Brazil softens at the OAS a statement criticizing the Government of Nicaragua | International

With just hours to go before the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) begins in Washington, United States, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva keeps diplomatic and political spirits inflamed due to the correction proposals made to a critical statement of the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. The Brazilian delegation made "substantive changes" to a document prepared by the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, and Antigua and Barbuda on "the escalation of repression, the closure of civic space, and human rights violations" in Nicaragua.

Despite the conclusive reports of the United Nations group of experts and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), the Brazilian delegation questioned in its observations the commission of crimes against humanity by the Sandinista administration. Brazilian diplomats removed the words “alarming conclusion” with “elements exist”.

On the other hand, they added the word "supposed" to the violation of the right to property and social security, through the confiscation of goods and assets and the denial of pensions for those persons deprived of nationality by the Government of Nicaragua, who underline the drivers of the original statement.

Brazil also completely eliminated the allusion to the migration drama of Nicaraguans who have fled due to political persecution and the sociopolitical crisis since 2018, the year of massive social protests against the regime. This Tuesday, the Nunca Más Nicaragua Human Rights Collective denounced that this is the largest exodus in the history of Nicaragua, even higher than that of the 1980s, when a civil war broke out in the country that left tens of thousands of dead. : "At least 605,043 Nicaraguans have left their country in the last 62 months, 9% of the total population, due to state repression against opponents, religious and critics of the Government of Daniel Ortega," they remarked.

According to the observations made by Brazil in an official document circulating in the OAS system, they refrain from even urging the Ortega regime to cease arbitrary detentions. The repressive acts documented by national and international organizations go from "have" to "may have", such as the stripping of nationality from opponents, journalists and religious.

“The proposals presented by Brazil seek to call into question the unprecedented brutality applied by the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship against thousands of citizens, and offend the relatives of those murdered and all the victims of the repression of the totalitarian State of Ortega and Murillo”, says a statement issued by a group of 94 denationalized opponents. “We support the original proposal for a declaration, presented by the five member countries of the Follow-up Group on the Nicaraguan crisis – which we have suffered since 2018 – and which must be approved by the OAS General Assembly. Likewise, we reject the attempts of the Brazilian diplomatic delegation that intends to soften the terms with which the declaration had been drafted”, they insist, while asking the countries of the hemisphere to declare the Sandinista government “illegitimate”.

"Moral and ideological debt with Ortega"

The former Sandinista ambassador to the OAS until March 2022, Arturo Mcfields, has two hypotheses about this change in Brazil's position. “Lula has a kind of moral and ideological debt with Ortega, because when he was a simple union in the eighties, he came to Nicaragua and managed to meet Fidel Castro. Lula always saw Fidel as a mentor, says the former diplomat, who was stripped of his nationality.

The other hypothesis that Mcfields is considering is that Lula, after obtaining a new mandate, tries to assume the leadership of the Latin American left in the face of the "failure" in this sense of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “Lula believes that this leadership is not complete until the full insertion of the dictatorships of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba takes place. So he tries to wash the image and change the narrative with Ortega, just like he did with Maduro ”, he maintains.

A source linked to Brasilia said that in his country's diplomacy "there are various currents of thought regarding Nicaragua and that the position of the Lula government has been changing." For now, it is unknown if the other countries accepted the changes proposed by the Rio de Janeiro delegation to the declaration against Nicaragua, a country that will abandon the capacity next November by Ortega's decision. The Managua regime refuses to build bridges of understanding with the international community, even with the critical Latin American left led by Chilean President Gabriel Boric. Instead, internal repression has intensified.

The OAS General Assembly will begin this June 21 with several questions, especially towards Nicaragua. "In the OAS there is a negative correlation of forces for democracy," says McFields. The OAS is made up of 35 nations, but since the three dictatorships are relatively outside the OAS, there are 32. That is, nine democracies and another 23 countries that are authoritarian or sympathetic to authoritarianism.

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