San Jose Costa Rica –
The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution this Thursday that stipulates that a group of experts – with a mandate of inquiry and accountability – will work for a year to “elucidate the gross human rights violations committed in Nicaragua in 2018”.
The resolution, tabled by Chile and adopted by 20 votes in favor, 20 abstentions and 7 against, stipulates, among other things, that a group of three experts, appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, will carry out an exhaustive investigation into all alleged abuses committed during Daniel Ortega’s tenure.
This aims to identify those responsible and make this information accessible and usable to support current and future accountability initiatives, the official UN document said.
The Ortega administration reacted angrily to the formation of the group of experts, expressing “its absolute rejection of the decisions” because, as they say, “they are instrumentalized assessments of economic and political interests”.
“We do not accept any resolution, update or report on human rights in Nicaragua because they lack objectivity and are marked by a well-defined political and interventionist bias; far from being based on a truthful summary of the reality of human rights for Nicaraguans,” said Republic Attorney General Wendy Morales.
Organizations celebrate dissolution
The resolution has raised hopes among local and international organizations, which suggest this could be the start of a long trial that those responsible for human rights abuses would face.
In fact, a coalition of 21 international, regional and Nicaraguan human rights organizations have spoken out on the matter and celebrated the resolution.
The Nicaraguan Organization open ballot boxes expressed in a statement that “amid the repression and a co-opted justice system that is a key element of the repression, the establishment of an accountability mechanism by the UN Council is the support human rights organizations need to ensure truth, justice and reparation.” for the victims in a future trial”.
For her part, Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia, President of the CENIDH-Nicaragua, in another statement, highlighted the importance of the commission, since, according to her, the authorities showed no intention of collaborating with either the United Nations or the Inter-American People’s Rights System.
A human rights delegation arrived on October 20, 2020 to inspect the condition of political prisoners in Nicaragua but was denied entry.
“Ortega has closed himself off to control”
According to the Voice of America by Juan Pappier, Americas senior investigator at Human Rights Watch, “Ortega has evaded international scrutiny,” failed to cooperate with the United Nations, expelled the Apostolic Nuncio and the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross.”
Therefore, he believes that blocking the delegation that would be delegated would not be exceptional, but assures that if Ortega does not allow them to visit the country, “they can interview victims’ relatives and talk to the Nicaraguans, who have had to leave the country, many of them in Costa Rica or the United States, and can gather all kinds of evidence to reach conclusions about the human rights abuses that have been committed.”
Pappier mentions that other facilities of this type exist in Venezuela or Yemen for a similar task.
“I think this could be good news in this grim scenario, to give the victims of these systematic human rights abuses at least a glimmer of hope that there will ever be justice and those responsible for these human rights abuses will be brought to justice,” the HRW spokesman said .
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