In the session of the US Senate, where the nomination of Hugo Rodríguez was examined, the diplomat said that Nicaragua “is becoming more and more a pariah state within the region”
The administration of Daniel Ortega withdrew this Thursday, July 28, its approval for the entry of the new United States ambassador to Nicaragua, Hugo Rodríguez, after accusing him of issuing “interfering and disrespectful” statements against that country.
“The Government of Nicaragua, in use of its powers and in exercise of its national sovereignty, immediately withdraws the approval granted to the candidate Hugo Rodríguez,” Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada announced in a press release.
The measure was taken after Rodríguez offered “in a confirmation hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (…) interfering and disrespectful statements against our country,” the note says.
Last May, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, nominated Rodríguez to occupy the position of ambassador to Nicaragua to replace Kevin Sullivan, a position that must be ratified by Congress.
In the session of the US Senate, where Rodríguez’s nomination was examined, the diplomat said that Nicaragua “is increasingly becoming a pariah state within the region.”
He also considered that “removing Nicaragua from CAFTA (Free Trade Agreement between Central America, the Dominican Republic and the United States) is a potentially very powerful tool and something that we have to seriously consider” to sanction Ortega.
*Also read: Justice in Nicaragua sentenced the opposition Yubrank Suazo to 10 years in prison
Washington considered the election of Daniel Ortega for a fourth consecutive term in 2021 fraudulent, which occurred with several of his rivals imprisoned or exiled.
The Nicaraguan foreign minister affirmed that “according to diplomacy and in compliance with the postulates of the Vienna Convention, the ambassador or candidate for ambassador Hugo Rodríguez cannot get involved in national issues that are specific to Nicaraguans.”
Nicaragua and the United States have maintained tense relations since the opposition protests against the Ortega government in 2018, which, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), left 355 deaths. After those events, the United States began to sanction various officials of the Ortega government, and his relatives, accusing them of human rights violations and corruption.
With information from DW in Spanish
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