OAS Assembly focuses on the situation in Nicaragua and Venezuela

During the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) the topic that is most discussed is the situation in Nicaragua. Although this Thursday the topic Venezuela was also present at the meeting.

On the second day, Nicaragua once again asked for respect and rejected the question of making a resolution on the “situation” in the Central American country, which is promoted by the representations of Canada, Antigua and Barbuda, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United States, and the Dominican Republic. and Uruguay to be debated in the General Assembly, which Guatemala is hosting virtually until Friday.

The proposed resolution deplores the Central American country’s ignorance of the diplomatic and technical initiatives undertaken since June 2019 by the OAS to promote “representative democracy and the protection of human rights.” It also seeks to declare that the elections held last Sunday in Nicaragua, in which President Daniel Ortega was reelected, “were not free, fair or transparent, and they do not have democratic legitimacy”; likewise, that “the democratic institutions of Nicaragua have been seriously undermined by the Government.”

With Sunday’s results, Ortega, who has governed since 2007 after having done so from 1979 to 1990, was guaranteed five more years as president, again with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president. Both accused of repressing all kinds of opposition, collects EFE.

Since the 2018 protests, which called for Ortega’s resignation and resulted in hundreds of deaths, the arrests have continued.

The OAS has long called on Nicaragua to respect human rights and adopted two resolutions calling for the release of “political prisoners” and “free and fair” elections.

In the resolution approved in October, it warned Managua that in the general assembly inaugurated this Wednesday it could take “other actions in accordance with the Charter of the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

By “other actions” is understood an eventual suspension. This would not completely isolate Nicaragua at the international level, “because the Ortega regime has the support of several countries that are not members of the OAS, which, presumably, will continue to provide diplomatic, economic, commercial and financial support,” he says to the AFP Luis Guillermo Solís, former president of Costa Rica and acting director of the Kimberly Green Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

The non-suspension of Nicaragua in the OAS “would be a failure of the international community,” says Joel Martínez, an analyst at the Center for American Progress.

Solís highlights the difficulty of inducing a country to abide by its international obligations if it refuses “repeatedly, defiantly and stubbornly.” That is why he considers it more effective for the negotiation to be carried out by apolitical humanitarian organizations, by a personality that is not linked to Nicaragua, such as a Nobel Prize winner or an artistic or sports figure, or even someone who sympathizes with the cause of Ortega and precisely for this reason it has a certain “convening power”.

In any case, the OAS faces a diplomatic headache of uncertain outcome.

In addition, this Thursday a local humanitarian organization, Nicaragua Never Again, assured that at least 95,000 Nicaraguans have left the country so far in 2021, mainly to the United States, as a result of the crisis that Nicaragua has been experiencing since April 2018 and that has aggravated this year with the cascade of arrests of opposition leaders in the electoral context.

Meanwhile, in another controversy, Mexico and Argentina led a group of countries that objected to the presence of the representation of the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó in the 51st General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), and pointed out that the Government de Nicolás Maduro announced his decision to leave that body in 2017.

The ambassador of Mexico to the OAS, Luz Elena Baños Rivas, indicated to AFP that the inclusion of the current representation of Venezuela sets “a very serious precedent”, and demanded that “a footnote be included in all resolutions” in which to report on the matter.

The permanent representative of Bolivia in the OAS, Héctor Enrique Arce Zaconeta, spoke in the same way, who emphasized that his country “does not accept the credentials of Venezuela, in the same way as Mexico.”

The representatives of Nicaragua, Argentina, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize and Trinidad and Tobago joined the speech of Mexico and Bolivia on the representation of Venezuela.

Since 2019, the OAS has recognized the Venezuelan National Assembly (AN, Parliament) as the representative of Venezuela, led by the opposition leader Guaidó, after the Maduro regime made his departure from the entity official in 2017.

At the meeting, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic asked, for their part, to include “the situation in Haiti” on the agenda, which is experiencing a process of political, social and economic crisis exacerbated by the assassination of its president on July 7 in Your domicile.

Guatemala is the host country of the 51st General Assembly of the OAS, which will take place from November 10 to 12 virtually for the second consecutive year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a scenario dominated by the disputed elections in Nicaragua and under the slogan “For a renewed America.” (I)