Caribbean & Central America - April 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Earlier this month US legislators announced they were reactivating a bill known as the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act (NICA). It is the latest version of the initiative approved by US House of Representatives in September 2016 which would prevent the government led by President Daniel Ortega from accessing international financing until reforms are implemented that “promote democracy, strengthen the rule of law, respect human rights, and until Nicaragua holds free, fair, and transparent elections overseen by electoral observers”. The initial NICA [RC-16-10] was drawn up in response to concerns surrounding the November 2016 general elections in which Ortega was re-elected for the ruling Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) in a highly questioned process. Prompting an angry response from the FSLN government, the US legislators’ latest move shows Ortega’s efforts to address these democracy-related concerns have ultimately failed to convince.

A 5 April press release by US Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Albio Sires (D-NJ) notes that the latest version of the NICA “goes one step further than the previous version” by calling for the Ortega government “to actively combat corruption and take significant steps to protect human rights defenders and activists” – an issue which has again come to the fore (see box).

It comes despite Ortega’s efforts to address concerns raised by the foreign community. These efforts include a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which his government inked on 28 February with the Organization of American States (OAS). The MoU had been announced back in January as part of a joint document signed by the two sides after a three-month period of talks. These in turn followed an October 2016 agreement to establish a mechanism of “conversation and exchange”. A key provision of the 28 February MoU (which was also slammed by local civil society groups – see sidebar) was that the OAS would “accompany” local municipal elections scheduled to take place in November this year. The refusal by President Ortega, who first took office in 2007 and has been re-elected twice, albeit in processes described as fraudulent by the opposition, to allow any credible international observers to oversee last year’s elections was a major bone of contention both with local civil-society groups and the international community.

Human rights concerns

On 28 March, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (Fidh) requested urgent intervention in Nicaragua in light of “worrying reports” from the local human rights centre, Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Cenidh), regarding defamatory acts and threats against Cenidh’s director Vilma Núñez de Escorcia; against Lottie Cunningham, founder of the centre for justice and human rights on the Atlantic coast (Cejudhcan), and its director Juana Bilbano; and against Francisca Ramírez, leader of the Consejo por Defensa de la Tierra, Lago y Soberania (Consejo Nacional) protest group which opposes the US$50bn ‘Gran Canal’ project to link Nicaragua’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts.

The OMCT-Fidh press release cites a message received by Cejudhcan on 17 March “replete with…infamy and serious threats” against the four women. The same press release notes that on 8 March nine government ministers and deputy ministers sent a letter to the US embassy describing Núnez as “a person whose diatribes; insults; and practices have repeatedly offended the people and Nicaraguan government”. This was in response to an event at the US embassy on International Women’s Day in which Núnez was praised for her efforts and in which it was announced that she had been nominated for the International Women of Courage award handed out by the US State Department each year.

• Frente Amplio por la Democracia (FAD)

In a statement issued in response to the 28 February Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the Ortega government and Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Luis Almagro, the Frente Amplio por la Democracia (FAD) opposition coalition complained that Nicaraguans have been submitted to an “authoritarian and dynastic regime…established through successive and massive electoral fraud”. Warning that an OAS accompanying mission “will not change these conditions”, the statement calls on Almagro to publicly present the OAS report on the 2016 electoral process undertaken with the Nicaraguan government as part of the mechanism of conversation and exchange.