The Diplomat
The government yesterday granted Spanish nationality to 14 Nicaraguan opponents who had been stripped of their country’s nationality by Daniel Ortega’s regime.
The Council of Ministers used its extraordinary meeting on Thursday to approve this concession, which has benefited, among others, the sociologist Gertrudis Guerrero, wife of the exiled Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez, who was already in possession of Spanish nationality. Also in that group is journalist Cristiana Chamorro, who was the most likely presidential hopeful in Nicaragua to defeat Ortega in the November 2021 elections.
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares explained on his Twitter account that he held a meeting in Washington with some of the opponents whose nationality was withdrawn by President Ortega in March.
Albares, who is in Washington to accompany President Pedro Sánchez on his visit to the White House, also had a telephone conversation with Ramírez, who thanked him for the nationality granted to his wife. Both are among the 94 opponents to whom Ortega withdrew Nicaraguan nationality.
They join 222 diplomats, former state officials, human rights defenders, Sandinista dissidents, opposition figures, journalists, academics, students, businessmen and traders, among others, who were expelled from the country in February on board a plane bound for Washington.
After learning of the Ortega regime’s decision to strip the opponents of their nationality, the government offered to grant Spanish nationality to those declared “stateless” by the Nicaraguan regime, an offer that 81 of those affected had accepted by the end of March, Albares explained.
