The Undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the US Department of State, Brian Nichols, warned this Monday about the possibility of new sanctions against the administration of President Daniel Ortega during the start of the Civil Society Forum framed in the Summit of the Americas.
“We expect profound changes in their way of acting and if not, we are going to take measures to express our disagreement with the political pressure that exists in Nicaragua at this time,” Nichols told a Nicaraguan media group that addressed him.
Ortega said prior to the Summit that he was not interested in going -this after the foreseeable exclusion of Managua- and instead participated remotely in the XXI Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), held in Havana, on May 27.
In his speech, digitally transmitted to the forum, the Sandinista president confessed that his ambassador to the United States, Francisco Campbell, has allegedly received warnings from Washington promising more sanctions against the Nicaraguan government.
“Either we do what they say, or tougher sanctions come from Nicaragua” is the message he received from Washington, assured Ortega.
Nicaragua was excluded from the regional forum, as well as Cuba and Venezuela, due to the serious denunciations of human rights violations. In Managua, which has been experiencing a crisis since 2018, the United States has imposed a large number of sanctions aimed at the close circle of President Ortega, including his wife, the first lady Rosario Murillo and his children who run a media emporium Communication.
Washington’s latest sanctions against Managua occurred at the beginning of the year, in January before the “false” inauguration of Ortegawho was re-elected for a new term after having imprisoned all the presidential candidates.
Then, in a statement, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) stressed that the six sanctioned officials were in response to the “fraudulent national elections orchestrated by his regime in November, further consolidating his control of power to the detriment of the Nicaraguan people.” .
Ortega has minimized the Summit
The Summit of the Americas began this Monday and will end on June 10, according to the organizers of the event, which is chaired by the United States.
The Sandinista president, who was not invited on this occasion, has attended at least two Summits of the Americas since his return to power in 2007. The first time was in 2009, which was held in Trinidad and Tobago, and the second in 2015 , In Panama.
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