The communist Ortega regime in Nicaragua began a new wave of property seizures against political dissidents over the weekend. All those reportedly targeted were banished from their country and stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship earlier this year.
The Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported on Tuesday that writer Gioconda Belli, her son Camilo de Castro, former Foreign Ministers Norman Caldera and Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, human rights activists Haydee Castillo and Gonzalo Carrión, and former Sandinista Moisés Hassan are among those who had their properties seized by the Ortega regime.
“Yesterday the Ortega Murillo dictatorship consummated the confiscation of my home in Managua, sending police to occupy it,” Belli denounced on Twitter on Tuesday. “It is a house that will forever contain the memory of my creative energy, the imprint of my books and the landscape I loved most. What it was remains in me.”
Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli (giaconabelli.org)
“Tyrants believe they can subdue people by stripping them of what belongs to them,” she continued. “I lost my house, occupied yesterday by the police, but they, immersed in paranoia and lies, have lost their values, their history, and turned into unhealthy tyrants worthy of repudiation.”
Gonzalo Carrión, a member of the Nicaraguan human rights collective Nicaragua Nunca Mas (“Nicaragua Never Again”), told La Prensa on Tuesday that Nicaraguan authorities had broken into his home on Sunday and his property was seized by Monday. Carrión, currently living in exile in Costa Rica, asserted that his house, located in Managua, was valued at $70,000.
“We paid for that house over 15 years,” Carrión said. “I confirmed my family’s indignation. Those who order and execute the actions are criminals against humanity and thieves. As a human rights defender they are not going to achieve the purpose of silencing us. The confiscation is an evil action.”
La Prensa, a newspaper highly critical of dictator Daniel Ortega, had its building and assets seized by the Ortega regime in August 2022. The newspaper’s journalists are currently living in exile.
In statements given to the Nicaraguan news website 100% Noticias, Carrión said that, although he expected his house to be seized by the Ortega regime, he nonetheless remains outraged. He said his property was the only family asset he possessed, which he intended for his daughters to inherit.
All those that reported having their properties seized by the Ortega regime over the past few days were among a group of 94 Nicaraguan citizens that the Ortega regime banished and stripped of their citizenship on February 15, rendering them “stateless” persons.
The citizens were declared “fugitives from justice,” with Nicaraguan courts ordering the confiscation of their real estate assets and their ownership transferred to the “State of Nicaragua.”
So far, the Ortega regime has stripped 317 Nicaraguans of their nationality, including Matagalpa Bishop Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, who was sentenced to 26 years in prison for “treason” in February. Álvarez reportedly refused to be banished from Nicaragua in July after the Vatican sent a diplomatic representation to Managua to negotiate Álvarez’s release and exile.
Nicaraguan Catholic bishop Rolando Alvarez speaks to the press at the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas church in Managua, on May 20, 2022. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
In recent years, the Ortega regime has continuously seized the properties and assets of political dissidents, media outlets, and organizations critical of the Sandinista regime and its dictator Daniel Ortega, despite Article 44 of the Nicaraguan constitution explicitly forbidding the confiscation of property. Other banished Nicaraguan dissidents have reportedly had their properties confiscated throughout 2023.
In August, Ortega seized all assets that belonged to the Jesuit religious order — including the Jesuit-run Central American University (UCA) in Managua — after he declared the Catholic order of priests illegal.
In addition to brutally repressing dissidents and banishing political prisoners from the country, the Ortega regime has also dramatically increased its persecution of the Catholic Church. Ortega branded Catholic clergy “terrorists” in response to the events of the April 2018 protests in Nicaragua, which had the support and mediation of the Catholic Church.
Over the past year, Ortega has sentenced priests on “fake news” charges, banned some of Nicaragua’s traditional Catholic processions and festivities, banished members of the church, indiscriminately closed down Catholic television channels and radio stations, and frozen the church’s bank assets.
