My guest, carlos Fernando Chamorro, was a leading sandinista propagandist. Now, hes an influential journalistic critic in exile. Why has nicaragua slumped back into authoritarianism . Carlos Fernando Chamorro in Costa Rica, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you, stephen. Mr chamorro, you have lived through very difficult times in nicaragua, but earlier this year, you decided to flee. And youre speaking to me from an undisclosed location in Costa Rica. Why did you take that decision . Well, my newsroom was raided by the police for the second time on may 20th, and it was an imminent risk for me to stay in nicaragua, because i would be captured and trialled by the government, just by being a journalist. My house was also raided. By that time, my wife and i have decided to leave and to come to Costa Rica to continue being a journalist. Otherwise, i will be silenced, along with other. More than 30 people who are now in prison in nicaragua, in the prison of el chipote. Well get to the numerous people in prison indeed, some of your own Family Members injust a moment, but to stick with your situation, since you chose to flee to Costa Rica, youve been charged with money laundering, Property And Asset laundering, misappropriation of funds. Do you have any intention of going back to face the Justice System in nicaragua . Theres no Justice System, as such, in nicaragua. The courts are simply an extension of the power of the Ortega Family. The trials, the district attorney, the police, theyre all under total control by ortega. And this is not something that started last week or a few months ago. Its a system that has consolidated in more than a decade and became a machinery of fabrication, of criminal accusations and imprisonment of citizens, mostly since 2018, after the protests that demanded free elections in nicaragua and the resignation of Daniel Ortega. Why do you think that the degree of repression in nicaragua seemed to intensify in may, june of this year . Because, as youve already told me, 30 and more people, very prominent people, have been arrested and now face very serious charges. Why now . Well, for many people, this was unexpected, because ortega already had the full control of the state to decide the result of the coming November 7 election. But he decided to eliminate any possibility of political competition, so he has imprisoned seven aspiring president ial candidates. And not only them, but also civilian leaders, businessmen, journalists, peasant leaders, student leaders, anyone that could challenge his power to mobilise the people in the incoming election. So, in november7, were going to have some people going there to vote for ortega, but the majority of the people will stay at home because they dont have any candidates. And this is not a real election. This is like a one Party Ritual to re elect ortega. People who do not know nicaragua will probably be surprised at the extent to which, to the outside world, this looks, in some ways, like a battle between the Ortega Family and another very prominent dynasty in the country. That is your own, the chamorro family. Because not only do you now face these charges and you have gone into exile, but your sister cristiana, who was tipped to be a president ial candidate, she is under house arrest. Your brother, pedrojoaquin, who is also a very prominent journalist in nicaragua, he is under arrest and facing charges. Im not sure if hes actually in prison right now. Yes, he is. And your cousin, Juan Sebastian, who ive spoken to On Hardtalk three years ago, he also is in prison. And his condition is reported by his own family to be not good. How come your own family seems to have so many prominent members who are now in direct conflict with ortega . Well, i am in exile for being a journalist, for reporting violation of Human Rights and for investigating corruption, not for my last name. And i dont think other members of my family are in prison because theyre named chamorro, but simply because they are defying ortega. And i would say this is some kind of a simplification. There are many other people in prison. People that have been killed in the past, and they have just other names the montenegro family, Debayle Family and many others. There is indiscriminate repression in nicaragua. Members of my family are suffering unjust imprisonment simply because they decided to defy defy ortega, going into politics. But they are just some of them. There are more than 30 other people in the same condition. One of yourFamily Members, that is the sister of your cousin, Juan Sebastian, she reports that she has been allowed contact with him. They interrogate Juan Sebastian daily. She says theyre conducting forms of psychological torture. They say that they tell him that his wife is going to be in prison, that his property is going to be confiscated. They keep a light burning in his cell to disorient him and to deprive him of sleep. That, to the outside world, would sound like torture. Do you believe that the ortega government is sanctioning, from the very top, this sort of abuse . It is torture, and i have to say that in previous years, torture included sexual violations, Physical Torture and repression. Now there is torture in the sense of isolating prisoners, the 36 prisoners who are staying at the prison of el