Trump team ready to unite anti-dictatorship exiles, Nicaraguan dissident says Reuters

Written by Gabriela Selser

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s team contacted the opposition in Nicaragua on Thursday, saying they wanted to unite exiled communities from Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, the opposition said.

Miami-based Felix Maradiaga, head of Nicaragua’s Freedom Foundation and a staunch critic of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, told Reuters he had received “courtesy calls” from Trump representatives who wanted to “open channels of communication with the incoming administration.”

He added that he recently met with Trump campaign officials in Chicago.

Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

After Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election in the United States, Maradiaga said that members of the future president’s team contacted him, wanting to “strengthen unity” among members of the opposition in Nicaragua and the exiled communities from Cuba and Venezuela. Maradiaga said he will soon meet with those in charge of Latin American foreign policy and security in the Trump administration.

“They told us that they are interested in having the opponents of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela unite our views when we are facing three dictatorships that are the same, so that the actions of the United States have a joint effect on the search for democracy. ,” Maradiaga said.

Maradiaga, a presidential candidate, was arrested by Ortega in 2021. He was one of 222 dissidents deported from the US in February 2023, stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.

The opposition coalition Platform for Unity and Democracy, to which Maradiaga belongs, urged Trump to continue supporting Nicaraguan immigrants fleeing political repression.

Aid groups estimate nearly a million Nicaraguans have fled since 2018 due to political persecution and economic hardship.