2023-08-17 05:57:56
Main entrance of the Central American University (UCA) of Managua. Image: Oswaldo Rivas/AFP/Getty Images
The Central American University (UCA) was the most important and prestigious higher education center in the country.
The Jesuit Central American University (UCA) of Nicaragua announced on Wednesday (08.16.2023) the suspension of all its activities, after a court ordered the confiscation of its assets and funds, after accusing it of being a “center of terrorism.”
“The measures are taken in correspondence with unfounded allegations that the Central American University functioned as a center of terrorism, organizing criminal groups,” said the UCA in a note addressed to the university community, alluding to the 2018 protests that left more than 350 dead.
Founded in 1960 by priests of the Society of Jesus, the university explained that it received an official letter notifying the seizure, ordered by the Tenth Criminal Court of Managua Circumscription Hearings, in charge of Judge Gloria Saavedra Corrales.
In the official letter “it is ordered that the seizure of all the assets described (…) be in favor of the State of Nicaragua, which will guarantee the continuity of all educational programs,” said the university, which also announced the suspension of its academic and administrative activities. from this day.
The government of Daniel Ortega maintains a conflictive relationship with the Catholic Church. The bishop of Matagalpa (north) Rolando Álvarez has been in prison since August 2022 and last February he was sentenced to 26 years in prison, after refusing to be deported to the United States. There are at least two other priests arrested for alleged common crimes.
The Nicaraguan authorities had ordered the freezing of the UCA bank accounts last week, although that information only circulated in independent media.
The government has not issued information on the complaint by the UCA, which has become the 27th university to be closed and confiscated by the Sandinista government since December 2021, a measure that has been criticized by human rights organizations and figures from the academy.
The Central American Province of the Society of Jesus reacted with a statement in which it rejected the government’s serious accusations against the UCA as “totally false and unfounded” and highlighted its “prestigious teaching and research work” during its 63 years of existence.
He pointed out that this “new government aggression” is not “an isolated event”, since since 2018 the UCA has been suffering “constant siege, harassment and harassment” from government institutions, through the non-issuance of certifications by the Ministry of the Interior and other entities and their exclusion from a state fund for higher education.
Ortega crushed the 2018 social rebellion with heavily armed police and paramilitary forces, accusing opposition and student leaders, as well as Catholic Church bishops, of participating in “a failed coup” to overthrow him.
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