Nikki Haley says she does not want Nicaragua to turn into another Venezuela or Syria

THE UNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council has heard reports of unsustainable torture and deaths of anti-government protesters at the hands of Nicaraguan security forces and paramilitaries.

Wednesday morning's meeting was convened by US Ambassador Nikki Haley, despite protests from several countries – including the usual enemies of Russia, China and Bolivia who said she was not one of board business. She referred to the dramatic human rights situation in Nicaragua in the Security Council.

Haley warned that, like the economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the situation in Nicaragua is on the brink and told Council members that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro were very similar.

"Daniel Ortega has adopted the tactics of the dictators he once claimed. We should not be surprised. Daniel Ortega and Nicolas Maduro are cut off from the same corrupt fabric, "she said. "They are both students of the same failed ideology. And they are both dictators who live in fear of their own people. "

Haley said some 25,000 Nicaraguans had fled to neighboring countries in what she described as "the beginning of exodus". Haley said the United States stands with the Nicaraguan people, warning that the number of asylum seekers will grow.

"The Security Council must not – it can not – be a passive observer as Nicaragua continues to evolve into a failed, corrupt and dictatorial state. Because we know where this path leads. The Syrian exodus has spawned millions of refugees, sowing instability throughout the Middle East and Europe. The Venezuelan exodus has become the largest displacement of people in the history of Latin America. "

Haley described how the Ortega diet targeted the Catholic Church.

"In a classic and authoritarian way, Ortega is trying to destroy the most respected institution that rightly defends the Nicaraguan people: the Catholic Church," she said. "The clerics have been attacked. Catholic charities have been looted. The churches have been desecrated. "

Haley continued to warn that "now he is clinging to power in such an authoritarian way: by killing, detaining and brutalizing anyone who dares to oppose him." According to the Nicaraguan Association of Human Rights, more than 448 people were killed. More than 2,000 people were injured.

The council heard a presentation by Felix Maradiaga, a human rights activist from Nicaragua, whose description of the torture described by Ambassador Haley showed what he described as the brutality of the Ortega regime.

"Nicaragua has become a huge prison that seems to be without any control, even though we see every day a climate of terror and indiscriminate persecution," he said, a mere trace of a tweet or a An anti-government message torture. The genitals were cut, people were penetrated in an anal way – men and women using guns and rifles.

Maradiaga said he himself had been the target of assassinations and had witnessed numerous killings and abuses since the beginning of the uprisings earlier this year. He said Nicaragua was a "time bomb" and called for intervention by the Security Council.

Several members, including Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, complained that Nicaragua did not belong on the Council's agenda. He condemned what he termed "Washington's subversive policy" with regard to the country of Central America. He gave a list of what he said was the US commitment to other Latin American countries, such as the invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in the 1960s.

Nicaragua's Minister of Foreign Affairs Denis Moncada also said that Nicaragua was not a threat to international peace and security and said that his country was not part of his remit.

The Deputy Ambassador of Venezuela, Henry Suarez, also condemned the United States for holding the meeting. He then recalled a litany of what he said were the many threats made against his country by the Trump administration, leading him to ask, "Who is the aggressor? Nicaragua, Venezuela?

Next Monday, Ambassador Haley, President of the Security Council for the month of September, will hold an informal meeting of the Security Council on Venezuela. Speakers at the meeting should include members of Venezuelan opposition groups.