The efforts made by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), to convince the Daniel Ortega regime to accept the visit of a high-level commission of the regional body, remain bogged down and without a response from the Nicaraguan Government .
Sources linked to the regional body commented that to date, they still do not have a response or a specific reaction from the Government, but the “efforts continue.”
On December 18, Almagro, asked the OAS Permanent Council to extend until mid-January the deadline for the delivery of a report on the steps it is taking with the Nicaraguan government. That day was precisely the deadline established by this body for the Secretary General to present a report referring to his attempts to convince the Ortega regime to accept the high-level mission.
The Permanent Council of the OAS, in a session held on December 8, approved a resolution urging new elections in Nicaragua, for which it demands “a dialogue of all political parties and other actors in Nicaragua with the objective of holding presidential elections and early parliamentarians who are free, impartial and transparent, with credible international observation ”.
At another point, it established that “the Secretary General should urgently request a meeting with the Government of Nicaragua, with the objective of agreeing to carry out comprehensive electoral reforms, in accordance with what was requested in previous OAS resolutions and in accordance with the Obligations of Nicaragua in the framework of international law ”.
Almagro’s letter was in response to the Permanent Council
Guillermo Belt, who was an advisor to the former OAS Secretary General, João Baena Soares and an official of the regional body for 37 years, revealed that the request made by Almagro to extend the deadline to present the report was in response to a query on the case. made by the then president of the Permanent Council, the ambassador of the Dominican Republic, Josué Fiallo.
“The curious thing about that letter is that it was not spontaneous, it was written on the last day of the deadline set by the Permanent Council. That from my point of view was very serious, because for him (Almagro) to have to request that extension, he would have to have acted before to give the Council time to consider what he was asking for, “said Belt.
“What happens is that Almagro, although he does not say so in his letter, what he is actually answering is a query from the President of the OAS Permanent Council about what had happened with the steps, since he had to inform the Permanent Council on the results of the same. But what Almagro did was write the letter as if it had been his initiative, but it was not like that, “he added.
It is not an endorsement of legitimacy for Ortega
The former OAS adviser expressed the opinion that Almagro’s efforts and the fact that the report was delivered after Daniel Ortega took office on January 10, do not imply an endorsement of political legitimacy towards him by the regional body. .
“The extension requested by Almagro for the management entrusted to him by the Permanent Council does not legitimize Ortega. The Permanent Council, as a political body, has declared the November 7 elections illegitimate. As long as that body, or in its case, the General Assembly, as the supreme body of the OAS, does not say otherwise, there is no way to contradict what has already been resolved, ”he explained.
On November 12, during the General Assembly of Foreign Ministers of the OAS, 25 countries approved a resolution declaring the November 7 votes “without legitimacy”, in which Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo were re-elected, in a process characterized due to the lack of political competition, without democratic guarantees, and under violence and political persecution, which resulted in seven opposition candidates being imprisoned.
The OAS resolutions condemning the repression, the non-release of political prisoners, and calling the November 7 votes illegitimate, led the Ortega regime to begin the process of leaving Nicaragua from the regional body on November 19.
Little chance that Almagro will open doors
A former Nicaraguan diplomat who asked to protect his identity to avoid retaliation by the regime, said that he sees it unlikely that Almagro will be successful in convincing Ortega to dialogue with the high-level commission.
“What has happened so that Ortega changes his position of total rejection of the OAS?”, Ratified in his formal denunciation of the Bogota Charter. Any. Negotiations on Venezuela are bogged down and Ortega, on the contrary, is playing his chips on the international stage to turn Nicaragua into a piece of the global geopolitical chess. That he achieves it is something else, but those are his intentions, “he said.
The last time the OAS participated in a dialogue process in Nicaragua was in 2019, when the regional body sent its delegate, Luis Ángel Rosadilla, to be an interlocutor between the regime and the Civic Alliance.
This dialogue, requested by the Episcopal Conference and the main capitals of the country, with the mediation of the Apostolic Nuncio, Waldemar Sommertag, managed to culminate in a combo of agreements signed between the representatives of the Civic Alliance and Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, on behalf of the regime. . However, a short time later, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo were unaware of the agreements signed by Moncada.
“The OAS is in a difficult situation, because at the same time there is the question of its credibility as a regional organization. Given the impossibility of obtaining the necessary votes to suspend Nicaragua, the only alternative that remains is to convene an extraordinary Assembly, within the framework of Article 20 of the Democratic Charter, and approve new measures of diplomatic pressure at the highest level ”, added the former diplomat.
The extension of the term requested by Almagro does not have a specific date for the delivery of the report, but the specialists estimate that any move by the Permanent Council on the crisis in Nicaragua will take place after the inauguration of January 10, the date on which Ortega He would serve 15 years in power.
