Daniel Ortega’s regime is about to unleash another diplomatic conflict, this time with Panama, whose Government has placed the Sandinista embassy in that country under “warning” for having become a center of political plot against the canal authorities, directed by former president Ricardo Martinelli, asylum in that diplomatic headquarters.
This Thursday, during a meeting with national and international journalists, the president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, reported that his Government has called the Nicaraguan ambassador in that country to express through her to the Ortega Foreign Ministry his displeasure with the activities and expressions of former president Ricardo Martinelli from the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City, where he has been asylum since February of this year, after being persecuted by the justice of that country for several cases of corruption during his mandate (2009-2014).
Diplomatic relations between the governments of the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega and the Panamanian José Raúl Mulino are in a visible deterioration after the Sandinistas decided to shelter Martinelli in the Nicaraguan embassy in the canal country as a political asylum, however, the former president and the Managua regime have broken all the norms of international law referring to asylums, since they have turned the diplomatic headquarters into a kind of political command center for Martinelli, who gives his opinion and participates in his country’s politics from the protection provided by his diplomatic refuge.
The diplomatic tension has intensified after the Mulino administration decided to reject, until now, all the shortlists proposed by Ortega to occupy the General Secretariat of the Central American Integration System (SG-SICA), which is why the Nicaraguan dictators have branded the Panamanian government, along with those of Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, “servile and insane.”
Related news: Panama complains to Nicaragua about political activism by ex-president Martinelli
All this, added to Martinelli’s political activities in the Ortega embassy, caused the Canalero president to say on December 12 that they have already called the Nicaraguan ambassador, which is a diplomatic action considered important as a “protest.”
Indeed, a week earlier, Ortega’s ambassador in Panama City, Consuelo Sandoval, was called by the Panamanian Foreign Ministry to explain that government’s displeasure with Martinelli’s activities in the embassy.
Mulino was clear and blunt when he warned the Sandinista regime that this is the “first warning” they have issued from the Executive to “put some order there (in the Nicaraguan embassy); that comply with international asylum conventions. As simple as that. Let’s not transform that or any embassy into a political center or political-partisan activity for or against anyone,” the Panamanian president strongly warned during his usual weekly press conference.
“I hope that the Republic of Nicaragua understands that and it is the first warning we make in that sense,” the president firmly reiterated.
Shot by the cultured Ortega
José Raúl Mulino came to the Presidency of Panama as a “dolphin” of Martinelli, so the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship was very pleased with the victory of the candidate of its political asylum but, according to analysts, Ortega’s calculation went wrong , since Mulino have not shown themselves at all friendly to tyranny and on the contrary, have put the preponderance of human rights, royal diplomacy and the State of Right.
The position shown by the Panamanian head of state is so firm that this Thursday he stated that the Government of Nicaragua is a despotic tyranny lacking respect for human rights and laws.
Mulino assured that he will wait to see what happens after this protest to make other decisions, without explaining what they would be, however he did make it clear that the call to the foreign ministry by Ortega’s ambassador is a very serious action in diplomatic language.
The head of state did not specify whether he will take more drastic measures nor did he mention a possible break in relations with Nicaragua, however, Ortega has quarreled with several governments that he constantly offends in his customary Foreign Ministry notes, written by vice-dictator Rosario. Murillo, where he utters undiplomatic epithets against foreign leaders.
The dictators Ortega and Murillo have fought with the leaders of Spain, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and also broke diplomatic relations with the Vatican and Israel.
President Mulino stressed that in this diplomatic friction they are dealing with a country “which has neither God nor Law” and that it is not a common country because “we are not working with an ordinary country that respects international law; They do not respect international, internal or any rights in Nicaragua. It is a fairly sui generis country in terms of appealing the application of the law. That doesn’t exist there. There is no law in Nicaragua,” criticized the president of Panama.
