Nicaragua

Year-end postscript

Envío team

As we close this special edition in English three weeks after the Spanish one, a series of particularly important events, some expected and some not, some from the regime’s side and some not, have occurred one on top of the other with no time to fully see or analyze their fallout. All we can do for our readers at this point is to list the most impactful ones.


1. Rosario Murillo sanctioned. On November 27, President Trump issued an executive order to apply the sanctions to Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo and the governing couple’s security adviser Nestor Moncada Lau.

2. Nica-Magnitsky now law. On November 29, the Senate passed S.3233 into law. It was then unanimously passed by the House on December 11, and sent to the White House for signing.

3. US Banks to pull out of Nicaragua. In early December, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase announced plans to end their correspondent services with several Nicaraguan banks. Details of each bank’s decision and its scope and impact are not yet clear, but it reportedly has to do with the increased “country risk” resulting from possible involvement with any banks that have relations with sanctioned individuals.

4. NGOs deprived of legal status. Ana Quiróz, feminist activist and founder and director of Managua’s Center for Information and Advisory Services in Health (CISAS), one of those beaten in the April protests, was stripped of her Nicaraguan nationality and expelled to her home country of Costa Rica on November 26, and CISAS was deprived of its legal status. Since that time numerous other important and internationally known Nicaraguan NGOs have been targeted, starting with the human rights organization CENIDH and followed by the journalistic research organization CINCO, the municipal support organization Popol Na, the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policies (IEEPP), the democratization advocacy organization Let’s Make Democracy and others, some of which were then broken into by the police, who confiscated records, computers and other goods. The most recent attack was on the bulletin Confidencial, the morning of December 15, apparently with no warrant or other legal justification. Dozens more are reportedly on the list sent to the National Assembly to annul their legal status without justifiable cause. Most of the heads of the affected organizations interviewed so far have vowed to continue doing their work, with or without legal status.

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