The “repression” by the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, towards the political opposition and the Nicaraguan people since 2018 “has become increasingly draconian,” said Samantha Power, director of the United States Cooperation Agency (USAID). ), on Friday.
Power’s statements, quoted in a press release from the institution, took place during the swearing-in of the new director of the USAID Mission in Nicaragua, Michael Eddy.
Power stressed that the new chief of mission “takes the reins at a really difficult time for Nicaragua, and an especially difficult time (…) for our citizens of the Foreign Service” in that country.
He also denounced that there are still around 150 political prisoners in that country and that the closure of hundreds of NGOsas well as the persecution against human rights defenders, religious groups and citizens who oppose the government.
“Our Foreign Service citizens live under the threat of reprisals from the Ortega-Murillo regime, as do countless Nicaraguans,” said Power, who also added that “the lack of government support” makes the agency’s work “unreliable. harder to do.”
Upon his arrival in office, Eddy faces an uncertain panorama in the Central American country, not only due to attacks against the foreign service, but also to a series of media attacks against USAID orchestrated by the Ortega Administration through its official media. .
In her last editorial, the vice president and wife of Ortega, Rosario Murillo, said that the US cooperation agency seeks to “penetrate the base of the Sandinista Front, divide Sandinismo, isolate President Ortega at the international level and, of course, promote the interests of corporate America.”
Added to the above is the beginning of a new wave of dissolution of non-profit entities, which the government accuses of receiving funds from abroad to promote a coup with the support of the United States.
According to the calculation made by human rights organizations, such as the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights, a total of 440 entities (NGOs, companies, associations, humanitarian organizations, etc.) have been dissolved to date by the Nicaraguan authorities.
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