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Recent Appearances...

Caribbean-Latin America

Panama Detects Increase in Chinese Migrants Crossing Darién Gap

2024-09-21

[Breitbart] President of Panama José Raúl Mulino announced on Thursday that local authorities have detected an increase in U.S.-bound Chinese migrants crossing the Darién Gap jungle trail.

The Darién Gap is a 30-mile-wide, 100-mile-long jungle trail that Panama shares with neighboring Colombia and is the only land bridge between South and Central America. In recent years, a dramatic and unprecedented number of migrants have passed through the dangerous jungle trail en route to the United States.

Panama’s Migrant Authority documented 520,085 migrants who crossed the Darién Gap in 2023 — a record-breaking number that doubles the 248,284 logged in 2022. In 2021, authorities documented a total of 133,726 migrants who passed through the trail.

While Venezuelans fleeing the socialist regime in their country amply lead the statistics, Panama’s migration authority documented a notable surge in the number of U.S.-bound Chinese nationals passing through the jungle trail in recent years, going from a total of 296 in the entirety of 2010-2019 to 12,070 during the first eight months of 2024. China is now the fourth-largest group by nationality on the list.

In 2023, local authorities documented 25,565 Chinese migrants who passed through the jungle trail, up from the 2,005 logged in 2022.

“We have gone down in terms of [total migrant flow through the Darién Gap], but citizens from Nepal and China appeared in greater numbers in the last few entries,” Mulino said during a press conference.

Mulino, who took office on July 1, vowed to curb illegal immigration through the Darién Gap throughout his presidential campaign. Shortly after taking office, the new Panamanian government began installing barbed wire fences across some of the jungle trail’s routes and signed an agreement with the United States to establish U.S.-funded deportation flights that reportedly started in August. In that same month, the Panamanian government announced that it would launch deportation flight programs to China, India, Ecuador, and Colombia.

Mulino reportedly said during his Thursday press conference that his government is seeking to reach an agreement with Beijing to deport Chinese nationals passing through the Darién Gap but did not provide further details.

In August, Panamanian authorities announced that officers from the Senafront National Border Service dismantled a “VIP” route that Chinese migrants used to pass through the Darién Gap, arresting 15 individuals who managed it.

The “VIP” route, according to local prosecutors, saw its organizers offer Chinese migrants packages ranging from $2,600 to $8,000 per person for a faster, safer passage through the dangerous jungle trail. Passage through the “VIP” route allowed migrants to cross the jungle trail through a different route than the typical paths migrants take, which can take between five and eight days to complete.

According to Panamanian Prosecutor Emeldo Marquez, at least 700 migrants are believed to have paid for the exclusive route.

The Panamanian government reportedly foresees a considerable reduction of migrants passing through the Darién Gap by the end of 2024 compared to 2023 due to the closure of some trails and repatriation flights.

In addition to Panama, Ecuador began cracking down on illegal Chinese migrants passing through its territory by reinstating entry visa requirements for Chinese nationals in July, suspending a visa waiver agreement signed in January 2015 during the pro-China administration of socialist former President Rafael Correa.

While Panama vowed to curb the migrant flow passing through the Darién Gap, migrants can avoid the dangerous jungle trail altogether by flying to Nicaragua, where communist dictator Daniel Ortega maintains a policy of “weaponization” of migrants against the United States, granting U.S.-bound migrants safe passage through Nicaraguan territory in exchange for several fees and “fines” that have resulted in record-breaking profits for the communist regime.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Nicaragua Changing Law to Allow Mass Confiscations and Transnational Persecution

2024-08-31

Totalitarians gotta total.

[Breitbart] The communist dictator of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, is preparing a change to the country’s criminal code to expand his ability to seize assets en masse and impose lifetime prison sentences on dissidents, including those abroad.

Ortega presented the proposed change to the Nicaraguan National Assembly on Thursday — a formality, as the legislative body is fully stacked with loyalist lawmakers. The change is expected to be approved as early as Tuesday, September 3, according to local outlets.

It will modify 27 articles of the Nicaraguan criminal code. One of the main modifications, the local newspaper Confidencial explained, will be the introduction of the “principle of universality,” which means that Nicaraguan criminal laws will also be applicable to Nicaraguans or foreigners who have committed crimes such as money laundering and terrorism while outside of Nicaraguan territory.

Confidencial pointed out that the Ortega regime has utilized accusations of alleged terrorism, money laundering, and other purported crimes to persecute and imprison dissidents in the past. It has also seized the assets of some 5500 non-governmental organizations in the country through similar accusations.

