Nicaragua keeps distance from its ambassador to the OAS and says: “it does not represent us”

Managua, 23 Mar The Government of Nicaragua distanced itself on Wednesday from its ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Arturo McFields Yescas, who decided to stop “keeping silent” and denounced the “dictatorship” of President Daniel Ortega's government in the country. “The Government of Reconciliation and National Unity, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, complies with informing our people and those concerned that Mr. Arturo McFields does not represent us, so no statement of his is valid,” the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry said in a statement. According to the Nicaraguan Government, its representative to the OAS “is Ambassador Francisco Campbell Hooker”, who is “duly accredited.” Campbell Hooker is Nicaragua's current ambassador to the United States and is the brother of former “guerrilla commander” and electoral magistrate Lumberto Ignacio Campbell Hooker, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in November 2019 for his involvement in “human rights abuses, electoral fraud and corruption.” WHAT HE SAID AT THE OAS McFields Yescas, who was appointed as Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS last October, rebelled against the government of President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday, which he called a “dictatorship” and not allowing free elections in the country. During a virtual session of the OAS, McFields Yescas decided to stop “being silent”, lashed out against “the dictatorship” of Ortega and denounced that Nicaragua “became the only country in Central America where there are no printed newspapers” and “there is no freedom to publish on social networks.” Neither are there any independent “human rights organizations”, nor are there opposition “political parties”, “no credible elections” and “there is no separation of powers, but rather powers that be”. A country where “private universities have begun to be confiscated and 137 Catholic, evangelical and environmental NGOs have been canceled, Operación Sonrisa and the list continues to grow”. McFields Yescas, a journalist by profession, replaced Ambassador Luis Exequiel Alvarado Ramírez in office on October 27, 2021, according to a presidential agreement published in the Official Gazette La Gaceta, where they have not yet published the cessation of their duties. During his speech at the OAS, he said he was taking the floor “on behalf of more than 177 political prisoners and more than 350 people who have lost their lives” in his country since 2018, when several demonstrations broke out in Nicaragua against Social Security reforms that turned into a protest movement against Ortega. Also “on behalf of the thousands of public servants at all levels, civil and military, of those who today are forced by the Nicaraguan regime to pretend to fill places and repeat slogans, because if they don't, they lose their jobs,” he said. “Denouncing the dictatorship of my country is not easy, but continuing to remain silent and defending the indefensible is impossible,” said the journalist, who after his statements has been described as “traitor” and vendor” by Ortega's supporters. “I have to talk, even if I am afraid, I have to speak, even if my future and that of my family are uncertain, I have to speak because if I don't, the stones themselves will speak for me,” he stressed. According to McFields Yescas, “in the government nobody listens and nobody talks” and what happens in Nicaragua, where “170,000 Nicaraguans have fled the country and others are still fleeing”, has exceeded their capabilities. CHIEF lfp/gf/dmt