” he added.
The political scientist pointed out that the restriction on leaving for families of functionaries is only to blackmail the mid-range employee who might decide to leave for the United States or another country, to report to the international community about the operations of the Sandinista regime.
“The regime is clear that if it allows the departure of the wife of an official, their children or brothers and sisters, and later the flight of the person of their interest, they are not going to be able to stop any denouncement. They are instruments that can be turned into hostages to shut up people,” revealed the political scientist, who added that it is possible that some of the mid -range employees who might think about leaving might already have an order restricting their migration without knowing it.
The analysis of Alcázar on the blockage of the departure from Nicaragua to another country has to do with making things more complicated for the citizens who question the government. In other words, taking away their passport so that they do not have opportunities to travel from another country to the destination of their choice. In addition to sending a message that if they leave the country, they will not be able to return again.
“There is something very important that we should point out: most of the opponents who want to leave the country and are refused, attempted to travel for health issues or for business. They were not necessarily thinking of abandoning the country. Alcázar thinks that the regime is trying to “make life hard” for those citizens and strike terror as a counter blow to the sanctions that different governments imposed. “They say ´you sanctioned us, well we have sanctioned those who we have taken prisoner and sanctioned those who we have confined in the national territory.´ That is the logic of the regime,” he ended.