Bishop Álvarez represented a particularly courageous challenge to the regime. He had been a political prisoner since August 2022, having been convicted and sentenced to 26 years on such spurious charges as “undermining national integrity” and “propagation of false news.” In February 2023, he balked at joining 222 other Nicaraguan political prisoners who were expelled to the United States in a deal facilitated by the Biden administration. According to the Pillar, a U.S.-based news outlet that focuses on Catholic issues, regime officials presented the bishop with a blank sheet of paper at the time the others were being readied for expulsion and told him to sign. He refused, suspecting it was a trick to create a false confession. More recently, suffering from health problems, he agreed to leave the country.
The latest prisoner releases culminate Mr. Ortega’s systematic attempt to cripple and subjugate the Nicaraguan church, in a manner similar to the strategy Fidel Castro employed against the Cuban church beginning in 1961. According to three United Nations special rapporteurs, the regime has stripped 310 nongovernmental organizations associated with the Catholic Church of their rights to operate since 2022. It has decreed the closure of at least 12 church media outlets. In August, the government revoked the legal status of the Jesuit-run Central American University and seized the campus. The Vatican closed its embassy in Nicaragua last spring after the government proposed suspending relations. Priests say they’re routinely spied on and harassed. More than 100 Catholic priests have fled, been kicked out of the country, or denied reentry. In October, the government freed 12 other Catholic priests from prison and sent them to Rome, again under a deal with the Vatican.
Pope Francis’s response to all of this has been disappointingly passive. On New Year’s Day he said he was praying for Nicaragua and “following with concern” events there in which “bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom.” The Vatican should protest loudly, but has been cautious, probably out of fear that strong public criticism will only make matters worse for the remaining clergy. The Pope’s timidity will probably be repaid with more repression as indeed it has been already.
In contrast to the Nicaragua expulsions, Guatemala offers a ray of hope and an example of what outside pressure in support of democratic change can sometimes accomplish. The inauguration of newly elected President Bernardo Arévalo early Jan. 15 was delayed at the last minute, but not blocked. As The Post’s Mary Beth Sheridan reported, Mr. Arévalo’s triumph was in large part because of an aggressive push by the Biden administration.
Guatemala’s political class has long been steeped in corruption, whether it’s drug-related or more conventional graft. Mr. Arévalo, a small-party candidate who campaigned on a promise to clean up government, scored an upset second-place finish in the June vote, buoyed by a youth-led social media campaign, and won an August runoff in a landslide.
But his victory was soon facing what Mr. Arévalo called a “slow-motion coup.” Court authorities suspended his party, Semilla, on allegations of fraud. Investigators from the attorney general’s office raided the national electoral authority, seizing boxes of vote tallies. Prosecutors began a series of attempts to lift Mr. Arévalo’s immunity, so he could be criminally charged.
A nationwide strike by Indigenous communities in October galvanized support for the president-elect. Visiting U.S. senators urged the cabinet of outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. When a prosecutor declared the August election results “null and void,” the State Department canceled visas for around 300 Guatemalans, including two-thirds of members of Congress. After the inaugural ceremony, the State Department announced that Mr. Giammattei is being barred from the United States on grounds of “involvement in significant corruption.”
The obstacles Mr. Arévalo must overcome are still large, but his election win and the concerted backing of the Biden administration are signs that democracy in Central America still has a chance.
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