The presidents of Central America will define this month the new secretary general of the Central American Integration System (SICA) after a year of paralysis due to the fact that there was no approval for the candidates proposed by Nicaragua, a country that, by rotation, has to present the candidates.
The Foreign Minister of Costa Rica, Arnoldo André Tinoco, told the Spanish agency Efe on Thursday that the agendas of the presidents of SICA are being squared to hold the meeting this month, virtually, in order to decide whether to appoint as new general secretary of the organization Nicaraguan Werner Vargas Torres for the next four years.
The Costa Rican minister said that there is a consensus of the region’s foreign ministers for the appointment of Vargas, and that the presidents are expected to accept this recommendation at the meeting they will hold.
Consensus was reached at the end of June last, in a virtual meeting of Central American foreign ministers, in which the situation of the impasse in SICA was addressed. Vargas was executive director of the General Secretariat of SICA during the presidency of the Guatemalan Vinicio Cerezo in the organization (2014-2020). Agency sources assured CONFIDENTIAL that the Nicaraguan left office due to differences with Cerezo’s chief of staff, but he is highly appreciated in the different instances linked to regional integration.
“This man, who has been executive director of SICA from 2014 to 2020, who knows the system and is a diplomat, is considered to be a suitable person,” André said.
According to their professional profile on LinkedIn, Vargas has held positions as Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs in the Central American Parliament; director for European Union issues, and head of office at the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry between 2008 and 2010. He was also a legal collaborator of the Central American Court of Justice (ICJ) between 2010 and 2014, a position he left to occupy the executive direction of SICA .
Agency Review
The Costa Rican foreign minister commented that it is necessary to reactivate SICA after more than a year, since there are “153 million dollars waiting to be executed” in projects in the region.
“By reactivating SICA, we intend to give it a definitive boost, recognizing of course, the criticism that has been made of the presence of Nicaragua because there are policies (of that country) that are interpreted as a violation of the founding principles of the system, the idea being development of democracy and freedom”, said André.
The Costa Rican minister affirmed that the SICA “must be reviewed”, since it has 400 officials and is “expensive”, although he stressed that it has also achieved achievements such as the negotiation for the purchase of vaccines at good prices.
Cerezo finished his term in June 2021. Since that date, SICA does not have a general secretary, who has the legal representation of the organization and is the highest administrative position. There is no other official in the regional entity who can manage or sign cooperation or donation agreements or contracts to develop technical projects in the countries of the region.
Nicaragua is responsible for the General Secretariat, for the period 2021-2025, based on an agreement of the Central American presidents of 2017, in which it was established that each country will take turns in charge, guided by the principle of geographical rotation.
Against Ortega candidates
On June 26, eight former Costa Rican presidents, who are part of the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA), issued a statement in which they indicated that it is “incongruous” that Costa Rica endorses the election of “a candidate proposed by the despotic and oppressive regime that governs Nicaragua, so that it occupies the main position of the Central American integration system”.
Before Vargas, the candidacy of the former Minister of Industry and Commerce, Orlando Solórzano, was the third attempt by the Ortega regime to place someone loyal in office, after the two previous proposals were rejected by the majority of the countries in the region.
First, the regime proposed that the last secretary general, former president Cerezoaccused of sympathizing with Ortega, remained in office, but the proposal was rejected by Belize.
Subsequently, the regime proposed a terna headed by former Sandinista guerrilla Orlando José Tardencilla, who had a fleeting step as representative of Nicaragua before the OAS; the architect Luz Marina López Escobar, architect and technical coordinator of the Infrastructure Secretariat of the Autonomous Regional Government of the North Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, and María Amelia Coronel Kinloch, who since 2017 has served as head of the Ministry of the Interior (Migob).
However, this shortlist was rejected because it was made up of “people without much knowledge” in the foreign service, and “very close to the regime,” according to the reactions of the member countries.
