Q24N (AFP) On Wednesday, May 15, the United States imposed a series of sanctions on Nicaragua, a country it accuses of doing business with migration, and issued an alert to warn airlines to avoid being complicit “in the exploitation of migrants.”
With less than six months left until the presidential elections, President Joe Biden is trying to tackle the migration crisis from all fronts and Nicaragua is one of them.
Migrants are increasingly crossing the region, using Managua as a disembarkation point to continue the journey north by land.
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This has led the Biden administration to issue an alert to notify airlines, charter operators, travel agents and service providers about the ways in which migrant smuggling networks exploit transportation services to facilitate irregular migration.
In a statement, the State Department accuses President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, of having devised “permissive immigration policies” that have made it easier for networks to “exploit migrants for economic purposes and encourage dangerous irregular trips to the southwestern border of the United States” with Mexico.
“Very cynical”
Washington has published a series of measures that airlines must take to avoid being complicit.
It recommends that they monitor high-risk routes, report suspicious travel agencies, act with caution when dealing with opaque intermediary companies, and pass on advance passenger information.
The Ortega government is “very cynical” selling visas “that require people to leave within 96 hours,” explained a US official who requested anonymity in a telephone press conference.
“It is an aggressive regime that benefits (…) and facilitates the illicit trafficking of migrants,” she added, specifying that the measure is not intended for the tourism sector.
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Nicaragua is under US sanctions for the repression of the 2018 protests against Ortega, in power since 2007. Washington considers his re-election in 2021 fraudulent and accuses him of a wave of arrests against opponents, many of whom remain in jail or are They were forced into exile and were stripped of their nationality.
This Wednesday it reinforced the sanctions. The Ortega government reacted by lashing out at exiled opponents.
Russia and gold
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned COMINTSA and Capital Mining, two companies in the gold sector affiliated with the government, “that generate income” for the regime, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
It also imposed sanctions on the Training Center of the Russian Ministry of the Interior in Managua (RTC) that provides specialized courses for the Nicaraguan National Police (PNN) and the law enforcement forces of other Latin American countries, it adds.
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This center “helps maintain the cycle of oppression” because the PNN “carries out extrajudicial executions, uses live ammunition against peaceful protests and even participates in death squads,” accuses the US government, which estimates that Nicaragua is one of Russia’s main partners in Central America.
As a result, all assets and interests in assets of the sanctioned entities located in the United States or in the possession or control of Americans are blocked.
In parallel, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on more than 250 members of the government, including police and paramilitaries, prison officers, prosecutors, judges and public higher education officials, as well as non-governmental actors for supporting the Ortega and Murillo regime.
After the announcement of the new sanctions, Vice President Murillo lashed out at the exiled Nicaraguan opponents, whom she accused of “serving the Yankee” and believing that “surrender will generate dividends for them.”
Since November 2021, the Biden administration has restricted the entry of more than 1,400 Nicaraguan officials.
The relationship between the United States and Nicaragua has been especially strained since the 2021 elections in the Central American country, which were held with President Ortega’s rivals imprisoned or in exile.
Since then, Managua has carried out an offensive against thousands of NGOs and the academic world, in addition to intensifying the persecution against the Catholic Church.
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