chipote. And some of them have been there more than 100 days, including my brother pedro, Juan Sebastian and others, have only seen their relatives for 30 minutes once and they have been isolated. Some of them are in separate cells. They are not allowed to receive food from their families, only water, and they have lost between 12 to 26 pounds. And you have people who are 70 years old there. Also, you have young leaders like lesther aleman, who now is in a very risky health condition, and many others. I think this is an act of vengeance. This is an act of cruelty and of cowardice of the leadership of Daniel Ortega. There are. Several other women prisoners, like dora maria tellez, a national hero who was a Guerrilla Commander against the Somoza Dictatorship that was overthrown a0 years ago, as you just mentioned. So, here is one of the deep ironies of nicaraguan politics, and youre at the very heart of it. You were Daniel Ortegas colleague, and indeed chief propagandist, through much of the 1980s. You were a fully paid up Sandinista Revolutionary and a self declared apologist for ortega and his regime. How do you feel about that now . Well, i think the revolution inspired hope for transformation in nicaragua, but also the revolution radicalised its own process, and we are all responsible for the results. And the results have to do with a civil war, a foreign aggression war, which was part of the Cold War us policy against nicaragua. But i assume my responsibility, and i dont think. I think the Kind Ofjournalism that we did in the � 80s had much to do with Propaganda And Counterpropaganda than realjournalism. Yeah, i mean, you were the head of the Agitation And Propaganda department. But more than that, if i may say so, mr chamorro, its also a moral question, because ive looked up some of the old sort of things that you said at that time. And you basically said, to me. And this is a quote thats been attributed to you. To me, you said, it was justifiable to suppress freedom in order to preserve the state, a state that was making other liberties possible. I dare say that is precisely the justification that Daniel Ortega himself would use today. There is a big difference. There was a state of war in the � 80s. Im notjustifying censorship. Im notjustifying the state of emergency. But there was a real war. These days in nicaragua, there is no war. Theres no civil war. There is just the state repressing the citizens. In the � 80s, there was the contra war, and there was the reagan finance of the contra war. Ok, those were the justifications, that i supported at those times. I think there were many errors during the � 80s revolution, including censorship, and, well, i myself went through a process of Self Criticism about. Assuming our responsibilities, about what happened in the � 80s. And there was a transition, a democratic transition process, starting in 1990 in nicaragua, that lasted 17 years. And unfortunately, it failed. And i assumed my role as an independentjournalist during this transition process, and i ended up being expelled from barricada and from the fsln. Yes, no, i know all of that and right now, of course, even in exile youre still running your News Website and your Tv Shows on youtube and youre still getting your message into nicaragua. Given that youve told me you think ortega and the people at the very top of nicaragua are responsible for creating a system which tolerates and indeed uses torture techniques, do you fear for your own safety, even though youre now in a neighbouring country . Well, Costa Rica has a policy of accepting nicaraguan refugees. We are more than 100,000 Nicaraguans Staying in Costa Rica under that condition. But nobody� s completely safe. I mean, the long arm of Revenge And Persecution of the ortega regime, it could do any harm to anyone either here in nicaragua or in any other place. Let me ask you about the context that ortega and the sandinista regime put around you and your family. They say there is clear evidence going back many years that you have received monies for your work from the united states. They point to the state usaid programme. They also point to american ngos like the national endowment for democracy. And in essence, they try to tell the nicaraguan people that you, in yourjournalism, have become some sort of tool for the united states of america. Whats your response . Well, thats a ridiculous accusation. Its a way of criminalising journalism. The way i do journalism, its by selling advertising, when that was possible. Also we receive grants from different organisations, but thats not criminal. Thats not money laundering. Thats money that comes from different foundations and from different sources, to support independent investigative journalism. Thats not the crime. The crime for ortega is that we are investigating corruption, its that we are investigating Human Rights violations and theyre trying to create some kind of an excuse to criminalise journalism. Is there any way, in your opinion, ofjudging the mood of the nicaraguan people right now . I mean, what we saw in 2018 were many thousands of nicaraguans taking to the streets in protest at particular social and economic policies of the ortega government. There was real repression. There was violence on the streets. It has to be said, violence coming from both sides