Ortega-Murillo dictatorship orders freezing the bank accounts of the UCA
August 9, 2023 in DIVERGENTES
A source linked to MIGOB reported that the university authorities were notified of the decision this Wednesday. For its part, through an email, the Jesuit institution explained to its collaborators and students that “for reasons outside our will we are not receiving payments for tuition or services for any of the bodies of the university.” The regime insists on asphyxiating the alma mater, even though for now it is not known whether this freezing of assets means the closure of one of the most important and historical campuses of Nicaragua.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo ordered the freezing of the bank accounts of the Central American University (UCA) and of some of its highest board members, according to what a source connected to the Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB) confided to DIVERGENTES under condition of anonymity. The disposition was transferred to the university authorities this Wednesday in the morning, without greater details known yet.
The source consulted by this communications media explained that the authorities of the Sandinista regime did not inform the UCA whether there exists or not an investigation over the origin of the funds. Nor did they manifest “narrowing differences for an eventual negotiation.” Up to now the freeze is managed with a lot of secrecy by both parties. Nevertheless, other sources linked to the university confirmed the freeze to DIVERGENTES.
For its part the UCA, through an institutional email to its collaborators and the student community, reported that “due to inconveniences in our channels and means for payment outside of our will” they were not receiving payments for tuition or services from any of the bodies of the university. “We regret the inconveniences, and we will be informing you once it is possible to process payments in our central bank and alternate channels,” specified the email sent around 9:15 in the morning.
DIVERGENTES called the Institutional Communications area of the UCA to ask about the supposed freezing of the accounts. Nevertheless, the receptionist explained that “they do not have more details about this.” We also sent an email to public relations. Nevertheless, we had not received a response by the time of the publication of this article.
This online media spoke with collaborators of the university institution, and they pointed out that the only information that they had was the email that the UCA sent them this Wednesday morning. On campus internal organizational and financial movements were reported, “to reduce the impact of a measure like this freezing of accounts,” according to a source connected to the UCA.
Since 2021 the UCA has found itself in an accreditation process with the National Evaluation and Accreditation Council (CNEA). A source confided in DIVERGENTES that this has kept them from updating their board members formally before governmental and financial institutions (banks). Since this updating of information did not occur, the regime is pressuring through the Superintendency of Banks and Other Financial Institutions (SIBOIF) to close them down “for financial administrative reasons,” according to this source. A measure similar to the one applied to thousands of NGOs closed down by the regime.
Reprisals against the UCA step by step
Since April 2018 the repression of the regime against the UCA increased, as a reprisal after the role that the institution and its students played in the rebellion in Nicaragua. The regime first tried to economically suffocate it and then harassed it through audits of the National University Council (CNU). In March of last year it ordered taking away their constitutional 6%, when it was separated from the CNU and a reform to Law 89 was approved, the Law for the Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education.
The former president, José Idiáquez, and the Vice President, Jorge Huete, were banished last year, by refusing their entry into the country after they went on trips outside the country. At the top of the institution was left Fr. Rolando Enrique Alvarado López, who is the current president of the UCA.
Fr. Idiáquez denounced in 2018 that they sent him death threats and blamed the government of Ortega for whatever might happen to him. “Ortega is going to end up as a murderer”, Idiáquez said on June 15, 2018 to the newspaper El País. These declarations were made after the fact that on May 30, 2018 Fr. Idiáquez opened the gates of the UCA to provide refuge to more than 5,000 people during the attack on the Mother´s Day March, one of the largest demonstrations in which thousands of people expressed their solidarity with the mothers and relatives of those murdered in April of that year.
In the last five years the authorities of the UCA have been harassed in two ways: on the part of the National University Council (CNU), the lead organization of higher education in Nicaragua, and the General Tax Office (DGI).
The harassment of the CNU was exhaustive and extraordinary reviews of the accreditation of majors and masters programs which were onerous and created enormous work for those responsible. “They asked the UCA for those accreditations with a special animosity,” said the source.
