US Senators Asked Joe Biden To Increase Pressure On Daniel Ortega Dictatorship

On Monday, two figures from the US Senate urged the president Joe biden to increase pressure on the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua, where they denounced a growing authoritarianism that threatens regional stability.

Democrat Bob Menéndez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Republican Marco Rubio, the highest-ranking member of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the upper house, called on the Biden administration to to use “all the diplomatic tools available to confront the Ortega regime”.

In a letter to the Secretary of State, Antoine Blink, Menéndez and Rubio called for increasing economic sanctions against Nicaraguan officials and for stepping up joint work with the Organization of American States (OAS) to coordinate a multilateral rejection of the Nicaraguan regime’s “undemocratic attack”.

“The Ortega regime is leading an unrestricted campaign of repression with the aim of demolishing hopes of being able to organize free and fair elections in November and thus consolidate the third dictatorship of the Americas”wrote the senators.

Menéndez and Rubio have repeatedly targeted the “dictatorships” of Cuba and Venezuela in the past.

In letter to Blinken, senators highlighted the “arbitrary” detention in Nicaragua of presidential candidates Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro, as well as the house arrest of Cristiana Chammorro, among other opponents and heads of business and civil society deprived of their liberty in recent days.

In addition, they encouraged the Biden government to apply the protocols of the bipartisan bill to enforce the conditions for electoral reform in Nicaragua (RENACER), presented in late March under the leadership of Menéndez and Blond.

RENACER initiative obliges the United States to increase economic sanctions coordination with Canada and the European Union, monitor more closely the loans of international financial institutions in Nicaragua and strengthen intelligence on the activities of the Russian government in Nicaragua, they stressed.

Menéndez and Rubio last month condemned electoral reforms approved by Nicaragua’s ruling party and called for guarantees for the November 7 elections, when Ortega could run for a fourth consecutive term.

The Acting Under Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States Department of State, Julie chung, asked the OAS this Sunday to send a “clear signal” to Nicaragua, where, as he said, they live a “campaign of terror” with the arrest of several political leaders.

“Ortega-Murillo’s campaign of terror continues this weekend with more arbitrary arrests. OAS members must send a clear signal this week: stop the crackdown, ”the diplomat said in a message sent to the media by the US embassy in Managua.

“The region cannot sit back and wait and see who is next” jailed opponentadded.

Last Wednesday, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, urged its members to suspend Nicaraguan participation in this organization after the arrest of several opposition politicians.

The OAS Permanent Council will hold an extraordinary virtual session next Tuesday to “address the situation in Nicaragua”, at the request of Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, the United States, Paraguay and Peru.

During the meeting, the draft resolution “The situation in Nicaragua” will be discussed, in accordance with the appeal.

Nicaraguan police, led by Francisco Díaz, Ortega’s brother-in-law, arrested five Sandinista dissidents, including former guerrillas, over the weekend. Dora Maria Téllez and Hugo Torres.

He is also keeping opposition presidential candidates in detention: Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro García. In addition, the former head of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep) José Adán Aguerri, the former vice-chancellor José Pallais and the opposition leaders of the National Unity Violeta Granera, Tamara Dávila, Ana Margarita Vigil and Suyen Barahona.

Likewise, two other former employees of an NGO who have been arrested over the past two weeks for various crimes.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) this Sunday expressed its concern at the new arrests of opponents in Nicaragua, including with “illegal and arbitrary searches” of their homes, and reiterated “its call for ‘State to respect the personal integrity of leaders and women leaders, and their immediate release.’ “The IACHR expresses its concern and identifies the generalization of the persecution of activists of the political opposition, thus intensifying a serious deterioration of the conditions of fair, free and transparent elections in Nicaragua” on November 7, declared this autonomous entity of the OAS in a message on Twitter.

With information from AFP

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