President Daniel Ortega accused the newspaper La Prensa on Friday night, August 13, of "lending himself to laundering money and hiding the evidence," in the first statements he offered hours after the raid on the premises of Nicaragua's oldest newspaper, investigated for alleged money laundering and customs fraud.
Ortega put himself at the head of the media campaign of the pro-government television stations that justifies the assault against the newspaper founded in 1926 that stopped circulating last Thursday in its printed version after the blocking of the paper executed by the General Directorate of Customs.
"The Prosecutor General's Office and the Police arrived there and found quantities of paper. When you lie in this way, when you slander the state, that is a crime," the president said, supporting the campaign of the propaganda media, which questioned the newspaper's complaint by showing paper in the warehouses, which actually corresponds to another type used in the commercial printing press, usually for the publication of books and posters.
Ortega wondered how much of the paper that the newspaper has introduced tax-free in a year was dedicated to the newspaper and how much to do other types of business, as if it were a prosecutor.
"They have other activities. It is pure business and it is a crime," he said, anticipating a judicial conviction, during his speech at the anniversary ceremony of the Navy, in which he was accompanied by Vice President Rosario Murillo, the Army Command, and the Police Headquarters.
The raid on La Prensa
It was a long day for la Prensa newspaper, which this morning was still occupied by the police. The administrative staff was detained until Saturday morning and its manager Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro was transferred at four in the morning to the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, supposedly to sign some documents, but was detained in the prisons of El Chipote.
The assault on the newspaper's offices began at 12:20 p.m. on Friday, before the police issued a statement announcing an investigation into customs fraud and money laundering.
Since the third of June, Ortega has kept under house arrest the vice president of the newspaper, the presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro,in the investigation process for alleged money laundering opened against the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, which supports freedom of expression and which the Executive falsely places conspiring against the stability of the country. Following the arrest of Chamorro and two former foundation workers, 29 other political and civic leaders have been arrested, including seven presidential hopefuls.
Attack on businessmen and "devil priests"
Businessmen and priests of the Catholic Church were also the target of the president's attack. The religious, who backed the population during the April 2018 crackdown, Ortega called them "priests of the devil." "Son children of the devil, they are not children of God, they are children of the devil those priests," he said.
In his speech, he said that the opponents currently being investigated by the state are the ones who were in charge of financing, organizing, seeking support from the Yankees and directing the "crimes in 2018," which his government described as a "coup d'etat."
However, reports from international organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), attached to the Organization of American States, indicate that what actually happened in Nicaragua was an excessive use of force at the hands of the State, executed by the police and parapolice groups, which left at least 328 dead, more than two thousand injured and caused more than 100,000 people to go into exile. One of the regime's bloodiest attacks occurred with "Operation Clean-up," when authorities set out to violently clear the roads before July 19, 2018, where the population erected barricades to protect themselves from attack by police groups.
Ortega called "murderers" the opponents who refused, according to him, to lift the "blockades" during the national dialogue that failed, among other reasons, because of the government's failure to stop the repression. "Thisis recorded because it was broadcast live on television, because even they asked for it, when it was asked who was against the blockades being lifted, then they raised their hands, those criminals, those murderers, that's why they are terrorists," he charged.
In a hate speech, Ortega said: "Becausethey have surnames of families of abolengo, because they are from notable families and rich families, who because they have been working with bankers, bankers of rich families ... they must respond!" he added.
Against the big businessmen, with whom he maintained a solid alliance between 2009 and 2018, the president also denounced and added that it was those who benefited from his model who "buried the dagger to the fatherland."
"What wild capitalism wants is every day more money, more money at the expense of whatever it is and they cared little at that time about the economic growth that benefited them, because they wanted to swallow everything and they served as an instrument to the Yankee and made alliance with the priests, sons of the devil, and began that work of terror," he added by again mentioning the Catholic Church.
In recent days, the Archdiocese of Managua denounced that there are no conditions for the country to hold votes in reference to those scheduled for the next seven of November, in which Ortega will seek a fourth term since he was installed in the executive in 2007.
The Sandinista caudillo described as "enemies of Nicaraguans who want to work in peace" those who lend themselves "to the interests of imperialism." For him, they "simply stopped being Nicaraguans" and in a sign of their radicalization he said that "there is no longer room for amnesties."
"Whoever commits a crime has to be investigated and then tried and punished in accordance with thelaw. We are already at a stage where we cannot continue to approve amnesty, because it would also be to become terrorists, criminals, there is no space, everything had its time, it had its stage," the president said.
What the international community has demanded is free elections and that Nicaragua respect its own human rights commitments, to which Ortega has responded by accusing the United States,Canada and the European Union of aggression.
Since 2018, the governments of these countries have sanctioned officials in the presidential circle, including Murillo, for violations of the rights of Nicaraguan citizens. Just on Friday, before the police operation in La Prensa, Suiza sanctioned the vice president and did the same with her son Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo and six other officials, for the aforementioned reasons.
At the end of the president's speech, Murillo denounced what he called "factories of lies and crimes," which he believes are in tune with "servility to the Yankee," and again attacked religious who "tried to deceive us all."
"What Commander Daniel called at the time the ultimatum — during the failed dialogue — that the institutions had to be handed over to the criminals. That's what they asked us and of course they lost their bet on crime," he reiterated.
The presidential couple's statements occurred at the military ceremony where Ortega mentioned the possibility of strengthening the Naval and Air Force, also recently an anniversary, "for the defense of sovereignty."
