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Amid the pain and shock caused by the political assassination of retired Nicaraguan Army Major Roberto Samcam in San José, Costa Rica, we repudiate this cowardly crime, ordered from the highest levels of power. It was carried out with violence, premeditation, and malice, in an attempt to silence one of the regime’s most outspoken critics.
We unequivocally condemn this political assassination and demand a thorough investigation so that both the perpetrators and those responsible for planning it are brought before international justice.
Roberto Samcam was an opponent of the dictatorship who supported the April Rebellion protests in Jinotepe, Carazo, and since 2018, had been living in exile as a refugee in Costa Rica. 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 is up to the military leadership, not the Army as an institution, that must answer 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.
Just like Pinochet and the DINA with the criminal attack that killed Chilean former foreign minister Orlando Letelier in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. in September 1976, Ortega is turning San José, Costa Rica into a territory where he can carry out his crimes with impunity against all opponents.”
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.
