The arrest of Nicaraguan businessmen Michael Healy and Álvaro Vargas was condemned by national and regional organizations of the business private sector. One of them was CACIF, whose president Hermann Girón warned that “foreign investors in Nicaragua are worried about what may come.”
“The Government, in its actions in recent weeks and months, really creates enormous doubts; but investments are not made and are undone in one day. Those investments that have been made in Nicaragua over the years, by Guatemalan investors, but also from other regions of Central America and the world, are all at a time of concern, “said the Guatemalan businessman in an interview with the program This week.
He added that “any opinion that they (investors) express or any request for a course correction can be punished. So, that is something that definitely generates a lot of concern for those who have in their strategic plans the decision to expand capacities or invest more in Nicaragua, this definitely gives you a lot to think about ”.
Last week, Healy and Vargas, president and vice president, respectively, of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), were detained by the National Police, and accused of the alleged crime of money laundering and for violating national sovereignty, according to the provisions of Law 1055.
For Girón, “it is a huge shame for business leaders and Guatemalan society to see what is happening in Nicaragua, that anyone who can exercise any leadership, any voice of dissent with the regime of President Ortega is being (arrested).”
“Spurious accusations”
“The charges that we have seen seem to be a sum of spurious accusations that what they seek is to silence him, and when they did not achieve that, well, they arrested him and they have taken away his voice and his freedom. That is outrageous ”, highlighted the president of the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations (CACIF).
Since the end of last May, the Ortega regime has arrested – accused of “treason against the fatherland” or “money laundering” – more than thirty opposition leaders, including seven presidential candidates, human rights defenders, former diplomats, journalists and business leaders such as the former president of Cosep, José Adán Aguerri, and the manager of Banpro, Luis Rivas.
Regarding the case of Aguerri and Rivas, Hermann Girón commented that “what is most worrying” is the arrest of “any voice that is mentioning the problems they are having in Nicaragua, due to the lack of respect for the freedoms of Nicaraguans.”
“We have had communication with presidents and directors of different business chambers, and they are very concerned that the role that a business representative should typically serve is to draw attention to those problems that arise. Everyone is concerned and vulnerable to illegal catches, ”he added.
“Anyone who expresses an opinion that is not supportive of the regime is taking risks, that is not the way a republic works, as we know it in our Central American countries.”
Voting at the OAS
Last week the Permanent Council of the OAS approved a resolution in which they demanded the immediate release of the political prisoners and demanded that the next elections on November 7 take place “under observation by the OAS and other credible international observation.”
The text was approved with 26 votes in favor, none against, an absent country (Nicaragua) and seven abstentions: Barbados, Mexico, Argentina, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Bolivia, Honduras and Guatemala.
The president of CACIF said that Guatemala’s vote was known after it was cast. “It has given us a lot to talk about to the private sector and the public sector in these last two or three days that it happened.”
“What is happening in Nicaragua is really a call to attention to what can happen, not only in Central America but in Latin America with the examples that we have seen of anti-democratic and anti-republican actions in the last eighteen, twenty-four months,” Hermann stressed. Girón.
“The Guatemalan business sector is interested that the position that the Government of Guatemala takes before Nicaragua is a reaction that promotes that republic, that rule of law, in which we all trust, that we all value in order to make our investments, create jobs, pay the taxes that keep the States running, and live a full life as a republic ”.
