This was the conclusion of the document prepared by a group of United Nations experts who are investigating the human rights situation in that Nicaragua since the social outbreak of 2018. Among the findings, which will be presented in detail on March 3, executions are documented. extrajudicial acts, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence and arbitrary deprivation of nationality.
The government apparatus and its institutions led by the former Sandinista commander, including the National Police, perpetrated serious human rights violations that can even be classified as crimes against humanity. That is one of the indications of the commission created by the United Nations Organization to investigate the delicate situation in Nicaragua.
The Group of Experts on Human Rights in Nicaragua (GHREN) detailed the actions of the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo since the massive protests of 2018 that demanded their removal from power and that left dozens of protesters dead and a climate of persecution that spreads to the present.
Part of the devastating document was presented this Thursday, March 2, at the UN headquarters in Geneva and will be formally published on Friday.
According to the head of the investigative team, Jan Simon, “these crimes have been committed for political reasons and continue to be committed today. The state apparatus in its entirety has been turned into a weapon of persecution against the population”.
Those in charge of the investigation highlighted some of the violations that are part of the study: arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, torture and a high level of censorship, among others.
In this sense, Simons stressed that “the objective (of the Government) is to eliminate by different means any opposition or dissident voice in the country.” The official also stressed that the leadership in power was “using the functions of the State as a weapon against the population”, which causes Nicaraguans to “live in fear”.
The local newspaper ‘La Prensa’ highlighted that the GHREN is not recognized by Managua, who assures that it “does not exist”. For this reason, they will not respond to the recommendations of the members of the commission. The 12 letters sent to the address of the country by the researchers received no response.
Exile, among Ortega’s weapons against critical voices
Last February, Ortega withdrew the citizenship of more than 300 dissidents. In addition to having been accused of treason, at least 222 of the defendants were released and immediately expelled from the country.
In this context, Ángela Buitrago, another of the experts that make up the group, argued that “technically a figure has been created” that was believed to have disappeared, such as “exile”.
Buitrago expressed that “the victims have lost any possibility of receiving the pensions to which they were entitled because they have disappeared from the Nicaraguan state system, with which (the Government) takes away the possibility of subsisting.”
The Colombian expert added that, adding to the consequences that this may entail for the defendants, Ortega and Murillo ordered their “civil death” by eliminating their birth records and confiscating their assets.
Resident in Spain, one of those affected, the poet Gioconda Belli, starred in one of the most commented reactions to the news of the removal of her citizenship. Belli, who collaborated with the Sandinistas’ revolution against the dictator Anastasio Somoza, tore up a few pages of his passport on a television show.
“When history has forgotten these tyrants, I will still be in my books as a Nicaraguan poet,” he declared as he chopped the official document with scissors.
The withdrawal of citizenship was also forcefully rejected by Chilean President Gabriel Boric. “The country is carried in the heart,” said the South American president on Twitter, one of the few reactions of Latin American heads of state to the event.
Trampling rights to “guarantee the monopoly of the State”
The commission made an aside to point out the “institutions” and “actors” that the presidential couple uses with the aim of silencing opposing voices. In addition to the Police, the rulers use similar armed groups, who would have executed various opponents or people perceived as such, according to EFE, citing the investigation.
The report stresses that additional investigations are required to investigate the participation of the Army in these tasks of alleged “political cleansing.”
In other aspects, it was mentioned that more than 3,000 legal entities of international and national NGOs have been withdrawn, both by executive order or by mandate of the National Assembly with an official majority.
The action would have as its objective the reconfiguration “of the civic space and guarantee the monopoly of the State of community activities, development and social assistance”, reads the documentation.
The investigative work also highlights that at least 38 people who are still detained have declared themselves “political prisoners.”
EU reaches out to expatriate Nicaraguans
This Thursday, the deputy director for the Americas of the European External Action Service, Duccio Bandini, stated in a session of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Central American countries, that he was “actively looking (…) at the possibilities of providing urgent support to the 222 deportees”.
“We are looking in particular at the possibility of prioritizing human rights defenders within this group of 222 and the 94 who were already outside the country,” he said. Among the aid actions are the processing of work permits.
The community bloc welcomed the release of Daniel Ortega’s opponents at the time, although it stressed that “they should never have been imprisoned.”
Bandini concluded that the European Union will continue to “condemn in the harshest terms a repression that has been intensifying against any form of dissent and opposition and that continues to show violations of both the Constitution and the international commitments adopted by Nicaragua.”
In April 2018, massive demonstrations of discontent were unleashed by the Nicaraguan people to demand the resignation of Ortega, protests that were harshly repressed. The action of the State to mitigate them left a balance of at least 355 deaths and the arrest of hundreds of other opinion leaders.
Since then, until “to this day” according to the group of experts, a significant number of violations of the rights of citizens who oppose the Ortega government have been denounced.
with EFE
