Luis Ayllón
The Spanish government yesterday expressed its solidarity with the Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez, and rejected the “unfounded accusations” of the Nicaraguan Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has issued an arrest warrant for him.
The Spanish government’s reaction to the harassment of Ramírez by the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, came after the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE) protested on Friday against the arrest warrant and some 250 Spanish writers, artists and journalists yesterday signed a letter of support for the former winner of the 2017 Cervantes Prize. In addition, leaders of the PP demanded a reaction from the Executive and the Popular Parliamentary Group presented a proposal for the Congress of Deputies to approve an institutional declaration condemning the repression in Nicaragua and the arrest warrant issued against Ramírez.
Last night, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture issued a joint communiqué in which they “strongly” rejected the accusations of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez and ordered a search of his property.
The text stresses that Ramírez, who has been awarded the Cervantes Prize, “has always demonstrated his commitment to the defence of democracy in his country, first through his role in the struggle against the Somoza regime and since then in support of freedom and democracy”.
The communiqué adds that the writer has become “a moral and intellectual reference point for freedom of thought and expression, principles, it says, that are reflected in his literary work”.
In the same vein, the aforementioned letter of support for Ramírez signed by writers, artists and journalists indicates that he is not only a first-rate intellectual”, but also “a man committed to the destiny of his country, to which he has rendered unforgettable services”. It further states that “the charges fabricated against him – nd against almost forty political prisoners- are a tangible demonstration of the repressive drift of the regime, determined to silence its opponents by imprisoning them or forcing them into exile”.
The communiqué is signed by writers such as Mario Vargas Llosa, Almudena Grandes, Luis Landero, Elsa Kreiman, Jose Manuel Fajardo, Manuel Rivas and Elvira Lindo; journalists such as Joaquín Estefanía, Enric Juliana, Juan Cruz and Alex Grijelmo; singers Víctor Manuel and Miguel Ríos, actress Aitana Sánchez Gijón, the president of the Euroamerica Foundation, Ramón Jáuregui; and several high-ranking officials such as Adriana Moscoso, Director General of Cultural Industries, Intellectual Property and Cooperation; and Guzmán Palacios, Director of Cultural Relations of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
Precisely today, Sergio Ramírez, who was Vice-President of Daniel Ortega’s first Sandinista government until he broke with him, is due to take part in an event at Casa América in Madrid, together with Vargas Llosa in the first dialogue of the Central America Counts Festival, which will be attended by the State Secretary for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela.
