For president of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, Catholic Church is a “perfect dictatorship”

The head of state refuses the outstretched hand of Pope Francis, who called for the maintenance of dialogue after the repression of members of the Nicaraguan clergy accused of having supported the popular dispute born in 2018.

Le Monde with AFP

ignoring the outstretched hand of the Pope who insisted on the need for “dialogue”, President Nicaraguan, Daniel Ortega, described the Catholic Church of “perfect dictatorship on Wednesday evening, perfect tyranny”, in a context of increasing tension with the Church after the arrest of a critical bishop towards the government and the expulsion of the apostolic nonce.

On the occasion of a speech for the 43 e anniversary of the Nicaraguan police foundation, Mr. Ortega pronounced an indictment against the Church. He went from the Inquisition to violence against Aboriginal children in Canada, including “priests, bishops” Nicaraguans accused of having “armed” the demonstrators who claimed his resignation in 2018 in the context, according to him, “” An attempted coup “at the instigation of American” imperialism “.

” There is a dialogue “

The Nicaraguan authorities have already attacked and harassed, many times, members of the clergy. They call at the end of the repression against the revolt movement born in April 2018 to claim the departure of Mr. Ortega (in power from 1979 to 1990 and since 2007). That year, the police had killed 355 demonstrators, injured 2,000 others and carried out hundreds of arbitrary arrests, according to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

Last March, Nicaragua expelled the Vatican ambassador. In August, M ^{gr Rolando Alvarez, a criticism of the regime, was arrested and “under house arrest”, according to the police who invoked “destabilizing and provocative” activities of the bishop. Pope Francis insisted, on September 15, on the need to maintain the discussion with Nicaragua. “We talked to the government. There is a dialogue. It does not mean that we approve everything that the government does. Or that we disapprove of everything,” said the Argentinian pope.}

“Me, I would tell his holiness the pope, very respectfully, to the Catholic authorities – I am Catholic -: as a Christian, I do not feel represented”, replied Daniel Ortega on Wednesday, evoking “terrible history ” from the church. “We hear them talking about democracy,” he said, recommending that all ecclesiastics are elected by the faithful.

“Bulldog”

m. Ortega also attacked the US Subsecretaire of State Brian A. Nichols, “who continues continuously with statements, who looks like a bulldog, (…) who barks against Cuba, against Venezuela, against Nicaragua “. He also denounced the Government of Chile, whose president, Gabriel Boric, recently criticized human rights violations in Nicaragua. The Chilean government, denounced Mr. Ortega, was “mounted on the basics of a dictatorship, a Pinochetist tyranny and which represses the students”.

The Catholic Church is not the only institution in the crosshairs of Mr. Ortega. According to a diplomatic source, the Nicaraguan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denis Moncada, notified his expulsion to the European Union (EU) ambassador to Managua, Bettina Muscheidt on Wednesday. Mr. Ortega did not confirm this information during his speech.

The EU and the United States have imposed numerous sanctions in Nicaragua and personalities of the regime for four years, notably invoking human rights violations. The EU also requested the release of more than 200 imprisoned opponents.