This Friday, June 19, marks one year since the assassination of Roberto Samcam, which occurred in San José, Costa Rica, and, according to all evidence, was carried out by hitmen at the service of the dictatorship of Nicaragua.
Samcam was a retired Nicaraguan military officer and an active opposition member in exile, dedicated to investigating and documenting the crimes of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Surely for that reason, they sent to kill him.
The assassination of Roberto Samcam in Costa Rican territory was denounced as a transnational crime of the dictatorship of Nicaragua, whose repressive tentacles extend beyond national borders. And on the date of his first anniversary, the opposition communities in exile have rendered a well-deserved tribute to the memory of Samcam, reiterating the demand for justice for him and all the numerous victims of the dictatorship.
But not only the Nicaraguan opposition has commemorated the anniversary of the assassination of Samcam. Also, international personalities and organizations in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua have done so, who suffer the oppression of a ferocious and implacable dictatorship that commits even crimes against humanity and transnational executions.
In that context, the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Department of State of the United States (U.S.) issued a public declaration in which it points out that they have not forgotten Samcam and that “justice demands accountability from those who ordered and carried out his assassination.” And adds the United States declaration, that “transnational repression must end. The Nicaraguan people have already suffered enough under the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship.”
But in addition to its excellent declaration on the anniversary of the assassination of Samcam, the U.S. has in these very days the opportunity to carry into practice those beautiful words of solidarity with the Nicaraguan people. We refer to the fact that from Monday the 22nd to Wednesday the 24th of June, the 56th General Assembly of the OAS will meet in Panama, which has planned in its agenda to approve a resolution or declaration on Nicaragua.
The U.S. could lead, or back, that resolution or declaration on Nicaragua so that it is not simply rhetorical and ambiguous, but the clearest and most energetic that is possible, as demanded by the imperious necessity to put an end to the suffering of the Nicaraguan people and the threat to the national security of the U.S. themselves that the dictatorship of Ortega and Murillo represents.
Already in November 2021, the 51st General Assembly of the OAS declared the elections illegitimate —or better said, the electoral farce— which the dictatorship carried out on that same date in the midst of a ferocious and generalized political repression. Since then, and because of that resolution of the 51st General Assembly of the OAS, the regime of Nicaragua is illegitimate.
Now, starting from that clear situation of illegitimacy, the 56th General Assembly should convoke the hemispheric community to take the necessary political measures to open the path to the democratic transition in Nicaragua.
The moment is propitious for the leaders of the hemispheric democratic community to remember the well-known proverb that «deeds are love, and not good reasons.» This means that commitment to good causes is shown with concrete actions and tangible results, not with empty words and promises.
