Salazar denounces Pelosi for not halting Ortega’s “reign of terror”

Representatives Mar María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Carlos Giménez (R-FL), and Mario Díaz-Balart sent a letter to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on Friday criticizing her failure to act on the bipartisan act RENACER (Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform).

Representative Salazar claims Pelosi has abandoned the Nicaraguan people. As Nicaragua’s fraudulent presidential elections approach, the U.S. Congress should “condemn the Ortega regime’s assault on democracy,” stressed the letter.

“We need to stand together in solidarity and promote democracy in Latin America, holding dictators accountable for their crimes. This has serious and direct consequences for the United States,” said Representatives Salzar, Díaz-Balart, and Giménez.

“Nicaraguan Americans all over the United States are crying out for action,” the letter states. In the letter, the Representatives point to their “frustration with the postponement of RENACER act’s approval in the House of Representatives.”

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate months ago, however, its approval in the House of Representatives was obstructed by Democratic leaders, according the letter. 

“Meanwhile, Daniel Ortega continues to repress the people, censor the independent press, persecute opponents, and arrest those who dare to run as candidates in the upcoming presidential elections,” the letter continues.

The President and Vice-President of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), Michael Healy and Alvaro Vargas, were arrested on October 21 in Nicaragua. The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship charged Healy with “treason and money laundering.”

The relationship between COSEP and the regime started breaking down in 2018, after the brutal repression of protests of the same year. Since then, their differences grew and their split became definitive in 2021 after the current wave of repression in the country.

The House of Representatives lack of action is letting pass an opportunity to hold Ortega accountable for his crimes, the Republican representatives argue. 

“As of today, there are only 16 days until the fraudulent presidential elections in Nicaragua,” said Salazar, Giménez, and Díaz-Balart. The three Representatives asked Pelosi to pass the bill in question before October 25 and for President Biden to sign it immediately after. 

“Ortega has become a sultanate,” said analyst Elíseo Núñez referring to the electoral fraud of November 7. The elections “will be an electoral monologue” where Ortega will assign himself the votes he wants to obtain and win the election with the result he wants to achieve, commented Núñez.

Ortega talks about elections and dialogue after the election, yet there are no elections and he does not want dialogue either, said Núñez in a conversation with Juan Carlos Iragorri of The Washington Post in Managua. 

The bill seeks to reinforce previous provisions of the fulfillment of human rights and the fight against corruption in Nicaragua. In an effort with Canada and the European Union, the bill considers imposing strategic sanctions against the Ortega regime to exert pressure. 

Freezing loans of international financial institutions and expanding the oversight of these institutions are measures that aim to pressure the regime to opt for the reestablishment of democracy, respect of human rights in the country, and ultimately, call for free, credible, and competitive elections.

To this date, the Ortega-Murillo regime has 150 political prisoners, seven imprisoned presidential candidates, and 39 arbitrary detentions from yesterday’s arrests.