Ortega Orders Repainting Stolen Red Cross Ambulances
The vehicles confiscated from the Nicaraguan Red Cross are already appearing with the logos of Ortega’s White Cross, while volunteers continue to wear the shirts of the abolished organization
HAVANA TIMES – The volunteers of what is now called the White Cross of Nicaragua continue to wear the uniform of the former Nicaraguan Red Cross, although this organization was annulled and confiscated by Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship in retaliation for not supporting the repression against civil protests of 2018.
Last Wednesday, one of the dictatorship’s official media, channel 8, reported an accident in Managua where volunteers are seen wearing the old Red Cross uniform, in front of an ambulance with the new White Cross logo that had been introduced on June 6.
Although ambulances with the Red Cross logo continue to circulate, it seems that the government will gradually paint all the vehicles confiscated from that internationally affiliated institution.
The Ortega regime took over the social networks of the former Nicaraguan Red Cross, but has not yet changed the website, nor is it using the new logo. Cruzrojanicaraguense.org continues as the defunct international organization. It is also known that several ambulances have not changed the previous logo.
In a Sandinista march held on June 10 in Río Blanco in the department of Matagalpa, a Red Cross ambulance was used by regime sympathizers. They even hung two Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) flags on them, despite the fact that the international body is apolitical, and their symbols cannot be used by governments.
The dictatorship stole all properties of the Nicaraguan Red Cross Association, as it has done with many of the organizations they have closed since 2018.
On May 10, Sandinista deputies abolished the Nicaraguan Red Cross Association, founded in 1931, which functioned as a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. At the same time, the Nicaraguan Red Cross was created “as an autonomous and decentralized entity attached to the Ministry of Health.” However, almost a month later a law was passed to create the White Cross, which for critics, confirms that the international federation prohibited the dictatorship from using the name and logos of the Red Cross.
The annulment of the Nicaraguan Red Cross Association is seen as a reprisal by the Ortega dictatorship for having refused to participate in the repression against civil protests in 2018. Instead, following their call as a humanitarian organization, they aided victims of the government violence since Ortega’s hospitals were ordered not to attend to them.