CRITICS: NICARAGUA LAYS WASTE TO CIVIL SOCIETY

Nicaragua’s Sandinistacontrolled congress has canceled nearly 200 nongovernmental organizations this week, ranging from a local equestrian center to the 94year-old Nicaraguan Academy of Letters, in what critics say is President Daniel Ortega’s attempt to eliminate the country’s civil society.

On Thursday, lawmakers from Ortega’s party and their allies voted unanimously — there were 14 abstentions — to cancel 96 organizations. That followed 83 more on Tuesday. Since popular street protests turned against Ortega’s government in April 2018, the government has canceled more than 400.

At first, the targets were often tied to prominent opposition figures whom Ortega accused of working with foreign interests in an attempt to topple his government. But now the government seems intent on wiping the landscape clean of any organization it does not control.

“These cancellations have the objective of eliminating all social and political vision that differs from that established by the regime,” the Paris-based Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders said in a statement Thursday. “It doesn’t concern only political or defense of human rights associations, but rather artistic, journalistic, educational, scientific, environmental and social organizations are also victims of persecution. The ultimate objective is to eliminate all possibility of an independent civil society in the country.”

The government maintains that the organizations are canceled because they have not complied with a 2020 requirement to register as “foreign agents.” On Thursday, lawmaker Filiberto Nunez said they had also failed to provide financial statements as required by law.

The breadth of the targets has been mind-boggling.

Thursday’s list included the Society of Pediatrics, the Nicaraguan Development Institute, the Confederation of Nicaraguan Professional Associations and the Nicaragua Internet Association.