US warned against investing in Nicaragua following passage of controversial 'mass confiscation' land law

(AFP) The State Department on Saturday warned Americans of the risk of investing in Nicaragua because of the recent passage of a controversial border security law that gives the green light to Daniel Ortega's regime to massively "confiscate" land within the territory.

Nicaragua's National Assembly, controlled by co-dictators and husband-and-wife Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, approved on Tuesday a law making the 15 km "inland" of its borders with Honduras and Costa Rica "state property" as a "national security" measure to combat "organized crime and international drug trafficking."

Although the Nicaraguan regime stated in official media that the law "does not affect" the inhabitants of the border strip, Nicaraguan opponents in exile warned that it is a de facto confiscation plan.

"The Murillo-Ortega regime’s massive seizure of all land within 15 kilometers of Nicaragua’s borders upends scores of communities and puts at risk the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people across our region. Any American considering to invest in Nicaragua should beware," the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said on 'X'.

Former Nicaraguan guerrilla commander Dora María Téllez, exiled in Spain and once an ally of Ortega, accused Nicaragua’s co-presidents on Saturday on X of promoting a “great confiscation” for “their mining business” with companies from China.

Likewise, the persecuted and harassed Peasant Movement of Nicaragua, whose leaders are exiled in Costa Rica and the United States, rejected the new border law by pointing out that "it is one more confiscation process" that disrupts "the demarcated and titled indigenous and Afro-descendant territories."

Ortega, a 79-year-old dictator and former guerrilla, was president of Nicaragua from 1985 to 1990 and returned to power again in 2007. Together with his wife Murillo, 74, they have imposed one of the region's most fearsome regimes alongside Cuba and Venezuela. Since 2018, a year of major protests against the leftist regime, violence and repression by state security forces have led to an exodus of Nicaraguan political leaders and dissidents.