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Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship in Nicaragua, through the Ministry of the Interior, dissolved on Tuesday 58 international NGOs, among them 24 from the US and 20 European, mainly from Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
A total of 24 of the 58 NGOs closed are from the U.S., 6 from Spain, 4 from Honduras, 3 from Germany, 3 from Italy, 3 from the Netherlands, 3 from Canada, 2 from Belgium, and 2 from Switzerland.
In addition, one each from Costa Rica, Denmark, Slovakia, El Salvador, Norway, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the UK, according to the resolution of the Ministry of the Interior published in the Official Gazette La Gaceta.
The Ministry of the Interior explained that it cancelled the registrations and perpetual numbers assigned to these 58 NGOs “for being abandoned and having between 2 and 27 years of non-compliance in accordance with the laws that regulate them.”
Among others, it accused them of not reporting their financial statements, their boards of directors, detailed information on all their donor members, and previous donations.
With these 58 illegalized international NGOs, 146 have been dissolved in the last two weeks, including 51 from the U.S., 16 from Spain, 13 from Italy, 9 from Germany, 7 from France, and 7 from Canada.
The Ministry of the Interior also cancelled on Tuesday the legal status of 42 national NGOs, among them more than twenty religious associations, mostly evangelical.
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega’s Executive, with votes from Sandinista deputies and their allies in the National Assembly, or through the Ministry of the Interior, have outlawed at least 2,475 Nicaraguan and foreign NGOs since December 2018.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, accentuated after the controversial general elections of last November 7, where Ortega was reelected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as VP, with his main contenders in prison or in exile.
Ortega, who is about to turn 77, has been in power for 15 years and 9 months in a row, amid allegations of authoritarianism and electoral fraud.
