The US Department of the Treasury sanctions the gold sector in Nicaragua

First modification: 10/24/2022 – 20:26

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed economic sanctions on the General Directorate of Mines (DGM), which manages most mining operations in Nicaragua on behalf of the government.

“It is an important piece of the gold operations controlled by the State in Nicaragua,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Ortega and his cronies continue to use the profits from the production and sale of gold to line their pockets and pay those who keep the regime in power.

The objective of the sanctions is to prevent the Executive of Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, from “using gold profits to oppress the Nicaraguan people.”

The Nicaraguan government “has used this power to intimidate and imprison those who denounce the corruption of the regime and to sow instability throughout the world,” insists the statement, which mentions the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Nicaragua was one of four countries, and the only Latin American, to align itself with Russia against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Moscow’s attempt to unilaterally annex two regions and two provinces of Ukraine.

More than 200 opponents have been imprisoned in Nicaragua since the 2018 demonstrations, which the Ortega government linked to an alleged failed coup promoted by Washington.

The relationship between the United States and Ortega, a former guerrilla in power since 2007, has been especially tense since the 2021 Nicaraguan elections, considered fraudulent by the international community and which were held with the president’s rivals in prison or in exile.

“The Regime’s Coffers”

This Monday Biden also signed a new executive order to expand the authority of the Treasury.

Specifically, it identifies the gold sector that the Government “uses to finance its authoritarian and destabilizing activities” and allows it to impose restrictions on certain investments and trade relations with Nicaragua, which may affect both imports and exports.

Biden wants to prevent “the United States from contributing to the coffers of the corrupt regime,” the White House said in a statement.

Washington, which has already sanctioned dozens of officials and people close to Ortega, wants to increase pressure on the Nicaraguan government, which has also closed more than 2,000 NGOs and attacked religious leaders and private universities.

“The continuous attacks of the Ortega-Murillo regime against democratic actors and members of civil society and the unjust detention of political prisoners show that the regime does not consider itself subject to the rule of law”, affirms the undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence , Brian Nelson, quoted in a statement.

Washington also targeted this Monday against Lenín Cerna, former secretary of organization of the Sandinista Front, former director of State Security of the Sandinista revolutionary government (1979-1990) and for years one of the men in Ortega’s circle of confidence.

Cerna worked at the Nicaraguan Consulate in Honduras and provided the weapon used in the assassination of Pablo Emilio Salazar, head of the presidential guard of then President Anastasio Somoza, the statement said.

Citing reports, the United States maintains that Cerna is accused of being involved in numerous violent acts, murders and torture and that as head of State Security under Ortega “he became famous and feared as a torturer.”

As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property of these individuals that are in the United States or in the possession or control of Americans are blocked.

Biden’s new measures come days after the European Union (EU) renewed its package of sanctions on the country for a year after a deterioration in relations.