Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega during a ceremony in Managua September 15, 2020. Nicaragua’s presidency (Portal)
Colombian diplomacy has again foundered on hostility from the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua, which now claims to ignore the South American State Department. Gustavo Petro’s government on Saturday expressed its “concern” over the confiscation of the Central American Jesuit University of Nicaragua (UCA), which had become the last bastion of freedom of thought in a context of brutal repression, and vehemently condemned “all measures” affecting religious, educational – and restrict freedom of expression” in the Central American country. Nicaragua almost immediately rejected this “interventionist position” in a statement full of disqualifications, warning that it “does not recognize the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an authority.”
In this unusual diplomatic communiqué, the Central American Ministry of Foreign Affairs points to Bogotá’s “subservience” to the “imperial masters” and also urges them “to see the straw in their own eyes and not in those of others, so as not to interfere”. Which doesn’t concern them or won’t concern them, because in Nicaragua we are free and will never be slaves again.” UCA, the Central American country’s most important private university, had to hand over its assets, furniture, real estate and bank accounts to the state by court order transferred to Nicaragua after being accused of terrorism crimes. Anything in between is an attack on the Catholic Church and the think tanks.
Ignoring the State Department is not a matter of course in international relations, explains Sandra Borda from the University of Los Andes. “This means nothing legally, it is not a severance of relations, it does not correspond to any internationally recognized movement as a gesture to end or put a bilateral relationship on hold.” It is a political move rather than a legal one ‘ emphasizes the scholar and author of Why are we so parochial? A Brief International History of Colombia. “The diplomatic communiqués of the authoritarian countries are all very similar. They ultimately destroy the institutionality in foreign affairs that a moderate language in international relations knows and uses,” he stresses. It is also highlighted that this is an inter-law firm exchange with no mention of the executive branch, avoiding a confrontation between presidents at the moment.
Nicaragua has long been a minefield for Colombian diplomacy, again a country with a notable Jesuit community presence. Strained relations between Bogotá and Managua are a thorny affair given that both capitals have had a bitter border dispute in the Caribbean Sea for years, affecting the waters around Colombia’s San Andrés and Providencia archipelagos.
In mid-July, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in Colombia’s favor in the third trial of this long-running maritime dispute, which dates back to 2013, denying Managua its claim to an offshore extension of its continental shelf. Two previous judgments had sided with Nicaragua’s aspirations, and Petro promised a rapprochement to reach an agreement. “We’re going to talk to Ortega about how we can ensure that the peoples of the Caribbean, the indigenous peoples, have the right to fish without being disturbed,” he said on July 20 from the island of San Andrés of the Independence Day celebrations.
The verdict, which was greeted with relief in Colombia as a remarkable diplomatic achievement, also made us forget the controversy surrounding Bogotá’s ambassador to Managua, politician León Fredy Muñoz, who a week before the expected decision in The Hague took part in a march on the Celebration took part in the Sandinista Revolution of 1979 and in support of the regimes of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. So far, Muñoz has not ruled on the new disagreement.
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In this difficult context, and despite some false starts, the Petro government finally joined the broad international condemnation of Ortega after banishing hundreds of political prisoners in February. The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs then rejected “the dictatorial acts of those who recall the worst moments of Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship,” referring to the autocrat overthrown by the Sandinista revolution led by Ortega. At the time, Colombia even offered citizenship to writer Sergio Ramírez, one of more than 300 Nicaraguan opponents who had had their citizenship revoked, and Foreign Minister Leyva reported that the novelist, Cervantes Prize winner and former Vice President of Nicaragua accepted it excitedly and gratefully .
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