20 de septiembre 2022
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MEP Javier Nart, from the political group Renovar Europa (Renovate Europe), stated that the European Parliament is working to “create the conditions to generate complications for the repressive regime” of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. He said this after a resolution was approved on September 15 in which 540 European parliamentarians requested the activation of the democratic clause of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Central America.
“The European Parliament’s idea, certainly, is first to be in solidarity with the Nicaraguan people; and secondly, to create all the conditions to generate complications for the repressive regime,” said the MEP in an interview with the program Esta Semana, transmitted on Facebook and YouTube due to the TV censorship imposed by Ortega’s regime.
Nart stressed that the governments of Europe are “clear” about the situation of serious human rights violations suffered by Nicaraguans and “there is full unanimity” in the actions that they will take to pressure the Ortega-Murillo regime.
“Europe is very clear about everything and the vote in the European Parliament has been more than 500 votes in favor and twenty something against (…) then, there is [a virtual] full unanimity regarding the situation in Nicaragua,” he stressed.
On the possible application of the democratic clause, he emphasized that there is no interest in the EP to affect the Nicaraguan people, “but if there is assistance, that assistance must go directly to the Nicaraguan people and not remain in the hands of the repressive, dictatorial, fascist administration.”
Closing off spaces to the regime
The resolution on Nicaragua, approved by the European Pariament, besides condemning “in the strongest terms” the repression and arrests of members of the Catholic Church in the country, in particular the arrest of Bishop Rolando Alvarez, urges the member states of the European Union and the United Nations Security Council to initiate “a formal investigation into Nicaragua and Daniel Ortega” for crimes against humanity.
In the document, European parliamentarians also call on the Nicaraguan regime to release all political prisoners, including Bishop Alvarez, and “to annul all judicial proceedings immediately and unconditionally against them and the sentences imposed.”
Nart points out that, with all these actions, what is being sought is to increasingly close the spaces abroad for the Ortega regime.
“Certainly, what this is all about is to create a ghetto, to create a personal, institutional, and economic circle, where these characters, who besides a homeland, have a homeland of money (…) so they have absolute difficulties to enjoy it (money) anywhere outside Nicaragua. That is where we want to go, to deny them access to locating their wealth abroad,” he explained.
The legislator considered that, if these sanctions requested by the European Parliament are applied, especially on the investigation, they expect the International Criminal Court to act, and the regime and its accomplices “will face an international persecution and they will only have Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea as alternatives for their trips; well, and also possibly Bashar al-Assad´s Syria, Belarus, and Russia.”
Furthermore, he recalled that among the regime’s accomplices are “sophisticated well-educated, cultured and reasonable people such as those who carry out the repression, who are the public prosecutors, who are the judges, the magistrates, who from their positions are the repressive leg of the monster.”
“These characters will not be able to go anywhere when the International Criminal Court opens a case,” he commented.
“We will do everything for Nicaragua”
The Spanish MEP assessed that so far, the tools that have been used to respond to the repression in Nicaragua have not been sufficient. However, he notes that personally in each resolution he tries to “place what I understand is essential” and support moving forward “gradually to close the spaces of impunity to the Nicaraguan dictatorship.”
He stated that the European Union and the international community must do “absolutely everything they can” to support the restoration of democratic freedoms in Nicaragua and the release of all political prisoners.
“We will do absolutely everything. What I want to tell you is that Nicaragua has an MEP in the European Union. And I am that MEP. I am an MEP from Spain, but I am also an MEP from Nicaragua, from the Nicaragua that I fought for,” he emphasized.
Nart noted that the recent repressive escalation of Daniel Ortega’s regime against the Catholic Church only shows that Nicaragua is under a “pathological dictatorship that will end, and which means tremendous suffering for the Nicaraguan people.”
In the last month, the regime of Daniel Ortega has unleashed an unprecedented manhunt against the Catholic Church of Nicaragua. It has imprisoned a dozen priests, among them Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, who has been locked up incommunicado under house arrest since August 19; more than a dozen priests and lay people have been forced into exile. They also expelled the Missionaries of Charity.
Likewise, the regime uses official propaganda media to spread national and international news against the Church in general, even involving hoaxes about religious people with allegations of sexual abuse, arms trafficking, and money laundering.
This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times