The modifications will reportedly introduce prison sentences of ten to 15 years for those who call for international sanctions against the Ortega regime, its businesses, or any of its officials. The soon-to-be approved proposal will also increase prison sentences for what the Ortega regime defines as “treason” to a maximum of 30 years. In addition, Ortega’s anti-dissident criminal modifications will allow the communist regime to prosecute dissidents in absentia.

Nicaraguan opposition politician Felix Maradiaga described the upcoming changes to Confidencial as “a dangerous escalation” in the Ortega regime’s repressive strategy.

“This change not only seeks to expand the regime’s ability to persecute opponents within Nicaragua, but also extends its reach beyond national borders, becoming a weapon of transnational repression,” Maradiaga said.

“Ortega is no longer satisfied with imprisoning and expelling the most uncomfortable dissidents, he now intends to try to confiscate the assets of those in exile, expanding his ability to silence the opposition anywhere in the world,” he continued.

Former Nicaraguan lawmaker Eliseo Núñez pointed out to the Nicaraguan newspaper 100% Noticias that any person accused of money laundering, ranging from dissidents to bottom managers of non-governmental organizations, could be sentenced to life imprisonment with the new changes.

“They are putting in there the issue of money laundering and life imprisonment which was not in the Penal Code,” Núñez said. “It must be remembered that the recent constitutional reform establishes that life imprisonment is only for heinous crimes, etcetera, and now they are putting it in the issue of laundering, which is serious.”

Núñez emphasized that most of Ortega’s dissidents and non-governmental organizations have been accused by the communist regime of “money laundering,” which is why he considers that the changes will increase criminalization of the dictator’s opponents.

“The financial relationship that one could have with foreign agents is already criminalized through the Law of Foreign Agents and now they are imposing a penalty that was only reserved for atrocious crimes and other types of crimes and now it is for money laundering,” Núñez stressed.

The former lawmaker said that he does not rule out that the Ortega regime will apply the new laws against its own people.

“They are now on a crusade against themselves – that is, they are also going to use this against their own people. Nobody in that country, even if they declare themselves Ortega supporters or followers of Rosario [Murillo, Ortega’s wife and vice president], nobody is safe,” Núñez said. “So this is designed for those who remain in there, but mainly it is designed for the few NGOs that are still functioning, which are very few.”

Nicaraguan lawyer and human rights activist Yonarqui Martínez told 100% Noticias that the ability to hold trials in absentia against dissidents that the changes will introduce violates the right of due process and will facilitate the confiscation of the dissidents’ properties without a final sentence.

“The novelty is that they are going to judge people who are outside the country, and what kind of evidence the Prosecutor’s Office is going to legalize and it will have the force, it will be valid evidence in trial if you are supposedly committing a crime outside the country,” Martínez said.

The lawyer said the reform will “simplify and perfect” the violation of the right to property of Nicaraguans.

“In fact, they have been taking properties without even trying people, because let’s remember that many people were imprisoned, expelled and [their property] confiscate; now they come without a firm sentence,” Martínez pointed out.

Ortega has dramatically increased his repression of dissidents since the 2018 wave of anti-communist protests, when thousands took to the streets to demand an end to the Ortega regime’s decades-long authoritarian rule of Nicaragua.

In recent years, Ortega has banished dozens of dissidents, seizing their assets and stripping them of their Nicaraguan nationality, rendering them stateless persons in clear violation of international law.

Ortega has also launched a brutal persecution campaign against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church as punishment for its leaders’ support of the anti-communist protesters in 2018. Ortega’s persecution of Catholicism in the country has resulted in the banishment of several of its members, the unjust imprisonment of its priests, the banning of most Catholic processions and traditional festivities, and the forced closure and seizure of Catholic media and universities in the country.

The communist dictator’s crackdown and repression of dissidents most notably features the ongoing aid of Russia, which has assisted Ortega with “retraining” the Nicaraguan police to bolster their repressive capabilities and the installation of a Russian-operated spy center in the Central American nation.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Report: Russia Running Spy Center in Nicaraguan Military Base

2024-08-27

Good to know.

[Breitbart] The Nicaraguan newspaper Confidencial reported on Sunday that Russia established a spy center in one of Nicaragua’s military bases under the auspices of the country’s communist regime.

Confidencial, citing unnamed sources in the Nicaraguan military, warned in its report that the communist regime uses the spy base’s systems to monitor embassies and detect possible “traitors” of dictator Daniel Ortega.

