Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua shuts down 1,500 nonprofits and exiles two more priests

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 20, 2024 / 16:06 pm (CNA).

The dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, in Nicaragua have canceled the legal status of 1,500 nonprofit organizations — also known as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) — including Caritas of Granada and a large number of Catholic and evangelical associations in addition to exiling two more Catholic priests to Rome.

The decision to cancel the 1,500 organizations was announced through ministerial agreement 38-2024-OSFL, published on Aug. 19 in the official government newspaper La Gaceta and signed by the head of the Ministry of the Interior of Nicaragua, María Amelia Coronel Kinloch.

The text states that the 1,500 nonprofits “have failed to comply with their obligations” such as failing to report “their financial statements for periods of between 1 and up to 35 years.”

The ministerial agreement specifies that the attorney general’s office must transfer the liquid and fixed assets of all these organizations “to the State of Nicaragua.”

According to the newspaper La Prensa, this is the first time that the government has closed such a large number of nonprofits through a single ministerial agreement.

This action took place four days after the dictatorship announced a new way of working with NGOs, requiring them to make “alliances” with the state in order to control them.

678 Catholic and evangelical NGOs canceled

There are 678 Catholic and evangelical NGOs in the group that have been canceled, including Bethel Church, Rivers of Living Water, Prince of Peace, House of the King Church, The Rock Christian Church in Nicaragua, the Educating in Faith Foundation, the Brotherhood of Nicaraguan Evangelical Pastors, the Christian Foundation More than Conquerors, the Religious Congregation Mother of the Divine Shepherd, the Association for the Secular Franciscan Order, and the Association of Salesian Ladies.

Other groups were also canceled such as the Nicaraguan Association for Sexual Diversity Rights, the Trans Network of Nicaragua, the Monimbo Indigenous Movement, the Foundation for Business Development of Matagalpa, the Camilo Ortega Saavedra Association of Retirees and Pensioners, and the Association of Hotels of Nicaragua.

According to La Prensa, these 1,500 nonprofits are in addition to another 3,600 that have already been canceled by the dictatorship since 2018.

Martha Patricia Molina, researcher and author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” — which in its fifth installment on Aug. 15 cited 870 attacks by the dictatorship against the Catholic Church since 2018 — lamented the closure of the 1,500 nonprofits.

Regarding Caritas Granada, she noted that this Catholic arm of solidarity helped people during the COVID-19 pandemic in addition to having “different food and education programs, and even helped out the Sandinista Police.”

“Today, a chapter closes in Granada because SANDINISMO [the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship], which is blood and death, has arbitrarily canceled its legal status and will proceed to confiscate its properties and steal liquid assets and bank accounts,” she lamented.

“A fundamental part of our fight for democracy is the relentless denunciation of the atrocities perpetrated by the criminal Ortega regime against the Nicaraguan people,” said Felix Maradiaga, former presidential candidate and president of the Freedom for Nicaragua Foundation.

“We cannot remain silent while this dictator closes [1,500] NGOs, suffocating civil society and violating the rights of thousands of citizens. Yesterday we began a tour of international organizations, media outlets, and opinion leaders with the aim of unmasking the devastating consequences of this brutal and unprecedented act,” he emphasized.

Former Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Arturo McFields, posted a video on X in which he stated that the “Nicaragua dictatorship commits crimes against humanity against the Catholic and evangelical church. It’s a Hitler-style extermination operation.”

Two more priests exiled from Nicaragua

According to the newspaper Mosaico, which covers the main events in the towns of Matagalpa and Jinotega in Nicaragua, since Aug. 15 two more priests have been exiled to Rome: Denis Martínez García and Leonel Balmaceda from the Dioceses of Matagalpa and Estelí, respectively, who were arrested by the dictatorship only a few days ago.

Unlike the last priests that were exiled, this time the dictatorship has not made any statement on the matter.

A priest living in exile, whom Mosaico did not identify for security reasons, pointed out that this silence by the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship would  be seeking to “avoid international scrutiny. By not issuing any statement, [Ortega and Murillo] could be trying to reduce the visibility of their repressive acts and thus reduce the pressure from international organizations and foreign governments.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.