(QCOSTARICA) The Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano (Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress) denounced that “the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship is taking advantage of the covid-19 pandemic to provoke a genocide driven by criminal negligence.”
This was stated this Wednesday during the conference: ¿Utiliza el régimen Ortega-Murillo el Covid-19 como instrumento de exterminio en Nicaragua? (Does the Ortega-Murillo regime use Covid-19 as an instrument of extermination in Nicaragua?)
Lina Barrantes Castegnaro, director of the Arias Foundation, called on the international community to “take measures to protect the civilian population and not turn a deaf ear to a real tragedy that will cause thousands of deaths in a few months.”
The discussion included epidemiologist Yayo Vicente, Nicaraguan sociologist Elvira Cuadra and human rights expert, Francisco Aguilar.
“President Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo (who is also that country’s vice-president) received the pandemic saying that the country’s borders were armored by divine protection. To show that shield, they called for festivals, demonstrations and tourists. The result of their actions is that it is estimated that they will die, according to the projections of this morning exposed by epidemiologist Yayo Vicente, 265,000 Nicaraguans,” stressed Lina Barrantes.
During his participation, Vicente made projections about how the coronavirus could affect Nicaraguans, given the lack of government measures.
“90% of patients (from covid-19 in the world) generally do not undergo specialized treatment, some do not even have symptoms (…). 10% require hospitalization: 5% of this group requires extremely delicate hospitalization, requires in-unit care in the Intensive Care Unit, and 2.5%, half of those in ICU beds, will die. We don’t have good news here,” Vicente said.
The specialist added: “The deceptive thing about this is that 90% have no problems. That is what has brought the world to its knees.”
“Nicaragua has approximately 6.5 million people. Let’s see what would happen to those people if only 10% were infected. This means that 650,000 are going to be infected, which would mean that if we have beds, ICUs, 16,250 Nicaraguans will die; But since they do not have that type of resources because the State has not prepared, 5%, which is equivalent to 32,500 Nicaraguans, may die.”
“But a pandemic does not stop there. It is calculated that, for it to stop, it has to infect above 80%. In the conditions in which Nicaragua is responding to the pandemic, a little more than 260,000 Nicaraguans would die in the end,” he asserted.
The situation from sociology and human rights
During her presentation, sociologist Elvira Cuadra, who has been living in Costa Rica since 2018, said that in Nicaragua “the vanalization (sic) of death has become a strategy of political control, an evident necropolitics.”
“They force health personnel not to protect themselves, not to wear masks, gowns or any type of protective equipment, which has caused an increase in the spread of health professionals and even their death.
“At this moment, when in Nicaragua there is an increase in the contagion curve, a large number of health personnel are infected or have died and they (the government) do not say so,” Cuadra said.
She added that the decision of the Nicaraguan government not to act, seems to be irrational and not have a logic of common sense in the context of global emergency as critical as in the one that has caused the pandemic.
“Actually it does have rationality and it is a logic of criminal negligence. That reason explains all the decisions that the Nicaraguan government has made since the first signs of a pandemic appeared in Nicaragua,” she said.
Cuadra explained that with the assertion of criminal negligence, she refers to the fact that there was time to face the pandemic.
“The World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and other prestigious institutions alerted with enough time. Latin America was not the first region where symptoms occurred.”
“We saw progress and we saw the first effects of the pandemic in China and Europe and that gave space for governments in Latin America to prepare to deal with this emergency.
“In the case of Nicaragua, the most important actions or decisions have first been the recurring denial of the state of emergency and of the effects that the coronavirus pandemic can have, and is already having, on the population,” he said.
Human rights expert Aguilar, maintained that in the neighboring country “there is a genocide due to calculated negligence” and that Costa Rica has the responsibility of helping the population of that nation.
“Our duty as Costa Ricans, towards the Nicaraguan people, is to give them all the necessary support. We have a lot to do.
“In Nicaragua there is a problem that is that of a genocide due to negligence because it is more important to fill egos than to save lives. It is not possible that people are being left to die and the data is hidden.”
On the other hand, Aguilar stressed that during a pandemic there is a need for transparency.
On Tuesday, May 19, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health reported an increase in positive cases for coronavius, reporting that there are 254 new infected, 10 times more than those reported a week ago, raising the total to 279
Government data contrasts with that of civil organizations. For example, the NGO Observatorio Cuidadano, published by AFP, revealed that the figures, as of May 16, were and 1,569 positive cases and 366 deaths.
PAHO has criticized the Daniel Ortega administration for failing to comply with the obligation to frequently report infections and deaths from the new coronavirus.
