RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The diplomatic crisis between Spain and Nicaragua worsened this Wednesday (11), when the Spanish government recalled its ambassador in Managua, María del Mar Fernández-Palacios, for consultations, in response to the “serious and unfounded accusations” of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry against Spain and its institutions.
In a communiqué published today, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs referred to a note from the Foreign Ministry of the Central American country issued yesterday with “gross falsehoods about Spanish judicial and electoral processes”.
Read also: Check out our coverage on Nicaragua
The tension between both governments and the crossing of accusations began a few months ago, on the occasion of the arrests and imprisonment of opposition leaders and candidates for the upcoming Nicaraguan elections on November 7, against which Spain reacted several times with strong protests.
Last June 10, the foreign ministers of Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, Panama, Dominican Republic, and Spain urged Nicaragua to release detained opposition political leaders.
SPAIN REPROACHES “REPRESSION” AND QUESTIONS ELECTORAL CREDIBILITY.
“Nicaragua is going through a deep political, economic and social crisis that has worsened in recent weeks as a result of the intensification of repression by the government against political and social actors of the opposition, as well as against independent media,” the Spanish Government stressed today in the above-mentioned communiqué.
Since last May, 32 opposition leaders and candidates have been arrested and accused of treason, which will prevent them from running in these elections.
Ortega aspires to his fifth presidential term, fourth in a row, and second with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.
This Monday, the decision of the Supreme Electoral Council to cancel the legal status of the opposition alliance Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL) was announced, so it will not be able to run in the elections either.
Spain warned that the elections in Nicaragua are not credible after decisions such as this and previous ones that “prevent the electoral process in the making from offering a result with guarantees and credibility”.
The United Nations, the United States, the European Union (EU), Canada, and the United Kingdom have joined the complaints about the lack of credibility of the elections.
NICARAGUA CONDEMNS THE “INADMISSIBLE MEDDLING” OF SPAIN
Following the criticism, the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry responded on Tuesday with a note addressed to the Spanish Foreign Ministry. It condemned the “inadmissible interference of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain in the internal affairs” of the country.
Nicaragua accused Spain of lacking “moral authority” when it is guilty of “so many fallacies, cover-ups, lies, crimes, hate crimes and crimes against humanity, which they do not confess, but which the whole world knows about and condemns.”
Thus, the government of President Ortega will continue to denounce “the cynical and continuous meddling, interference and intervention in our internal affairs, unbecoming of democratic governments, unbecoming also of regimes that continuously fail to comply with the rights of their peoples to autonomy or autonomous processes of independence.”
Likewise, the Foreign Ministry mentioned the “crimes against humanity, never investigated or judged” of the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL), active in the eighties in Spain. “They qualify as State terrorism,” he added, and “show the immoral character of Spanish institutions.”
In response, Spain today “categorically” rejected the contents of the Foreign Ministry’s note and demanded that the State of Nicaragua “comply with its international commitments on Human Rights and its own constitutional precepts, guaranteeing the rights of all its citizens and free political participation.”