On Thursday, the ambassadors of Brazil and Nicaragua were expelled from each other as the two Latin American countries’ deteriorating relations escalated into a new diplomatic spat.
The most recent escalation in hostilities resulted from Brazil’s envoy to Nicaragua skipping a formal ceremony in Managua, a diplomatic source from Brazil told AFP.
According to various expatriate Nicaraguan opposition media, the occasion was the anniversary of July 19, the day of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua that finally resulted in the election of President Daniel Ortega.
The source said that other diplomats were also missing from the ceremony, including Brazil’s envoy.
Nevertheless, Nicaragua requested that the Brazilian ambassador leave the nation, and on Thursday, Brasilia complied.
The wife of Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo, who also happens to be Ortega’s, told state media that the ambassador of Brazil “has left our country, our Nicaragua, and similarly our ambassador… is on her way to our homeland.”
Since Ortega rejected attempts by his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to facilitate discussions to help obtain the release of a jailed bishop at Pope Francis’ request, relations between the two leftist-led nations have soured.
According to opposition media that is exiled, Nicaragua released two Roman Catholic bishops, thirteen priests, and three seminarians in January and sent them to Rome.
“This is a tough blow for the Nicaraguan dictatorship because it will become more isolated and alone in Latin America, but above all more isolated and alone within the left-wing Latin American group,” the country’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States, Arturo McFields, who lives in exile in the United States, told AFP.
Later on Thursday, the government of Nicaragua announced that it had sent seven priests who had been jailed last week to Rome and freed them.
They were among 13 Nicaraguan priests who were put under house arrest in Matagalpa, a city in the north.
Information regarding the remaining six clergymen was kept under wraps by the authorities.
After the Sandinista victory in the 1980s, Ortega came to power.
Despite being voted out of office in 1990, he took office again in 2007 and has since been charged with instituting an authoritarian government that crushes dissent.
The United Nations reports that when anti-government protests erupted throughout Nicaragua in 2018, over 300 people lost their lives.
The demonstrations were presented by Ortega’s administration as an attempted coup planned by the US.
