15 de octubre 2021
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The Spanish Embassy in Managua reminded the Nicaraguan Government of its obligation to comply with the commitments it has made on human rights, and highlighted Spain’s commitment to Nicaraguan democracy.
“In this electoral year in Nicaragua, it is necessary to underline the commitment that Spain has with democracy and human rights of Nicaraguans and that have led the Government of Spain to express its concern in various declarations and statements,” said the charge d’affaires of the Spanish Embassy in Managua, Jaime Ramos Schlingmann, in a message on Hispanic Heritage Day.
The diplomat reminded the “Nicaraguan Government of its obligation to comply with the international commitments on human rights and with its own constitutional precepts, guaranteeing the rights of all citizens.”
In the November 7 vote, Daniel Ortega seeks to be reelected for the third time in a row. To guarantee that aim, he has imprisoned 37 opposition leaders, among them the presidential candidates Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Felix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Miguel Mora, Medardo Mairena and Noel Vidaure.
Two other opposition politician who announced their intention to run for head of state, María Asunción Moreno and the former “Contra” leader Luis Fley, fled into exile for security reasons.
A Proposed Tailor-made “Dialogue”
Meanwhile, Sandinista deputy, Walmaro Gutierrez, affirmed that the Ortega regime is open to a “great national dialogue” after they win the November 7 elections. A process in which he said, “everyone will fit,” but minutes later he ruled out the organized opposition after the massive protests of 2018, which was part of the first “national dialogue” promoted by the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference in May 2018.
“After the people reaffirm next November 7 that we will continue to govern in this country, after we (the Sandinista Front) win the elections on November 7, a great national dialogue will open where everyone will fit. What we are not going to repeat are the roadblocks of death,” warned the deputy.
“All those who love Nicaragua will fit into this dialogue, except those who ask for sanctions against Nicaragua,” clarified Gutierrez, current president of the Economic and Budget Commission of the National Assembly and one of the legislators sanctioned by the international community for being considered an accomplice in the violations Nicaraguans’ human rights.”
In his speech, during the plenary session of the Assembly, deputy Gutierrez did not even mention the opposition leaders that the regime -of which he is a part-, has imprisoned in the context of the electoral process and limited himself to saying that if “big capital” wants to join the efforts of the Ortega government, after the November elections, “they are welcome.”
Ortega seeks “legitimacy”
Opposition activists Ivania Alvarez and Alexa Zamora, of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB), said the dialogue announced by deputy Gutierrez is a sign that the regime wants to clean its image before the international community, which on repeated occasions has pronounced itself against the violations of human rights committed in Nicaragua.
“The international community has already begun to repudiate the election process in Nicaragua,” warned Alvarez. That is why the regime, and its advisors will try to “legitimize” themselves with a dialogue, which “will be with the parties that participate (in the electoral farce), some businessmen who have lent themselves to the game and some international allies will always appear, who are from the same circle of authoritarian regimes,” she specified.
Zamora clarified that the announcement of a post-election dialogue does not generate any expectations within the opposition, whose leaders remain incarcerated or in exile, because this is “another attempt by Ortega to legitimize himself through a tailor-made dialogue.”
Meanwhile, the organized opposition groups after the massive protests of 2018 assure that they will continue “disregarding all these processes that do not represent a solution to the sociopolitical and human rights crisis that Nicaragua is experiencing,” Zamora stressed.
The failure of the previous dialogues
This is the third time in the last three years that in Nicaragua there is talk of a national dialogue. At the first national dialogue, held in the heat of the 2018 protests, the Sandinista regime threw all kinds of insults. Ortega himself pointed out a week ago that it was a “shameful” event and accused the bishops of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference of being “terrorists” and “accomplices of terrorism,” as he calls the protests against him.
Ortega narrated in his own way that the Catholic hierarchy gave him a document in which “they did not request, they demanded the removal of all the authorities and that the terrorists be installed in the government at the service of the Yankees.” He also said that he received the document, folded the paper, thanked the bishops and then “we said that we had to regain peace, because in those days there was no peace in Nicaragua. There was is terror, and the country was paralyzed.”
That is how the president justified “Operation Clean-up” that he launched in June and July 2018, deploying an army of police and paramilitaries to repress civic protests with weapons of war in the neighborhoods of Managua, Carazo, Masaya, Jinotega and other departments of the country.
A second national dialogue held in 2019 ended with the approval of a roadmap that the Ortega regime did not comply with. Most of the opponents who participated in that dialogue are currently imprisoned and accused of “conspiracy” to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua.
This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times