The Russian spy base is reportedly housed in an Army base located in Mount Mokorón, south of the capital city of Managua. The base, known as “Unit 502,” is part of the Nicaraguan Army’s Directorate of Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence (DICIM). According to Confidencial, DICIM processes information received by the Army’s radio direction-finding systems that “geographically locates telephone, television, or radio signals generated in the radioelectric spectrum, as part of the national defense strategy.”

The newspaper claimed that Russia turned the base into one of its main spy centers over several years and that Russian personnel are the only ones who control and manipulate both the equipment and the information obtained, while Nicaraguan officials provide “security” at the base.

The sources explained that the Russian soldiers in the spy base are accompanied by a Nicaraguan lieutenant colonel who serves as a translator to “guide and train” Nicaraguan soldiers.

“The installation and start-up of the Russian spy equipment was supervised by Brigadier General Leonel Gutiérrez López, head of the DICIM,” Confidencial stated, citing the unnamed sources.

One of the sources further explained to Confidencial that Russia installed antennas and other espionage equipment in several Nicaraguan military bases in mid-2017 — the same year that the Ortega regime inaugurated a Russia-Nicaragua Anti-Narcotics Training Center in Managua.

In September 2023, during the 44th anniversary of the Nicaraguan Police, Ortega admitted that the anti-narcotics training center built by Russia helped implement his regime crackdown on dissidents during the 2018 wave of anti-communist protests, when thousands took to the streets to demand an end of the Ortega regime’s decades-long authoritarian rule of Nicaragua. The Ortega regime’s repressive response to the protests left over 300 dead.

Four Russian officers who were the only ones who understood the spy equipment, the source further pointed out, directed the antenna installation process. Nicaraguan officers and soldiers carried out the construction works.

The alleged Russian-run spy center in Mokorón received one such “giant” satellite dish at the end of 2017 alongside other Russian-made equipment installed on one of the base’s surrounding buildings. According to Confidencial, the base now features five antennas.

The base’s original “giant” antenna, one of the sources explained, is “similar” to one installed in the ground station of the Global Navigation Satellite System (Glonass), a base located at the slopes of the Nejapa Lagoon in the outskirts of Managua. The base is believed to also serve as a Russian intelligence center in Nicaragua.

“Everyone talks about the base in Nejapa, but the real Russian espionage center is in Mokorón. Few know of the existence of that satellite dish,” one of the sources told Confidencial.

The newspaper listed eight other locations across the country where the Nicaraguan Army has antennas and other radio listening systems in addition to the Russian spy center in Mount Mokorón, which acts as a coordination center.

The sources warned that Russia provided the listening stations with the SORM-3 software that allows the facilities to spy and listen to the communications of their “targets,” as well as those of the Ortega regime’s “internal enemies.”

Russia has noticeably increased its support to Nicaragua in the past few years, particularly for for the espionage and repression of dissidents following the 2018 wave of anti-communist protests. In March, Ortega authorized the establishment of a Russian-made “Instruction Center” for the “retraining and professional improvement” of the Nicaraguan police that experts have denounced as a possible “cover-up” for another prospective Russian spy agency in the country.

The announcement of the new alleged instruction center occurred weeks after Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolái Pátrushev’s visited Managua in February to sign several agreements with dictator Ortega, including a “cooperation protocol” agreement between Nicaragua’s police and Russia’s Interior Ministry to have Russia “retrain” Nicaraguan police officers to bolster the Ortega regime’s repressive capabilities.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Is PrezOrtega & Wife (and Vice Prez) Murillo's Reign Coming to an end?

2024-08-26

[ForeignPolicy] Last month, Nicaraguan police raided the office and home of Finance Minister Ivan Acosta, who was forced to resign; allegedly for acts of corruption, but more likely because he had fallen out of favor with the presidential couple. Employees in the Finance Ministry now fear a wave of dismissals, similar to those that occurred following Murillo's purge last year of the Supreme Court, which resulted in the mass firing of some 900 government workers; including magistrates, secretaries, janitors, drivers, and even Ortega's first-born son, Camilo Ortega Herrera, who led the court's technical services department.
They canned the IT guy!
On Aug. 6, Nicaraguan news outlet Confidencial reported that in late July, Murillo dismissed Ortega's chief police escort, Commissioner-General Marcos Alberto Acuntilde;a Avilés, who had served as a loyal member of the president's security team since the 1990s.

