Eight countries in the region supported the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in his condemnation of the current government of Nicaraguaa critical position to which was added, albeit separately, Argentina. Also Spain, according to the position of the European Union, and Switzerland, host country, at the UN headquarters in Geneva. In exchange, Venezuela and Cuba maintained, as usual, their position in favor of supporting the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

“The municipal elections in November were marked by the repression of dissenting voices and restrictions on civil and political rights,” they agreed. Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru, in a joint intervention. They deplored “Nicaragua’s inability to reform its electorate and the continued arbitrary detentions”. They maintained that these Nicaraguan elections “were neither free nor fair, as the general elections were”.
of 2021″.

The aforementioned majority group of countries in the region added that the inhuman conditions of detention continue to be denounced. Nicaragua must grant prisoners access to legal representation and medical care, and must release all those arbitrarily detained and convicted. Murillo, instruments that monitor respect for civil, political and women’s rights and against torture.

Although separate from this group of countries, Argentina, in turn, repudiated the deprivation of liberty of “parents of political activists; the ban on boys and girls maintaining contact with their imprisoned fathers and mothers; the ban on Nicaraguans returning to their country and the harassment of human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents”, considering the issue as “a reflection of the political, social and human rights crisis affecting this country”.

The claim of the 9 Latin American countries extended to the fact that the Nicaraguan authorities allow the visit of officials from the office of the new High Commissioner, Volker Türk, who in his speech accused Nicaragua “of aggravating the climate of oppression”. Türk also called for the release of “political opponents”, noting that they also face “humiliating and degrading treatment from relatives who visit prisoners, such as elderly women forced to strip naked to be searched”.

Clergymen, among the persecuted

Turkish, who replaces former Chilean President Michèle Bachelet as High Commissioner, that abounded “More than 3,000 national and international NGOs have been suppressed in Nicaragua, almost half since September of this year alone, leaving countless people without access to their services or assistance”while “26 national media have been muzzled and three international media closed by the government. The document also repudiated “a new law approved in October, which requires government registration and authorization for the production, filming and exhibition of any audio-visual material in the country.”

At the time, the High Commissioner claimed to have proof that “12 Nicaraguan citizens were unable to return to the country, presumably due to a government decision, without any information on the reason for this refusal.” The persecution extends to “clergymen” also “perceived as political opponents”, who are “arrested, harassed, intimidated”, and “some of them are prosecuted for crimes of criminal association with a view to undermining national integrity”, or for “fake news”.

“Last month’s municipal elections in Nicaragua were an autocratic exercise,” Türk said

Türk at the same time described last month’s municipal elections as an “autocratic exercise”, amid a wave of “arrests and dismissals of opponents in the previous months”, where “political parties whose legal personality has been canceled in 2021 had their participation excluded”. Worse, Election Day “was plagued by intimidation, with checkpoints around polling stations to track down voters,” denying access to polling centers “to people perceived as opponents. policies”.

The aforementioned municipal elections were fortuitously denounced by the High Commissioner when he criticized the attack by “riot police on sympathizers of the indigenous political party YATAMA”, after proclaiming that he had “won in the municipality of Waspam, on the northern coast of the Caribbean”, 19 arrested of his sympathizers “for several days”. Meanwhile, 70,000 “new asylum applications” from Nicaraguans in Costa Rica reached 70,000 in 2022. At the same time, another 147,000 were registered “at the borders with the United States”.

On behalf of Nicaragua, the Attorney General of Nicaragua spoke via zoom, Wendy Caroline Morales Urbinawho challenged the unfavorable content of the debate towards his country as “unilateral, biased and interventionist”, comparing it to a “crime against humanity”, a position which received mixed support from Belarus, Bolivia, China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria and Sri Lanka.

Support for Ortega from Cuba and Venezuela

In particular, added the Cuban ambassador in Geneva, Juan Antonio Quintanilla Román. He called the criticisms of Nicaragua summarized above “politicization and illegitimate use”, said there had been a hypothetical “manipulation due to its internal situation”, to “damage its international image and deploy continued hostile actions against him”, but without specifically denying the facts, or the allegations made by the UN, or neighboring countries previously detailed and not condescending.

This Cuban diplomat stressed that “the Sandinista government has made significant progress in the preservation of peace, the rule of law, democracy, sovereignty, national unity and the socio-economic achievements it has achieved”. , without at least providing evidence to resolve these claims. . . He strongly demanded that the government of the United States and its allies immediately eliminate the unilateral coercive measures imposed against Nicaragua, which have a direct negative impact on the population and affect the economic and social progress of this developing country.

The Venezuelan ambassador in Geneva, Héctor Constant Rosales, proceeded in an equivalent manner., judging the considerations expressed by the 9 countries of the region, critical of Nicaragua, as a “new mechanism of interference” which would not respect “their sovereignty, the right to self-determination and non-interference in their affairs interiors”. Coincidentally, Constant Rosales raged against the “bloody and illegal unilateral coercive measures” equally reviled by his Cuban colleague.

However, it is fair to conclude that measures of this nature, tending to harm the daily life and well-being of the populations of the affected countries, are not supported by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. , according to
which was opportunely established in the previous management of Michelle Bachelet. Yes, they are those who contribute to the personal and/or illicit enrichment of the high offices of one-party regimes, or of an authoritarian and anti-democratic bias, such as the
case of Cuba or Venezuela.

* From Geneva