OAS Permanent Council meets Monday to assess Nicaragua

The President of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) and Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic, Josué Fiallo, convoked an extraordinary virtual session to be held next Monday, November 29, at 2:30 pm, Eastern time.

The call was made at the request of the delegations of Chile and Canada, “in order to carry out an immediate collective evaluation of the situation in Nicaragua in accordance with the OAS Charter and the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” in compliance with the resolution “The situation in Nicaragua” adopted on November 12 at the 51^st General Assembly, which was held virtually.

According to the agenda, the collective evaluation on Nicaragua will be preceded by presentations by: Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Antonia Urrejola Noguera, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS.

On November 9, Almagro published a report prepared by the OAS General Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy, which proposes that the international community “demand the annulment” of the Nicaraguan elections “and make an appeal for holding a new electoral process.”

The withdrawal of Nicaragua

The latest OAS resolution on Nicaragua, approved by 25 member states, declares the November 7 vote “as lacking legitimacy,” in which the Sandinista leader was re-elected for the fourth consecutive time, without political competition and without democratic guarantees.

Although the OAS foreign ministers established November 30 as the deadline for the Permanent Council to carry out “a collective assessment” of the country’s situation and “to take appropriate actions,” the Ortega regime acted ahead on November 19th by invoking article 143 of the OAS Charter and initiated the process of Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the regional organization.

The regime alleges that the decision to withdraw from the OAS is due to the constant “interventionist attitudes” of the regional body, citing the resolutions referring to the crisis in Nicaragua in which it has condemned the abuses of the Ortega regime.

Even though Nicaragua announced its departure from the organization, it won’t be official and effective until November 2023, since the process lasts two years. Therefore, it could be suspended before the end of the period. In addition, during this period, the government must comply with all its political and financial obligations with the regional body.

Ortega is isolating the country

This week, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACtHR) also declared the State of Nicaragua “in contempt,” for failing to comply with the provisional measures of that court in favor of 21 political prisoners and requested the intervention of the OAS General Assembly to assess the situation.

Jose Miguel Insulsa, the former Secretary General of the OAS between 2005 and 2015, said in an interview on the Esta Semana program that with Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the OAS, announced by Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, or its eventual suspension from the Special General Assembly, “Daniel Ortega has managed to completely isolate Nicaragua. Quite a drama for a country that, after all, is one of the most backward in Latin America.”

Insulza warned that, despite the isolation, “there are no forms of direct intervention. Changes to a government cannot be made from outside: the famous regime change has to take place inside Nicaragua.”

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