Nicaraguan activists, journalists and human rights defenders attended the IX Summit of the Americas to denounce the problems that the country suffers in terms of freedom of expression and human rights under the government of Daniel Ortega.
The governments of Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela were not invited to the appointment that began on Wednesday, but numerous civil society organizations did.
In Nicaragua “countless threats, harassment, persecution and criminalization have been carried out using repressive laws, such as the Foreign Agents Law, the Money Laundering Law or recently the law of non-profit organizations,” he told the press. voice of america Wendy Flores, defender of the Human Rights Collective Nunca+.
“We are facing a situation of a regime that wants to see the country as if they were the feudal lord and the feudal lady and we were the vassals. But this civil society does not give in,” added activist and exile Haydée Castillo, referring to the presidential couple made up of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
The president of the Fundación del Río, Amaru Ruíz, denounced attacks and violations against the human rights of indigenous people and Afro-descendants.
“The indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of Nicaragua conserve more than 51% of the country’s forests. That is why the importance of raising their struggles and raising their demand”, Ruíz emphasized.
That feeling was reinforced by the testimony of Lenner Fonseca, of the National Council of the Peasant Movement, who experienced first-hand the persecution and imprisonment that today forced him to live in exile.
Raising his voice cost him to go to jail in Nicaragua, said Fonseca, who now has not hesitated to join his compatriots in expressing his sorrows in the streets of Los Angeles, where, since last Monday, some of the main personalities of the continent on the occasion of the Summit of the Americas.
Francisca Ramírez, an exiled peasant leader in Costa Rica, was in one of the forums parallel to the forum and highlighted the importance of her invitation.
“We Nicaraguans who are in exile, the least we can lose is hope, despite the fact that in Nicaragua there is a kidnapped people. Those of us who can speak up have to raise our voices,” he told VOA Ramírez, and added that he made demands on behalf of peasants who are detained under justice related to President Ortega.
Ligia Gómez, from the independent organization Open Ballot Boxes, He also participated in one of the forum’s panels “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.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in an interview to CNN that the activists “are more representative of their peoples” than the leaders who were not invited from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
President Daniel Ortega criticized the Summit of the Americas in mid-May and said he was not interested in attending.
“It’s a shame what the rulers are doing yankees with this summit,” Ortega said then. “We have to make ourselves respected, we cannot be asking the Yankeeor begging him, that we want to go to his summit”.
The former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS Arturo McFields also considers that with the invitation to civil society organizations “and a strong message was sent.”
“Civil society, human rights defenders, journalists, opponents, exiles were invited (…) and they have raised their voices in favor of the release of political prisoners, of democracy, of respect for freedom of expression, for the rule of law, and those are the voices that have been heard,” the former diplomat told the voice of america.
In Nicaragua, Ortega has begun a fierce persecution against civil society organizations since 2018. To date, they have been cancelled. some 450 non-governmental organizations and analysts have denounced “a demolition” of free assembly.
McFields stressed that it was interesting to see how the Summit of the Americas “starts with this important meeting with different sectors of civil society and above all with a notorious and strong presence of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, something very transcendental, which sets the tone.”
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
