The Vatican on Saturday expressed “surprise and pain” at Nicaragua’s expulsion of a papal envoy, which comes at a time of growing pressure on opposition figures in the Central American nation.
The church said in a statement that Managua’s action against Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag was “grave and unjustified.”
It said the action was “incomprehensible” because Sommertag “has worked tirelessly for the good of the church and of the Nicaraguan people,” while “always seeking to promote good relations” between the Vatican and Nicaraguan authorities.
Photo: AFP
Sommertag had functioned as a formal witness during government talks with the opposition, it said.
The Vatican office in Managua on Monday last week announced that Sommertag had left the country the day before, although it did not say why.
His place was taken by a charge d’affaires, Marcel Mbaye Diouf.
The government has made no statement about the nuncio’s departure.
Sommertag arrived in Managua in 2018 in the midst of a wave of protests against the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
At least 328 people were killed, 2,000 injured, hundreds detained and 88,000 fled into exile, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights data showed.
Ortega had tried to maintain cordial relations with the Catholic Church in years before the protests, but those ties increasingly soured in the aftermath.
The nuncio participated in efforts to mediate in the conflict and win the release of detained opposition figures.
At the end of last year, relatives of 46 detained opposition figures asked Sommertag to intercede with Ortega, although nothing came of the effort.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Sommertag said his office had not received a formal request to intervene, but said it had worked “in favor of the most vulnerable, among those detainees of all categories, including political.”
“I think intercession is more than just and necessary, but in the end, we know very well that things depend on the government,” he said.
The Ortega administration increased its crackdown on opposition leaders ahead of last year’s presidential elections, arresting potential candidates against him, as well as several dozen prominent journalists, leaders of nongovernmental organizations and other critics.
On Friday, a judge convicted journalist Cristiana Chamorro — a potential presidential contender and daughter of former Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro, who defeated Ortega in a 1990 election — of money laundering and other crimes.
The Confidencial news site — run by Cristiana Chamorro’s brother, Carlos Fernando Chamorro — reported that she and another of her brothers, former Nicaraguan lawmaker Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, as well as two members of her mother’s foundation and a driver, were convicted at the conclusion of a seven-day trial.
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