{"id":210177,"date":"2019-04-16T01:05:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T05:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=210177"},"modified":"2019-04-16T01:05:50","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T05:05:50","slug":"nicaragua-govt-says-it-will-guarantee-safe-return-of-exiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/16\/nicaragua-govt-says-it-will-guarantee-safe-return-of-exiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicaragua gov’t says it will guarantee safe return of exiles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nicaragua’s government said Monday it will implement a program to guarantee the safe return of exiles, a proposal the opposition dismissed as \u201cabsurd.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Karen\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANAGUA, Nicaragua \u2014 Nicaragua’s government said Monday it will implement a program to guarantee the safe return of exiles, a proposal the opposition dismissed as \u201cabsurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone who fled in the past year and does not have an open court case or formal accusation against them will be eligible to return, the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. It said the\u00a0InternationalOrganization for Migration would provide technical support, although that group said late Monday it had agreed only to study at the government’s plan.<\/p>\n

The government made the proposal to the opposition Civic Alliance on April 10, but said it didn’t reach a consensus.<\/p>\n

Alliance director Azahalea Solis said the group rejected the proposal as \u201cabsurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s ridiculous to act like the exiles would believe the same government that threatened them, persecuted them, killed their relatives and occupied their houses is now going to safeguard their lives and safety,\u201d Solis said. She said the proposal did not include any real mechanism for protecting those who return.<\/p>\n

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at least 325 people have been killed during the past year of unrest. The commission estimates there are more than 52,000 people who have fled the country, mostly to Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

The Civic Alliance believes there are at least 160 people who fled the country while facing an arrest order.<\/p>\n

Solis said the alliance had countered the government’s idea with a plan for returns to be supervised by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, but said the government rejected that idea. The government has opposed the commission as a guarantor of the negotiations.<\/p>\n

She also criticized the government for not completing the release of political prisoners that authorities had promised.<\/p>\n

Jairo Bonilla, a student protest leader who went to Costa Rica last year, said he still receives daily threats from government supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us as exiles there is no guarantee that we could return and nothing would happen to us,\u201d said Bonilla, who maintained that he is accused falsely of violent acts during the protests.<\/p>\n

Bonilla also said President Daniel Ortega is trying to relieve\u00a0international\u00a0pressure on his government.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to make it seem like everything is normal in Nicaragua, that Nicaragua is negotiating, when every day they are killing more people, they are arresting more people without the world realizing it,\u201d Bonilla said.<\/p>\n

Human rights activist Sara Henriquez, exiled in Italy, called the proposal a \u201ctremendous joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t have any assurance that they aren’t going to kill us,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of us who left for exile, it was because we were threatened with death or we have cases with the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANAGUA, Nicaragua \u2014 Nicaragua’s government said Monday it will implement a program to guarantee the safe return of exiles, a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":210199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-gabriela-selser","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210200,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210177\/revisions\/210200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}