MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Nicaraguan dissidents ask EU-Celac Summit to create group for the return to democracy

The initiative is sponsored by writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli, among others

At least 160 Nicaraguan opponents who identify themselves as victims of the Daniel Ortega regime and 29 human rights organizations have sent a note to participants of the EU-Celac Summit starting Monday in Brussels to prioritize the situation in their country, it was reported. The initiative is sponsored by writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli, among others.

“In particular, we urge that it be proposed, during the Summit or in its margins, the creation of a 'Group of Friends of the Nicaraguan People' to guarantee a multilateral, coordinated, and high-level response to the serious human rights and humanitarian crisis that the country is experiencing,” they said in a letter sent to the different EU Ministries of Foreign Affairs.

The Nicaraguan opponents also said they hoped that the Summit “would be an opportunity to discuss pressing human rights challenges in European and Latin American and Caribbean countries, such as democratic regression, violence, and insecurity.”

The summit between the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be held next Monday and Tuesday in Brussels. It will be the first meeting in 8 years of both blocs, which account for 61 countries.

“In recent years, few countries in the region have seen a deterioration in the human rights situation as severe as that observed in Nicaragua, including systematic attacks on independent media, the dismantling of civil society, and the consolidation of an authoritarian regime,” the signatories of the letter argued.

The so-called “Group of Friends of the Nicaraguan People” would be made up of governments from across the political spectrum, to contribute to a “democratic transition” in Nicaragua, according to the proposal. This group should hold high-level meetings to design, in consultation with Nicaraguan civil society organizations, a strategy of peaceful, public and private actions, which would be concerted to seek the release of political prisoners, justice and reparations for the victims of repression, and the holding of free and fair elections as soon as possible.

In addition to Ramírez and Belli, also signing the note were former presidential candidates Juan Sebastian Chamorro, Medardo Mairena, and Felix Maradiaga, who were stripped of their nationality.

Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has worsened after the Nov. 7, 2021, general elections in which Ortega was reelected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive, and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison or in exile.