The Government of Nicaragua did not provide any formal response to the requests and negotiations on the part of Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), to allow the arrival of a high-level delegation from the regional organization to negotiate the holding of new elections in Nicaragua, with transparency and credible observation.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, in this way, closes the doors to the last attempt of the OAS Permanent Council to find a way to restore democracy and civil liberties in Nicaragua. Almagro’s efforts They are part of a Permanent Council resolution approved on December 8, 2021, in another effort by the regional body to commit to diplomatic channels and political negotiation to find a way out of the country’s sociopolitical crisis.
December 8th, the Permanent Council approved with 25 votes a resolution urgently demanding from the Ortega Murillo regime the release of all political prisoners and the acceptance of the high-level mission to reach an agreement, in view of the fact that “Nicaragua is not fulfilling the commitments assumed in the Democratic Charter Inter-American”.
The 25 governments that voted in favor of the resolution bring together the majority of the countries of Central America, North America, South America and the Caribbean. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Canada, United States, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana and Suriname, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Venezuela, Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and Dominica.
“Efforts were made at all levels. Communications were sent to Commander-in-Chief Daniel Ortega himself, and institutional contacts were also made at the highest level with the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry and its dependencies. Consultations were also made through political channels at the highest level and through the General Secretariat. Also through the Nicaraguan missions to the OAS”, Almagro reported at a meeting of the Permanent Council this Wednesday,” Almagro pointed out.
“Of the steps taken, approval has not been received for the sending of the high-level good offices mission; that is, no formal response has been received in this regard”, stressed the Uruguayan diplomat.
“There was no rejection”
From the General Assembly of Foreign Ministers of the OAS, on November 12 2021, Nicaragua is immersed in a so-called “collective evaluation” process of its sociopolitical crisis, established in article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
Almagro emphasized that he was stating that on the part of Nicaragua there was no “reject response” to the efforts, but the Government did not respond to the requests to discuss what was established in the resolution of December 8.
After the general secretary read the report, the session was ended by the president pro tempore of the organization, the permanent representative of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Warren Everson Alarick Hull.
On November 19, Nicaragua began a process of leaving the OAS, arguing that the latest body resolutions on the sociopolitical crisis “undermine the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples” and demonstrated that the regional entity “was an instrument of United States imperialism”.
