Bianca Jagger: “Daniel Ortega seeks at all costs to perpetuate himself in power by establishing a new tyrannical dynasty”

Bianca Jagger asks Daniel Ortega’s regime to allow her to visit Nicaraguan prisons to verify the status of at least 150 political prisoners, as it did in early July 42 years ago under the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

Jagger, 71, is the founder and chairman of The Bianca Jagger Foundation for Human Rights and this week, he testified about the crisis in his homeland, Nicaragua, before members of the United States Congress who are discussing the approval of new laws for the Nicaraguan regime to allow free and democratic elections.

The human rights defender left Nicaragua as a teenager and her name was still Bianca Pérez-Mora Macías. He came to Paris with a scholarship under his arm to study political science. Her life changed in 1971 when she married Rolling Stones star Mick Jagger and became a fashion icon and global actress.

Over the past four decades, she has dedicated herself to demanding respect for human rights, in particular the rights of women, indigenous peoples and protection of the environment in various parts of the world, including conflict regions in Latin America, Bosnia, Afghanistan. , India, Sri Lanka and Palestine, among others. She has been linked to international organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Acknowledge in this interview with Infobae that he first sympathized with the Sandinista revolution which defeated the Somoza dictatorship which ruled his country. However, within a few years he felt that the principles which inspired this revolution had been betrayed by Daniel Ortega.

Despite being a global personality, Nicaragua has always been on his agenda and in his heart. A few days after the earthquake that hit Managua in December 1972, she convinced her husband and the Rolling Stones to organize a humanitarian aid concert for the victims. It would be the first of its kind for this group.

He also arrived in Nicaragua in July 1979, at the end of the war against Somoza, visited the political prisoners of the dictatorship, and in 2017 accompanied peasants from the Nicaraguan mountains who opposed the construction of an interoceanic canal. She was in the fateful “De las Madres” march on May 30, 2018, when snipers from Daniel Ortega’s regime fired to kill.

-As a Nicaraguan, how did you deal with the crisis in your country?

-I have always had one foot in Nicaragua and another here where I live (England). I try to give voice to people who risk being killed, besieged and kidnapped by the bloodthirsty regime of Daniel Ortega and his accomplice, Rosario Murillo.

-You say that Daniel Ortega’s regime is equal to or worse than that of Anastasio Somoza 42 years ago. Can you explain why you say this?

-I left Nicaragua as a teenager and my experience was through my mother’s eyes, what I knew and what I was able to know and study on Somoza. Of course, the Somoza dynasty was bloody and brutal. The triumph of the Sandinista revolution brought hope and joy to millions of people in Nicaragua and around the world, including myself. We thought that the revolution would bring freedom, justice and democracy, but it is not. Daniel Ortega betrayed the principles that inspired this revolution. Ortega, throughout his years in power, dismantled all legal and democratic institutions in Nicaragua. Its aim is to perpetuate itself in power at all costs, establishing a new tyrannical dynasty. Ortega’s brutal and relentless crackdown is on par or worse than Somoza’s. To what extent does Daniel Ortega use a judicial system totally subject to his regime? Any human rights defender, journalist, political leader, student or peasant must be ready to be kidnapped, to disappear.

In early July 1979, I organized a fundraiser for the British Red Cross and went to Nicaragua. Somoza reluctantly allowed me to enter prisons with the Nicaraguan Red Cross. How is it possible that a dictator like Anastasio Somoza allowed us to visit the prisons and today we have these 30 people, among which seven presidential candidates, who were kidnapped, made disappear and are hostages, they are not allowed to receive medical treatment or humanitarian visits It is not known whether they are alive or dead, and their lawyers have not been allowed to visit them or have their files.

“Daniel Ortega betrayed the principles that inspired the revolution. Dismantled all legal and democratic institutions in Nicaragua

-Are you satisfied with the response the world has given to the crisis in Nicaragua?

