Q24N (EFE) The Nicaraguan Red Cross Association will be administered by the Government headed by Daniel Ortega, after 65 years of its creation in Nicaragua, and its assets and assets will pass into the hands of the State, according to an initiative approved this Wednesday by the National Assembly (Parliament).
The initiative was urgently approved by the Sandinista legislators and their allies, who accused the Nicaraguan Red Cross of having acted against their principles in the framework of the anti-government demonstrations that broke out five years ago, which left hundreds dead and in which demanded the resignation of the country’s president, Daniel Ortega.
“In the acts that occurred in 2018 that threatened the peace and stability of the nation, some affiliates of that Association (Nicaraguan Red Cross) acted against these principles”, of humanity, impartiality and neutrality, “and of its Act Constitution and Statutes”, the Sandinista legislators stated in the explanatory statement.
And the Nicaraguan Red Cross Association itself “violated the laws of the country by disregarding and even supporting this act of its affiliates,” they added.
NEW NICARAGUAN RED CROSS CREATED
Therefore, the pro-government legislators and their allies agreed to repeal the legislative decree of October 29, 1958, by which the Nicaraguan Red Cross was created.
Likewise, they approved the creation of a new “Nicaraguan Red Cross as an autonomous, decentralized entity, with legal personality, its own assets, indefinite duration and full capacity to acquire rights and contract obligations, which will be the legal successor without solution of continuity of the Asociación Cruz Nicaraguan Red”, founded in 1958.
“The Nicaraguan Red Cross is a decentralized entity attached to the Ministry of Health, which will continue to comply with the international legal framework based on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its additional protocols of which Nicaragua is a State party,” according to the approved initiative.
The law mandates that “all assets, assets and shares that to date belong to the National Association called the Nicaraguan Red Cross will become property of the State, and will be administered by the Nicaraguan Red Cross, a decentralized entity attached to the Ministry of Health.”
RED CROSS STILL DOES NOT REACT
Until now, the Nicaraguan Red Cross, which is governed by the principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and which has buildings, properties and vehicles in the different municipalities of Nicaragua, has not yet spoken out publicly on that law.
In April 2018, thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets to protest controversial social security reforms, which later turned into a demand for Ortega’s resignation after responding with force.
Read more: 3 Dead, Dozens Injured in Nicaragua Protests
The protests left at least 355 dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), although Nicaraguan organizations raise the figure to 684, while Ortega acknowledges that there were “more than 300” and maintains that it was an attempted coup. State.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, which has worsened after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second along with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice president, with her main contenders in prison.
