Leaders related to President Daniel Ortega, as well as members of the ruling party, reacted this Thursday after being included in the Law of Reinforced Commitment between the United States and the Northern Triangle, better known as “Engel list”.
On the part of the ruling party, the deputy and member of the Board of Directors of the National Assembly, Wilfredo Navarro, who has been a parliamentarian for more than two decades, said that being included on the list was like “a decoration” for him, at the same time that he said that the measure was not “going to break him”, despite the fact that the Ortega government has repeatedly protested against the sanctions imposed on his circle.
Navarro was included on the Engel List along with two other pro-government legislators for “giving the Ortega-Murillo regime the tools to conduct its brazen assault on democracy by filling the Supreme Electoral Council with members of the FSLN loyal to Ortega,” according to the State Department report.
“A sanction from the United States is a medal, a decoration on my chest that I have, because that means that I have been hitting the empire with my statements and accusations,” Navarro emphasized. digital medium Nicaragua Investigates.
On the other hand, deputies agglutinated in the bench of the former opposition Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), came out in defense of its president María Haydeé Osuna, whom the State Department included in the list for “conspiring” to subvert the November presidential elections. of 2021 where Daniel Ortega prevailed for a new term.
And it is that three months before the disputed elections of November 7, 2021, Osuna denounced the Citizens for Freedom Party before the Electoral Tribunal for allegedly being illegally constituted and asked that it be canceled. The Court resolved in favor of his claim in an expedited manner.
“Osuna Ruiz, current member of the National Assembly of Nicaragua (…) by signing a spurious complaint served as a pretext for the government to disqualify the last remaining legitimate opposition party and persecute its leader into exile,” says the Department of Condition.
The deputies related to Osuna indicated that the sanction against the leader is “a vile interference in the internal affairs of the country” and in turn attacked the Citizens for Freedom Party (CxL), whose legal personality was canceled at the request of Osuna , pointing out that it is “a destructive campaign in order to eradicate liberalism.”
The Liberal Party, today led by Osuna, was one of the main political forces in the country before Ortega came to power in 2007.
In fact, through the PLC, two leaders were elected in the country’s democratic era, former president Enrique Bolaños Geyer and Arnoldo Alemán, later prosecuted for acts of corruption, but released after an alleged pact with Ortega that made him return to power.
Also included in the Engel List were the majority of recently elected magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Council, such as Brenda Rocha Chacón, current president of this state power; Cairo Amador; and Lumberto Ignacio Campbell Hooker. Altogether they were nine officials sanctioned.
The leader of the Unamos Party, Hector Mairena, told VOA that the sanctions announced this Thursday are part of the pressure that the international community is developing “against the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship for the destruction of democracy, for the human rights violations”.
“Judiciaries who act as a firing squad for Ortega are also being sanctioned to decree civic death and the imprisonment of political prisoners, who are hostages of the dictatorship,” Mairena said.
What does the Engel List look for?
According to the United States, the Enhanced Engagement Act between the United States and the Northern Triangle, known as the “Engel List” in reference to Eliot Engel, a Democratic US legislator who sponsored the legislation, is intended to counter corruption in the Central American region, reason that has triggered the migration to the north.
Until the end of 2021, 62 people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador had been included in said list causing annoyance among their rulers. Until this 2022 Nicaraguans were added.
The reaction of the leaders after sanctioning their officials has been anger. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, for example, attacked Washington just as the Nicaraguan ruling party did on Thursday.
“Foreign nationals listed in this report will have their visas immediately revoked and any other valid visa or entry documentation will be void unless a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) waiver is granted,” according to the legislation’s instruction. , published in the Federal Register.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
