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Nicaragua becoming a regional safe haven for Latin American fugitives

Posted on March 27, 2019

Police Station in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. Wikimedia Commons.

Officials from Nicaragua’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
recently granted political asylum to controversial Guatemalan businessman
and political broker Gustavo Herrera Castillo, La Prensa reported on August 22.

Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office and the United
Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG)
have for years been investigating Herrera for his alleged role in a
multimillion-dollar corruption scandal within the country’s Social Security
Institute (IGSS).

Former Guatemala President Otto Pérez Molina
(2012-2015) also accused Herrera of having links to drug trafficking
groups in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico in 2014.

Herrera allegedly requested political asylum in
Nicaragua out of fear for his life and security, according to La Prensa. Herrera reportedly told the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office and the
CICIG are carrying out an “illegal” criminal prosecution against him.

Nicaragua’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited human
rights as one of the primary reasons for granting Herrera asylum.

The granting of political asylum to Herrera in
Nicaragua comes amid a deepening political and social crisis that has left more
than 300 dead, thousands injured and hundreds more arbitrarily detained and
forcibly disappeared, according to the Nicaraguan Human
Rights Center (CENIDH). Police and government-backed paramilitary groups have carried out the overwhelming
majority of the
violence.

Herrera is just the latest controversial Central American fugitive to seek or have been granted political asylum in Nicaragua, and this growing trend may have a big impact on collective efforts across the region to fight crime and graft.

Herrera is just the latest controversial Central
American fugitive to seek or have been granted political asylum in Nicaragua,
and this growing trend may have a big impact on collective efforts across the
region to fight crime and graft.

Disgraced former El Salvador President Mauricio Funes
(2009-2014) is currently hiding in Nicaragua after being granted
political asylum in
September 2016. This helped him avoid a conviction for illicit enrichment during his time as
president. 

Manuel Baldizón, a Guatemalan powerbroker that is facing bribery
charges related to
the Odebrecht corruption case, previously went to Nicaragua for de facto
asylum until his January 2018 arrest.

Honduran cattle rancher Ulises Sarmiento, who
has been suspected of having links to organized crime for years, and his family
cited political persecution in order to seek asylum in Nicaragua in 2015.

While Baldizón and Sarmiento were never officially
granted asylum, it is likely they were able to temporarily seek refuge in
Nicaragua through their connections to President Daniel Ortega and the
country’s elite class.

Despite the fact that Nicaragua signed in 1987
an extradition
treaty with the
Central American governments of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and
Honduras, Nicaragua national security expert Roberto Orozco considers that
there is “no possibility” that the fugitives taking refuge in Nicaragua will be
extradited: “The government of Nicaragua has granted asylum to these
individuals because they are allies of the Ortega administration. Asylum gives
them protection and guarantees their security and impunity in Central America.”

The government of El Salvador has unsuccessfully demanded that the administration of President Ortega extradite Funes back to his native country to face his conviction.

The government of El Salvador
has unsuccessfully demanded that the administration of President Ortega
extradite Funes back to his native country to face his conviction.

After Funes
won the 2009 presidential election for the Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Front (FMLN) – a political party formed by leftist guerrilla groups after the
country’s civil war -, Funes “enjoyed good political and ideological” relationships with Ortega, himself a former guerrilla.

Sarmiento is also reportedly a longstanding ally of
Ortega and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). He is believed
to have offered his home as a safe house, in addition to providing other logistical and
financial support to the former Sandinista guerrillas in the 1970s
during Nicaragua’s civil war.

For his part, Baldizón has rubbed shoulders with Nicaragua’s elite business class – former allies of Ortega – through the construction of a hotel
and other investment projects. 

“There are contracts and agreements between these
types of people and Nicaraguan authorities that facilitate their arrival and
stay within the country”, says Nicaragua national security
expert Elvira Cuadra.

Ortega seems to have one set of rules for those he
helps protect and another for the hundreds of Nicaraguans that are fleeing his
country daily to request asylum in neighboring Costa Rica amid
the current unrest.

During a recent speech, Ortega demanded that
government officials there turn over a list of who is seeking asylum in order
for him to determine who has committed “terrorist acts” – part of an
anti-terrorism law that many fear would further criminalize those
in the opposition – so they can face the proper “judicial processes” in
Nicaragua, El País reported.

However, Nicaragua has cooperated with other extradition agreements in the past.
In compliance with an extradition treaty signed with the United States, for example,
authorities in Nicaragua arrested and turned over to US authorities a member of the
Federal Bureau of Investigations’ (FBI) Top 10 Most Wanted List in 2013.

Ortega’s willingness to grant asylum or temporarily protect some of the region’s fugitives may also be a power move by the embattled president to strike back against broader anti-corruption drives across the Northern Triangle region of Central America as he faces mounting national and international pressure.

Ortega’s willingness to grant asylum or temporarily
protect some of the region’s fugitives may also be a power move by the
embattled president to strike back against broader anti-corruption drives
across the Northern Triangle region of Central America as he faces mounting
national and international pressure amid Nicaragua’s worsening crisis.

According to Nicaraguan journalist Wilfredo Miranda
Aburto, “The fact that Ortega has taken in these individuals responds more to
his political bravado to tell the international community that he is not
willing to allow the installation of an [independent anti-graft body] to
scrutinize Nicaragua’s corruption problem, which is very dense”.

In the past, Ortega has been accused of laundering
criminal proceeds from
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in addition to other
allegations of financial
corruption, which would
certainly land him in the crosshairs of anti-corruption investigators.

The CICIG in Guatemala helped send a former president and vice president to jail,
among other judicial actions. A similar appendage backed by the Organization of
American State (OAS), the Support Mission Against Corruption and
Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), has also dealt several serious blows to the country’s elites.

By taking in these fugitives, Ortega is further
emphasizing his message to the international community that he will “not comply
with international anti-corruption treaties and frameworks,” Miranda
Aburto adds.

Anti-corruption successes across Latin America “fueled elite
backlash” in 2017, and
Ortega’s willingness to shield some of the region’s fugitives from prosecution
may undermine broader anti-graft drives in the future if those being prosecuted
can successfully seek refuge nearby.

This article was previously published by InsightCrime and can be read here.

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