La Prensa, Feb 29, 2024
The dictator of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, and co-President and first lady, Rosario Murillo and other high officials of the State – identified in the chain of command – should be judicially investigated as accused as being responsible for the crimes against humanity in Nicaragua, concluded the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) from the United Nations Organization.
“President Daniel Ortega, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, and the high State officials identified should be submitted to judicial investigations for their possible responsibility in the crimes, violations and abuses described and discussed in the current report ad in the first report of the Group. Nicaragua also should respond for its possible State responsibility,” indicated the Group in a new report presented this Thursday February 29 in Geneva, Switzerland, on concluding the second year of its investigations.
In addition to Ortega and Murillo, identified as “those most responsible for the crimes contained” in the report – just during 2023 – GHREN identified the president of the National Assembly, Gustavo Porras; the attorney general Ana Julia Guido; the magistrate of the Judicial Branch, Marvin Aguilar and the Vice Minister of the Interior, Luis Cañas.
The president of GHREN, Jan Simón, added that the dictatorship “persecutes its own people, targeting university students, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendent peoples, peasants and members of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.”
It is worth highlighting that in this second part of the investigation, the report addresses human rights violations committed by the Ortega regime since 2023, among them the banishment and stripping of their nationality of 317 Nicaraguans, and it is in tune with the first report, which was presented in March 2023.
“The Government has carried out and expanded even further its patterns of victimization. The Group has reasonable motives for believing that, during the period which the report addresses, crimes against humanity of imprisonment and deportation have been perpetrated in Nicaragua, and that those crimes were perpetrated within the context of a discriminatory policy to systematically persecute and silence dissidents or people perceived as such, intentionally applied from the highest levels of the Government,” they stated.
Generalized persecution extents to children
The investigation of GHREN revealed that the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Ortega dictatorship are directed at civilians, including children and students, for political purposes.
At the same time, they identify as victims of the generalized persecution members of different sectors of society, from priests, seminarians, journalists, employees of the judicial branch, judges, indigenous leaders, students and members of civil society organizations, political movements, and peasants.
“The very family members of the victims of human rights violations are victimized for the sole reason of being related to people opposed to the Government or perceived as such,” they indicated.
GHREN also noted that the persecution against the families of the victims of the regime are particularly serious when they affect girls and boys, who were discriminated against and their rights violated because of the activities or opinions of their parents, which violates the Convention on the Rights of Children.
“Some girls and boys have been separated from their parents, who were expelled or blocked entry into Nicaragua, and also because the children were denied a valid passport to reunite with their parents,” GHREN denounced and reproached.
Command structure of the repression
For the first time, the Group of Human Rights Experts of the UN identified the command structure of the repression and listed the individual penal responsibilities.
GHREN in addition to identifying the dictatorial couple, Porras, Guido, Aguilar and Cañas, identified the role of institutions like the General Office of Migration and Immigration (DGME), and the General Office for the Registration and Control of Non Profit Organizations (DGRC-OSFL).
Chain of Command
“President Ortega and Vice President Murillo have control over all the other branches and institutions of the State. The Group identified that the president and vice-president give orders – directly or through trusted advisors – to different institutions that have to carry out repressive acts against people opposed to the government or perceived as such and their relatives,” indicated GHREN.
It specified that the president of the National Assembly, Gustavo Porras, “has supported the Government, promoting the adoption of constitutional and legislative reforms which facilitate the commission of acts of repression. The National Assembly approved several constitutional reforms which took effect without having followed the procedure indicated in the Constitution. At least three of those reforms were approved unanimously. In one case, Porras publicly recognized that the National Assembly had acted following the orders of the president.”
Concerning the magistrate of the Judicial Branch, “the Group identified that Aguilar received orders from the Vice president, from two presidential advisors or from the Attorney General, and then he would communicate them to the rest of the judicial branch, calling to his office one or more of judges of his trust. These judges, in turn, directly carried out the orders or communicated them to other judges and judicial employees.”
In terms of the responsibility of the Attorney General, GHREN “confirmed the existence of a so-called “troll farm” which extended into different online platforms owned by META, and which were created to produce false proof against people opposed to the Government or perceived to be so, and to harass them online. The farm was managed from the installations of the Supreme Court; the “proof” produced was later used by Prosecutor´s Office to support accusations against people opposed to the Government or perceived as such.”
And concerning the Vice Minister and Political Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, the Group of Experts stated that Luis Cañas was responsible for carrying out the orders of the dictatorial couple concerning the liberation or not of people opposed to the Government or perceived as such, the elimination of nonprofit organizations, and decisions which affected freedom of movement.
“Cañas, in turn, was responsible for those orders being carried out by the National Penitentiary System, the General Office for the Registration and Control of Non-profit Organizations, and the General Office of Migration and Immigration, respectively,” they stated.
Recommendations of GHREN
The Group reiterated to the State of Nicaragua and the international community the recommendations listed in their first report and those presented in their oral updated report for the 54th period of sessions of the Human Rights Council.
In addition, they offered the following recommendations to the international community:
- Hold the State of Nicaragua accountable for its obligations in virtue of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Convention of 1961 to reduce cases of statelessness;
- In terms of the Nicaraguans stripped of their nationality, forced to leave or those who have been denied entry into Nicaraguan territory, and/or who have fled Nicaragua:
- Use the results and conclusions of the Group to ensure fair and effective access to procedures of identification, remission and determination of the statute.
- Apply the broadest criteria for the recognition of the condition of refugee status contained in the 1984 Declaration of Cartagena on Refugees;
- Ensure that the results and conclusions of the Group are taken into account, particularly in security, financial and commercial relationships and policies:
- In assessing the compliance of Nicaragua with the norms against money laundering, combating financing of terrorism and the proliferation of arms, especially in terms of the recommendations of the Financial Action Group, applying the principle of “causing no harm”;
- In terms of the consultations of Article IV of the International Monetary Fund with Nicaragua, on evaluating issues of governance in the supervision and use of IMF resources, as well as the relationship between migration, remittances, GDP growth and the participation of the labor force in Nicaragua.[1]
- By conditioning preferential access of Nicaragua to markets in compliance with the Objectives of Non-Commercial Policy and/or evaluating the impact on human rights in commercial relationships with Nicaragua
- Strengthen the capacity of the independent communications media and Nicaraguan civil society organizations.
[1] The report from the latest IMF visit addressing GDP growth, remittances and migration completely failed to mention anything about the human rights violations fueling these elements in Nicaragua. So, it is significant that GHREN specifically mentions this in their report.
