Managua, 18 April, 2023 / 8:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Auxiliary Bishop Silvio Báez of Managua, Nicaragua, who is living in exile in the United States, responded to new verbal attacks by Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega saying they are signs of the weakness and desperation of the president of the Central American country.
“We Nicaraguans have to learn to interpret the language of the dictator. He speaks for the people that are with him, he speaks for his base; he doesn’t speak as a statesman for the country, because he doesn’t govern in Nicaragua,” Báez said in an April 16 statement to the press in Miami.
“When he says these things, you have to interpret that it’s for his people, so they see him as strong. And deep down, those of us who hear him must think that it’s a sign of weakness, a sign of desperation. He knows that he is alone inside and outside the country,” the Nicaraguan prelate stressed.
On April 15, Ortega again attacked the Catholic Church in the context of a meeting he held with Luo Zhaohui, president of the China International Development Cooperation Agency.
During the meeting, Ortega attacked the bishops of Nicaragua and said that Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matalgalpa, unjustly sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison as a traitor to the homeland, “was dedicated to boycotting and sabotaging economic and production activities in Matagalpa.”
