On the night of November 27, a circular began to circulate on social networks, supposedly signed by the Superintendent of Banks, Luis Ángel Montenegro, which addresses the “general managers of supervised agents”, in which it refers to the Law of Those Sanctioned and the measures that national banking institutions should take to avoid the catastrophe that is already anticipated.
In the communication, the Sandinista official, who also It has also been sanctioned by the United States since November 15, 2021.adds as a reference to “Instructions on compliance with Law No. 1224, Law for the Protection of Nicaraguans from External Sanctions and Aggressions, with respect to international contractual regulations.”
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In the document, identified with the code DS-DS-3882-11-2024/LAME (the last four letters seem to be the initials of Luis Ángel Montenegro Espinoza), the bank superintendent sends two instructions. On the one hand, it says that “financial institutions must maintain compliance with regulations against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing”although none of that is said in the Sanctioned Law that Ortega ordered to be approved last Monday, November 25 and public that same day in the afternoon in the official newspaper La Gaceta.
In a second point of the circular, Montenegro tells “financial institutions (that) they must establish intensified due diligence measures for clients designated on (sanctioned) lists and must report them to the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF).”
It must be verified, the superintendent of banks insists, “that the provision of international financial services for “these clients” corresponds to international contractual regulations.”
The bank superintendent’s circular has been interpreted by some people as a setback by Daniel Ortega in his attempt to circumvent the sanctions, because he was convinced that trying to ignore the maneuvers of the United States was going to end up liquidating the national bank and By doing so you would be shooting yourself in the foot; However, the wording of the second point of this “instruction” also reveals the possibility that it is an artifice of the dictatorship to ensure that in the end the bank reopens the accounts of its sanctioned accomplices, without having consequences with OFAC.
The “Law initiative that regulates the cooperation provided by organizations, cooperation agencies and diplomatic missions accredited in Nicaragua”with which the dictator Daniel Ortega seeks to condition his authoritarian guidelines to international cooperation from organizations, agencies and diplomatic missions in Nicaragua, contradicts international standards, especially in matters of democracy, freedoms and human rights, confirm specialists consulted by Article 66.
To carry out international transactions and be able to move millions of dollars generated from trade and remittances, Nicaraguan banks have links with foreign banks through “correspondent” contracts, which allows them to be active in the known banking interconnection system. as Swiftand which is governed by global financial control policies.
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These financial links allow local banks to receive electronic transfers, family remittances, so that their clients in Nicaragua can pay or collect goods and services, exports and imports, and also allow banking entities in Managua to extend debit and credit cards that are linked to the transnational Visa, MasterCard or American Express.
In the specific case of Nicaragua, according to a review that the team of Article 66 made on the websites of the seven financial institutions, authorized and regulated by the Superintendency of Banks, at least five of them have public their relationship with 54 correspondent banksdistributed in 15 countries.
Article 2 of this bill states that the cooperation provided to the country “will be carried out without political, economic, social or cultural conditions, with strict respect for national sovereignty, independence and self-determination, without interference in internal affairs and in accordance with national legislation and the principles of international law.
Enrique Martínez, defender of civil and political rights from Nicaragua, and part of the Platform of Unity for Democracy (PUDE), in addition to pointing out these “conditions that contradict international standards, especially in matters of democracy, freedoms and human rights,” He assessed that “it is a strategy that is framed in an attempt to attribute the economic crisis to the reduction of international financing when we all know that it is due to the country crisis resulting from institutional, democratic dismantling and repression.”
The regulations, sent by Ortega, in the opinion of the opponent “directly affect organizations such as USAID, the European Union (EU), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and United Nations agencies, such as UNICEF and UNHCR, which “They have historically worked in critical areas such as the fight against poverty, inequality and strengthening education and public health.”
«The regime’s interest in controlling the profiles of those who operate in international cooperation is not coincidental. It seeks to prevent people who are critical or have experience in human rights and democracy from influencing, directly or indirectly, the national debate, the documentation of abuses or the monitoring of the situation in Nicaragua. Furthermore, this control could be a preliminary step towards a broader reform that further restricts the country’s diplomatic relations, consolidating its international isolation and evidencing its disdain for international treaties and norms,” Martínez noted.
