Monday 15 December
2008, San José, Costa
Rica
Nicaragua As A “Family
Dictatorship” Claims
Former Minister
Home-Made
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Flooding Leaves 20,000
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Brazil To Host Four
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Bolivia, Chile Senate
Commissions to Meet in
La Paz
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Nicaragua As A “Family
Dictatorship” Claims
Former Minister
Managua -
The Nicaraguan
administration of
President Daniel Ortega
“is not left-leaning or
Sandinista or
revolutionary, it’s
imply a family
dictatorship”, said
Ernesto Cardenal, a
Catholic priest and one
of the country’s most
renowned poets.
Cardenal was reacting on
Sunday to the Ortega
administration decision
to censor Nicaraguan
novelist Sergio Ramirez
Mercado who was not
allowed to write the
introduction of a poetry
anthology from Carlos
Martinez Rivas that the
Spanish newspaper El
Pais was planning to
publish in its Culture
Section next May.
“This brutal censorship
act is further evidence
, for those overseas who
don’t know about it,
that in Nicaragua we are
living under a Fascist
government”, said
Cardenal in a release to
the international press.
“There are many who have
suffered aggressions
from the government and
I am also one of them,
and I continue to be
exposed to political
persecution”, added the
Nicaraguan poet who on
two occasions was
proposed as a candidate
for the Literature
Nobel, 2005 and 2007.
Cardenal, in his
eighties, was condemned
by a peoples’ court in
Nicaragua for allegedly
insulting a German
businessman and has had
all his bank assets
frozen.
However he refused to
accept the sentence
arguing it was “unfair
and illegal” and because
it was a “direct
revenge” from President
Ortega and the First
Lady Rosario Murillo.
Cardenal who was
Minister of Culture of
the first Sandinista
government, also headed
by Ortega, was condemned
to pay us$1.025 dollars
for been injurious
towards German
businessman Immanuel
Zerger. Apparently they
have an ongoing long
dispute over land
possession.
For refusing to pay the
fine he had his bank
accounts frozen, but
given his age, 83, he
was not sent to jail or
house arrest.
“Each barbarian action
from the government
couple takes us a step
closer to the cliffs”,
said Cardenal whose
poetry is world known.
Since very young
Cardenal fought against
the US backed
dictatorship of
Anastasio Somoza and was
a militant of the
National Liberation
Sandinista Front, FSLN,
currently in office
until 1995. Somoza
collapsed when the
administration of
President Jimmy Carter
refused to continue to
support him.
As Minister of Culture
during the first
Sandinista government he
was publicly reprimanded
(March 1983) by pope
John Paul II during his
visit to Nicaragua, for
mixing religion and
revolutionary politics.
The images of the Pope
pointing with his finger
and Cardenal on his
knees, travelled all
over the world.
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