Govt takes over vast Somoza holdings

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 8

Govt takes over vast Somoza holdings

NZPA-Reuter Managua The land holdings of the ousted Nicaraguan President, Anastasio Somoza, and his associates, amounting to about 50 per cent of all cultivable land in Nicaragua, will be expropriated by the new Government, a member of the ruling junta has announced. Sergio Ramirez added at a press conference that the expropriation would be completed by the end of the year. The State, he reported, had already confiscated 137 companies owned by the Somoza family as well as large tracts of land. These, Mr Ramirez said, included the sprawling Montelimar sugar estate, 60km south-east of the capital of the Central American nation. Mr Ramirez told the press conference that the new regime had asked Washington to freeze his United States assets and return them to Nicaragua. He also announced the appointment of a new armed forces chief, Commander Humberto Ortega Saavedra, a brother of a junta member, Daniel Ortega Saavedra. Mr Somoza has arrived unannounced in Paraguay with relatives and friends and has been accepted a temporary resident, the Paraguayan Interior Minister (Mr Savino Augusto Montanaro) has said. Mr Montanaro said the ousted President had guarantees to stay in Paraguay as temporary resident, but he made it clear he had not been granted political asylum.

Mr Somoza resigned last month and fled from Nicaragua in the face of an onslaught by Sandinist guerrilla forces ending 43 years of rule by his family. Asked if Paraguay would grant an extradition request from Nicaragua, Mr Montanaro said that it would be considered if an extradition treaty existed and all the legal requirements were met.