LatinNews Daily - 25 March 2024

Nicaragua: On 14 March the US Department of State announced new restrictions on the import and export of US origin arms and defence articles and services destined for or originating in Nicaragua. The State Department added Nicaragua, which is led by President Daniel Ortega, to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a regulatory regime to restrict the export of defence and military-related technologies to safeguard US national security. The Department of State cites “growing concerns regarding Nicaragua’s continuing dismantling of democratic institutions, attacks on civil society, and increased security cooperation with Russia, to include support of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine” as the reason for the new sanctions. It also cites recent “sham elections” on the Caribbean coast populated mainly by Indigenous individuals and Afro-descendants. The latest restrictions follow other sanctions imposed on the country. In February, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on more than 100 Nicaraguan municipal officials for involvement in the government’s “relentless attacks on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Nicaraguans”. Since then, on 21 March the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) sanctioned the country’s attorney general, Wendy Morales, in relation to the Nicaraguan government’s “unjust persecution of political prisoners and civil society within the country”. Morales was appointed to the post by Ortega in May 2019.

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