Green Fund asked not to approve funds to Ortega

 Nine Nicaraguan opposition organizations in exile asked the Board of Directors of the Green Climate Fund not to authorize the disbursement of $115.7 million dollars for the Bioclimate project that was approved for Nicaragua.

“When these funds reach the hands of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship they will be used to continue the constant violations of human rights in the indigenous territories of the Caribbean Region of the country,” the opposition organizations said in a statement.

These organizations in exile, members of the Platform of Unity for Democracy, made this public request during a working session of the Green Fund held in South Korea, where approval of that disbursement was addressed behind closed doors.

Among the signatory organizations are the Nicaraguan Self-Convened Union, the Initiative for Change, Youth and Student Unity, and the Nicaraguan American Foundation for Development.

In their letter, they urged member states to review the reports on human rights violations in Nicaragua issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations High Commissioner, and Amnesty International, among other human rights organizations.

They assured that in these reports “the State of Nicaragua is accused of committing crimes against humanity against its population.”

“This fund, instead of benefitting indigenous communities, will bolster the authoritarian and violent actions of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, allowing them to continue with their systematic and repeated repression of the population,” they warned.

They noted that between 2022 and 2023, the Observatory of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples registered human rights violations in 83 communities in 17 indigenous territories on the North Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, with 571 incidents, including invasion of lands by settlers or third parties, criminalization of defenders, political violence, and repression against community autonomy.

“Various environmental and human rights organizations have warned that the indigenous populations of Nicaragua run the risk of being exterminated by the constant invasion of their territories,” they said.

Therefore, these organizations consider it “unacceptable to grant the funds of this project to a bloody dictatorship. Instead they propose to the member states of the Green Fund to move forward with the project once there is a change of political system in Nicaragua that protects and respects the right of indigenous peoples to preserve their land, their culture and identity.

June 30, 2023, marked two years since the complaint filed by indigenous and Afro-descendant communities before the Independent Reparation Mechanism of the Green Climate Fund, in which they warned that the project will lead to environmental degradation and increased attacks by armed settlers against indigenous communities in Nicaragua.

This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times.