Oct 2 (Reuters) – The Organization of American States (OAS) on Friday approved a resolution that calls on Nicaraguan authorities to free political prisoners, restore civic liberties and carves a path for potential coordinated action.
The resolution establishes the creation of a group to follow up on and recommend potential action regarding a series of demands to Nicaragua, including that it establish conditions for fair elections, free political prisoners and disclose the whereabouts of people who have been forcibly disappeared.
The government of Nicaragua’s Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, which has heavily restricted civil liberties since a wave of protests in 2018, last month banned its opposition from future elections.
The resolution was approved at the OAS’ first meeting of foreign ministers in seven years, which saw most of the organization’s 32 foreign ministers delegate attendance to deputies or ambassadors. Washington, which hosted and proposed the meeting, sent Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.
“We all understand that the democratic crisis in Nicaragua isn’t solely an internal matter; to the contrary, the dictatorship endangers the peace and security of our hemisphere,” Landau said at the meeting.
“The dictatorship destabilizes Central America and our broader hemisphere by facilitating illegal immigration and embracing non-hemispheric security services, which support the repression,” he added.
Earlier drafts of the resolution showed a rift between the US and aligned right-leaning governments, who pushed for stronger language and alleged foreign security presence in Nicaragua, and other countries including Brazil which said Nicaragua should not be considered a regional security threat.
Nicaragua, which left the OAS in 2023, has security cooperation agreements with Russia and China.
OAS Secretary-General Albert Ramdin told Reuters he hoped the meeting would lead to more than verbal condemnation over human rights abuses.
“That has been said many times already. It is good to say this again collectively, but that cannot be the only outcome,” Ramdin said. “It must also be, what do we do next?”
(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Gabriela Selser, Editing by Natalia Siniawski)
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