Mexican Congress promotes a «friendship» delegation with senior officials of the Nicaraguan dictatorship
Maldito País
octubre 7, 2025
Persecuted by the Ortega and Murillo regime, among the ex-prisoners, denationalized, and exiled, signed a letter rejecting the creation of the Mexico-Nicaragua Friendship Group and asking legislators to desist from forming this space.
«Why are the Mexican Parliament and the political parties represented there reaching out to those held responsible for crimes against humanity since the 2018 repression, when hundreds of citizens were murdered? How is it possible that the representatives of a people who have historically been generous to those politically persecuted and supportive of the cause of freedom are supporting a regime like the one we have described?» the Nicaraguans questioned. They also asked the Mexican Chamber of Deputies to «reorient legislative actions to promote the defense of human rights in Nicaragua, and to demand the release of all political prisoners.»
The letter follows the creation of a friendship group between legislators from the Morena, Labor Party (PT), and National Action Party (PAN) parties on October 7 with officials and political operatives from the Sandinista Front accused by international organizations, such as the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of the IACHR and the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, of committing crimes against humanity.
According to official information provided by Co-President Rosario Murillo, a delegation from the regime has been in contact with Mexican legislators and political parties since late September. Through «seminars» and various meetings, these encounters have been the prelude to the formation of this «friendship» group.
In 2021, in the midst of the repression against dissidents, Nicaragua accused the Mexican government and its ambassador of being “interventionists, submissive, and loyal to the Yankees: With the message you have spread today in Nicaragua, you and the Mexican government are placing yourselves in a position of interventionism and meddling, submissively and faithfully fulfilling the Yankees’ (US) mandate, serving them in the role that you have sadly assumed, of permanent interventionists in our own affairs, at the behest of the empire (sic).” After the Mexican ambassador retweeted a post by the writer Sergio Ramírez.
The regime’s entourage that has been in Mexico is made up of a list of people loyal to the ruling party, most of whom are accused of committing serious human rights violations. Among them stands out Sadrach Zeledón, mayor of the department of Matagalpa (in the center of the country) and political secretary of the Sandinista Front. According to an investigation by the organization Urnas Abiertas, on May 11, 2018, Zeledón instructed paramilitaries to attack protesters demanding the resignation of Ortega and Murillo. Zeledón is accused by the IACHR and recently by the GREHN of committing crimes against humanity against the Nicaraguan population. He is also known for being one of the mayors-for-life of Matagalpa, a department that has been a Sandinista stronghold since 1979. According to the Memories of the Sandinista Struggle, of former Commander Mónica Baltodano, Matagalpa, «in 1979 she participated in Managua, and in the takeovers of Jinotepe and Granada. After the triumph of the Sandinista Popular Revolution, she remained in the party and mass structures, and is currently a leader of the National Feminist Committee.»
Another name included in the delegation is Brenda Isabel Rocha Chacón, president of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) of Nicaragua and one of the 21 officials sanctioned by the European Union for their role in the repression and manipulation of the electoral process under the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
The European Union and the United States stated that the CSE judges, including Brenda Rocha, “conspired with the Ortega-Murillo regime to undermine Nicaragua’s political institutions and subvert the November 2021 national elections by disqualifying legitimate opposition parties and candidates for spurious reasons.” Two other officials accompanying Rocha on the trip are José Manuel Fuerte and Ramón Antonio Benavides, coordinators of the Supreme Electoral Council in Estelí.
Also listed are Juan Carlos Hernández, Reynerio José Mendieta Mendieta, Zuly Zulma Reyes Cerda, Armando Rocha Chacón, and Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, Nicaragua’s ambassador to Mexico. On July 28, La Gaceta, the Official Gazette of Nicaragua, announced the appointment of Infantry Colonel DEM Juan Carlos Martínez Canales as the new Defense, Military, Naval, and Air at the Nicaraguan embassy in Mexico. Martínez Canales is a senior military intelligence and counterintelligence officer, second-in-command of the directorate responsible for Army surveillance.
For political exiles and those living in exile, this incident is of even greater concern following the murder of opposition figure and former military officer Roberto Samcam. In mid-September, the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) dismissed the line of investigation promoted by the dictatorship, which claimed Samcam’s ties to drug trafficking. «One of the lines of investigation suggests that this was apparently ordered by the Nicaraguan Army,» the agency stated.
“Our question is: Can Mexican parliamentarians turn a blind eye to this reality? Friendship with a government that has repeatedly committed electoral fraud and suppressed all freedoms is an offense to the vast majority of the Nicaraguan people, who have been living for seven years with all their rights and guarantees de facto suspended. All rights and guarantees. The people live under terror. Parliamentarians cannot ignore the reports of human rights organizations. We are demanding that the international community cannot turn a blind eye to this reality,” former Commander Mónica Baltodano, a political exile from the dictatorship, told Hora Cero.
That the Mexican Congress is seeking to befriend officials aligned with the Nicaraguan dictatorship is deeply troubling. Especially since not long ago, on October 25, 2023, this same institution hosted a group of Nicaraguan opponents, mostly Sandinista dissidents and leftists.
Former Senator Citlali Hernández Mora, of the MORENA party, received this delegation led by Mónica Baltodano and Victor Hugo Tinoco. From there, the Nicaraguans denounced «the suppression of all democratic rights, the liquidation of political parties and civil society organizations and the independent press, the closure of universities, the persecution of the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples, and the situation of political prisoners.»
In just two years, it seems that Mexican lawmakers have forgotten the complaints made by Nicaraguan exiles and are now promoting this «friendship committee» with officials accused of crimes against humanity, corruption, and collaboration with the regime.