What followed was to deny them their annual permit through the Ministry of the Interior, another one of the actions which the regime carries out against Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to keep them in a state of illegality. Along with this, they would ask for updated information about their records, but they would not provide them with documentary proof of those records, nor would they give them the annual permit. They have not given the UCA the permit since 2019. This results in a legal limbo which creates doubts for the national banks about approving transactions or financing.
The UCA was the cradle of the students who protested over the fires in the Indio Maíz Biosphere Reserve and then over the reform to the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS). Several of the students who challenged the dictator, like Lesther Alemán, were from that campus. Alemán was declared guilty for the supposed crime of “conspiracy to commit harm to the national integrity” and remained in prison for more than a year and a half, until he was finally banished six months ago.
One of the first measures of the regime against the UCA was cutting the budgetary assignment to try to suffocate it economically. This affected the scholarship students who feared a definitive closing. The authorities of the UCA said at that time that these measures “affect the possibilities of the University to continue granting complete and partial scholarships to students who because of their economic and social conditions saw themselves prevented from dealing with the costs of their university formation.” The campus authorities added that “up to now the University has not affected the active scholarships, nevertheless, it has significantly limited the number of new scholarships granted to aspiring new students.”
Confiscation of universities
The cancelations and confiscations of private universities started in 2021. Since then, at least 26 schools were reported eliminated, through MIGOB and the CNEA. This latter institution argued in most cases that the universities did not comply with the “minimal quality standards.” The justifications for the closings of the universities go from accusations of money laundering of the Universidad Hispanoamericana (UHISPAM), “falsifying information” and not reporting their financial statements and not registering as foreign agents. In recent months the justifications are that the academic program is inconsistent or that they do not have adequate infrastructure.
Experts in higher education think that the cancelations are part of a plan of complete control of the Sandinista regime over all the levels of Nicaraguan education. Professors, former presidents, students, and political scientists consulted agree that the ruling couple intends to eliminate university plurality and free thought.
The digital media Confidencial revealed that there currently are 13 universities which are waiting for accreditation, among them the Central American University (UCA), the Universidad American College (UAC); the American University (LAU); the Universidad Central de Nicaragua (UCN); and the Universidad de Administración, Comercio y Aduana (UNACAD), among others.
Control over the universities is one of the last targets of the Sandinista Front. The first measures were expelling hundreds of students and eliminating their academic records. In addition, it increased the surveillance of public campuses through the National Student Union (UNEN), the Sandinista arm in the public universities.
For now, it is not known whether this freezing of the bank accounts means the end of the UCA which, in spite of the attacks suffered by the regime, has resisted.
The Sandinista pressured the UCA in the 1980s
One of the principal problems which the UCA confronted during the first Sandinista government was precisely economic. Since the State absorbed all the institutions of higher education, the UCA began to depend on the State resources, and therefore, this caused conditioning. For example, a representative of the government was accepted on the Board of Directors of the university.
The relationship of the UCA with the Sandinista government had its ups and downs. Nevertheless, it was never broken because several of the authorities of the UCA had a good relationship with the government. In addition, presidents like Amando López, tried to calm tensions by agreeing to the pressure of the Sandinistas, even though this brought him criticism. “Maybe what the critics were not able to understand was the level of pressure and the threat situation which hung over the UCA, in a moment in which the Sandinista Front had unlimited capacities to implement their system.” This period is described by the Board of Directors of 1982 “as one of the most difficult periods in the history of the UCA.”
The UCA was founded in 1961. It offered the majors of Engineering, Business Administration and Law. Daniel Ortega was a law student in its first years, but he withdrew in 1963 to join the Sandinista Front. In 1990 the President César Jerez even gave the Sandinista strongman an honorary doctorate. Juan Carlos Ortega graduated with a major in Social Communications, and Daniel Edmundo Ortega with a degree in Sociology, two sons of the couple.
Several Sandinista leaders graduated from the UCA, like Casimiro Sotelo, Julio Buitrago, Bayardo Arce and the deputy Wálmaro Gutiérrez, to mention a few.