-The world is not paying enough attention to Nicaragua. In recent years, we have seen crises all over the world. There is a pandemic, which is happening in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and we (Nicaragua) are a small country of six million people that has no oil. And they are wrong not to pay attention to Nicaragua because geopolitically Daniel Ortega’s regime represents a danger to the national security of the entire region, especially with the effort Ortega is making to recreate a scenario similar to the one that existed in the 1980s. cold war to use it. Faced with its Machiavellian plan, the international community must give an energetic response, proportional to the repression of Ortega and to the appeal of the Nicaraguan people for help in order to be free. Declarations of condemnation and resolutions are welcome, but they are insufficient.

– Would you be ready to go to Nicaragua as you did during the Somoza dictatorship?

-I called Daniel Ortega, asking him to allow me to enter Nicaraguan prisons with reputable organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and invited a bipartisan delegation of members of Congress to join us if they allow us to enter.

-Do you know that just because you are Nicaraguan, you could be charged with “treason against the motherland” under the new laws?

-Sure. But I’m British too. These are false accusations. This is how Daniel Ortega used the laws. Fictitious laws to persecute and destroy the opposition in Nicaragua.

– Could your arrival in Nicaragua signify such an accusation?

-It’s possible. It’s possible. These kidnappings and arrests are part of a Machiavellian strategy designed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to avoid free, fair and democratic elections.

– What do you think of these elections scheduled for November of this year?

-They must be declared invalid and illegitimate. For the November 2021 electoral process to be legitimate, five conditions must be met: first, the immediate release of all political prisoners on false and fraudulent charges, such as high treason and money laundering; second, the immediate withdrawal of all spurious inhibitions from popularly elected positions; third, the immediate restitution of all civil and political liberties of Nicaraguan citizens; fourth, the immediate cessation of all acts of repression and intimidation that the regime carries out with impunity, with the help of its police, army, paramilitary forces and crowds of sympathizers under its control and those perpetrated by its corrupt justice system; and fifth, a non-negotiable commitment to subject the electoral process to broad national and international observation. If Ortega is unwilling to comply with these five points by August 2, 2021, the last day allowed by the electoral calendar for the registration of candidates, the international community must not and cannot recognize the electoral process. and its results and must declare illegitimate to the regime of Daniel Ortega.

-However, there is some opposition participating in this electoral process. The Citizens for Freedom party has announced its candidates.

-How is it possible that they lend themselves to this game? I feel like the rest of Nicaraguans, who feel betrayed. How did they lie and cheat? How is it possible that they disrespect the nearly 400 people who were murdered in Nicaragua, the nearly 150 political prisoners, the 30 hostages who were kidnapped and disappeared in Nicaragua simply because they wanted to participate in a free, democratic and fair life? How is it possible that they are prepared to do like this and be part of a fraudulent election?

The international community must not and cannot recognize the electoral process and its results and must declare the regime of Daniel Ortega illegitimate

-What should be the attitude of this opposition then?

– It is to declare that they cannot participate in view of the circumstances and the fact that their colleagues and friends are missing, that they are hostages. How can they participate in an election where all the journalists, politicians, human rights defenders, peasants, women, students, everyone, have their bags ready to escape Nicaragua and flee.

-You are asking that international sanctions against the Ortega regime be increased, but these laws will also affect the population.

-He abogado porque las leyes que se apliquen no causen daño al pueblo, que sean aplicadas específicamente a Daniel Ortega, a su familia, a los allegados, a los partícipes de su regimen que son corruptos y que están cometiendo graves y sistemáticas violaciones a los human rights. What we see is that the regime of Daniel Ortega has no limits in its repression, the Nicaraguans are currently the hostages of this terrorist and criminal state. He is a bloodthirsty tyrant, who is not going to stop him because he fears that if he loses power, he will have to be brought to justice. Both (Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo). This is why they are so inconsistent, mentally imbalanced.

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