All this reveals "an internal crisis tied up with the growing power of Rosario Murillo," said Téllez, the former FSLN commander, who served as Nicaragua's health minister from 1979 to 1990. "Rosario is not satisfied with appointees who are unconditionally supportive of Daniel Ortega. She wants people who are unconditionally supportive of her."
-------------------------

lots of family intrigue - Ortega's brother Humberto is in hospital detention, Murillo wants their 2nd oldest son Laureano to succeed Daniel as Prez. Laureano currently controls a lot of foreign affairs and managing the theft of foreign aid.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Russia Plans to Build ~~Oil Refinery~~ Fuel Cache in Cuba

2024-07-24

[Breitbart] The regimes of Russia and Cuba held discussions for the construction of an oil refinery in Cuba following Russian lawmakers’ visit to the island, the Russian state news agency Tass reported on Monday.

The prospective Russian refinery, if built, would become Cuba’s fifth, joining the nation’s four other rundown refineries.

A delegation of Russian lawmakers that Duma Speaker Viacheslav Volodin led traveled to Cuba in July. During the visit, the delegation held meetings with the communist regime’s figurehead president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and the head of the Cuban parliament, Esteban Lazo Hernández.

Volodin landed in Havana after a brief visit to Nicaragua, where he participated as a special guest in celebrations of the forty-fifth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in which dictator Daniel Ortega made public calls for the “disappearance” of the United States.

“Bidens, they come and go. While Cuba exists and will into the future,” Volodin said in reference to U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to drop from the 2024 presidential race.

Duma Deputy Speaker Alexander Babakov, who was part of the Russian delegation, told Tass that the construction of the oil refinery was one of the subjects touched upon during the Russian lawmakers’ whirlwind visit to Havana.

“Cuba has crude oil, it is logical not to import oil products, but to produce them here,” Babakov said. “The largest Russian companies could participate here.”

“In this regard, a possible next step is deeper processing of oil products and including the creation of fertilizers,” he continued.

In recent years, the Castro regime has begun seeking an increased amount of aid from Russia, as Cuba suffers through a severe economic and humanitarian crisis — a direct consequence of more than six decades of communist rule.

Russia, a top financier of the Castro regime during the times of the Soviet Union, resumed its oil shipments to the island nation in late March after a year-long hiatus. The oil shipments seek to help Cuba ease its severe fuel shortages and run its dilapidated power plants, whose failures are causing near-endless power blackouts nationwide. Cubans are reportedly living through some of the most inhumane conditions since the 1959 communist coup.

The increase in Russian oil shipments also seeks to offset the diminishing number of heavily subsidized oil shipments that Cuba receives from the socialist regime in Venezuela, Cuba’s top oil supplier.

Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba have dropped significantly in recent years, as the collapse of socialism in Venezuela and more than two decades of socialist mismanagement greatly diminished the country’s oil output capabilities.

In recent years, the Castro regime has sought foreign investment to help it locate and drill oil offshore on its northern coast with little to no success.

Cuba presently has four run-down refineries, three of which were built by American capital entrepreneurship before Fidel Castro’s coup in the late 1950s. A fourth one, located in the province of Cienfuegos, was built in the 1980s using Soviet technology. While the Cienfuegos refinery was opened in 1991, it was closed down in 1995 after it failed to properly operate.

Venezuela’s socialist regime, under the rule of late dictator Hugo Chávez, helped its ideological mentors by funding the $83 million renovation works of the Cienfuegos refinery through a joint Cuba-Venezuela venture established in 2006. The refinery was reopened in 2007, but it has reportedly endured “ups and downs” throughout the years and required a series of repairs that concluded in November.

In 2008, Venezuela planned to have its state oil company PDVSA build a new refinery in Cuba, providing the $4.3 billion investment required. Construction works for the refinery were slated to conclude in 2015, but the collapse of Venezuela under socialism left the plans on hold.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

U.S. ‘Should Disappear'

2024-07-23

How rude.

[Breitbart] The communist dictator of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega called for the "disappearance of the United States" in remarks over the weekend marking the 45th anniversary of the rise of power of the Sandinista revolution in 1979.

Ortega has controlled Nicaragua for nearly three decades, having first risen to power in 1979 after the Sandinistas overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, and ruled until 1990, when he lost that year’s election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Ortega returned to power in 2007 after winning that year’s election and installed himself a dictator, clinging to power by holding highly fraudulent elections and repressing opponents or general dissidents to his communist rule.

The Ortega regime’s celebrations of the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution on Friday saw the communist dictator accompanied by envoys from the like-minded allies of Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela

...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
, among others. Some of the event’s special guests included Russian Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, who read a message from strongman Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
in which he highlighted the "ties of friendship" between both countries.

