2023-11-19 16:46:00
Matthew Miller, State Department spokesman.
The US Government this Sunday described Nicaragua’s departure from the Organization of American States (OAS) as “desperation”, and a strategy by President Daniel Ortega to evade justice for the “atrocious abuses once morest human rights.”
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The country’s withdrawal from the OAS – which comes into effect today – and the human rights violations in the Central American country “are an affront to the Western Hemisphere’s commitment to democracy,” said Matthew Miller, spokesperson for the State Department in a statement. .
President Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, seek to “further isolate Nicaragua from the international community,” the spokesperson said.
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He added that this “demonstrates their desperation to prevent any efforts by the OAS or like-minded partners to hold them accountable for egregious human rights abuses.”
”His abuses include unjustly detaining, convicting and mistreating political prisoners, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez; attacking independent journalists; and force hundreds of civil society organizations and educational institutions to close or transfer their operations to the State,” the statement details.
Detail of some plaques of the member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS), displayed during a regular session of the Permanent Council. EFE/Lenin Nolly
The Nicaraguan Government notified the decision to denounce the OAS Charter – which begins the definitive withdrawal and resignation of Nicaragua from that organization – in November 2021, days following Ortega’s re-election for the fifth term in elections that the organization labeled as illegitimate.
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The State Department emphasized today that despite Ortega and Murillo’s denunciations of the OAS Charter, “Nicaragua remains subject to its human rights and governance obligations under remaining treaties and instruments, including the American Convention on Human Rights. ”.
Miller stressed that the United States and other partners in the OAS will continue to review “all available and appropriate tools to hold Ortega, Murillo and their surrogates accountable for their actions.”
The spokesperson urged the Nicaraguan authorities to fulfill their obligations and comply with the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In a written statement, the executive director of Race and Equality, Carlos Quesada, highlighted that “the Nicaraguan people are an example of resilience and permanent struggle for democracy, but Nicaragua’s departure from the OAS is still serious, as it weakens the functioning of the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights.”
Archive image of the president of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega. EFE/Jorge Torres
Quesada maintained “that Ortega has committed crimes that have only been seen in the worst dictatorships,” which is why he advocated not leaving Nicaraguans alone.
Currently, the Government of Nicaragua holds 91 people deprived of liberty for political reasons, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez and 17 women, according to that NGO.
Race and Equality also records at least “355 summary executions of protesters in total impunity, and more than 316 people in a situation of statelessness and deprived of their citizen rights, among them 222 people who were political prisoners until February 9, 2023.”
In that sense, he cited investigations by the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua that have concluded that, “through the instrumentalization of the Executive, Legislative, Judicial and Electoral Branches, high government authorities have committed violations and abuses of generalized and systematic manner for political reasons, which constitute crimes once morest humanity.”
“The international community already has information to initiate legal actions and extend sanctions to the institutions and people involved in these crimes under international law. I make an urgent call to the international community, particularly to the States of the Latin American region genuinely committed to democracy, to take urgent measures,” Quesada advocated.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, accentuated following the November 2021 elections, in which President Ortega, in power since 2007, was re-elected for a fifth and fourth consecutive term.
(with information from EFE)
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