Central America
The endless wait for word on loved ones arrested in Nicaragua
Every day, family members of the 21 opposition figures rounded up in Nicaragua in the past month visit the prison where they think their loved ones are held. Every day they leave disappointed, with no contact and no news.
“Some have been (held) for 31 days and no one” has been allowed to see them, “not even the lawyers,” said Martha Urcuyo, wife of detainee Pedro Chamorro.
“We hope that they are here,” she told AFP on one of her regular, but fruitless, visits to El Chipote prison southwest of Managua with other spouses, parents and children of the 21 seized in house raids and nighttime arrests which began on June 2.
Chamorro, a journalist, former opposition lawmaker and son of ex-president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, was arrested on June 25 on charges of “inciting foreign interference” and “applauding” sanctions against Nicaragua.
His was the most recent arrest in the raids that have netted five presidential candidates including his sister Cristiana Chamorro — a favorite to beat Ortega in the November poll. She is under house arrest.
The siblings’ mother had beaten Ortega in 1990, ending an 11-year spell for the ex-guerilla at Nicaragua’s helm. He returned in 2007 and has twice won re-election since then.
Ortega accuses the detainees, who include critics, politicians, businessmen and former comrades, of being “criminals” seeking to overthrow him with US backing.
Under threat, several other Ortega opponents have fled the country ahead of the election in which he is widely expected to seek a fourth consecutive term, though he has not said so.
Most of the detainees face charges under a new law initiated by Ortega’s government and approved by parliament in December to defend Nicaragua’s “sovereignty.”
The law has been widely criticized as a means of freezing out challengers and silencing opponents.
– “We know nothing’ –
The international community has condemned Ortega’s crackdown and called for the release of the detainees.
But neither the outcry nor fresh US sanctions against Ortega allies have stopped the parade of detainees to El Chipote pre-trial prison — where rights groups have reported numerous instances of beatings and mistreatment in recent years.
It has been torture for loved ones as well.
“We always bring food, and then go back home with it,” Urcuyo said as she approached the jail bearing a recyclable plastic shopping bag with goodies for her husband, squaring her shoulders as she walked past a line of police in riot gear.
“We come three times a day and the only thing they (the guards) take from us is water,” she added.
Arlen Tinoco, the daughter of detained former foreign minister Victor Tinoco, said “we know nothing” about the fate of the prisoners.
“They have not informed us, they have not said anything. They have not allowed them (the prisoners) to see lawyers, we have zero information.”
A firebrand Marxist in his younger days, Ortega and his Sandinistas toppled a corrupt autocratic regime to popular applause and seized control of the country in 1979.
But opponents have increasingly denounced a descent into dictatorship, nepotism and corruption under Ortega, who leads the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
His vice president is also his wife, Rosario Murillo.
Last week, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet urged the UN’s Human Rights Council to hold the Ortega government to account for “serious violations committed since April 2018,” including the recent arrests.
Rallies demanding the resignation of Ortega and Murillo broke out that year, but a violent clampdown claimed 328 lives, according to rights bodies, while hundreds were imprisoned and some 100,000 Nicaraguans fled into exile.
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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