Ortega made his call for the disappearance of the United States — Nicaragua’s main trading partner — as he was condemning the U.S. for its support of Israel and its self-defense operations against the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
. Similar to other leftist regimes in the region, Ortega has accused Israel of commiting "genocide" in its self-defense operations against Hamas.

"If we go with that philosophy, we should call for the disappearance of the United States. The first one that should disappear is that State, which is the greatest criminal that humanity has, and not only to go around assassinating peoples, occupying countries, as has happened here in Nicaragua," Ortega said.

"I believe that the time will come when the American people will have no other way but to change, to change towards governments that have respect for the laws, respect for the people, respect for children, respect for schools, respect for im~~migrants~~ colonists," he continued.

Ortega also accused the United States of allegedly waging a "war" against im~~migrants~~ colonists, which he described to be "against the rights of the human species, the right of the human species to be able to move anywhere on Earth."

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Report: Nicaragua Communist Regime Hands over Nation's Gold Mines to China

2024-06-25

[Breitbart] Nicaragua’s communist regime has granted control of the nation’s gold mines to China in dubious and expedited procedures, the Argentine news outlet Infobae reported over the weekend.

Nicaraguan biologist and activist Amaru Ruiz explained to Infobae that the regime of dictator Daniel Ortega has granted at least 13 mining leases over the past six months to three Chinese companies through procedures that are “not normal,” as the leases were approved in an expedited manner and without due process. Some of them were allegedly approved as quickly as two months after being requested.

The 13 lease contracts reportedly grant the Chinese companies Zhong Fu Development, Thomas Metal, and Nicaragua XinXin Linze Minera Group exclusive rights for the exploration and exploitation of mineral deposits spanning nearly 250,000 hectares for a period of 25 years, renewable for an additional 25 years.

The three companies, Infobae stated in its report, would manage 11.66 percent of the entire mining area that communist dictator Daniel Ortega has so far leased, which is estimated at almost 2 million hectares according to official information.

“We don’t even know if there are environmental impact studies with the granting of these concessions,” Ruiz said. “We consider that they do not exist because of the time in which the concession is granted, which is really very short compared to other processes of other companies.”

Gold has become Nicaragua’s top export in recent years, registering over $1.1 billion in gold export revenues during 2023, a 22.4-percent increase when compared to 2022.

In May, the United States imposed sanctions on Comintsa and Capital Mining, two Nicaraguan-based gold companies with ties to the Ortega regime. The Department of the Treasury explained that Comintsa is owned by Salvador Mansell Castrillo, who previously served as Ortega’s energy and mines minister and one of the Ortega regime’s high-ranking offers sanctioned by the United States in 2021.

Similarly, the U.S. Treasury Department explained in its May statement that Capital Mining serves as an intermediary company of the Ortega regime in Nicaragua’s gold sector controlled by Laureano Ortega Murillo, dictator Daniel Ortega’s son.

“The designations of Comintsa and Capital Mining target government-affiliated gold companies generating revenue for the Ortega-Murillo regime,” the Department of the Treasury stated. “Gold is Nicaragua’s top commodity export, and this action aims to degrade the ability of the Ortega-Murillo regime to manipulate the sector and profit from the corrupt operations of Comintsa and Capital Mining.”

America previously imposed sanctions on Nicaragua in October 2022 against the General Directorate of Mines meant to curb the authoritarian Ortega regime’s ability to fund itself from gold mining proceeds.

Link

-Land of the Free

Nicaragua Sees Nearly $1 Billion in Remittances from the U.S. in 3 Months

2024-05-01

[Breitbart] The communist dictatorship of Nicaragua saw a growth of nearly 12 percent in the amount of remittance money emigrants sent to the country during the first quarter of 2024, mainly driven by remittances sent from the United States, according to a report published by the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa on Sunday.

According to statistics from the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN), remittances sent to the country during the first three months of 2024 totaled $1.14 billion, marking an 11.8-percent increase from 2023’s $1.02 billion in the same time period.

Of the $1.14 billion received in the first quarter of 2024, the report states, $930.7 million came from the United States, representing a staggering 81.6 percent of the total. The increase, according to BCN, means Nicaragua remains the Central American country with the most growth in remittances received.

Since 2023, Nicaragua has experienced a dramatic upsurge in the amount of remittance funding received by locals from Nicaraguan citizens abroad who have either fled or been banished from the communist regime. Dictator Daniel Ortega turned remittances into a crucial funding resource for the economically-ailing regime.

