The former executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Paulo Abrao described as positive the recent statements by the Nicaraguan ambassador Arthur McFieldsbefore the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), where he denounced the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
In an exclusive interview with Article 66, The human rights defender said that there can be no doubt that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega is being defeated. “It is a progressive, slow process, but it is increasingly pointing to isolation; an expansion of international condemnation, a distancing from the truly left-wing progressive forces that do not identify with authoritarian regimes or what can be called the authentic left”, he pointed out.
Related news: Arturo McFields, ambassador to the OAS, denounces the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship
Abrão emphasized that there are many deserters from the Ortega regime inside and outside the country who are mobilizing to make visible the state of serious violations and crimes against humanity “as civil society organizations do.”
He also pointed out that when these actions and political messages “are pushing to pressure the dictatorship—of Ortega—to give in, we are faced with the possibility of conquering spaces.”
Public officials, hostages of state terrorism
Abrão believes that through the different forms of democratic resistance it will be possible to face the dictatorship in Nicaragua, and that one of the most important actions takes place within public functionalism.
“All of us know, even before the elections —on November 7 in Nicaragua— that a good part of them (public officials) are hostages of state terrorism promoted by the Ortega and Murillo regime,” he stated.
He recalled that actions similar to those of Arturo McFields have already occurred before with other public officials who denounced the pressure they suffer. “Police officers, judges and now the important diplomatic sectors that do not accept becoming operational forces of repression or that have reached a level of intolerance that no longer allows them to remain silent,” he mentioned.
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He stressed that many Ortega officials who have decided to break the silence is because their actions do not allow them to continue, but that they have preferred to “join all those who suffer the consequences of having made the decision to implement their courage to denounce.”
Something important that Abrão underlined is that both Arturo McFields and those who decide to denounce Ortega’s crimes “are going to require solidarity on our part.”
“You always have to be very intelligent when sending these messages that the popular base is silencing and that has not yet been able to say everything that is happening, but little by little they are realizing that the authoritarian project of the country is leading its own society to a cliff,” he emphasized.
The also lawyer trusts that “other Nicaraguan diplomats make the decision to denounce Daniel Ortega. These are the experiences that have been verified in other democratic transitions in other countries, especially in the Southern Cone where the dictatorships were bleeding and some were defeated in shorter processes, others in longer processes, but all these are the fundamental steps to reconquer democracy”.
