Nicaraguan State Terrorism in Costa Rica
The international community must condemn the political assassination of Roberto Samcam in San Jose, Costa Rica.
By Carlos F. Chamorro (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Amid the pain and commotion caused by the political assassination of retired Nicaraguan army Major Roberto Samcam in San Jose, Costa Rica, we register our repudiation of this cowardly crime, ordered from the highest circles of power. The assassination was executed with violence, premeditation, and malice, in order to silence one of the most critical voices speaking out against the Ortega-Murillo regime.
We condemn this political assassination and demand that it be investigated and clarified, so that its material and intellectual authors can be put before the tribunals of international justice.
Roberto Samcam was an opponent of the dictatorship and supported the protests of the April Rebellion in the Nicaraguan departments of Jinotepe and Carazo. He subsequently fled to Costa Rica, where he has been exiled since 2018. From there, he carried out a permanent labor of critique, denouncing the Nicaraguan Army’s involvement in the repression, and its complicity as a political and military supporter of the Ortega-Murillo family dictatorship.
It’s the upper military leadership, not the Army as an institution, that must respond for the political assassination of Roberto Samcam.
The former Major is the third native of Nicaragua’s Carazo department who supported the civic protest in the city of Jinotepe in 2018 and then became the object of a criminal attack while in exile. This occurred previously with Joao Maldonado, who survived two assassination attempts in Costa Rica, and Rodolfo Rojas, known as Piel, who was murdered in Honduras.
Roberto Samcam was stripped of his nationality by the dictatorship in 2023, and was granted Spanish citizenship, thanks to an extraordinary gesture of solidarity by that country. As such, he’s the first such citizen to become the victim of a political assassination in Costa Rica.
The incident recalls Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the September 1978 assassination of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier by that dictatorship’s DINA in Dupont Circle, Washington DC. Ortega is doing the same thing, using San Jose, Costa Rica, as a staging ground for carrying out his crimes against the opposition leaders with impunity.
The extra-territorial political dimension of this political assassination not only demands condemnation from Nicaraguans – especially the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica who need protection and security – but also condemnation from the governments of Costa Rica, Spain, and the international community in general, and a demand for justice from the international tribunals. They must assure that this crime, stemming from an act of State terrorism, not be left in impunity, and that such assassinations are never again repeated.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.