Ortega-Murillo revive “amnesty”: are they negotiating the freedom of political prisoners?

The newly inaugurated Petro government in Colombia was harshly criticized for not being present for thevote of the OAS condemning the government of Nicaragua for its recent attacks on the Catholic Church, including the house arrest of the Bishop of Matagalpa who is also the Apostolic Administrator for the Diocese of Estelí. Colombia later insinuated that it remained silent so as to not affect negotiations it was involved in “for humanitarian reasons” in Nicaragua. This article combines this fact with a rather long interview that a key Sandinista deputy provided on State TV explaining the use of amnesty in Nicaragua to raise the question as to whether the Ortega government is considering another amnesty.

 

Ortega-Murillo revive “amnesty”: are they negotiating the freedom of political prisoners?

By Franklin Villavicencia in DIVERGENTES Sept 1, 2022

Amnesty is again being dusted off in the official media of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. The topic was revived this past Thursday by the Sandinista deputy Wálmaro Gutiérrez, during a segment led by the propagandist Alberto Mora on Channel 4. Gutiérrez, who is the president of the Economy and Budget Commission of the National Assembly, dedicated more than 40 minutes of the television time to “explaining” what that legal figure consists in and how the dictatorship has applied it in recent years.

“Amnesty laws are the stabilizer of a society that is going through a crisis and needs to take up again the path of peace, progress, stability and well-being,” he said during his exposition.

What is true is that the declarations of Gutiérrez came five days before the regime exhibited the political prisoners held in El Chipote, after those processed spent more than 14 months without being publicly seen. “You have to note that everything seems to indicate that once again the Government of Ortega is negotiating and dialoguing with important figures of the international scenario,” commented the political scientist Pedro Fonseca, an expert in international relations.

“This discourse of amnesty within the cosmovision of the regime is not due precisely to concessions that the government is making in favor of the political changes that Nicaragua deserves. Just the opposite, rather it is simply a matter of concessions, the result of a negotiation process,” added Fonseca.

Amid this scenario within the country, the Minister for Foreign Relations and Peace of Colombia, Álvaro Leyva, stated this Tuesday that the absence of the Colombian delegation in a session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), where the repressive escalation of the regime against the Catholic Church was condemned, “responded to strategic as well as humanitarian reasons, but not ideological ones.” Nevertheless, he did not clarify whether the president Gustavo Petro, a leftist, had some intermediation with Managua in the face of the human rights crisis.

According to the press release published in the official Twitter account of the Foreign Ministry of Colombia, the “window of opportunity for a large humanitarian action in Nicaragua,” coincided with the voting that day, and “diplomatic silence was observed due to the fact that the negotiations that were advancing could not be made public before obtaining a result.”

On the other hand, a Nicaraguan sociologist who, for reasons of safety, asked for anonymity, stated that “these declarations are a preparation for their people”, and could be an indication that “a new legal instrument is under production. What most stands out is that it is not a topic that is on the table, and no one has addressed it.” “These people sound out their constituency in this way, and they do not always have a concise position,” added the source.

“Legal” forgive and forget

According to Gutiérrez, “pardon means that those who could be processed, those who were in process, or those who were sentenced for political crimes or common crimes related to these infractions of a political character, political nature, were pardoned of a punitive action of the State.” It is one of the few times where an official of the dictatorship used the term “political crimes”, because the regime has refused to accept that the trials that they have carried out are trials of conscience.

The Ortega deputy did a recounting of the times in which amnesties have been approved in the country. Gutiérrez mentioned that “between the first and second stage of the revolution 12 amnesties have been approved, 15 in the last 40 years in the history of Nicaragua (…) If there is a political institution in this country that has fought tooth and nail to ensure that Nicaragua be a country of peace, of concord, of harmony for Nicaraguans and of well-being, progress, equity, equality, it has been the Sandinista Front for National Liberation,” he stated.

The last amnesty that the dictatorship granted was in the middle of 2019, after triggering a huntdown of youth and opposition leaders. Nicaragua at that had had spent a little more than a year in social and political crises, and protests were shut down at the point of repression. The National Assembly, with a Sandinista majority, at the beginning of June in that year approved the Amnesty Law with the purpose of “absolving” all the crimes committed during the protests of April and up to the date of the application of the legal norms. Consequently, 56 political prisoners were freed in a first round. Nevertheless, the other face of the measure left a bad taste with the social movements that are opposed to the regime, because it also guaranteed impunity for the crimes committed by police and paramilitaries.

“I have always tried to highlight the idea that for the regime, the political prisoners are bargaining chips,” commented Fonseca, the political scientist. “The only thing that Ortega is doing is ensuring his own well-being and that of his government and, naturally, opting for a win-win. And unfortunately, because basically we are seeing that once again the political prisoners are being used,” he added.

For his part, Gutiérrez said that “if you approve amnesties repeatedly, what you are doing is giving a sign that it does not matter what you do, it does not matter who does it, it does not matter how many times you do it, because sooner or later there is going to be an amnesty that is going to end up pardoning and forgetting you.” In the same sense, he reiterated that amnesties and indults are two figures that can be approved by the Nicaraguan legislature.

“I am one of those who thinks that dialogue and negotiation is the only way out. We possibly could be taking the first step for that potential process of negotiation that we are all awaiting,” specified Fonseca.