This Monday the Nicaraguan National Assembly (Parliament), with a Sandinista majority, created three new higher education centers, with the documents and infrastructure taken from six private universities that were stripped of their legal status last week.
At the request of the Executive, the deputies established the new National Polytechnic University (UPN), replacing the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua (Upoli), which was a bastion of anti-government protests between April and June 2018, when dozens of young people barricaded themselves inside, to avoid being captured by the National Police, in one of the harshest moments of the crisis in Nicaragua, which has left hundreds dead.
In the same way, he created the “Francisco Luis Espinoza Pineda” National University with what used to be the Catholic University of the Dry Tropics (Ucatse), which belonged to the Archdiocese of Estelí, one of the most critical of the Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega. .
The deputies created a third center, called the “Ricardo Morales Avilés” National Multidisciplinary University, to bring together the Paulo Freire University (UPF), the Popular University of Nicaragua (Uponic), the Hispano-American University (Uhispam), and the Nicaraguan University of Studies Humanitarians (Uneh).
According to the National Assembly, these centers will be “legal successors without interruption” of the extinct universities, and will enjoy “legal personality, functional, technical, administrative and financial autonomy, their own assets, indefinite duration and full capacity to acquire rights and contract obligations”, they will also be members of the National Council of Universities (CNU).
The universities made illegal last week were part of a group of 14 higher education centers whose legal status was canceled by the Nicaraguan Parliament at the request of the Executive since December 2021.
They also belong to a conglomerate of 87 non-governmental organizations that have been outlawed since the 2018 anti-government protests, which were led by mostly university students.
The decision of the Executive and the Legislative has caused controversy in Nicaragua, because it increases the influence of the State in the country’s universities.
At least one of the rectors, Adrián Meza, from UPF, opted for exile in Costa Rica, alleging security reasons.
The massive anti-government demonstrations led by students in April 2018 were neutralized with armed attacks that left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), of which the Government has admitted 200 and denounced it was an attempt of a coup d’état.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has been accentuated after the controversial general elections on November 7, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with her main contenders in prison. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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