Nothing To Discuss with Trump

When U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States Carlos Trujillo addressed that organization, he burst Daniel Ortega’s balloon regarding the illusion of speaking with President Donald Trump when the Nicaraguan leader participates in the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.

On the TV channel France 24 in early September, Ortega revealed his interest in speaking with the president at the United Nations. Ambassador Trujillo responded this Monday, declaring categorically through Spanish language news media in Miami that “the U.S. government has stated that they (the Ortega-Murillo regime) must stop violating human rights. When they stop violating the rights of Nicaraguans, the kidnappings, the tortures, at that time conversation would be useful. There is nothing to discuss while paramilitary operations in Nicaragua continue violating human rights.”

In his justification of the brutal repression of peaceful protesters and the popular rebellion, Ortega has accused the U.S. of promoting an attempted coup against his government, in spite of his government’s good service as a barrier against illegal drugs, the trafficking of immigrants and international terrorism.

Ortega bases this account on what his spin doctors in Washington report: that the U.S. government is satisfied with the supposed services of the Ortega regime, as well as with its alliance with businessmen and its political facilitation of capitalist businesses. And they add that because of that, the U.S. is not concerned that Ortega violated human rights, that he kept power through fraudulent elections, that he undermined democratic institutions and engaged in scandalous corruption.

But the truth is that at no time did the U.S. government ever declare such support for Ortega. Rather, the White House as well as Congress has repeatedly criticized and even imposed sanctions on the Ortega regime, not only for its perversion of the democratic system and its human rights violations and corruption, but also for its association with the Venezuelan “narcodictator” and its support for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Caucasus.

In mid-March of this year, barely one month before the outbreak of the civic rebellion against the dictator, the U.S. ambassador in Managua, Laura Dogu, warned at a conference of the country’s business groups that the prospects for Nicaragua were uncertain, mainly because of the course that the country was following.

It is obvious that the U.S. is not in agreement with this uncertain course and Ortega’s dictatorial drift. He has made the mistake of believing that he can talk with President Trump and convince him to help in resuming this course. This course is lost, without possibility of return. The ones whom Ortega needs to talk to in order to pull this country out of the crisis are the Nicaraguans, in a national dialogue, where he must accept a plan to return the country to democracy.