The White House said Thursday it has secured the release of 135 political prisoners in Nicaragua, including members of a Texas-based ministry that was caught up in a crackdown on nonprofits and religious groups by the government of authoritarian President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said all of the released prisoners are Nicaraguan citizens. They include 13 members of the Texas-based Mountain Gateway organization, Catholic laypersons and students.
They had been detained because Mr. Ortega and his regime viewed them as “a threat to their authoritarian rule,” Mr. Sullivan said.
Asked why the government agreed to the release, Ms. Murillo, who also serves as the government’s top spokeswoman, did not offer a comment, the Reuters news agency reported.
Briefing reporters later Thursday, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Eric Jacobstein said that the Managua regime had received nothing in exchange for the prisoners’ release, and the negotiation signaled no change in U.S. policy toward Mr. Ortega’s authoritarian leftist government, the Associated Press reported.
“Though the pressure itself has been consistent, the planning and execution of this release was rapid, and we’ve worked quickly to facilitate the travel of these individuals and really ensure their safety at every step of the journey,” Mr. Jacobstein said, adding that Nicaragua continues to “unjustly” detain people.
Mr. Jacobstein, who was on hand to greet some of the Nicaraguans in Guatemala City, said that while some had been victims of torture, those released did seem to be “generally in very good health and spirits.”
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo agreed to accept the released Nicaraguans while they applied for passage into the United States.
They will be able to apply for the right to “rebuild their lives” in the U.S. or other countries through President Biden’s Safe Mobility Office initiative, according to Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan said Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “are grateful to President Arevalo for his continued leadership across the region in addressing humanitarian issues and championing democratic freedom.”
“The United States again calls on the government of Nicaragua to immediately cease the arbitrary arrest and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms,” he said.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. facilitated the transport of the released prisoners to Guatemala on chartered aircraft.
The U.S. also helped them get food, medical and trauma care and a place to stay.
The announcement of the prisoner release came just two days after Nicaragua’s National Assembly approved changes to the criminal code allowing the Ortega government to try Nicaraguans and foreigners in absentia.
Opponents and organizations that have fled or been forced into exile in President Ortega’s yearslong campaign to silence critical voices could be fined, sentenced to lengthy prison terms and see their property seized by the government under the approved changes, according to the AP dispatch.
Last year, the government exiled more than 300 opposition figures, and far more Nicaraguans have fled into exile themselves to escape the repression that followed massive 2018 protests that Mr. Ortega dubbed a failed coup with international backing.
— This article was based in part on wire service reports.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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