La Prensa estimated that some 800,000 Nicaraguas have left their country in recent years due to Ortega’s growing repression after the April 2018 protests, which saw thousands of Nicaraguan citizens flock to the streets to demand the end of communism in their country.

In 2023, Nicaragua received a record-breaking 4.32 billion euros (roughly $4.6 billion) in family remittances, an amount that represented nearly 30 percent of Nicaragua’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Of the total, $3.56 billion came from the United States. In 2022, Nicaragua received a total of $3.22 billion in remittances, or 23 percent of its GDP.

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While the overwhelming majority of the remittances came from the United States, Costa Rica, Spain, Panama, and Canada were all listed as top countries of origin. All five countries collectively amounted to 97.4 percent of all remittances sent.

Reports published in 2023 detailed how the Ortega regime benefits both economically and politically from the increase in remittances.

Nicaraguan analyst José Dávila explained to the outlet Nicaragua Investiga at the time that Ortega’s main benefit from the migrant crisis caused by his communist regime — and the surge in remittances it has led to — is that it calms internal unrest.

“It seems to be the perfect business of the regime that Nicaraguans leave en masse in search of freedom and then send remittances to their families,” Dávila said.

Nicaraguan economist Enrique Sáenz stressed that remittances “are serving as social policy” for the communist regime, as the increase in economic activity means that Ortega does not have to “lift a finger” in terms of wage and social policy.

“These expenditures in consumption contribute to the fact that Nicaraguan businesses – from the neighborhood beauty salon, the grocery store, the barber shop, to the supermarket or the bean and corn producers, etc. – see a growing market through the income of these families, who, without the remittances, would not be able to buy,” he continued. “This contributes to mitigate the social and political unrest.”

Sáenz also stressed that the goods or services paid for with remittances generate direct income to the regime, as all of them are subject to taxation such as the Value Added Tax (VAT), which helps the communist regime balance its budget.

“This definitely helps the Nicaraguan economy in the sense that it finances household consumption and within that consumption many items pay taxes, either the fixed fee or value added,” Sáenz said, “so Ortega also benefits in some way by taxing these transactions that are financed with remittances, and that helps tax revenues.”

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

About half of Nicaragua's population wants to emigrate

2023-12-02

All things being equal, I’d like to move to the America of their imagination, too.

[APNEWS] Lawyer Isabel Lazo’s jobs are being systematically canceled by Nicaragua’s increasingly repressive government.

Lazo worked at a university before the government of President Daniel Ortega closed it. She now is employed at a nongovernmental organization that she fears will soon be shuttered too.

Nicaragua’s poisonous mix of economic decline and repression has led to about half of the country’s population of 6.2 million saying they want to leave their homeland, according to a new study, and 23% saying they had contemplated the possibility deeply enough to consider themselves "very prepared" to emigrate.

"A large proportion of them have already taken concrete steps to try to get out," said Elizabeth Zechmeister, the director of the AmericasBarometer study "The Pulse of Democracy in the Americas."

Link

Home Front: WoT

Hundreds of African migrants sneak into the US in broad daylight after exploiting immigration loophole in Nicaragua that allows them in with no questions asked for just $160

2023-09-21

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] DailyMail.com traveled to Lukeville, Arizona, and saw at least 600 migrants, many of them African refugees, crossing the southern border on one day alone

Baba, a mechanic from the West African nation of Mauritania threw himself to the ground and prayed seconds after squeezing through the steel fence at the Mexican border in Arizona.
Skinny enough to squeeze between the bars.
'Joe Biden opened the door for us,' he gleefully yelled as dusk fell and the migrants waited to be picked up and processed by U.S. authorities.

'I wanted to come here to be free. You cannot put a price on freedom,' added Baba, one of an increasing number of migrants from several African countries who are now joining the influx along the southern border.

But while Baba, 25, thanked Biden's border control policies for the chance of a new life in America, there is really one other person he should be showing his gratitude to.

That man is Daniel Ortega, the 77-year-old long-time strongman in Nicaragua, a close ally of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and an implacable foe of the United States which has imposed sanctions on his country.

For Nicaragua is now playing an increasingly important role in the migrant crisis, allowing in people from all over the world for a $160 fee and then turning a blind eye to where they go next, DailyMail.com has learned. In fact, a regular tourist visa costs just $10, according to the U.S. Embassy there, suggesting the smugglers are getting a hefty mark-up.

Soft-touch entry requirements for nationals of a slew of African countries mean they can purchase a low-cost visa on arrival in its capital, Managua, without any proof of onward travel.