which left more than 300 dead. But since then, the popular protests have stopped. I wonder what your reading is of where nicaraguan Public Opinion is today. I think the majority of nicaraguans, the majority of Public Opinion reject the ortega Police State but they cannot say it. We are under a state of fear, where everybody is a hostage of the Police State of control. There is no freedom of reunion, freedom of mobilisation, freedom of the press, freedom of expression. You can be taken to prison. So, what we need, number one, is the liberation of all political prisoners and the restoration of political freedom. And then ask the nicaraguan people what they want. They want free elections. They want political reform, to change the dictatorship for a democracy. You see, sometimes when you describe the situation, you make me feel as though you see Daniel Ortega as absolutely no better than somoza, the dictator of nicaragua through to 1979, who you personally were determined to fight against, who ran a criminal enterprise, who abused Human Rights on a massive scale. And then, of course, you then supported ortega and the revolution to bring him down. Are you now saying that you believe ortega is as bad as somoza . Well, people came out to the streets in 2018 saying Ortega And Somoza are the same thing. There are some similarities and some differences. One close similarity is that both are family dictatorships. Nicaragua is run by ortega and his wife, rosario murillo, not by any political party or any kind of political institution. In terms of cruelty, in terms of repression, they are quite similar. I guess ortega was beyond somoza in terms of totalitarianism. He is really trying to control everything, including freedom of conscience. He is persecuting a novelist, like sergio ramirez, our most important nicaraguan and Central American writer, because he wrote a novel that now is subversive. But i have to bring it back to the personal because, even as you talk, i have it in my mind that throughout the 1980s and indeed through to the early � 90s, you were extremely loyal to Daniel Ortega and you personally knew him very well. Were you such a terrible judge of character that you just got him completely wrong . My support for the Sandinista Revolution was beyond any kind of concept of loyalty to Daniel Ortega. It was just an aspiration of social justice, it was an aspiration of democracy for nicaragua, mobilisation of the people to attain their own rights. But let me be blunt with you, mr chamorro, because when you. One of your criticisms of ortega right now is that he is running the country as some sort of corrupt family business, and you refer to the power of his wife, who, of course, is vice president. Isnt the danger that you, as one of the chief critical voices, are a part of a family, the chamorros, whom, as weve already discussed, dominate the opposition media, the opposition political scene in pretty much the same dynastic way that ortega wants to dominate power . Doesnt nicaragua need to move beyond this sort of Family Style politics . And maybe the chamorros need to make way for a new generation of Opposition Leaders who are not called chamorro. Well, there are seven political leaders who are competing to become the single Opposition Candidate against ortega. Not all of them were chamorros. And there were several others, and the leaders of the April Rebellion were not the chamorro family. I think this is a simplification. Are you disappointed by the international reaction to this latest wave of arrests, which, as youve said, involves more than 30 senior figures being arrested sincejune . The united states� reaction has been, if one is honest, fairly tame. There are some limited, targeted sanctions against members of the ortega inner circle, but theyre not really very widespread and the Organization Of American States has issued a statement of condemnation, but a couple of key countries, argentina and mexico, refused to join that statement. Are you disappointed . Well, i have expectations about what are they going to do onjanuary 10th, when ortega assumes power again. Are they going to recognise an illegitimate government . If they accept that these elections are already a fraud, because there is no political competition because competitors are in prison, will they give legitimacy to the new ortega government . Thats the key question at this point. I think the international community has recognised the fact that there is a human Rights Crisis in nicaragua. There is a political crisis. Now, they have to go from denouncing Human Rights violations to taking action, to the ortega government. But then the question is, how far do you go . Because there are some us legislators who are calling for a review of Nicaraguas Involvement in the central america free trade agreement. But economists reckon if nicaragua is blocked from membership, it could cost hundreds of thousands ofjobs inside your country. So, here you are, youre accused by the government of being a tool of the americans. Its very difficult, isnt it, for you to call for economic sanctions which the americans might take and could cost many of your fellow Countrymen Theirjobs and their livelihoods . But im not calling for economic sanctions like the ones you are describing. Im talking about something different. Demanding