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US President Donald Trump on Tuesday sanctioned the wife of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and one of his aides under a new decree authorizing Washington to target Nicaraguan officials for suppressing protests. Anti-government.
The US Treasury said it used the new order to punish Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo, Ortega's wife, and an aide named Nestor Moncada Lau, accusing them of undermining democracy Nicaraguan.
"This administration is committed to holding the Ortega regime accountable for the violent protests and widespread corruption that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Nicaraguans and destroyed their economies," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday. .
"The Treasury intends to ensure that the initiates of the Ortega regime can not access the US financial system to make profits at the expense of the Nicaraguan people," he added.
In announcing the sanctions, US officials have accused Murillo to dismantle the democratic institutions of Nicaragua and plunder its riches to consolidate its power.
They also described Moncada Lau as acting as a national security adviser to Ortega and Murillo. Although he does not have an official position in the government, he would have a considerable influence on the police.
The Treasury approves the Vice-President of Nicaragua, the First Lady, Rosario Maria Murillo De Ortega, and her national security adviser, Nestor Moncada Lau, under the new @POTUS EO 's attack on widespread corruption, serious human rights violations and violence in Nicaragua.
– Treasury Department (@USTreasury) November 27, 2018
President Ortega's government described the measures ordered against the First Lady as "the continuation of the historical interference and interventionist policy of the North American imperial power against Nicaragua".
"We declare inadmissible, inconsequential, disrespectful, false and illegitimate all the accusations that confirm the imperialist perspectives and practices of the United States of America," the government said in a statement.
This will freeze any property owned by Murillo and Moncada Lau under United States jurisdiction and prevent individuals, banks and other US entities from transacting with them.
Crisis in progress
According to human rights groups, more than 300 people have been killed and at least 2,000 injured in police and armed groups' repressive demonstrations following government plans to cut social benefits. , before degenerating into a wider opposition to Ortega.
Tuesday's sanctions may, however, fail to dismantle the badets of one or other of the targets due to the lack of a written record, said Roberto Cajina, a former adviser to the Ministry of Finance. Defense.
"Neither Rosario Murillo nor Moncada Lau have investments in their own names – everything is done through the front men," Cajina told Reuters. "It's not an economic coup – it's a political coup."
US officials said they were trying to influence Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla leader whose response to the protests was compared to the reign of Anastasio Somoza, the dictator he had helped to overthrow in 1979.
"This is a message to President Ortega to find an exit strategy and launch a process for … free and fair elections," a senior Trump administration official told reporters. under the guise of anonymity.
"It's an opportunity to find a type of solution … to the crisis they've created."
Ortega, who led the country from 1979 to 1990, has been elected president since 2007. The current violence, after years of calm, has been the worst since his Sandinista movement fought the state-backed "Contra" rebels. United States in the 1980s.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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