Canada calls for important national dialogue in Nicaragua | The Most Important News and Analysis of Latin America | DW

The Government of Canada this Monday (12/13/2021) called on Nicaragua to hold a “substantial national dialogue” to address the socio-political crisis the Central American country has been experiencing since April 2018, allowing international entry and the work of human rights defenders and the release of so-called “political prisoners”.

“Canada continues to demand the withdrawal of international human rights monitors and the establishment of a national dialogue,” the Canadian embassy in Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua reported via Twitter.

On November 8, the Diplomatic Corps recalled that Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie had said that President Daniel Ortega had been re-elected for the fifth and fourth time in the general elections in Nicaragua. Prisoners in prison said, “Nicaraguan does not reflect the will of the people.”

In his message, Canada expressed solidarity with “all human rights defenders seeking the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua.”

On December 8, the Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution allowing President Djokovic to enter Central America to begin talks on electoral reform and new elections.

Eight countries abstained, including OAS (owned by Cuba, but not participating since 1962), Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia and Honduras. Only Nicaragua voted against.

Freedom of political prisoners

The initiative urges the Ordega government to release all “political prisoners” as a matter of urgency and accept the task of top “good offices”, which must be approved by the organization’s permanent council.

Ortega won the election on November 7 without the participation of his political rivals, because in previous months, authorities had disbanded three political parties and arrested more than thirty opposition leaders, including seven presidential candidates, including Cristiano Zamoro.

In response, the OAS General Assembly, the organisation’s most important political body, approved a resolution promising that these elections were free of “democratic legitimacy”, free, fair or transparent.

Shortly afterwards, the Orthodox government accused the OAS of “interference” and condemned its founding document, the OAS Charter, signed in 1948.

Under the terms of the body, any country that condemns the OAS Charter will have to wait two years for the withdrawal to take effect.

Nicaragua has been experiencing a crisis since the popular uprising that erupted in April 2018 over controversial social security reforms that later turned into a demand for the resignation of President Ordega, as he responded forcefully.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the protests, classified by executives as an attempted coup, killed at least 355 people, although local organizations increased the number to 684, with the government approving 200.

mg (Embassy of Canada in efe, Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua)