Spain grants nationality to Cristiana Chamorro, her brother Carlos Fernando and 12 other exiles

The “short term” promised yesterday by José Manuel Albares, Foreign Minister, to the Nicaraguan opponents during their meeting in Washington was a matter of hours. The Official State Gazette (BOE) has published today the names of the first 14 exiled by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega who have obtained Spanish nationality. And at the head is Cristiana Chamorro, the main favorite for the 2021 presidential elections and one of the seven candidates detained by the Sandinista regime..

Along with her also appears her brother Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a prestigious journalist and founder and editor of Confidencial, one of the reference media in the Central American country.. Both are sons of former president Violeta Barrios, the “Mother of Democracy”, who by surprise defeated Ortega himself in the 1990 elections at the head of a great alliance.

“My thanks to the Government of Spain for granting us Spanish nationality to the first 14 of a list of 81 applicants, who were stripped of our Nicaraguan nationality by the Ortega Murillo dictatorship. A gesture of democratic solidarity that honors Spain”, reacted Carlos F. Chamorro through his social networks.

Ana Margarita Vijil, who was president of the Sandinista Renewal Movement and one of Ortega's main opponents from the ranks of the Sandinista dissidence, and her niece, the activist Tamara Dávila, are also among the first to benefit from the Council of Ministers. Dávila starred in a vibrant speech before the Organization of American States (OAS), in which he demanded that the hostages held by the dictatorship in the country, many of them his relatives, meet abroad. These two women suffered a particularly harsh regime during their year and a half in prison, being held incommunicado and in inhumane conditions.. They were not even allowed to receive visits from their relatives.

“It is a tremendous gesture of solidarity with me and with the rest of Nicaraguans.. I will always continue to be Nicaraguan and I will always work to return to that free, beautiful, democratic Nicaragua,” stressed Vijil, who recalled that 45 people are still in the dungeons of the Ortega/Murillo couple, including the rebel bishop, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez.

The lawyer Azahaléa Solís; the journalist Camilo de Castro, son of the poet Gioconda Belli, exiled in Madrid; Gertrudis Guerrero, the wife of the writer Sergio Ramírez, also a refugee in Spain; the activist Alexa Zamora; the priest Carlos Adolfo Zeledón and the human rights activist Álvaro Leyva are also part of this first group.

“It is a very important step. This sets the bar high for the rest of the international community, concrete and tangible actions are the ones that have the best results,” Zamora told EL MUNDO..

“Spain is home to the defenders of democracy and freedom. More (nationalizations) will follow,” Albares announced on Twitter.. During the meeting, the Spanish chancellor made it clear to his interlocutors that these concessions will continue over the next few weeks until completing the almost one hundred that have been claimed so far.

All of them are part of the group of 222 political prisoners exiled by Ortega in February to Washington and the subsequent one, which numbered around one hundred and who were already in exile. All of them were declared “stateless” and have not only lost their nationality, but also their property and accounts, as well as their citizenship rights in perpetuity.

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