transparency in nicaragua, during the covid 19 pandemic, the government is hiding, the government is lying to the nicaraguan people about the number of deaths that we are having. And the imf and the Central American Integration Bank are giving funds to the nicaraguan government which are not subject to any kind of accountability. I think theres a different thing about financing a dictatorship and promoting sanctions that will affect the economy. Right. Even if you get the imf to withdraw funding from the government, that ultimately is going to hurt the people of your country and theyre already suffering a major economic downturn. There is real poverty in nicaragua not seen for many years. Do you really want to see funds withdrawn in that way . I would like to see strict limitations in the access of internationalfunds by the nicaraguan dictatorship. And, yes, i dont expect the international community to get rid of ortega. I think this is a question that depends on us, the nicaraguan community. Therefore, the most important demand in which i would hope everybody will coincide and agree is the liberation of political prisoners, and promoting political reforms in nicaragua so that we will have free elections. A final thought for you, mr chamorro. Back in 1979, you were an avowed revolutionary. You supported toppling the Somoza Regime by whatever force was necessary. Are you a revolutionary in your Mind Today . Do you believe that it is justifiable to think about bringing the ortega government down by whatever force is necessary . No. I have never supported Armed Struggle against the ortega regime, like many other nicaraguans didnt. I think this is a civilian struggle and i am more Pro Reforms that could last and will have the roots for changing nicaragua. Revolutions. The revolution did not. Lead us to change, to real change. I think we need reforms, we need accountability and we need opportunities for the nicaraguan people in order to promote change. Carlos Fernando Chamorro, i thank you very much indeed forjoining me On Hardtalk. Thank you. Thanks to you. Hello. Autumn is now gently, slowly but surely, creeping in across the northern hemisphere. Our days are getting shorter, but there is still some warmth in the september sunshine. And certainly, it was a good looking day across a large swathe of the uk on wednesday, although scotland and Northern Ireland did get lumbered with more in the way of cloud and some outbreaks of rain. We should see more sunshine here, though, in the next few days. Another sign, though, that autumn is upon us is the presence of some early Morning Mist and fog. The Reason Itll be drier for Scotland On Thursday is high pressure starting to extend up here. Its also the reason, though, that i think we will see some early Mist And Fog under the ridge where weve had light winds overnight. The sun, however, should burn that back pretty quickly, and then a lot of fine Weather And Sunshine to come through on thursday. We lose any early showers in the northeast of scotland, temperatures 21 22 degrees. Through the afternoon, though, more cloud starting to show its hand into Northern Ireland thats the forerunner of this Weather Front that will push Into The West of the uk for friday daytime. We move through Thursday Evening into the small hours of friday, and we get the rain into Northern Ireland. Its quite patchy across western scotland, it stays dry across england and wales. A mild enough night, temperatures in double figures up to 15 degrees in belfast, where we get quite a strong southerly wind as this Weather Front pushes in. It will move its way Into The West of the uk, but then it kind of grinds to a halt, actually, for friday. So, because it does that, that means the Rain Willjust keep on coming for the likes of Northern Ireland, possibly for the southwest of scotland. Later on in the day, some downpours for the southwest of england and for wales. But its Northern Ireland stuck under the cloud and with the rain on friday. Quite breezy here, as well, quite gusty winds at times. Big contrast between East And West just mid teens, the temperatures in the west under the rain. We could still see maybe 22 23 degrees in the sunshine further east. Our front will gradually make its way eastwards across the uk through the weekend. For scotland and Northern Ireland, i think itll bring some patchy cloud. But for england and wales, it does bring the threat of perhaps some quite punchy showers, longer, more persistent outbreaks of rain at times. Certainly, saturday looks like it could be quite wet across england and wales. The showers should thin out somewhat for sunday. Welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, im karishma vaswani. The headlines. Minutes to blast off this is the scene at Cape Canaveral in florida ahead of the first Space Mission crewed entirely by amateur astronauts. The us, Britain And Australia agree a closer military Allianace President Biden makes it clear the focus will be on boosting their influence in the Indo Pacific. The future of each of our nations, and indeed, the world, depends on a free and open Indo Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead. Americas most decorated gymnast, simone biles, breaks down as she talks about the abuse she and her colleagues suffered at the hands of their team doctor