A significant political tremor was caused by the NY Times story May 6 of attempts by the Ortega regime to reach out to Biden to offer the release of political prisoners in exchange for lessening the sanctions against the dictatorial family. It confirmed what many analysts have said from the beginning: that the principal reason for their imprisonment was to use them as hostages for leverage in future negotiations. This partly explains the extremely harsh treatment of the prisoners. This brief piece points out the inherent contradictions in this approach for the dictator who gained fame by fighting a dictator.
Letter to Extortionist Comandante Daniel Ortega
By Paolo Luers, May 6, 2022 in Elsalvador.com
It is incredible has far you have come: from combatant for the overthrow of the dictatorship of Somoza to president of Nicaragua, to dictator and now to an extortionist who takes hostages and offers to exchange them for lifting the financial sanctions that the United States imposed on your entire family.
This is exactly what you sent your son Laureano to offer the Biden government. We were able to read that today in the New York Times. This confirmed what many of us had always maintained: the political prisoners that you have imprisoned under inhumane conditions are your hostages and you are a vile extortionist.
What an ironic and cynical turn in history! When you were in Somoza´s jail, you were also a hostage. The dictator offered to free you in exchange for saving the life of his brother, General José Somoza. He, along with other famous figures of the regime, were partying in the home of José María Castillo Quant, when it was interrupted by a guerilla commando unit. You were freed and was able to experience the fall of the dictatorship, in order to decades later raise up another one…
To be more precise: 45 years after your liberation, you jailed Hugo Torres, one of the people who led that guerilla operation. Hugo was no longer able to join the list of hostages that you now are offering the government of the United States because you let him die in his jail cell.
When you started to jail all the possible candidates that would have been able to complicate your presidential reelection – and then any opponent who raised their head – the entire international community, including governments that for years have helped and financed you, asked you to free those hostages. No request, no negotiation, no diplomatic negotiation was successful. Why? Because for you the freedom and lives of your prisoners is not a moral or political problems, which could be resolved politically. From the beginning, these political prisoners, the best men and women of Nicaragua, were your hostages. They were chips in a future negotiation of extortion. Because you know well that the United States and Europe were going to apply harsh sanctions that would keep you and all of your clan from enjoying the immense wealth accumulated in international bank accounts.
Obviously, for you and your family members it was not enough to live as kings in Nicaragua. You wanted to live like Russian oligarchs travelling throughout the world. You wanted to invest your stolen money, just as the members of the royal families of Arabia do.
To live in Nicaragua, Cuba or Venezuela, without being able to leave, even for the multimillionaire family members of dictators, is like living in a jail cell, even if it be a golden one. This is the logic of the sanctions that the United States is applying on dictators, their relatives and accomplices. They work. They hurt. So much so that suddenly you are willing to make extortionistic arrangements with “the Empire”.
I hope that this “deal” works for you, no matter how criminal and cynical that it may be. I hope that your hostages do not have to die in their jail cells. Nicaragua is going to need them, once you and your tyrannical regime fall. And you are going to fall, with or without the sanctions.
Mark my words.