Ortega shuts the doors to Almagro's diplomatic efforts

The Nicaraguan government did not provide any formal response to the requests and steps taken by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), to allow the arrival of a high-level delegation from the regional organization to negotiate the holding of new elections in Nicaragua, with transparency and credible observation.

In this way, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, closes the doors to the latest attempt of the OAS Permanent Council to find a way to restore democracy and civil liberties in Nicaragua. Almagro's efforts are part of a Permanent Council resolution approved on December 8, 2021, in another effort by the regional body to use diplomatic channels and political negotiation to find a way out of the country's socio-political crisis.

On December 8, the Permanent Council approved, with 25 votes, a resolution demanding that the Ortega-Murillo regime urgently release all its political prisoners and accept the entry of the high-level mission to reach an agreement, given that "Nicaragua is not fulfilling the commitments assumed in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

The 25 governments that voted in favor of the resolution bring together the majority of the countries of Central America, North America, South America and the Caribbean. These were: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Canada, United States, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Venezuela, Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and Dominica.

Almagro reported at a meeting of the Permanent Council this Wednesday, January 19th: “Attempts were made at all levels. Communications were sent to Commander-in-Chief Daniel Ortega himself, and institutional contacts were also made at the highest level with the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry and its dependencies. Consultations were also made through political channels at the highest level and through the General Secretariat. Likewise, through the Nicaraguan missions to the OAS.” 

“From the steps taken, approval has not been received for the sending of the high-level mission; that is, no formal response has been received in this regard,” the Uruguayan diplomat stressed.

There was no acceptance or rejection

Since the OAS General Assembly of Foreign Ministers, on November 12, 2021, Nicaragua has been the center of a so-called “collective evaluation” process of its sociopolitical crisis, established in Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. 

Almagro emphasized that there was no “rejection response” from Nicaragua to the efforts, but rather that the Government did not respond to the requests to discuss what was established in the December 8 resolution.

After the secretary general read the report on his efforts regarding Nicaragua, the session was ended by the president pro tempore of the organization, the permanent representative of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Warren Everson Alarick Hull.

On November 19th, Nicaragua began a process of leaving the OAS, arguing that the organization's latest resolutions on its socio-political crisis “undermined the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples” and demonstrated that the regional entity “is an instrument of United States imperialism”.

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff