Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government has decided to expel Nicaragua’s ambassador in Brasilia, Fulvia Patricia Castro, in response to the decision by Daniel Ortega’s government to expel the Brazilian representative in Managua, a diplomatic source told AFP on Thursday (8).
(AFP) The absence of the Brazilian ambassador, Breno de Souza, from a recent official event generated “discontent” in the Nicaraguan government, although he was “not the only diplomatic representative to be absent”, according to the same source.
The event took place on July 19, to commemorate the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, according to opposition media published by Nicaraguans in exile.
Faced with Managua’s reaction of asking for the diplomat’s departure, “Brazil countered, saying that it thinks this is not a productive path, a path that will not lead to any more positive results,” the source said.
Even so, Nicaragua chose to request the expulsion and Brasilia acted according to the principle of reciprocity. The Nicaraguan authorities have not yet commented on the matter.
Brasilia and Managua
Relations between Brasilia and Managua have been chilly for some time, ever since Ortega ignored Lula’s attempts to mediate, at the request of Pope Francis, the release of an imprisoned bishop.
“The concrete fact is that Daniel Ortega didn’t answer the phone and didn’t want to talk to me. So I never spoke to him again, never again,” Lula said on July 22 at a press conference with international agencies, including AFP.
In January, the Nicaraguan government freed two Catholic bishops, including Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, as well as other religious, and sent them to Rome, according to press outlets and Nicaraguan opponents in exile.
Ortega, who ruled in the 1980s after the victory of the Sandinista Revolution, returned to power in 2007 and is accused by opponents and critics of establishing an authoritarian regime.
In 2018, massive protests against the government, in which more than 300 people died, according to the UN, were described by the authorities as a coup attempt sponsored by Washington.
“It’s a hard blow for the Nicaraguan dictatorship because it’s becoming more isolated and alone in Latin America, but above all isolated and alone within this group of the Latin American left,” Arturo McFields, Nicaragua’s former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), who went into exile in the United States after leaving Ortega’s government, told AFP.
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