3 de marzo 2025
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The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo announced that Nicaragua is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after rejecting "all the falsehoods, slanders, and lies," in an open response to the most recent report by the UN Human Rights Experts Group on Nicaragua (GHREN), which confirms the active participation of the military in the 2018 repression and denounces the systematic violations of Nicaraguans' rights. The report was presented on February 26, 2025.
In her midday monologue, Murillo argued that the exit was "an act of decency, of preserving decorum and pride," and repudiated the GHREN's accusations.
In an angry response, one day after the report's presentation, Murillo announced that they had sent a letter to Jürg Lauber, president of the UN Human Rights Council, "rejecting all the falsehoods, slanders, and lies" that the regime claims the report contains.
"For Nicaragua, these disrespectful mechanisms have lost their nature and decency. We do not recognize them, and we do not see ourselves as part of or complicit in attacks against sovereignty, the equality of states, or the dignity of peoples. For this reason, Nicaragua conveys its sovereign and irrevocable decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council and from all activities related to this council and its satellite mechanisms," Murillo said.
The letter from the regime, read by Murillo, is signed by their Minister of Foreign Affairs, Valdrack Jaentschke.
"The self-proclaimed Expert Group, the Office of the High Commissioner, and the Human Rights Council have become a sounding board for those who attacked peace and tranquility and are the perpetrators of the multiple murders, kidnappings, rapes, atrocities, and outrages against the Nicaraguan people, causing, in addition, destruction and incalculable damage to the national economy," said Murillo, in line with her propaganda that blames the 2018 crisis on citizen protests, while omitting that she and Daniel Ortega gave the order to shoot to kill, leaving over 300 dead between April and September 2018.
"They are the same ones who today celebrate and promote the imposition of unilateral coercive measures that the United Nations General Assembly has condemned and declared illegal for violating international law," said Murillo, referring to the international community's sanctions against regime officials and operators.
The report on Nicaragua from the UN Expert Group
Murillo stated that she does not accept the report from the "self-proclaimed Expert Group," which her regime does not recognize. "Like previous reports, statements, communications, and updates from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights are evidence of the double standard and the politicization of each of these mechanisms that daily instrumentalize human rights, using them as pretexts for interference in the internal affairs of states," she added.
The GHREN report states that the Nicaraguan Army "actively participated in the repression" of the 2018 protests and "committed extrajudicial executions," even though it publicly declared that "its role during the crisis was limited to protecting strategic assets." This is the first human rights report to describe the military's involvement.
The group claims it obtained "credible information" that on April 20, 2018, a meeting took place involving active officers from the Special Operations Command and the Doctrine and Training, Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and General Staff and Direction units, where it was said that "the country was facing a coup orchestrated by social organizations."
In this meeting, the only one recorded so far, the head of the Army General Staff "read a presidential order urging the commanders of various military units to 'neutralize' those involved in the protests." Since 2017, the head of the General Staff has been Major General Bayardo Rodríguez, though the report does not mention names, only positions.
Following these directives, the report continues, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (General Julio César Avilés) "ordered the military intervention in the repression of the protests, despite the Army not having jurisdiction over public security, fully aware that the involvement of military personnel could result in the loss of lives," the report reads.
Weapons, Espionage, and Military Training
The modus operandi of the documented extrajudicial executions involved "coordinated actions between the Police, the Army, and pro-government armed groups," the experts note in their report.
"The systematic and deliberate use of lethal weapons—some reserved exclusively for military use— the involvement of snipers, combat tactics designed to kill rather than control crowds, and the high number of victims with bullet wounds to vital parts of the body indicate that their intention was not to disperse the protesters but to kill them and instill fear in the population," they add.
The GHREN report determines that "the Army actively participated in the repression of the protests, provided weapons to the Police and pro-government armed groups, conducted intelligence operations, and trained civilian personnel, including members of the Sandinista Youth, marginalized youth, and public officials."
Previous Expulsions and Withdrawals from Nicaragua
This is not the first time the regime has withdrawn from a human rights body or expelled its missions from Nicaragua in response to documented reports of systematic violations.
In December 2018, the Ortega-Murillo regime expelled the Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua (Meseni) and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), both associated with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH).
Foreign Minister Denis Moncada argued before the Organization of American States (OAS) that the reports and statements from the missions had "coup intentions," discrediting the work of the CIDH and GIEI in Nicaragua, despite both bodies being completely independent of the OAS General Secretariat.
Later, in November 2021, the regime announced its withdrawal from the OAS, which included the confiscation of the property leased by the OAS headquarters in Managua. The withdrawal process was completed in November 2023.
This article was originally published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
