2023-07-06 00:32:34
Rolando Alvarezthe rebel bishop of Nicaragua, remains in prison after mediation failed Vatican to set him free. The prelate left the La Modelo penitentiary center to remain for several hours, under police custody, in one of the headquarters of the Episcopal Conference. While express three-party negotiations were taking place, including a diplomat sent from Rome, for the bishop of Matagalpa to accept exile and be transferred to the European city, according to information collected by CNN and by the Nicaraguan digital newspaper El Confidencial .
It was Álvarez himself who refused to accept the conditions of the preliminary agreement reached, as he had already done in February of this year, when he refused to get on the plane that was carrying USA to the 222 political prisoners exiled by the Daniel Ortega regime. This refusal, which overturned the initial strategy of the Sandinista dictatorship, then provoked the wrath of the Nicaraguan president and the subsequent sentence of Álvarez to 26 years in prison for treason to the country.
«Monsignor does not want to leave Nicaragua. He wants to be free, without conditions, in his country,” he announced on social networks. Honduran Bishop José Antonio Canales. Álvarez would also have demanded the release of fifty political prisoners who remain in the prisons of the dictatorship.
On the other hand, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes described the information about the bishop as “speculation”, which he once again placed in a La Model cell. All this despite the fact that the news was picked up by the Catholic agency Aci Prensa.
“There was no agreement. May God be his strength, as until now. Freedom for Monsignor Rolando,” demanded the university leader Lesther Alemán, one of the members of the group of 222.
The dictatorship imprisoned the Bishop of Matagalpa almost 11 months ago, first to keep him in a clandestine place and later, after being sentenced to 26 years in prison for treason, to transfer him to an incommunicado dungeon in La Modelo. “He is trapped in a tough and tense situation,” he stressed for his part Bianca Jaggerhuman rights activist, the first to report on the release of the bishop and the intention to send him to Rome.
The firmness of the bishop who has become the symbol of the fight against the dictatorship is not surprising to those who know him. «He has always been a bishop of a single word, especially when it comes to opposing the arbitrariness, corruption, impunity and injustice that prevails in the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship. That is why the dictatorship hates him,” religious expert Martha Patricia Molina stressed for EL MUNDO.
The immediate future of the five priests imprisoned by the dictatorship in recent months was also discussed at the negotiating table. Despite the total secrecy of the negotiators, local media announced that Manuel Salvador Garcia, parish priest of El Calvario; Gregorio Rodríguez, parish priest of Nueva Segovia; Leonardo Guevara and Jaime Montesinos would follow the same steps as the bishop, like José Leonardo Urbina, sentenced to 30 years in prison for alleged sexual abuse. The parish priest of Perpetual Help in Granada suffered a process marked by irregularities.
Las talks between both parties take place despite the existing tension since the dictator Ortega ordered the suspension of relations with the Vatican. The Sandinista leader did not accept the strong criticism made by Francisco, who compared his regime with “the communist dictatorship of 1917 or the Hitlerite dictatorship of 1935. They are a type of rude dictatorships.”
Already last week the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Sandinista government to immediately release Monsignor Álvarez, finding himself in a “serious situation of irreparable damage to his life, health and personal integrity.” Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, announced that he would demand Ortega’s freedom after meeting with the Pope in Rome.
The signature posture of the bishop of Matagalpa made impossible the political benefit that Daniel Ortega sought by sending the cream of Nicaraguan dissidence to the US, which provoked the dictator’s wrath, who defined him as a deranged and madman, “incapable of having the courage of Christ, who endured the crucifixion.”
The sentence imposed by the Sandinista courts reached 26 years and 4 months in prison, in addition to the withdrawal of nationality. That is the price in Nicaragua to those who dare to oppose Ortega. The initial charge against Álvarez was conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news, to which treason was added.
Since 2018, when the popular rebellion against Ortega broke out, the Sandinista government has persecuted and harassed the Catholic Churcheven going so far as to prohibit Holy Week processions.
The siege imposed by the revolution against the Church, which it has even accused of financing itself with money from money laundering, is one of the tricks with which Ortega plays at the negotiating table with the Vatican. confiscation of assetsfreezing of bank accounts, closure of Catholic radio stations and foundations, in addition to the express expulsion of groups of nuns are part of the government strategy against the Church.
He dictator ortega and his wife, co-president Rosario Murillo, have focused their attacks on the Catholic Church because it is the only institution that remains standing within the country. Opponents, activists, dissidents and a large part of civil society were forced into exile or exile.
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