Americas diplomats back joint call for Nicaragua to restore civil liberties

By Sarah Morland and Gabriela Selser

Oct 2 (Reuters) – The Organization of American States on Friday approved a resolution that calls on Nicaraguan authorities to free political prisoners and restore civil liberties, carving a path for potential coordinated action.

The Washington-based organization will create a task force to engage with Nicaraguan authorities and exiles to communicate its demands, including establishing conditions for fair elections, freeing political prisoners and disclosing the whereabouts of people who have been forcibly disappeared. It will then come back with recommendations for concrete actions.

The government of Nicaraguan co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, has heavily restricted civil liberties since a wave of protests in 2018. Last month, it banned the opposition from participating in future elections.

OAS Secretary-General Albert Ramdin told Reuters he hoped the meeting would ultimately lead to more than verbal condemnation over human rights abuses.

“That has been said many times already. It is good to say this again collectively, but that cannot be the only outcome,” Ramdin said. “It must also be, what do we do next?”

Nicaragua left the OAS in 2023, saying the diplomatic organization had become a tool for US interventionism. The group cannot itself impose sanctions though it can act as a forum for its members to coordinate joint measures.

Murillo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

REGIONAL RIFT

The resolution was approved at the OAS’ first meeting of foreign ministers in seven years, which was largely attended by deputies or ambassadors delegated by the organization’s 32 foreign ministries. Washington, which proposed the meeting, sent Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.

Landau told the meeting Managua had rejected the newly appointed ambassador from the US and accused security services from an unnamed “non-hemispheric” nation of training Nicaraguan police and sharing intelligence.

Nicaragua has security cooperation agreements with Russia and China.

“The democratic crisis in Nicaragua isn’t solely an internal matter,” Landau said. “These actors aren’t only propping up a dictatorship; they’re using Nicaragua as a springboard into our region, threatening the peace and security of Central America and our hemisphere.”

Earlier drafts of the resolution exposed a rift. The US and aligned right-leaning governments pushed for stronger language and alleged a foreign security presence in Nicaragua, while other Latin American countries, including Brazil and Mexico, said Nicaragua should not be considered a regional threat.

The Dominican Republic, one of nearly 20 countries to join a US-led coalition called Shield of the Americas, announced at the meeting it would withdraw its embassy from Nicaragua.

(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Gabriela Selser, Editing by Natalia Siniawski and Rosalba O’Brien)