Who is the Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS who rebelled against Ortega?

Managua, 23 Mar Nicaragua's ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Arturo McFields Yescas, who has held office since October, rebelled on Wednesday against the government of President Daniel Ortega, which he described as a “dictatorship” and not allowing free elections in the country. During a virtual session of the OAS, McFields Yescas decided to stop “being silent”, lashed out against “the dictatorship” of Ortega and denounced that Nicaragua “became the only country in Central America where there are no printed newspapers” and “there is no freedom to publish on social networks.” Neither are there any independent “human rights organizations”, nor are there opposition “political parties”, “no credible elections” and “there is no separation of powers, but rather powers that be”. A country where “private universities have begun to be confiscated and 137 Catholic, evangelical and environmental NGOs have been canceled, Operación Sonrisa and the list continues to grow”. BETWEEN JOURNALISM AND DIPLOMACY McFields Yescas, a graduate in Social Communication from the Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), in Managua, replaced Ambassador Luis Exequiel Alvarado Ramírez in office on October 27, 2021. He served as minister counselor to the permanent mission of Nicaragua to the OAS since October 2019, and previously as first secretary of the Nicaraguan permanent mission to that regional organization. In 2011 he was appointed press attaché at the Nicaraguan embassy in the United States. He worked on a youth radio station and the evangelical Maranatha station in Nicaragua, and later on the newspaper La Prensa, which now only circulates on a digital platform and whose premises are occupied by the National Police. From there he went to Channel 12 on local television, where he did a report to the Ortega family — in the opposition at the time — about how they celebrated Christmas at home. He is the son of the Nicaraguan Caribbean poet David McFields, a friend of Ortega's wife and vice president of the country, Rosario Murillo, with whom he founded the Gradas Group, of intellectuals, in the 1980s of the last century. SPEAKS FOR “POLITICAL PRISONERS”, VICTIMS AND PUBLIC EMPLOYEES McFields Yescas said he was taking the floor “on behalf of more than 177 political prisoners and more than 350 people who have lost their lives” in his country since 2018, when several demonstrations broke out in Nicaragua against Social Security reforms that turned into a protest movement against Ortega. Also “on behalf of the thousands of public servants at all levels, civil and military, of those who today are forced by the Nicaraguan regime to pretend to fill places and repeat slogans, because if they don't, they lose their jobs,” he said. “Denouncing the dictatorship of my country is not easy, but continuing to remain silent and defending the indefensible is impossible,” said the journalist, who after his statements has been described as “traitor” and vendor” by Ortega's supporters. “I have to talk, even if I am afraid, I have to speak, even if my future and that of my family are uncertain, I have to speak because if I don't, the stones themselves will speak for me,” he stressed. According to McFields Yescas, “in the government nobody listens and nobody talks” and what happens in Nicaragua, where “170,000 Nicaraguans have fled the country and others are still fleeing”, has exceeded their capabilities. “Finally, I want to say that even if it seems that all is lost, there is still hope. I want to tell you that people inside and outside are tired, tired of the dictatorship and its actions, and more and more people will say enough,” he said. “For light can more than darkness, because love is stronger than hate, because people can be deceived for a while, but not permanently. Because God sometimes takes time, but never, never forgets”, he concluded. CHIEF lfp/gf/lll (photo)