The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario will carry out next week the largest day of cancellation of legal status to date, upon learning of a legislative decree initiative presented by Ortega to annul 83 civil organizations at once.
This initiative was presented by the Ortega deputy Filiberto Rodríguez López to be discussed and surely approved by the steamroller of orteguista deputies and their political allies in the National Assembly during next week’s parliamentary sessions.
With these 83 cancellations, the Ortega regime, in its hunt with civil society organizations, will reach 356 orenegés and associations canceled since 2018, of which 282 will be closed so far in 2022.
The organizations, associations and foundations included in this new list prepared by the regime dealt with issues such as the promotion of democracy, social services, protection of children, defense of women’s rights, care for the environment, equestrian issues and the study of the language, mainly.
Among the varied number of organizations that the regime intends to cancel, the most notable are the Nicaraguan Academy of Language, The Association for the Comprehensive Attention of Human Rights, The Enrique Bolaños Foundation, Association of Peasant Protectors of Bosawas, Nicaraguan Association for the Defense of Women, Citizen Advocacy Network Association, Inde-Educrédito Foundation, Financial Association of Development, Nora Astorga Women’s Association and the Nicaraguan Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
will also be canceled New Dawn Children’s Association, New Era Foundation, Association of the Nicaraguan Institute for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Association of the Center for Rehabilitation and Hope for Addicts, the Nicaraguan Association of Nutritionists and Dieticians and the Foundation for Liberty and Democracy, among many others.
The arguments put forward by the regime to justify these cancellations are the same with which they have justified their hunt for NGOs from the beginning: an alleged failure to submit their financial statements to the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) “according to the fiscal periods with a detailed breakdown of income, expenses, trial balance and details of donations (origin, provenance and final beneficiary)”.
Another of the remarks of the Ortega deputy Rodriguez is that allegedly the NGOs did not report to Migob who make up their boards of directors, previous donations from abroad and identity documents of their funders. He also argues that these associations did not comply with their registration as Foreign Agents.
As has been the case on previous occasions, Deputy Rodríguez also argued “the foundation-association entities have transgressed and failed to comply with their obligations under the laws that regulate them as non-profit organizations and have hindered the control and surveillance of the regulatory entity, developing their activities outside the law and acted against express law”.
The arguments of deputy Rodríguez and the Migob are the same ones that have been used in the last three years to cancel the legal status of more than a hundred organizations, foundations and associations of civil society that promoted social, political, economic, human rights, democracy, education and health development in Nicaragua.
However, the dissolution of these organizations occurred in a context of repression and reprisals that emerged after the 2018 protests and worsened in 2021, when the regime faced an electoral landscape where it eliminated political competition and secured its fourth consecutive term. .
