The government of Canada on Monday (12/13/2021) asked that of Nicaragua to hold a “substantive national dialogue” to overcome the socio-political crisis that the Central American country has been going through since April 2018, to allow the entry of a mission of human rights defenders and release the so-called “political prisoners”.
“Canada continues to call for the return of international human rights observers and the establishment of a substantive national dialogue,” said the Embassy of Canada to Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua, based in San José , via messages on Twitter.
The diplomatic delegation recalled that on November 8, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly declared that the general elections in Nicaragua, in which President Daniel Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term of five years and a fourth term consecutive, with the main suitors in prison, “did not reflect the will of the Nicaraguan people”.
In its message, Canada expressed its solidarity “with all human rights defenders, demanding the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua”.
On December 8, the Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution calling on President Ortega to allow a diplomatic mission to enter the Central American country to engage in dialogue on electoral reforms and the calling of new elections. .
The resolution was approved with the vote in favor of 25 of the 34 active members of the OAS (Cuba belongs to the organization, but has not participated in it since 1962), eight countries abstained, including Mexico, the ‘Argentina, Bolivia and Honduras, while Nicaragua was the only one to vote against.
Freedom of political prisoners
The initiative urges the Ortega government to “urgently and as a first step” release all “political prisoners” and accept a high-level “good offices” mission that must be authorized by the organization’s Permanent Council. .
Ortega won an election on November 7 in which his political rivals did not participate because, in the previous months, the authorities dissolved three political parties and arrested more than thirty opposition leaders, including seven presidential candidates. , including Cristiana Chamorro.
In response, the OAS General Assembly, the body’s most important political forum, approved a resolution in which it said the elections lacked “democratic legitimacy” and were neither free nor fair. nor transparent.
Immediately afterwards, the Ortega government accuses the OAS of “interference” and announces its intention to leave the organization, for which the OAS Charter, its founding document signed in 1948, denounces.
According to the organization’s regulations, any country that denounces the OAS Charter must wait two years for the withdrawal to become effective.
Nicaragua has been in crisis since the popular revolt that erupted in April 2018 over controversial social security reforms and which later became a request for President Ortega’s resignation as he responded forcefully.
The protests, described by the executive as an attempted coup, have left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), although local organizations bring the figure to 684 and the government recognizes 200.
mg (efe, Embassy of Canada in Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua)
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