The siege of the international community on Nicaragua continues to tighten.
The United Nations Human Rights Council announced this Thursday the creation of a mechanism that will investigate the human rights violations of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo since 2018. In April of that year, the Government unleashed a brutal repression against the civilian population, who took to the streets in massive demonstrations to protest against a controversial reform of the pension system.
Police and paramilitary forces killed 355 people, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Since then, more than 120,000 Nicaraguans have sought refuge in Costa Rica, the political persecution of dissidents has not ceased and the accumulation of power by the ruling couple has been increasing.
The measure implies the creation of a group with three independent experts and a budget of three million dollars to monitor the abuses committed in the country in the last four years.
"Establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the alleged violations, gather, consolidate, preserve and analyze information and evidence and, when possible, identify those responsible," says a statement from 15 organizations dedicated to the defense of human rights in Nicaragua .
The commission will work for a year and will give "recommendations with a view to improving the situation" and "provide guidance on access to justice."
Good news!
The UN Human Rights Council has just created a Group of Experts to investigate human rights violations in Nicaragua.
Clear message from the international community: we will not tolerate Ortega's abuses.
Statement from @hrw_espanol:https://t.co/T7OjxWMY1r pic.twitter.com/pCEA7aYmY8
– Juan Pappier (@JuanPappierHRW) March 31, 2022
The decision was approved during a session of the UN Human Rights Council, a body made up of 47 states.
In the vote, 20 countries have abstained and another seven have positioned themselves against: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Russia, China, and Eritrea.
On March 7, the UN already published a harsh report in which they conveyed their concern about the situation in the Central American country.
In a long list, the organization enumerated, among other abuses, that there has been "no accountability for the human rights violations committed since April 2018";
the existence of at least 43 political prisoners for the 2021 elections;
express trials “without respecting due process”;
the “arbitrary arrests or the “harassment by state agents against human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers”.
“The solution is for Ortega to leave”
So far this year, Ortega and Murillo have intensified the repression.
In mid-March, in a trial riddled with irregularities, Cristiana Chamorro, an opponent of the regime and daughter of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who was president of Nicaragua in the 1990s, was sentenced to eight years in prison —after winning Ortega in an election — and the journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, assassinated during the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship.
He also expelled the head of mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In February, Hugo Torres, a historic Sandinista guerrilla who fought alongside Ortega, died in prison, imprisoned for his critical position towards his former partner.
That death that generated criticism even from the president's own brother, Humberto Ortega, who reproached him for the fact that he died because of the "cruel confinement" to which he subjected him.
In addition, the main universities in the country are under government control.
In recent days, this has caused the defection of two figures who until now represented the Sandinista Executive: Arturo McFields resigned last week from his position as ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) and called Ortega a dictator,
Juan Pappier, a researcher in the Americas for Human Rights Watch (HRW), believes that the UN initiative "gives a glimmer of hope that there will ever be justice for the serious and systematic human rights violations committed by the Ortega regime."
"I am confident that the group of experts will do a good job, but to achieve a democratic transition it is necessary to unite more mechanisms and voices of condemnation from the international community," he said.
The president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CNIDH), Vilma Núñez, is more skeptical: “I am against triumphalist reactions, I would like to see this resolution as an advance on a long road that must be traveled.
I greet you with moderate optimism, but with the firmness that we have to provide the group of experts with all the support, taking into account that they will have the hostility of the Government”, he assured. “This is not the solution, the solution is that Ortega leaves, while he remains in power, any effort will be faced with obstacles, sometimes insurmountable, with a very real cost of life”, concludes the activist.
José Miguel Vivanco, human rights defense attorney and former director of the American division of HRW, also agrees with her: “It is a very important step, very necessary, but it is not enough.
Let no one believe that with this mechanism the human rights violations of this deranged regime will end.
The political prisoners are going to spend in arbitrary prison for as long as Ortega deems necessary.
For conditions to improve in Nicaragua, a democratic transition is essential, and for this political, diplomatic and financial pressure is necessary against those who give oxygen to that regime.”
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América newsletter and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region