QCOSTARICA – The attack in Costa Rica against Nicaraguan exile Joao Maldonado and his wife Nadia Robleto prompted legislators to approve a motion on Tuesday, January 16, condemning the attack.
Legislators also demanded clarity in the case, to determine if criminal groups with ties to Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega operate in Costa Rica.
In a vote of 35 in favor and eight against the legislature approved the motion that “condemns the cowardly attack perpetrated against Joao Maldonado, political activist and Nicaraguan exile, and his wife Nadia Robleto.”
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The votes in favor came from factions of the various political parties, while the eight against were all from the faction of the ruling party, the Partido Progreso Social Democrático Progressive Social Democratic (PPSD), that holds 10 of the 57 legislative seats in the 2022-2026 Legislative Assembly.
The motion also requests authorities, ie the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) and the Fiscalia (Prosecutor’s Office), among others, “act diligently to clarify the cause of this attack and determine if criminal groups, organized by the Nicaraguan dictatorship, operate in our country, dedicated to persecuting and attacking Nicaraguan refugees on Costa Rican territory.”
The attack on Maldonado and his wife has all the elements of an assassination attempt with political motivations. Maldonado was persecuted by his Ortega’s government after participating in the April 2018 protests and was forced to flee Nicaragua and like so many exiled in Costa Rica.
In 2021, Maldonado suffered a first attack in Escazú, surviving by miracle, one of five bullets grazing his heart, and two others hit his left arm. One lodged in his stomach and the fifth in the clavicle.
According to Maldonado, in August 2023, agents of Costa Rica’s Intelligence Service, the Dirección de Inteligencia y Seguridad Nacional (DIS), moved him and his family to a safe house based on information obtained about another planned attack.
The attack on January 10, in Montes de Oca (San Pedro), was from two men on a motorcycle, as in the 2021 attack.
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Costa Rica must “review protection protocols for people in the country under refugee status for political reasons” reads the text that also mentions statements made by President Rodrigo Chaves in an interview with the EFE news agency, where he mentioned maintaining a cordial relationship with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega despite not having an ambassador in Managua, and that they even consult on certain issues.
In addition, legislators demand that the government of Rodrigo Chaves express “clear condemnation and strong censure of the Ortega-Murillo regime for violating the most basic political rights in its repression of Nicaraguan society, holding political prisoners, persecuting the independent press, confiscating citizens’ private property, and expelling and stripping opponents of their nationality.”
Johana Obando, of the Partido Liberal Progresista (PLP) with 6 legislative seats and promoter of th emotion, stated publicly that Nicaragua is “ruled by a family that has turned Nicaragua into a wasteland and that the Government of Costa Rica should not be friends with those who are massacring a people and have committed crimes against humanity.”
Obando also stated that the Ortega-Murillo regime has since the outbreak of protests against Ortega in Nicaragua in 2018 resulting in more than 200,000 Nicaraguans fleeing repressions to Costa Rica, come to place groups in Costa Rica to continue killing its people in our country.
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In defense of President Chaves, PPSD legislator Daniel Vargas claimed that the motion contains false premises.
The legislator said that the government will always condemn any attack or terrorist act, and judicial authorities have not established any link between the attack on Maldonado and the Nicaraguan government.
“President Chaves has questioned the human rights situation (in Nicaragua) and has tried to keep channels open for the relationship between the two countries. The relationship with Nicaragua is very broad, and the president has maintained open communication channels,” Vargas pointed out.
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