Vice-dictator Rosario Murillo announced a “new restructuring of the way of working” for the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that remain in the country. According to Murillo, NGOs must now, by law, work in alliance with State institutions.
This “restructuring” or “Partnership Alliances” as it is called by the Government, have as their main function to link the projects developed by the NGOs to different institutions of the state controlled by the presidential couple under the excuse of a new operating model.
“Each NGO, in compliance with all its legal obligations, will submit to the Public Entities, through the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the case may be, specific proposals for programs and alliance projects, around particular themes, according to its definition or vocation,” the government said in an official statement.
Murillo said that the government and the institutions will decide whether or not to approve the projects presented by the organizations. He also clarified that in order to be approved, these will have to be strictly attached to the laws of the country; once said project is finished, the organization will be able to present another proposal.
Furthermore, as part of the reform to the laws that regulate NGOs, the regime announced that it will eliminate tax exemptions for such projects. “In this logic, no Program or Project will be subject to tax exemptions or other benefits, so that they are based on a strict purpose and intention of Respect and Solidarity,” it says.
Related news: Closure of NGO in Nicaragua left farmers without technical advisors for their crops
For opponents of the regime, the NGOs that have survived in Nicaragua, with this law, will be under surveillance and pressure from the Sandinista regime, which accused and closed organizations for supposedly planning a “coup d’état” against the government in relation to the anti-government demonstrations in 2018.
“This is part of the regime’s strategy to further expand the control it exercises over the few civil society organizations that it has authorized to continue operating in Nicaragua, which will allow it to monitor even more closely the activities they carry out,” says political analyst Alexa Zamora.
For Zamora, the dictatorship does not want NGOs to establish alliances with countries or international cooperation entities that they may consider inconvenient, which is why it has delegated to the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the task of establishing control over NGOs, which is a total censorship of the freedom of the organizations.
“This new regulation announced by Rosario Murillo, in relation to the operation of the few non-governmental organizations that still survive, makes no sense in relation to the essence of NGOs. What she is proposing, at least in her speech, is turning them into state-run organizations, in other words, it takes away the very essence of their being,” says Ana Quirós of the defunct CISAS organization.
Quirós says that Ortega and Murillo delegate to the Ministry of the Interior because it is in charge of national security and must now directly control the organizations that after 2018 could represent a threat. He also claims that they use the Foreign Ministry to raise funds from foreign investment.
Related news: Elderly people at the Sor María Romero nursing home could be left destitute due to the closure of the NGO
For the opposition, the government is seeking two things by eliminating the autonomy of the organizations: to remove responsibilities from state institutions and to maintain total control over the functioning of society. Quirós says that Ortega’s government already has the army, the police, institutions and powers of the state under its control, and it only needs to exercise it over civil organizations.
Alexa Zamora says that with these new measures the government is seeking to create an image of a certain “normality” regarding the functioning of the organizations in the country after the massive closure of NGOs. “There is already international knowledge about the control that the dictatorship exercises over the organizations” she says.
The government of Daniel Ortega has already unilaterally closed 3,600 non-profit organizations since December 2018, and most of their assets have been transferred to the State. Among the NGOs closed are many religious organizations, a direct attack on the Catholic Church, which has played an important role in supporting and seeking democracy in Nicaragua.
