Central America
Nicaragua arrests banking executive as clampdown tightens
AFP
Nicaraguan police have arrested a top banking executive as a clampdown on opposition figures and would-be challengers to long-term leader Daniel Ortega tightened ahead of November presidential elections.
Luis Rivas Anduray, executive president of the private Banco de la Produccion (Banpro) — one of Nicaragua’s largest — was arrested Tuesday for “inciting foreign interference,” a police statement said.
His arrest is the latest under a law initiated by Ortega’s government and approved by parliament in December to defend Nicaragua’s “sovereignty.” It is criticized by opponents and rights bodies as a means of freezing out political challengers.
Rivas, also the operations director of the Grupo Promerica — a conglomerate of central American financial institutions — is the 14th person to be arrested in a roundup that started early this month.
Of the detainees, four had declared they would stand in the November elections, in which Ortega is widely expected to also run.
According to the police statement, Rivas is under investigation for “proposing and managing blockades of economic, commercial and financial operations” and for backing sanctions against Nicaragua.
Banpro said in a statement that it operated in adherence with Nicaraguan laws, and was “confident” that Rivas’s “situation will be clarified.”
His arrest is the second of a business figure under the new law. Jose Adan Aguerri, head of the CCIE business federation, was detained on similar charges last week.
Nicaragua has come under fire internationally for the campaign, which began on June 2 when Cristiana Chamorro, the daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was ordered held in house arrest.
The older Chamorro had beaten Ortega in presidential elections in 1990.
The Organization of American States on Tuesday adopted a resolution calling on Nicaragua to “immediately release” those arrested “in the current wave of repression.”
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the resolution which he said concluded that conditions for free and fair elections “do not exist.”
“It is time for the Ortega-Murillo regime to change course… and allow the Nicaraguan people to fully exercise their rights — including their right to choose their leaders in free and fair elections,” he said in a statement.
Rosario Murillo is Ortega’s wife and Nicaragua’s vice president.
The government in Managua on Tuesday defended the arrests of opposition figures it said were “usurpers” funded by the United States to topple Ortega.
Ortega governed Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, then returned to power in 2007. He has won two successive reelections since then.
Now 75, he is accused by the opposition and NGOs of increasing authoritarianism.
Central America
Honduras sees ongoing killings of land defenders and attacks on press, warns NGO
The Association for Participatory Citizenship (ACI PARTICIPA) denounced on Thursday that killings of land defenders and attacks aimed at silencing the press continue in Honduras.
“We continue to see murders of defenders of land and territory, as well as aggressions to silence the press. In 2024, there were 490 attacks and aggressions that constitute human rights violations,” said ACI PARTICIPA’s executive director, Hedme Castro, during the presentation of the 2024 Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Honduras.
Castro noted that the aggressions range “from attempts on lives, threats, harassment, intimidation, and smear campaigns, which have become very frequent, to obstruction of work, surveillance, and criminalization.”
She highlighted that, although only seven defenders were killed in 2024 compared to 24 in 2023, “last year we saw a significantly high number of women murdered, and cases of missing children.”
Moreover, Castro criticized the authorities for failing to address the violence. “There is no response from the authorities to reduce the violence in the country; in fact, I believe that the ‘fathers of the nation’ (members of Parliament) are not setting the right example, and the situation in the Legislative branch is actually fueling violence,” she added, referring to frequent violent incidents in Congress.
The ACI PARTICIPA report also notes that the government led by President Xiomara Castro has made “an important effort over the past two years to improve citizens’ access to basic rights, helping to cushion the effects of economic deterioration, although a decent standard of living has yet to be achieved for the majority of Hondurans.”
Central America
Daniel Ortega’s last historic sandinista ally detained in Managua
Former Sandinista revolutionary commander and presidential economic adviser Bayardo Arce Castaño was arrested on Thursday in Managua for alleged irregular transactions involving state-owned assets, according to local media reports.
The arrest was carried out by agents from the Special Operations Directorate of the Police, who raided his residence in the southern part of the Nicaraguan capital. The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) is investigating Arce for “transactions and/or negotiations” that, according to authorities, do not comply with current legal standards.
Arce, 76, was one of the nine historic commanders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) who led the overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Since 2007, he had served as the economic adviser to dictator Daniel Ortega, and was the last of the historic commanders still aligned with the regime.
The Attorney General’s Office accused Arce of contempt after he refused to appear for questioning about properties registered in his name. Authorities allege that Ricardo Bonilla, Arce’s assistant, was also involved in questionable financial dealings and was jailed after failing to comply with a summons.
Central America
Guatemala transfers top gang leaders to maximum security prison after funeral home massacre
At least 10 top leaders from the two main gangs operating in Guatemala were transferred in recent hours to a high-security prison, where they are now in isolation, following the murder of seven people at a funeral home on Tuesday night.
Guatemala’s Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez announced Thursday through official communication channels that the inmates moved are leaders of the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs, who, in his words, “believed they were untouchable.”
The prisoners were taken from several facilities to the Renovación I Maximum Security Detention Center, inaugurated under the current administration of President Bernardo Arévalo de León and located in the department of Escuintla, about 50 kilometers south of Guatemala City.
The transfer operation involved more than 800 National Civil Police (PNC) officers, who initially faced resistance from the inmates, Jiménez added.
The isolated Barrio 18 leaders include Aldo Duppie Ochoa Mejía (alias El Lobo), Wilder Rodríguez Aguilar, Mayro De León Hernández, Jarvin Leonel Itzoy Cruz, and Manuel de Jesús Rivas Granados.
Also transferred were Jair de León Hernández (alias El Diabólico), Amílcar Galileo Torres Rosales, Nixon Bantes González, Ronal Bosbeli Choc Alemán, and Ángel Gabriel Reyes Marroquín.
The move came after a massacre at a funeral home in the Guatemalan capital, allegedly carried out by members of Mara Salvatrucha while a wake was being held for a supposed Barrio 18 member murdered on Monday. The attack left seven dead and 12 injured.
Jiménez emphasized that the violence in Guatemala is driven by territorial disputes over street-level drug sales and warned: “We will not allow more victims to be created by this gang confrontation.”
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