Nikki Haley: “US Will Not Remain A Passive Observer As Nicaragua Becomes Another Venezuela Or Syria”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 09/06/2018
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley warned the UN Security Council on Wednesday that Nicaragua is heading down the path that led to conflict in Syria and an economic collapse in Venezuela.
“With each passing day, Nicaragua travels further down a familiar path,” Haley told a meeting of the UN Security Council on the deteriorating environment in the Central American country. “It is a path that Syria has taken. It is a path that Venezuela has taken.”
The warning took place during the first Security Council meeting called by Ambassador Haley, the current council president, to address what the UN says Nicaragua’s government has participated in violent acts of repression toward students and opposition groups that have led to over 300 deaths since mid-April.
Haley said the Security Council could not remain a “passive observer” as Nicaragua descended into chaos “because we know where this path leads.”
She said Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro “are cut from the same corrupt cloth … And they are both dictators who live in fear of their own people.”
“The Syrian exodus has produced millions of refugees, sowing instability throughout the Middle East and Europe,” Haley said. “The Venezuelan exodus has become the largest displacement of people in the history of Latin America. A Nicaraguan exodus would overwhelm its neighbors and create a surge of migrants and asylum-seekers in Central America.”
Costa Rican Ambassador Rodrigo Carazo told the council that his government received 400 asylum applications from Nicaraguan citizens in the first quarter, that was before the crisis started. Last month, Ambassador Carazo said that number inflated to over 4,000. Year to date, the Costa Rican government has received nearly 13,000 asylum applications from Nicaraguans, he added.
“The deepening of the political, social and economic crisis, the repression, and the failure to respect fundamental freedoms and human rights shown by the authorities has the potential of an unbridled worsening of the crisis,” Carazo warned. “And this can have a direct impact on the stability and the future of development in Central America.”
According to Voice of America (VOA), human rights groups have reported abuses by law enforcement and military groups, including temporary detentions, torture, sexual violence, harassment, and intimidation. Nicaraguan civil society leader Felix Maradiaga told council members, “Nicaragua has become a huge prison which seems to be without any controls…every day, we see a climate of terror and indiscriminate persecution.”
Maradiaga warned the political crisis was at risk of developing into a collapse. “Today, there is a time bomb in Nicaragua,” he said. “Crimes against humanity are creating an atmosphere conducive to internal conflict that can only grow in size.”
A special report published last week by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the four months of social unrest in the country.
The Rest…HERE
