A retired Nicaraguan navy officer who later grew to become a critic of President Daniel Ortega has been killed in a taking pictures at his condominium in Costa Rica, the place he lives in exile.
The demise of Roberto Samcam, 67, on Thursday has heightened concern concerning the security of Nicaraguan dissidents, even once they reside overseas.
Police in Costa Rica have confirmed {that a} suspect entered Samcam’s condominium constructing within the capital of San Jose at roughly 7:30am native time (13:30 GMT) and shot the retired main not less than eight occasions.
Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Organisation recognized the homicide weapon as a 9mm pistol. Samcam’s spouse, Claudia Vargas, instructed the Reuters information company that the suspect pretended to be a supply driver to realize entry to her husband.
The suspect allegedly fired on Samcam after which left with out saying a phrase, escaping on a motorbike. He stays at massive.
Samcam went into exile after collaborating within the 2018 protests, which started as demonstrations in opposition to social safety reforms and escalated into one of many largest antigovernment actions in Nicaragua’s historical past.
1000’s of individuals flooded Nicaragua’s streets. Some even referred to as for President Ortega’s resignation.
However whereas Ortega did finally cancel the social safety reforms, he additionally answered the protests with a police crackdown, and the clashes killed an estimated 355 folks, in keeping with the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights (IACHR).
Greater than 2,000 folks had been injured, and one other 2,000 held in what the IACHR described as “arbitrary detention”.
Within the months and years after the protests, Ortega has continued to hunt punishment for the protesters and establishments concerned within the demonstrations, which he likened to a “coup”.
Samcam was among the many critics denouncing Ortega’s use of navy weapons and paramilitary forces to tamp down on the protests. Ortega has denied utilizing both for repression.
In a 2019 interview with the publication Confidencial, as an example, he in contrast Ortega to Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the final member of what’s generally often known as the Somoza household dictatorship, which dominated Nicaragua for practically 43 years.
And in 2022, Samcam revealed a ebook that roughly referred to as Ortega: El Calvario de Nicaragua, which roughly interprets to: Ortega: Nicaragua’s torment.
Ortega has lengthy been accused of human rights abuses and authoritarian tendencies. In 2023, as an example, he stripped hundreds of dissidents of their citizenship, leaving them successfully stateless, and seized their property.
He has additionally pushed for constitutional reforms to extend his energy and that of his spouse, former Vice President Rosario Murillo. She now leads with Ortega as his co-president.
The adjustments additionally improve Ortega’s time period in workplace and grant him the facility to coordinate all “legislative, judicial, electoral, management and supervisory our bodies” — placing nearly all authorities companies underneath his authority.
From overseas, Samcam was serving to to guide an effort to doc a few of Ortega’s alleged abuses.
In 2020, he grew to become the chain-of-command knowledgeable for the Court docket of Conscience, a bunch created by the Arias Basis for Peace and Human Progress, a nonprofit based by a Nobel Prize-winning Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias.
As a part of the group, Samcam solicited testimony of torture and abuses dedicated underneath Ortega, with the goal of constructing a authorized case in opposition to the Nicaraguan president and his officers.
“We’re documenting every case in order that it might transfer on to a trial, probably earlier than the Inter-American Court docket of Human Rights,” Samcam stated on the time.
Samcam just isn’t the one Nicaraguan dissident to face an obvious assassination try whereas in exile.
Joao Maldonado, a pupil chief within the 2018 protests, has survived two such makes an attempt whereas dwelling within the Costa Rican capital. The newest one, in January 2024, left him and his associate critically injured.
Maldonado has blame Nicaragua’s Sandinista Nationwide Liberation Entrance — which Ortega leads — for the assault.
