Daniel Ortega's regime outlawed 25 other NGOs in Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan regime, through the Ministry of the Interior, ordered the closure of 25 other NGOs, including the Luisa Mercado Foundation led by the Nicaraguan writer exiled in Spain, Sergio Ramírez Mercado, the legislature reported on Monday.

Daniel Ortega's dictatorship also ordered the closure of the Solentiname Development Association, founded in 1982 by the late Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020).

Ramírez was vice president of Nicaragua during the first Sandinista regime (1979-1990), which was also headed by the current president, from whom he distanced himself in 1995 when he founded the Sandinista Renewal Movement (MRS), a split of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Meanwhile, Cardenal, who was Minister of Culture, went from a symbol of the Sandinista revolution to being a “political persecuted”, as he himself declared himself, of Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, whom he faced in the last years of his life.

Both the writer and the poet participated in the struggle against the dictatorship of the Somoza family and were members of the FSLN until 1995, in power with Ortega since January 2007.

Cardinal, one of the greatest figures in Latin American literature and a great promoter of Liberation Theology, argued that Ortega's government “is neither left nor Sandinista nor revolutionary, but simply a family dictatorship”, like the one they overthrew.

ALSO HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

The Government portfolio also proposed to the National Assembly (Parliament), controlled by the regime, to cancel the legal personality of the Association Permanent Commission on Human Rights of Nicaragua (CPDH), dedicated to the defense of human rights since 1991.

Other NGOs proposed to be outlawed include the Coen Foundation, by businessman Piero Coen; the Nicaraguan Association of Engineers and Architects, the Nicaraguan Association of Cinematography and the Association Centre for the Training of Working Women.

Also, the Centre for Communication and Popular Education Foundation, the Foundation for the Integral Development of Indigenous Women of Sutiaba, and the Nicaraguan Coordinating Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations Working with Children and Adolescents (Codeni).

In addition, the Nicaraguan Academic Association of Legal and Political Sciences, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Nicaraguan Foundation for the Promotion of Democracy, Peace, and the Development of Civil Society.

In Nicaragua, with the vote of Sandinista MPs and their allies, at least 112 Nicaraguan NGOs have been outlawed since December 2018, eight months after a popular revolt broke out over controversial social security reforms described as an attempted coup d'état by Ortega.

The last 25 NGOs, including the Nicaraguan subsidiary of Operación Sonrisas, were cancelled on March 17.

Among the organizations that have been affected are NGOs that defend human rights, medical, feminist, educational, universities, environmentalists, indigenous people, journalists, and centers of thought, among others.

The Executive has also canceled the registrations and perpetual issues of four US and six European NGOs.

THEY DID NOT REGISTER AS “FOREIGN AGENTS”

According to the Ministry of the Interior, the 25 new NGOs that will be affected have failed to comply with their obligations, including that they did not register as “foreign agents, being obliged subjects because they received donations from abroad”.

Nor did they report their financial statements with their detailed breakdowns of income, expenditures, trial balance and donation detail (origin, provenance and final beneficiary); nor did their boards of directors.

The National Assembly (Parliament) included the new initiative on Wednesday's agenda, so it is expected that it will be presented to the plenary.

Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has been accentuated after the controversial general elections on November 7, in which Daniel Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice-president, with his main contenders in prison.

(With information from EFE)

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