Claudia Vargas holds a photo of her husband, exiled former Nicaraguan military officer Roberto Samcam, a retired Sandinista major who was shot to death in his San Jose, Costa Rica condo on June 19.Stringer/Reuters
Robert Rotberg is the founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s program on intrastate conflict, president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation, and a former senior fellow at CIGI.
Alongside the globe’s more horrific despotisms – China, Russia, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe, plus the military potentates in Myanmar, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso – Nicaragua often escapes notice. But a killing last month in neighbouring Costa Rica of a prominent Nicaraguan dissident reminds us that the husband/wife team ruling Nicaragua harshly pursues its critics relentlessly – everywhere.
Roberto Samcam Ruíz, a former Nicaraguan army major, had been a loyal member of the Sandinista political party before breaking with its cruel married rulers – President Daniel Ortega, 79, and Vice-President Rosario Murillo, 74. His assassination in his home in San José, Costa Rica’s capital, is believed by human-rights advocates to be one of many hits orchestrated by the Nicaraguan government in Costa Rica. He was at least the sixth Sandinista dissident shot or abducted since 2018.
Since 2007, when Mr. Ortega returned to office after a 17-year absence, the ruling couple have manipulated elections, destroyed judicial independence and made the legislature bow to their authoritarian will.
The Sandinistas, including leader Mr. Ortega, overthrew the previous heavy-handed regime, which was controlled by the kleptocratic Somoza family. The Somozas largely ruled with backing from Washington. They accumulated huge sums of cash – 33 per cent of the nation’s GDP – while the country remained poor and largely dependent on banana exports to North America. The Sandinistas, on the other hand, were backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Nicaragua's President Daniel OrtegaFEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty Images
Hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans fled their country in 2018 and 2019, after Mr. Ortega’s regime cracked down on spontaneous protesters. They had repeatedly taken to the streets of Managua in anger at the way Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo were betraying the goals of the revolution against the Somozas.
Mr. Ortega responded in a draconian manner: He accused opponents of plotting a coup, jailed hundreds, compelled thousands to flee across nearby borders, confiscated the properties of those who left, and cancelled their Nicaraguan citizenship.
The President and his wife have gained control of every aspect of Nicaragua’s government, including the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the armed forces, the judiciary, the police and the prosecutor’s office. Many Ortega adult children have been given franchises in such lucrative enterprises as national television and the sale of gasoline. The Somozas were corrupt; the current leadership duo and their kin are greater kleptocrats, fleecing what is left of one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
After the 2018 protests, the Ortega government went on the offensive after changing the social-security system and cutting benefits and increasing contributions, which had caused citizens to erupt. They occupied college campuses and set up roadblocks. Government buildings were set ablaze, cars burned, and protesters and police fought pitched battles.
As a result, hundreds were charged as terrorists, a popular television station closed, and international human-rights observers expelled. Nicaraguan police killed 322 civilians and wounded 1,400. More than 60,000 regime opponents fled to Costa Rica and Honduras.
Nicaragua’s intelligence service is tracking opponents. The death of Mr. Samcam is likely but another desperate response by leaders who are reviled by most Nicaraguans.
Costa Rica is no longer, given Mr. Samcam’s killing, anything like a safe haven for outspoken critics of the regime. And other nearby countries are even more dangerous. Nor, given Donald Trump’s immigration policies, can Nicaraguan freedom fighters find refuge in the United States.
Costa Rica trades extensively with Nicaragua. Its President has been slow to tie Mr. Samcam’s murder to the Ortega government. That’s in contrast to Washington’s actions in Mr. Trump’s first term, when his government responded to crackdowns on protesters with surprising strength. Mr. Trump signed the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act, aimed at crippling Nicaragua economically by ceasing lending by international development banks.
Although Costa Rica is still Central America’s least corrupt and best governed state, and tourism and tourists are not being targeted so far either by Nicaragua or by Colombian drug smugglers (who are establishing their cocaine trafficking trails in southwestern Costa Rica and in and near San José), Costa Rica is more at risk from actions to its north and south than ever before.
Washington needs to help the Organization of American States (OAS) do more to curtail the Ortega/Murillo regime or sponsor a campaign leading to regime change.