Nicaragua’s request to incorporate Russia as an observer of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and expel Taiwan has caused division in the opinions of the countries of the region, experts assure the Voice of America.
Nicaragua proposed integrating Moscow into the regional forum on the eve of the visit of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on April 19, but has encountered resistance in countries such as Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Former Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís said that Ortega’s proposal “is absurd” since in his opinion “Russia does not contribute anything to SICA and has no interest in the agenda” of the organization.
“This is a move by Daniel Ortega to incorporate Russia at a time when it needs international space due to the invasion it has carried out in Ukraine and it seems to me that the Central American countries have sufficient reasons to veto Russia’s entry,” the president said. to the VOA.
Nicaragua has held the SICA General Secretariat for the period 2022-2026 since June, after several months there was no consensus for the election of said position.
“It’s enough of impositions in SICA,” said former president Solís.
“Nicaragua imposed the president of CABEI and put a candidate for general secretary, threatened with all kinds of vetoes and radical actions in SICA, and it seems to me that in this case the other countries should not listen to Nicaragua in this request” , indicated.
SICA, constituted in 1991 and created by the States of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, has as its fundamental objective the integration of Central America, to constitute it as a “region of peace, freedom, democracy and development”.
Among the countries or observer organizations, SICA has Taiwan, Mexico, Spain, Chile, Germany, Argentina, Japan, the United States, among others.
However, the Ortega government argues that Taiwan’s presence is wrong when most of the region’s countries have severed relations with the small island nation.
“must be reversed [sic] the presence of Taiwan in SICA; since there is no reason to be… it is absurd that where there are a majority of countries that have a relationship with the People’s Republic of China,” Ortega said on April 15, after meeting with the Delegation of the China Agency for International Cooperation for Development (CIDCA).
According to regulation of SICA, an observer “may have the right to speak”, in the same way to participate in meetings by invitation.
The Observer may also submit an agenda item of interest to SICA for consideration, “aimed at strengthening friendship and cooperation relations between the Observer member and SICA, through the Presidency pro tempore or the General Secretariat, Technical or Executive Secretariat that corresponds”.
“An attempt by Ortega to incorporate Russia”: Evan Ellis
Evan Ellis, professor and researcher of Latin American Studies at the Institute for Strategic Studies of the US Army War College, believes that Nicaragua’s invitation to Russia in SICA “is a maneuver with a political message.”
Ellis considers that Russia, with “its bloody invasion of Ukraine”, does not reach those standards of freedom and democracy, which are the foundation of SICA, for which reason he considers that “it would be sad to politicize SICA since this has really been an organization that has worked relatively well in recent years as an instrument for Central American integration”.
“I believe that the fact that, up to now, no attempt has been made to expel Nicaragua despite its authoritarianism is a testament to SICA’s attempts to continue involving a dialogue of all its geographic partners in the region, despite their policies and actions,” Ellis concluded.
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