The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo announced this Sunday, April 24, that it closed the office in Nicaragua of the Organization of American States (OAS), body that the dictatorship resigned on November 19.
In a statement, the OAS General Secretariat reacted to the regime’s announcement and noted that the offices in Managua were “illegitimately” occupied. “This is a violation of the most basic international norms.”
In a press conference loaded with insults towards the OAS, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada Colindres also reported that Nicaragua will abandon all OAS mechanisms, as well as withdraw the credentials of all its representatives before the regional organization.
“Nor will this infamous body, consequently, have offices in our country. Its local headquarters have been closed,” the foreign minister said.
According to the OAS website, the agency’s office is in “Sierritas de Santo Domingo”, on the outskirts of Managua. “Currently there is no representative assigned to the office of the General Secretariat in Nicaragua,” the agency says.
Minutes after the foreign minister’s announcement, the National Police took over the OAS offices, while its symbols were dismantled, according to the Efe news agency.
The regime announced its departure from the regional organization due to alleged and “constant interventionist attitudes” of the OAS. However, the withdrawal will be official and effective until November 2023, since the process lasts two years. During that period, the Government must fulfill all its political and financial obligations with the organization.
“We feel free from the repeated insolence of the employees of the Yankee State Department, who represent there (OAS) servility, lackeyism, surrender, the decrepitude and decadence of a lackluster institutionality and reduced by servitude to the Yankee,” he read. The chancellor.
Statement from the OAS General Secretariat
???? https://t.co/LlmpZKxipc pic.twitter.com/kjl03y3r6i— Luis Almagro (@Almagro_OEA2015) April 25, 2022
The OAS General Secretariat recalled that Nicaragua’s exit will come into force at the end of 2023. Until then, Nicaragua is a full member of the organization and must comply with all its commitments. Article 33 of the OAS Charter guarantees the immunity of its activities in the member countries.”
“Your offices, files and documents enjoy the most absolute inviolability. Its violation by the Nicaraguan authorities makes them internationally responsible for its consequences”, highlighted the General Secretariat.
no representatives
“By confirming our irrevocable denunciation and resignation, in the face of this calamitous, truculent and lying dependency of the State Department of Yankee imperialism, we also communicate that as of this date we cease to be part of all the deceitful mechanisms of this monstrosity, call it the Permanent Council, call them commissions, call them meetings, call them the Summit of the Americas,” explained the Nicaraguan diplomat.
“We withdraw —he continued— the credentials of our representatives, comrades Orlando Tardencilla, Iván Lara and Michael Campbell. We will not have a presence in any of the instances of that diabolical”.
Tardencilla and Lara were appointed, at the end of March last, as ambassador and alternate representative to the OAS, respectively. MWhile Campbell exercised cas Alternate Permanent Representative from October 2021.
Ortega and Murillo moved their chips in the OAS, last March, after the former Nicaraguan ambassador to the organization, Arturo McFields Yescas, rebelled against the regime and described the Government as a “dictatorship”, during a session of the Permanent Council of that body, in an unprecedented event.
“Collective evaluation”
From the General Assembly of Foreign Ministers of the OAS, on November 12 2021, Nicaragua is immersed in a so-called “collective evaluation” process of its sociopolitical crisis, established in article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
As part of this process, the OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, arranged for the Nicaraguan government to allow the arrival of a high-level delegation from the regional organization to negotiate the holding of new elections, with transparency and credible observation. Nevertheless, the regime never provided a formal response to the requests of the Uruguayan diplomat.
The collective appreciation is in compliance with the resolution “The situation in Nicaragua”in which, in addition, the OAS declared —with 25 votes in favor, one against, seven abstentions and one absence— that the Nicaraguan elections of last November 7 “They were not free, fair or transparent and they do not have democratic legitimacy.”
In these elections, Ortega was re-elected for the third consecutive time —second with his wife Murillo as vice president—; however, on this occasion the Sandinista leader presented himself without political competition, after imprisoning the main opposition candidates, and without democratic guarantees.
“Nicaragua is not a colony of anyone, therefore it is not part of a ministry of colonies. By denouncing and renouncing that infernal mechanism from which we immediately withdraw in absolute dignity, ”said the Nicaraguan foreign minister in his speech.