Last week President Daniel Ortega denounced the charter of the Organization of American States (OAS), effectively triggering Nicaragua’s official withdrawal from the hemispheric body, a process expected to take two years. This follows the recent OAS resolution [WR-21-46] deeming that the 7 November election, which produced a victory for Ortega, was “not free, fair or transparent and has no democratic legitimacy”. Nicaragua’s decision to cut ties with the OAS once again underlines its growing isolation on the international stage following the election which was widely discredited.
On 19 November, Nicaragua’s foreign minister Denis Moncada confirmed Ortega’s decision to denounce the OAS charter, a move approved days earlier by the legislature, on the grounds that the OAS had meddled in Nicaragua’s domestic affairs. Predictably the decision was backed by allies such as Cuba (which the OAS suspended in 1962) and Venezuela, which in 2017 began a two-year process to withdraw from the hemispheric body, although in January 2019 the OAS approved a resolution refusing to accept the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro’s second term and subsequently accepted Gustavo Tarre, the envoy of Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó, as Venezuela’s representative to the OAS.
OAS secretary general Luis Almagro confirmed receipt of the Nicaraguan government’s decision but failed to comment further. The full implications of the move have yet to emerge although the topic is likely to be addressed at a meeting due to be held by the OAS permanent council before the end of the month. However, on 20 November the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a statement lamenting the decision, warning about its impact on the Nicaraguan people and on victims of “human rights violations in a context where serious human rights violations are being committed”.
New human rights report
The IACHR’s statement came two days after 15 Nicaraguan human rights organisations including Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Cenidh) and Colectivo de Derechos Humanos Nicaragua Nunca Más, among other groups, presented a report (which the IACHR endorsed) which accused President Ortega of crimes against humanity.
President Ortega has faced similar accusations in the past related to the government crackdown on its opponents following unrest which erupted in April 2018. However, this was the first report to include the period up to and including the election. Entitled ‘Dictatorship and repression in Nicaragua: the fight against impunity’, the report tallies at least 355 dead and some 2,000 injured by state agents or civilians acting in acquiescence with these forces, since 2018. It reports at least 1,614 victims of arbitrary detention for having participated in acts of protest or opposition, with over 100,000 people forced to flee the country and over 90 journalists forced into exile.
The report also outlines six stages of repression since April 2018, starting with generalised repression of citizens’ protest and including the imposition of a state of terror via Operation Clean-up (where parastatal Orteguista groups in coordination with the state security forces carried out extrajudicial executions to dismantle roadblocks); arbitrary arrests and the detention of political prisoners; express kidnappings, torture, and the use of clandestine prisons; and the imprisonment and criminalisation of electoral opponents.
Back in February, Cenidh, along with Paris-based human rights NGO International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), published a report which monitored the country over the 2018-2020 period and came to similar conclusions.
Parrales
On 22 November Edgard Parrales, Nicaragua’s former ambassador to the OAS (1982-1986) under the first Ortega government (1979-1990), was detained in Managua after he reportedly said Ortega’s moves to withdraw from the OAS would not take effect immediately. Parrales was cited by the media as saying “it is not so easy to get out of the OAS…It takes two years for this to take effect, during which Nicaragua is still committed by the statutes to respect human rights.” Parrales’ arrest was condemned by human rights watchers such as
José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director of US-based NGO Human Rights Watch, who tweeted: “Ortega’s message is clear: He is going to go after anyone who criticises him.”