MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Nicaragua's Ambassador to OAS comes clean about Ortega's “dictatorship”

“Continuing to remain silent is impossible,” McFields said.

In a surprising move Wednesday, Nicaragua's ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) decided to no longer remain silent about what is going on in his country and referred to its government as [President Daniel] Ortega's “dictatorship.”

 I have to speak out even if I am afraid, even if my future and that of my family is uncertain,“ Ambassador Arturo McFields Yescas said during a virtual appearance.
”I have to speak out because if I don't, the stones themselves will speak for me,“ he went on.

McFields, who was appointed by Ortega himself as ambassador to the OAS in October last year, said he was speaking ”on behalf of more than 177 political prisoners and more than 350 people who have lost their lives“ in Nicaragua since 2018.

”Denouncing my country's dictatorship is not easy, but continuing to remain silent and defend the indefensible is impossible,“ the ambassador stressed.

McFields also said that last November, days before Nicaragua announced its exit from the OAS, he asked the Foreign Ministry for the release of 20 imprisoned senior opposition members and 20 others in a delicate state of health, but he was ignored.

On Nov. 7, Ortega was re-elected as President with all of his opponents either in jail or in exile.

”In the Government, nobody listens and nobody talks, I tried several times during several months but all the doors were closed to me,“ McFields went on.

He also said that in his country ”there is no freedom to publish a simple tweet“ and underlined there was no human rights organization left.

However, he said Nicaraguans were reaching a limit: ”People and outside the Government are tired of the dictatorship.“

”More and more people are going to say enough is enough because the light is always stronger than darkness.”

Ortega began his fifth term in office on January 10, the second with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice-president, despite new US and European Union (EU) sanctions against relatives and close associates of the president.

 

Palabras del Embajador de #Nicaragua Arturo McFields Yescas al Consejo Permanente de la #OEA pic.twitter.com/cMNiv69CIh

— OEA (@OEA_oficial) March 23, 2022