La Prensa, March 11, 2026
The report uncovers the fact that the regime “acted in the style of transnational organized crime” according to analysts.
The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) presented this Tuesday a report which reveals how the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo financed repression and an espionage network against those in exile. For victims of the regime and human rights defenders, the document is “devastating” because it shows violations to the sovereignty, principally of Costa Rica, and keeps Nicaragua on the international agenda.
This report, which is based on 73 interviews and more than 1,700 documents, identifies 26 “key” operators of the regime in transnational human rights violations and shows how government funds “were redirected to finance violent security operations,” among which they highlight the well known “Cleanup Operation” of 2018.
“The GHREN report is devastating. Once again it exposes the monstrosity of the Ortega State, about how it has completely focused public institutions on the tasks of repression instead of being at the service of Nicaraguans,” explains the lawyer Danny Ramírez-Ayérdiz from the Interamerican Center for Legal Assistance on Human Rights (CALIDH).
For the defender, “there is no room for doubt” that the Ortega-Murillo regime “acts in the style of transnational organized crime” with cells outside the country who are responsible for gathering information, tracking and monitoring exiles in different countries, principally Costa Rica, where most Nicaraguans who have fled the persecution are located.
With this report the situation of the Nicaraguan people stays on the international agenda, says the lawyer Gonzalo Carrión, from the Nicaraguan Nunca Mas Human Rights Collective. “Nicaragua continues being observed, audited, on the agenda and being highlighted for serious human rights violations, and above all the demand that they be held accountable,” he added.
Regime remains silent
After the “devastating” report was made known where the UN experts point out that the dictatorship diverted more than $5 million dollars in 2 months to finance the repression, the co-dictator Rosario Murillo did not say one word about it in her daily address to the official media.
In contrast to February 28, 2025, when they decided to withdraw Nicaragua from the Human Rights Council after a report from the UN, the co-dictator limited herself this Tuesday to announcing activities and projects like presenting land, homes and streets. In her declarations, as she customarily does, she included the word “peace” on several occasions, but without insisting as much as other times. She left out her vitriolic discourse against dissidents and threats on exiles and their families.
“We repudiate all the insults, all the offenses, all the falsifications, all the aggressions, everything which constitutes the colonialist policy which guides the actions of organizations which should serve the good of all,” said Murillo, at the end of February 2025 when they withdrew from the Human Rights Council of the UN.
The co-dictators have tried to keep a low profile after the recent international events like the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the killing of Ayatollah Alí Jameneí, the supreme leader of Iran. The critical situation of two of their rare allies and the conversations between the United States and Cuba have forced them to try to stay under the radar in the face of the constant threats on the part of the Donald Trump administration which has called Murillo herself “illegitimate” and usurping power, believing herself to be a “co-president”.
Foreign Minister “should be held accountable”
In the GHREN report 26 operators of the regime are mentioned as “key” for the transnational human rights violations, among them the current foreign minister and former Minister Advisor to the President for International Policy and Affairs, Valdrack Ludwing Jaentschke Whitaker, named as forming part of a ”high level” decision making group that directed the transnational repression strategy.
Jaentschke Whitaker before getting to the Foreign Ministry occupied posts like minister advisor successively and in an “express” way in Nicaraguan embassies in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica between 2021 and 2023, years in which, as Reed Brody, a GHREN expert, explained to La Prensa, the current foreign minister had carried out missions directed at following dissidents, collecting information and transmitting it to central authorities in Managua.
“Criminals like Jaentschke should be held accountable, be that in Nicaraguan courts when democracy is re-established, in a special ad-hoc tribunal for Nicaragua, or in the International Penal Court. None of them can remain unpunished,” stated the lawyer Ramírez-Ayérdiz.
The last country where Jaentschke was an advisor with consular functions of Nicaragua was Costa Rica. In that country at least four assassination attempts against dissidents were denounced as part of the political persecution of the regime. Two against Joao Maldonado, first just him and in the second one his wife was involved, both survived; and the others were Jaime Luis Ortega Chavarría and the retired major of the Army, Roberto Samcam, these last two died.
The UN experts mention the murder of Samcam in the report. For the widow of the retired major, Claudia Vargas, that mention confirms that “it was not an isolated nor common crime,” she highlighted that her spouse “was murdered in exile because of his critical voice and his commitment to democracy.”
Vargas says that it also means that the fight for justice remains alive and that the truth continues to gain ground in the international spaces. “That they mention Roberto, is painful as a family, but we prefer that it be mentioned to silence, because what is named exists, and what exists cannot be easily erased,” she added.
Violation of international sovereignty
Another of the aspects that the report of GHREN refers to, according to the human rights expert Uriel Pineda, is the violation of the sovereignty of nations where this espionage and repression network of the Ortega-Murillo regime has operated. “This policy of transnational repression also represents a violation of state sovereignty,” he highlighted.
According to the exposition of Pineda, the GHREN report is a call to the international community and a “warning bell” for countries like Costa Rica and others where the “repressive strategy” of the regime “has violated and affected the aspect of sovereignty.”
“These countries should redouble their security strategy and not lose sight of these actions that these actors of the regime carry out in their respective countries,” recommended the human rights expert.
GHREN reports, starting point for finding justice
The lawyer Danny Ramírez-Ayérdiz emphasized that the GHREN reports, which he considers “undeniable”, are the starting point for bringing the Ortega-Murillo regime and the rest of the “criminals” to justice. And it is in these last reports, and particularly in the one of Tuesday, that the UN experts put emphasis on the fact that the Nicaraguan dictatorship should be taken to the International Court of Justice (CIJ) and exhorts nations to begin the process.
On this point, Uriel Pineda explains that activating an international jurisdictional mechanism is complex, but that without a doubt it is pertinent to insist on the fact that there are international bodies that can help in terms of human rights in Nicaragua and the re-establishment of democracy.