With small protests, groups of Nicaraguans have demonstrated this week in the context of the IX Summit of the Americas in Los AngelesCalif.
Gretel Campbell, a Nicaraguan activist, stood on Monday with banners in her hands before the headquarters of the hemispheric meeting to “visualize the human rights violations that occur daily” under the administration of President Daniel Ortega, whose government was excluded from the invitation. to the forum, as did Cuba and Venezuela.
The Summit began on the first day with a civil society forum that runs until this Tuesday, according to the agenda published in the agency website.
The topics addressed range from digital transformation and human rights and the Internet, to ways to improve the integration of migrants in the Americas. One paper even addresses the issue of gender equality and democracy in the 21st century.
Ligia Gómez, from the independent organization Open Ballot Boxes participates this Tuesday in one of the forums parallel to the Summit “exposing the issue of the extermination of democracy in Nicaragua and how the regime has canceled all democratic channels and has changed all the rules of the game.”
The opponent told the voice of america that from the organization he represents it was possible to demonstrate “the fraudulent process” in the 2021 general elections, where President Daniel Ortega won a new term of five more years.
Ortega and his followers, however, maintain that it was a legitimate process and call the opponents attempts not to recognize the results.
But Gómez, like other activists, points out that there is no legitimate government in Nicaragua and that therefore it should not be present at the forum based in the United States.
“One of the characteristics in the Summit is that the governments are legitimate and it is more important the fact that mechanisms are generated that help control these authoritarian governments that destroy these democratic processes,” said Gómez.
The Summit was also attended by other opponents such as former Nicaraguan ambassador before the Organization of American States (OAS), Arturo McFields, who criticized the president of Mexico, Manuel López Obrador for considering him “a mariachi of the dictatorships” by refusing to be at the event due to the exclusion of Daniel Ortega, Nicolás Maduro and Miguel Diaz Canel.
The Mexican president has sent Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard in his place.
“It was not that they did not invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, they invited the people, the representatives of civil society, they did not invite the dictatorships that murder citizens,” McFields told the digital media Current Nicaragua and 100% News.
New sanctions
The United States develops for this summit the motto “Building a sustainable, resilient and equitable future”. Governments, civil society and the private sector in the region, and 13 international organizations form the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) to support the event.
According to Arturo McFields, starting the forum with civil society organizations is representative. “There was a powerful message with this start of the Summit and that is that they started with civil society. We saw the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, and Brian Nichols from the State Department,” he noted.
In fact, Nichols warned about the possibility of new sanctions against the administration of President Daniel Ortega during the start of the Civil Society Forum framed in the Summit of the Americas.
“It was a strong message (from the US). It tells the regime that it can do something to show that it can get those political prisoners out instead of tightening up the repression, it gives it this harsh message, but it gives it the opportunity to correct what has been done and act like a president”, affirms the diplomat.
According to McFields, the sanctions against Ortega could be of an economic nature, such as the free trade agreement, known as Cafta.
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