The report of Group of Experts on Human Rights on Nicaragua (GHREN for its acronym in English) that will be presented this Monday before the Human Rights Council of the United Nations Organization (UN) has “enormous impact”, value human rights defenders, not only because it confirms that in Nicaragua they have committed “crimes against humanity” but because it is a call to the international community to establish “individual responsibilities” for them.
The former Secretary General of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Paulo Abrao, stressed that the report updates the entire set of serious human rights violations that occurred in the framework of the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua, confirms their characteristic of crimes against humanity and indicates to the international community that “things continue to get worse” in the country.
“The great novelty of this report is that it includes a whole chapter on individual liability and, for the first time, an international mechanism is naming, individualizing, the direct responsibility of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in these crimes,” Abrao explained, to the Esta Semana program, from Geneva, Switzerland, where he is participating in a series of activities carried out in the context of the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.
This report is also a call to the international community “to initiate legal activities against these responsible individuals,” said the former secretary of the IACHR. In addition, it indicates the need to continue investigating individual responsibilities and provides “indications of where those responsibilities might be,” he noted.
The director for the Americas of Amnesty International, Erika Guevara, stressed that the report has a huge impact on the international community because the GHREN is confirming that crimes against humanity were committed in Nicaragua, as It had been pointed out in 2018 by the IACHR Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), and warns that these acts continue to be committed.
“We are talking about very serious crimes under international law, such as extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions that —en masse— have been a tool to silence critical voices in Nicaragua. We are talking about the forced disappearance of which many arbitrarily detained people have been subjected, we are talking about torture and mistreatment,” Guevara explained.
The presentation of the report occurs at a time when the regime of Ortega y Murillo has stripped 317 people of their Nicaraguan nationalityof which 222 were sent on a non-return flight to the United States and where “the life, integrity and security of people in Nicaragua continue to be at risk,” stressed the director for the Americas of Amnesty International.
A commitment to universal jurisdiction
The recommendations of the GHREN aim for States to prosecute these crimes against humanity adhering to the principle of justiceuniversal jurisdiction and that countries that have national victims of Nicaraguan repression, such as Brazil, the United States, France and Costa Rica, act within their jurisdiction.
For Abrao “you have to make a bet” for “prosecution through universal jurisdiction, as is the case today in Argentine justice”, where two criminal complaints have been filed against Daniel Ortega and the high authorities of his regime to determine if they committed crimes against humanity in Nicaragua.
The executive secretary of Inter-American Legal Assistance Center on Human Rights (CALIDH)Danny Ramírez, stripped of his Nicaraguan nationality, stressed that there is “a great expectation” about the complaints filed in the Argentine judicial system and that these are currently in a summary stage.
Taking into account “the slowness of the Argentine system, which has its own peculiarities, we believe that (the complaints) are going fast. They are currently in the summary stage, there the judge must say if there are merits or not for the case to be opened. We believe that he is going to do it because of the type of measures that were issued when the process was opened, which included notifying the Nicaraguan government, ”Ramírez explained.
He added that the report GHREN also provides “hope” in the Argentine process, since justice is not only punitive, but also “reparatory and restorative”. “We do not know at what point there will be specific actions by other governments that want to repeat the Argentine case, but we hope that all the actions that exist… at some point have the definitive effect that there is memory, truth and justice for the victims. ”, he commented.
On the other hand, Abrao emphasized that the group’s report points to the “international obligation to protect” countries that have national victims of Nicaraguan repression, which, he assessed, “have the obligation and duty to act in their jurisdiction with actions judicial”.
Multilateral organizations also have an obligation
Another recommendation from GHREN that the director for the Americas of Amnesty International highlighted, is that the international financial organizations help to respect human rights.
“This is not an empty recommendation,” Guevara warned. “It is a recommendation made by the group in a context where bilateral relations between financial institutions and the Government continue, a Government that unfortunately has been accused multiple times of serious human rights violations that constitute crimes against humanity,” he continued. .
In this sense, he considered that said recommendation is “an invitation” to these multilateral entities so that they “put the human rights of Nicaraguans inside and outside the country at the center and that the institutions, entities and governments assume the responsibilities that continue to develop agreements means. who end up being capitalized by a regime that uses the resources to continue violating human rights.”
Along the same lines, Abrao emphasized that all governments have responsibilities in terms of democratic principles. So that “it is required that all the countries of the region be able to follow a position of solidarity, regardless of whether they have a more dialogical or condemnatory line.”
He added that human rights organizations are pressing in Geneva so that this Monday, March 6, when the GHREN report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council, a new resolution will also be voted on renew the mandate of the GHREN for two more years.
Likewise, Guevara concluded that pressure must continue internationally and that “Nicaragua is the example that a consensus must be reached among Latin American governments to extend the mandate of the experts, but also to put an end to the complicit silence of some governments in the region.” that only continues to feed impunity”.
