Costa Rican President-elect Rodrigo Chaves would have no problem establishing relations with neighboring Nicaragua, he told a news conference on Sunday.
Chaves was consulted by reporters about it during a visit he made to the College of Journalists on Sunday afternoon, hours before his victory at the polls was known, and indicated that relations with Managua would be “peaceful” and added that to that strategy he would call it “diplomacy and foreign relations”, since it goes beyond his personal opinions.
“When you are president, you have a responsibility beyond your personal opinions, this is called diplomacy and foreign relations strategies, I have personal opinions; That said, the foreign policy of Rodrigo Chaves, if God allows it, will be a foreign policy that leads Costa Rica, as a nation that has neither friends nor enemies, we want to have zero enemies, but our main objective will be the well-being of Costa Ricans,” Chaves pointed out.
Nicaragua celebrates four years of socio-political crisis on April 18, which began with the repression unleashed by the Daniel Ortega administration against protesters opposed to his mandate, which left people dead, displaced and imprisoned, according to human rights organizations.
The outgoing government of Carlos Alvarado has kept relations cool with the Ortega government. In fact, since June 2018, Costa Rica had not sent an ambassador to Nicaragua until March 2021, when the sending of a diplomat was made official, as reported at the time in a press release.
But the decision changed again when the Costa Rican government stopped sending its representative.
Chaves, for his part, has said that “the interest of Costa Ricans is to have a peaceful relationship with all the nations of the world, a relationship of prosperous exchange, through trade with all the nations of the world.”
“We have a neighbor, we feel the pain of many Nicaraguans, in fact, this country knows our neighbors very well and we will continue to do so, with respect, compassion and with the sentiment of democrats, and that we believe in freedom and that we believe in a pacifist society and that is how we are going to get along,” he added.
“Sending a diplomat would be endorsing the dictatorship”: activist
The Nicaraguans in exile have previously asked the two candidates who participated in the second round of elections to keep relations with Managua suspended.
“We have told the candidates not only to say that they support democracy, but to translate into not sending any ambassador to Managua as the Alvarado government has done,” he told the press. voice of america the activist and former political prisoner Gabriel Putoy, who is in San José, Costa Rica.
“Sending a diplomat would be endorsing the dictatorship,” he added.
“Rodrigo Chaves said that he supports the people of Nicaragua, but he would endorse doing business with Nicaragua, they cannot do business with criminals, doing business with them is doubtful,” Putoy said.
Since the sociopolitical crisis began in Nicaragua in 2018, Costa Rica has received more than 100,000 refugee applications, however in the last eight months, the number of refugees has doubled in recent months, according to the latest report of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The UN agency indicated that the current number of Nicaraguans seeking protection in Costa Rica already exceeds the total number of refugees and asylum seekers that occurred in the 1980s with the Central American civil wars.
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