The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, presented this Tuesday a law to control the work of organizations, cooperation agencies and diplomatic missions present in the Central American country, according to a document disseminated by Nicaraguan media in exile, and to which the French news agency had access AFP.
The initiative was delivered to Congress, dominated by the ruling party, as part of a series of laws that accompany a constitutional reform, approved last Friday, which gives Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo absolute power of the Nicaraguan State.
International cooperation “must have the consent and authorization of the government, both initially and in its implementation,” the bill indicates.
It also determines that The work of these organizations “will be carried out without political, economic, social or cultural conditions”respecting “national sovereignty, independence and self-determination.”
The regulations expressly prohibits any type of “interference in the internal affairs” of Nicaragua.
International cooperation “must be in accordance with national priorities and aligned with national plans, programs and strategies established by the government,” the document highlights.
With this reform, Ortega further strengthens his control over international entities after reforming the laws on “Foreign Agents” and “Control of Non-Profit Organizations” which establishes that NGOs must work only in “association alliances” with state entities.
More than 5,300 organizations have been closed by the Sandinista regime since the protests against him in 2018, which according to Ortega and Murillo were supported by NGOs and the Catholic Church, dozens of whose clerics were imprisoned and expelled to the Vatican, the United States and other countries.
Ortega, a 78-year-old former guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and has been in power since 2007, maintains that the protests, which the UN says left more than 300 dead, were an attempted coup d’état sponsored by Washington. Thousands of Nicaraguans went into exile and some 450 politicians, businessmen, intellectuals and artists were stripped of their nationality in recent years, accused of “betrayal of the country.”
On the other hand, Ortega also proposed this Tuesday deny entry to the country of people, including Nicaraguan citizens, “that may undermine national sovereignty or represent a social risk.” In addition, impose a sentence of two to six years in prison on the person who enters the country, leaves or intends to leave Nicaragua, in a non-regular manner, “for the purposes of compromising peace, altering the constitutional order, promoting or provoking, conspiring and propose, induce terrorist acts of economic and social destabilization of the country.”
The leader of the Sandinista regime raised these requests in an initiative of Law of Reforms and Additions to the General Law of Migration and Immigration; and addition to the Penal Code of the Republic of Nicaragua, which was sent for approval to the National Assembly, where it has an absolute majority.
The humanitarian NGO Nicaragua Collective Never Again has reported that it registered 111 cases of de facto statelessness of Nicaraguans, which is when a person, despite appearing as a national of a State according to its legislation, cannot enjoy the rights and protection associated with said nationality. Among the most affected groups are religious people, journalists, human rights defenders, businessmen, feminists, musicians, and opposition politicians, according to that organization.
Daniel Ortega proposed last week a profound reform to the Constitution, already approved by the Legislature in first reading, which extends the presidential term from five to six years and allows him to coordinate the bodies of the Legislative Branch, the Judiciary and the electoral authority. inter alia.
(With information from AFP and EFE)