Baba, like many of the young men that DailyMail.com spoke to, claimed that he had paid the $160 for paperwork allowing him to enter that country.

Officials then appear to turn a blind eye to the lucrative people-smuggling business occurring right under their noses, effectively creating a back door into the U.S.

Brazen smugglers even boast on TikTok of how potential asylum-seekers are 'guaranteed' to be let into America once they arrive at its border with Mexico.

'Come and live this experience with us,' says one French language post. 'Next departure is September 18, Ins'allah.' Another read: 'Must be financially prepared and ready for adventure. Once in Mexico you enter the USA without worries so relax.'

The posts promise cheap deals on airfares from West Africa, although who exactly is raking in the proceeds of those sales remains unclear.

It could give rise to the suspicion that Ortega, a long-time foe of the United States whose wife and children have been hit by sanctions, is weaponizing the flow of migrants barely a year before what will be a hotly contested presidential election.

Baba, who was sporting a Liverpool F.C. jersey like his soccer idol Mohammed Salah, came through in Lukeville, Arizona, a tiny town of just 40 people across the border from Sonoyta in the Mexican state of Sonora.

On Saturday, DailyMail.com witnessed at least 600 enter in Lukeville. Coyotes, who were paid to escort them through, cut holes in the fence that is supposed to keep them out.

For the migrants it was the end of what was for some a month-long journey. Baba flew a total of more than 11,300 miles to get to the United States and then had a 3,000 mile trek on land.

'I flew from Mauritania to Istanbul,' Baba explained, barely able to contain his joy at reaching Arizona. 'From there, we took a flight to Bogota in Colombia.

'Once we landed in Colombia, we went to El Salvador and then to Nicaragua.

'It was only there that we left the airport.'

Once he had landed, Baba still had a long and dangerous trek through Central America and Mexico ahead of him. But he had landed in the Americas and now the United States beckoned.

Baba blamed 'repression' in his homeland as his reason for fleeing.

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-Land of the Free

Report: Nicaraguan Communists Using Biden Parole Program to Get into U.S.

2023-07-11

Humanitarian Parole process that allows up to 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan citizens per month to request entry into the United States.
[Breitbart] Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported Monday that communists supporting or belonging to the brutal dictatorship of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega have entered the United States as beneficiaries of the Biden Administration’s humanitarian parole program.

La Prensa’s report is the latest in a series of investigations the newspaper has published detailing the alleged entry of pro-Ortega Nicaraguans into the United States.

Under the administration of leftist President Joe Biden, the Department of Homeland Security implemented a Humanitarian Parole process that allows up to 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan citizens per month to request entry into the United States. Beneficiaries of the program are granted advanced authorization to travel to the United States and are allowed to stay and work for up to two years.

The parole is meant for victims of the repressive leftist regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, as well as those escaping near-anarchic gang violence in Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 — not for those perpetuating the repression and violence.

According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), beneficiaries must identify a financial sponsor, an individual with lawful status in the United States. Beneficiaries must also undergo a “clear and robust security vetting” and comply with USCIS’ eligibility criteria.

La Prensa’s report claimed that, although USCIS clearly requires beneficiaries of the Humanitarian Parole program to undergo security vetting, officials and sympathizers of the Ortega regime have nonetheless entered the United States through the program.

On June 30, La Prensa denounced that Nicaraguan citizen Gabriela Alejandra Rayo Castro had arrived in Miami with her husband Juan Alberto Soza Jarquín. Rayo Castro was described in the report to have acted as a witness of the Ortega regime in the trial against Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa.

Álvarez, arrested by the Ortega regime in August, was sentenced in February to 26 years in prison for “treason” and stripped of all citizenship rights. Last week, negotiations between the Vatican and the Ortega regime failed to secure the priest’s release.

Rayo Castro’s husband, Juan Alberto Soza Jarquín, was described as a known pro-Ortega paramilitary fighter who operates in the city of Matagalpa.

On Saturday, exiled Nicaraguan journalist Miguel Mendoza denounced that Sandinista activists Flor Vallejos Ávila and José David Gutiérrez Beteta had allegedly recently entered the United States as beneficiaries of the Humanitarian Parole process. Mendoza accused both of them of being “ears,” a term used to describe spies who supply the Ortega regime with pictures or information about dissidents abroad.

Mendoza, the journalist, was among the group of 222 political prisoners and dissidents that the Ortega regime banished from Nicaragua in February.

