America

What is the Russian center that operates in Nicaragua and that was sanctioned by the US doing?

What is the Russian center that operates in Nicaragua and that was sanctioned by the US doing?

Last week, the United States government imposed a sanctions combo against the administration of Daniel Ortega in response to what Washington has called “an authoritarian drift” in Managua.

The sanctioned entities were the International Mining Company, known as COMINTSA and Capital Mining Investment Nicaragua, but also a Russian training center that operates in Nicaragua.

Analysts consulted by the Voice of America agree that this place could have played a key role in the training of police to repress the anti-government protests in Nicaragua in 2018 that left more than 300 dead.

“The fact that the Treasury seeks to impose sanctions on (the training center) demonstrates that this entity sought to increase the repressive capacity (of the Sandinista regime), through repressive techniques not appropriate for any police force in a democracy,” he told the VOA Evan Ellis, expert in International Relations and professor of Latin American Studies at the United States War College.

Meanwhile, Cynthia Arnson, Director of the Latin American Program at the Wilson Center, mentions that the sanctions against the Russian training center in Nicaragua “are considered above all to be symbolic,” given the “brutal and repressive behavior of the Nicaraguan police. and the same tactics used by Russian security forces.

Since when has this Russian center been operating in Managua and how does it work?

Known as the “Training Center of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia in Nicaragua”, this place was founded in October 2017 under the justification of “fighting organized crime in its different manifestations.”

At the inauguration of the center, the then Russian Ambassador to Nicaragua, Andrey Budaev, was present, as well as Russian police lieutenant Andrey Khrapov. On Nicaragua’s side, there was Laureano Ortega, son of President Daniel Ortega, and his father-in-law Francisco Díaz, then deputy director general of the Nicaraguan National Police.

Ambassador Budaev commented at that time that the idea of ​​this center arose in 2012, “at the request of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega.”

A center “to confront coup plotters”

The Russian center was in the eye of the hurricane in 2023 when President Daniel Ortega himself mentioned that the place worked to “confront the coup plotters”, in reference to his critics who led the anti-government protests in 2018 that left more than 300 dead.

Ortega said this during the decoration of the Russian general Anatolyevich Plokhoi, at an event for the 44th anniversary of the Police. Plokhoi serves as Secretary of State and deputy director of the federal troops of the Russian National Guard in Nicaragua.

“He (Plokhoi) is here to collaborate, as they have been doing with a center that is here in Nicaragua, and from where the brothers of the Russian Federation, the military specialized in the matter, carry out courses where participants from the entire Central American region and logically the National Police, to better confront drug trafficking, organized crime, to better confront the coup plotters,” Ortega stated at that time.

For the United States Department of State, Nicaragua has become one of Russia’s main partners in Central America, taking into account that the Russian Ministry of the Interior established that training center in Managua to provide specialized courses for the Nicaraguan police.

At the end of February, the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, signed two agreements with the Nicaraguan government: one for Russian security to advise the Ministry of the Interior regarding the legal regulation of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the other to train the National Police.

Effects of sanctions to be seen

But Arnson, of the Wilson Center, said it remains to be seen whether the sanction will have practical effects. “The sanctions on gold companies in Nicaragua are much more important, given the weight of gold exports in the Nicaraguan economy and the role of the State in the mining sector. The economic pain is going to be real,” he said.

Nicaraguan gold moves $1 billion each year, and three-quarters of this involves exports to the United States. That is, more than 750 million dollars that transit or were involved in the gold trade relationship with the United States, he mentioned to the VOA Ricardo Zúniga, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs in a past interview.

In June 2022, the United States Treasury Department sanctioned the Nicaraguan state-owned company Eniminas, as well as its president, Ruy López Delgado, in response to the decision of President Daniel Ortega’s administration to “deepen its relationship with Russia while waging war with Ukraine.”

The sanction against López Delgado is the third successive measure against a president of the state company. Previously, Ramón Calderón Vindell and Francisco López Centeno were already designated on the list, who were removed.

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channels Youtube, WhatsApp and to the newsletter. Turn on notifications and follow us on Facebook, x and instagram.



Source link