The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, said yesterday in Rome that there is an “international outcry” about the lack of human rights in Nicaragua and that the world is waiting to see “whether the political prisoners will be released and the repression will cease” in that country.
“The problems in Nicaragua are not a matter of telegrams or letters. There is a serious problem of respect for human rights and the organisation of a free, transparent and democratic electoral process”, the minister said when asked about the letter of protest sent to her on Sunday by the Nicaraguan foreign minister, Denis Moncada, in which he called her a “big shot”.
In his letter, Moncada claimed that the minister had shown “daring ignorance” and added that with “a ferocity unbecoming of diplomacy, Mrs González addresses the president of a free and sovereign people with the voice of a bailiff, without realising in her delirious ranting that we have been without Spanish rule for centuries”.
González Laya, who was participating in Rome in a meeting of the global coalition against the Islamic State (IS), insisted that there is an outcry in the international community” over the detention of several opposition candidates for the November presidential elections.
“From the US to Mexico and Argentina, the Central American countries are saying it, the European Union is saying it, and of course Spain is saying it, and it is saying it because Nicaraguan citizens are saying it”, González Laya said.
The minister affirmed that Spain “will always and in any case support Nicaraguan citizens in their quest for respect for human rights and in their quest for free, transparent and democratic elections”.
In recent weeks, Daniel Ortega’s government has been carrying out an offensive against the opposition which has led to the detention and arrest of opposition presidential hopefuls Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro and Miguel Mora, among others, whom it accuses of “treason”.
The arrests of opponents and the harassment of journalists come less than five months before Nicaragua’s general elections on 7 November, in which Ortega, in power since 2007, is seeking re-election.
