The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, assured that the Nicaraguan government adopted the “Cuban model of repression” and has used it during the last six months of the sociopolitical crisis, the same forms of state abuse that are committed in Cuba against critics and opponents.
“Lately we have seen this Cuban model of repression and oppression exported to Nicaragua with the same forms of abuse, repression, assassinations and torture,” said Almagro last Tuesday during a meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council.
The OAS official explained that this model consists in “systematically silencing all those who dare to express opinions contrary to Government’s policies”, through imprisonment, with minimal justification or without justification.
In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega has denied before international media any abuse of rights of prisoners.
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Almagro mentioned the alleged abuses of human rights in Nicaragua, referring to the testimony given by a student (whose name was not revealed), who reported being a victim of abuse.
“She was brutally tortured by the regime, with heavy beatings, simulated asphyxiation and rape with a blunt object,” said the secretary general of the OAS.
According to Almagro, the student identified a Cuban as the leader of the physical and psychological abuse she suffered.
“I have always said that bad practices are spread and the worst practices we see today in our hemisphere, which we see here today in the cases of Venezuela and Nicaragua, come from Cuba,” Almagro added.
During his speech, in which Almagro was interrupted by shouts and blows on the table by the Cuban delegation present at the UN event, the official said that the “possible crimes against humanity that the OAS has documented in Venezuela are also happening now in Nicaragua”
For Almagro, “the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua are dictatorships” that were installed slowly, although they were democratically elected.
“They dismantled one by one their democratic institutions with the objective, support and impulse of Havana. Now, as in Cuba, they continue in power through brute force and fear,” said the OAS Secretary General.
Amnesty International hopes that the Spanish Government will not send more arms to Nicaragua
In the case of Venezuela, Almagro revealed that at least 22,000 Cubans infiltrated the “regime” initiated by Hugo Chávez and currently led by Nicolás Maduro. They did so, he explained, holding important positions in government agencies and in the national security and intelligence services of that South American country.
“There is no doubt that the existence of (political) prisoners in a given country is a decisive indication that there is a dictatorship in the Government,” insisted Almagro.
OAS meets today to address Nicaraguan crisis
Today, Friday, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) will give continuity to the crisis in Nicaragua, during an extraordinary session, as announced yesterday by the president of the Permanent Council, Ambassador Carlos Játiva Naranjo, permanent representative of Ecuador.
Today’s session, which would be the seventh session of the Permanent Council of the OAS to address Nicaragua’s crisis since April, was requested by the Permanent Mission of Canada on behalf of the Working Group (WG) for Nicaragua.
Article originally appeared on Today Nicaragua and is republished here with permission.
