White House turns up heat on Nicaragua’s Ortega
WASHINGTON — The White House announced Monday that it has confiscated U.S.-donated vehicles from Nicaraguan security forces and suspended future donations and sales in response to President Daniel Ortega’s deadly crackdown on opponents.
The administration accused Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, of having “brutalized their own people” with “indiscriminate violence” that has killed more than 300 people in three months. Hundreds more have been jailed, tortured or have disappeared, human rights organizations say.
Ortega, a revolutionary hero for the leftist Sandinista Front when it toppled Nicaragua’s U.S.-backed dictator nearly 40 years ago, must “immediately end the state-sanctioned violence perpetuated by police and para-police forces,” the White House said in a statement.
Expanding on demands made by the State Department and the U.S. delegation at the United Nations, the White House called for early “free, fair and transparent” elections as the only way to put the Central American country back on the path to democracy. Ortega’s current term — his third consecutive period after he rewrote the constitution to allow his re-election — is scheduled to end in 2021.
Much of the widespread protest — by students, teachers, Sandinista dissidents and ordinary citizens — targets what they see as a deeply corrupt government well on its way to building a family dynasty to hold on to power indefinitely. Ortega made his wife his vice president last year and is grooming her to succeed him, and several of their eight adult children run Students and doctors dismissed from a public hospital for treating anti-government protesters, march against the Ortega adminstration in Leon, Nicaragua, on Monday. lucrative state businesses or media companies.
Ortega has also spurned efforts by the Catholic Church to hold a dialogue between the government and its opponents, attending only one meeting aimed at starting talks; later police attacked churches where protesters were holed up.
The United States until recently had worked to train and equip Nicaraguan security forces. In a region known for corrupt, poorly trained police, the Nicaraguan force was seen as one of the better ones.
Now in addition to cutting off access to vehicles to the police, the administration said it would funnel another $1.5 million to “freedom and democracy” groups as a “critical lifeline” to the Nicaraguan opposition movement arrayed against Ortega
The White House criticism of Nicaragua now mirrors its policy toward Venezuela and comes largely out of the playbook of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
“The administration has invested so much in attempting to shape events in Venezuela, it can’t be silent when it comes to Nicaragua,” said Daniel Erikson, who was a White House adviser on Latin America in the Obama administration.
As it did with Venezuela, where the government is also accused of corruption and human rights abuse, the Trump administration has sanctioned several Nicaraguan officials close to Ortega, restricted visas, ratcheted up rhetoric and called for regional pressure on Managua from the Organization of American States and other countries.
“Finally, outside pressure is beginning to appear after a delay by both the United States and the OAS,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue and a veteran expert on the region. “Both were quite slow to react.”
Rubio and a bipartisan group of senators earlier this month proposed legislation to impose even tougher sanctions on a broader range of Nicaraguan officials, and for the State Department to certify annually whether human rights and other elements of “better governance” were being upheld.
Rubio said there is a “direct national security interest” for the United States in Nicaragua’s stability. Rubio said, “The U.S. should be prepared to take further action with our regional allies to address the threat of Ortega’s regime.”