By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

It's sad what is happening in Nicaragua and Dennis Martinez can do little about it.

As one of Nicaragua's most famous natives, Martinez sits at home in Miami, shaking his head in sadness and anguish at the brutality being exercised by strongman Daniel Ortega on Nicaraguans.

But the former Montreal Expos star pitcher is not about to come out and criticize Ortega and create further problems for his countrymen. It’s an interview Martinez really wants to set aside because the issue is so sensitive. A disturbing, troubling story recently on the saga by the New York Times prompted me to call Martinez.

The Nicaraguan regime can be compared to those of Syria, Venezuela, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and North Korea. The list goes on. Cruelty abound in these countries,

Since April, 2018, Ortega and his henchmen have gone out of their way to silence dissents, including human-rights advocates, of all people, in the poor Central American country. They have jailed protestors, some of whom have been killed. The police have even overtaken university campuses, forcing students into hiding.

"Everything was good but for the last nine months, it has not been good,'' Martinez told me on the phone. "Nothing good is coming out from there.''

Martinez said the height of normalcy in Nicaragua was in 1991 when he travelled to his home country a national hero with Expos executives and beat writers following his perfect-game masterpiece in July of that year against the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine.

Martinez has not lived permanently in Nicaragua since he left in 1973 as a skinny 19-year-old to go and play ball in the U.S. for the Baltimore Orioles’ organization, which signed him as a free agent.

A few times each year since then, Martinez has visited Nicaragua but as he told this reporter today, "I don't live there. If I lived there, it would be different. I would be able to say something’’ about what Ortega is doing.

The pain of what he sees online is less bearable but even then it's hard to accept.

The uprising in Nicaragua was intended to put pressure on Ortega to give up his presidency but instead, he’s doing everything to consolidate his hold on running the country.

"I'm not happy about it, that's for sure,'' Martinez said. "I follow all news reports. I don't want to be the guy to say something. There is nothing anybody can do about it.

“What I see is not good. I hope that it gets better, that is my wish. Nobody is winning. It's a losing situation. We will have to wait and see if there is a resolution about it.''

In the meantime, El Presidente is staying put in Miami and has no intentions of flying to Nicaragua for any reason, any time soon. Safety reasons.

"With everything going on there, you cannot go there, it's too dangerous to go there,'' Martinez said.