Nicaragua withdraws from the OAS, closes its offices

The Nicaragua regime on Sunday withdrew from the Organization of the American States (OAS) and closed its offices in Managua, the government announced in its latest expulsion of critics of President Daniel Ortega. 

In March, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS condemned Ortega’s “dictatorship,” accusing it of repressing political opposition and committing serious human rights abuses. 

"Denouncing the dictatorship of my country is not easy," said Ambassador Arturo McFields in a video shared by the OAS on Twitter. "But to continue remaining silent and defending the indefensible, is impossible.”

Ortega has been widely criticized for the November 2021 presidential elections, when he was elected as president for the fourth consecutive term. Ahead of the elections, the regime arrested more than 46 opposition leaders and six presidential candidates.  

The OAS General Assembly condemned the elections, claiming that they “were not free, fair, or transparent, and lack democratic legitimacy.”

In November, President Ortega claimed that the country would withdraw from the organization after its criticism of the elections. However, the Central American country could not officially withdraw until the end of 2023 because it was still an active member. 

On Sunday, however, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada claimed that the OAS was a “diabolical instrument” of “intervention and domination” by the U.S., according to The Associated Press. 

“In the face of this truculent, calamitous and lying agency of the State Department of Yankee imperialism, we also announce that as of this day, we are leaving all the deceitful mechanisms of this monster, be they the permanent commission, commissions, meetings, and the Summit of the Americas,” the government said in a statement.

"This is a violation of the most basic international norms ... We demand that the Nicaraguan government respect the obligations that currently govern its relationship with the OAS and with every international organization of which Nicaragua is a part," the OAS said in a statement responding to the move. 

Similarly, in March, Ortega’s government expelled the representative of the International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) from Nicaragua. According to the organization, the government’s decision came as a surprise given that the ICRC was “adhering to its principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

The same month, the Nicaraguan government also ordered the expulsion of the papal nuncio, Msgr. Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag. An action that the church called “grave and unjustified.”