In a similar report, dated June 29, La Prensa denounced that Nicaraguan police sub commissioner María de Jesús Guzmán Gutiérrez had been granted entry into the United States. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, under the administration of former President Donald Trump, sanctioned the Nicaraguan National Police in March 2020 for the institution’s continued human rights abuses.

Similar to the reports of pro-Ortega officials entering the United States, exiled Cuban citizens have accused members of the Communist Castro regime of abusing the program to enter America. Among those the exile community has identified as suspects are Amalio Alfaro Matos, president of the Criminal Chamber of the People’s Provincial Court of Guantánamo, and Eduardo Velázquez Infante, an alleged member of Cuban State Security and former official of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) communist civilian spy network.

Venezuelan citizens have also denounced for many years that former members of the socialist regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro have stayed in the United States through programs such as the “Temporary” Protected Status granted by the Biden Administration in 2021.

In 2020, Martin Sanchez, a former Maduro regime diplomat, was discovered working at Facebook training the algorithms that automatically “classify” content posted by Facebook users.

In January, a group of 21 U.S. states led by Texas filed a lawsuit in Texas court to challenge the Humanitarian Parole program, claiming it failed to follow proper notice and comment procedures and was “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act. They also alleged that the federal government and the Department of Homeland Security had “exceeded [their] statutory authority under the program.” After several postponements, the trial is scheduled to take place on August 24.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Report: Nicaragua Torturing Anti-Communists with Sexual Violence, Russian Roulette

2023-06-04

[Breitbart] The Nicaraguan human rights collective Nicaragua Nunca Mas (“Nicaragua Never Again”) released a report this week accusing the communist Ortega regime of using 40 different types of torture on dozens of political prisoners.

The report documented at least 158 political victims tortured since the Ortega regime launched a crackdown on political dissidents in response to protests in April 2018. The regime’s response to that wave of peaceful anti-communist activity killed hundreds of people in addition to resulting in a significant increase in the number of political prisoners in that country.

The 40 different types of torture that the regime was documented to have used on its victims range from sexual violence against both women and men, forced nudity, extreme and inhumane conditions of detention, beatings, death threats issued to both the victims and their relatives, asphyxiation, temporary forced disappearance, burns, inducement to suicide, Russian roulette games, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, forced ingestion of drugs, food deprivation, intoxication, electric shocks, detachment of fingernails, denial of medical attention, and simulated executions.

Based on testimonies obtained from the victims, the report directly identifies the director of the Nicaraguan Police Francisco Díaz as the main perpetrator of the tortures. Díaz has been an in-law of Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega since 2010, when Díaz’s daughter married Ortega’s son.

In addition to Díaz, the report directly implicates nine regime generals: Fidel Domínguez, Luis Barrantes, Pedro Argueta, Luis Alberto Pérez, Adolfo Marenco, Juan Valle Valle, Vladimir Cerda Moraga and Ramón Avellán. All are direct subordinates of Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo.

The report identified at least 33 police centers where torture took place in addition to seven penitentiary facilities and four clandestine centers, including the “Chipote” prison, where the Ortega regime keeps political prisoners in inhumane conditions.

Nicaraguan lawyer Juan Carlos Arce, a member of the Nicaraguan human rights collective, told the local newspaper Confidencial on Thursday that the Ortega regime has built an entire operative structure to torture dissdents of the regime and, since 2019, the communists have “evolved” their methods of torture, going from physical abuse to “disrupt your body” to more sensory types of torture.

“All these actions were aimed at generating harm, at physically destroying the people who were deprived of their freedom,” Arce said. “They used local government buildings to torture, local government officials tortured and gave the order to paramilitary forces to torture.

Arce added that the main evidence of torture comes from both the testimonies of the victims and their bodies, which showed obvious signs of abuse.

The report detailed how the Ortega regime is using spurious accusations of “treason” against dissidents to strip them of their citizenship, which renders them stateless persons and allows Ortega to exile them.

Since February, the Ortega regime has banished hundreds of dissidents and political prisoners from the country, stripping them of their nationality and seizing all of their assets and properties in the country. Spain has offered to grant Spanish citizenship to the banished Nicaraguans, with the latest group of 18 having received it on Wednesday.

“The arbitrary stripping of their nationality was preceded by a climate of aggressions and harassment, among which the following stand out,” the report documented, “attempts on their lives, health effects due to increased stress, anxiety and insomnia as a result of forced and involuntary displacement to another country, in addition to aggravating ailments they suffered prior to the arrests and during the period of incarceration.”

“Likewise, these persons have had their property confiscated, have been denied their constitutional right to a pension, and have been denied the right to a pension,” it added.

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