OAS calls emergency session to approve resolution on Nicaragua

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) convened a new emergency session for Wednesday, December 8th at 2:30 PM (ET) stemming from the “collective assessment” that the regional body is conducting on the crisis in Nicaragua. It will address a new draft resolution referring to non-compliance by the Ortega-Murillo regime of the precepts established in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

The draft resolution is promoted by the permanent missions to the OAS of Canada, Antigua and Barbuda, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, and the United States. It is titled “Results of the deliberations of the Permanent Council of November 29, 2021 on the situation in Nicaragua, in accordance with the resolution approved at the fifty-first regular session of the General Assembly.”

The resolution highlights that Nicaragua “is not fulfilling the commitments assumed in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.” Furthermore, it urges the Ortega regime to release all of its political prisoners and “accept a visit from a high-level mission authorized by the OAS Permanent Council.”

This mission would seek to negotiate an agreement that would have to lead to the following: “The implementation of comprehensive electoral reforms, in accordance with what was requested in previous OAS resolutions and in accordance with Nicaragua’s obligations under international law; the repeal of all laws that restrict political participation and limit human rights in a manner contrary to Nicaragua’s international human rights obligations and to a dialogue between all political parties and other actors in Nicaragua with the objective of holding early presidential and parliamentary elections that are free, impartial and transparent, with credible international observation ”.

They will ask for an urgent visit

The resolution also calls on the Ortega regime to allow the immediate return of the international human rights bodies, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

It also instructs Secretary General Luis Almagro to urgently request a meeting with the Government of Nicaragua in order to transmit this decision and obtain its commitment to accept the high-level mission. Under the resolution, Almagro must issue a report on these diplomatic efforts to the Permanent Council no later than December 17.

The Ortega regime began the process of leaving the OAS on November 19, arguing that the recent resolutions of the regional body “undermine the sovereignty and independence of Nicaragua.”

The collective assessment was in compliance with the resolution “The situation in Nicaragua” adopted on November 12th at the 51st General Assembly of Foreign Ministers of the OAS, held virtually.

In that same resolution, the OAS declared – with 25 votes in favor, one against, seven abstentions and one absence – that the Nicaraguan elections of November 7th “were not free, fair or transparent and do not have democratic legitimacy.”

In those elections, President Daniel Ortega was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term, second with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice president. However, on this occasion the Sandinista leader appeared without political competition, after imprisoning the main opposition candidates, and without democratic guarantees.

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times