Stateless: The Nuremberg Parallel

The National Assembly, controlled by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), ratified a constitutional reform in Nicaragua that allows Nicaraguans to be stripped of their nationality if convicted of "treason against the homeland." During the shameful act on January 18th, Gustavo Porras, who arbitrarily holds the position of the legislative power's president, stated that this reform was approved in "commemoration of the 157th anniversary of the birth of Rubén Darío," the Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat who is the greatest exponent of the Spanish American literary movement known as Modernism.

Dario, known as the "Prince of Spanish Letters," spent most of his life outside Nicaragua because his talent was not recognized by the governments of his time. He didn't receive the support in his home country that other nations provided him. Today, several countries in the Americas, as well as Spain, consider Dario as their own. Dario's story exemplifies the tragedy of millions of Nicaraguans throughout history, where many are prevented from living in their homeland. Nicaraguans have had to build their lives in other lands without severing the umbilical cord with Nicaragua. Just as Dario enriched us culturally with his work, primarily written from abroad, a significant portion of our national income comes from remittances.

While exile has been a painfully familiar situation, the current Sandinista dictatorship led by Daniel Ortega has taken forced displacement to unprecedented levels. Over 10% of the population has had to leave the country since 2018. Nearly 230,000 refuge applications have been filed in the last five years in neighboring Costa Rica alone.

The most extreme practice of banishment was the deportation of 222 former political prisoners last February, who were also declared stateless along with 94 other opposition figures. The regime cared little that deportation was inapplicable in these cases, as it is a legal concept designed only for some instances of foreign citizens. This is a legal aberration that the dictatorship continues to implement, as it did with recently expelled priests. Additionally, thousands of Nicaraguans in exile are in a de facto statelessness situation, having been denied a passport or prevented from reentering the country.

In ancient Rome, exile was a punishment surpassed only by the death penalty. The word "exile" originates from Latin, meaning "to be banished." The phrase "Exsilium est beneficium" was a sarcastic affirmation referring to the opportunity for the banished to continue living. Banishment was a method used by totalitarian regimes to rid themselves of politically costly opponents. Even in those regimes, stripping nationality was almost always a de facto procedure, rarely explicitly codified in law.

The international community was astonished as this practice that had nearly disappeared in the Western world was revived in Nicaragua. The decision to declare hundreds of Nicaraguans stateless ominously resonates with Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws of 1935 or the acts of the Stalinist Soviet Union, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Myanmar, or Romania under Ceau?escu.

Statelessness still affects millions worldwide, arising from factors such as political, ethnic, or religious discrimination. The consequences are devastating, with limitations on employment, travel, and civil and political rights. It also constitutes psychological and emotional violence by severing family and community ties.

The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, to which the State of Nicaragua is a party, establishes rules against withdrawing nationality. Nicaragua's constitutional reform violates Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its constitutional provision that establishes the right to nationality, which is also non-renounceable.

While Ortega and his followers attempt to undermine the identity of Nicaraguans, let us remember that our nationality is irrevocable, and this unjust law will be repealed when democracy and freedom return to Nicaragua.