The United States imposes more sanctions on Nicaragua after electoral farce

USA on Monday imposed sanctions on the prosecution and several senior government officials in Nicaragua in response to the electoral farce and as an “unequivocal message” for the president Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo.

The Treasury Department announced sanctions against the Public Ministry and nine senior government officials, including the Minister of Energy and Mines, Salvador Mansell Castrillo, and several mayors, whom it accuses of being involved in the repression of peaceful demonstrations in 2018. .

The sanctions are in retaliation for “the farce of national elections orchestrated” by Ortega and Murillo and are directed “against those who are repressing Nicaraguans for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms,” said the Treasury in a statement.

In power since 2007, Ortega won a fourth consecutive term on November 7 in an election in which he had no significant rivals, because seven presidential candidates from the opposition were arrested and three of his parties were outlawed.

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) accuses the Public Ministry (prosecutor’s office) of having “unfairly arrested and investigated presidential candidates and of having prevented them from running for public office, thus undermining democracy in Nicaragua”.

The United States sanctions him for “being responsible or complicit or for having participated or attempted to participate directly or indirectly in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions.”

He specifically cites the disqualification of the opposition Cristiana Chamorro.

In addition, it sanctions him for having opened investigations or presented charges against the main presidential candidates Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro and Miguel Mora, all of them imprisoned by order of Ortega since June, as well as for the arrest of almost 40 people since May , including leaders of civil society and the private sector, students and journalists.

The new measures are in addition to the sanctions imposed in 2019 by the government of former US President Donald Trump on senior Nicaraguan officials, including Murillo, three of Ortega’s children, and the police for acts of corruption and violation of human rights.

Likewise, this year his successor, Joe Biden, has already ordered financial sanctions against other officials, and has banned more than a hundred Nicaraguan legislators, prosecutors and judges and their families from entering the country.

Biden called the November 7 election a sham and Secretary of State Antony Blinken had already warned that new sanctions were being considered.

The United States believes that the elections were not democratic, arguing that the imprisonment of opponents and the blocking of the participation of political parties manipulated the result long before election day.

“The Ortega regime is using laws and institutions to detain members of the political opposition and deprive Nicaraguans of the right to vote,” declares Andrea M. Gacki, director of OFAC.

The United States sends “an unequivocal message to President Ortega, Vice President Murillo and their narrower circle that we support the Nicaraguan people in their calls for reform and a return to democracy,” he adds.

The new punishment measures imply the blocking of all the properties and possible assets of these people in the United States.

In addition, any entity that is owned, directly or indirectly, by 50% or more of one or more of the sanctioned persons is blocked.

These measures “are not intended to be permanent, but are issued to promote positive behavior change,” he says.

Among those sanctioned, the superintendent of banks, Luis Ángel Montenegro Espinoza, who ordered the banking entities to comply with a request from the Public Ministry to audit and deliver financial information of 13 senior executives and businessmen, states Washington.

In addition, there are the Vice Minister of Finance and Public Credit, José Adrián Chavarría Montenegro, the manager of the National Center for Cargo Dispatch (CNDC) of Nicaragua, Rodolfo Francisco López Gutiérrez and the president of the board of directors of the Nicaraguan Institute of Energy (INE) , José Antonio Castañeda Méndez.

And the list goes on: Mohamed Farrara Lashtar, nephew of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and current Nicaraguan ambassador to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The sanctions also affect several mayors for the repression of the 2018 demonstrations: Sadrach Zeledón Rocha, from the town of Matagalpa, Leónidas Centeno Rivera, from Jinotega, and Francisco Ramón Valenzuela Blandón, from Estelí.

The repression of the demonstrations left at least 328 dead, 1,614 detained, of which 136 are still in prison, and more than 103,000 exiles, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Part of the international community and the Organization of American States (OAS) condemned the elections in Nicaragua, which nevertheless has the support of Russia, Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela.