The Government of Nicaragua accused this Monday, March 31, Panama to block, in complicity with Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, the election of the Nicaraguan former chancellor Denis Moncada as the new general secretary of the Central American Integration System (SICA), a position that has been vacant since November 2023.
In a statement in which Nicaragua announced that he will not receive in his country the former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli (2009–2014), asylum since February 2024 at the Nicaraguan Embassy in Panama, after being convicted of corruption and pretending to go out to Managua today, after he was granted a safeguard, the Sandinista Executive also indicated Panama.
“The Government of Panama, in addition, has been characterized, since President José Raúl Mulino Quintero assumed, for unknown, defame and act against the Government of Nicaragua, in undeserved offensive statements, and also block, in complicity with other countries, the right of Nicaragua to the seat that legitimately corresponds to us in the General Secretariat of the Sica,” said Managua in a statement read Nicaraguan, Rosario Murillo.
The government that Daniel Ortega chairs, together with his wife, Murillo, demanded, therefore, “to the authorities of Panama, to its president and their Ministry of Foreign Affairs, act as appropriate and encourage relationships of respect, understanding and brotherhood among our countries, because our peoples do know how to be brothers.”
The protest to Costa Rica
Last Thursday, Nicaragua had already accused Costa Rica of responding to foreign interests within the Sica, whose presidency pro temporary San José.
A day before, Nicaragua protested vigorously to “the usurper government of Costa Rica” for an “unusual communication” in which Managua says that San José dared to give them orders and threatened them with “imposing harmful measures of the democratic and institutional order” in relation to the impasse in the Sica.
In that statement, Managua compared San José with “the positions and positions of the colonialists of the Earth” and remarked that “they are not owners of Central America or the Sica and much less from Nicaragua.”
He also accused Costa Rica of having intended, in the past, “taking and occupying Nicaragua, and led their megalomania and delusional narcissism to the extreme of placing their flag in our relics and heritage cities, such as Granada.”
“We remind you that yesterday they were defeated and they would be again if they dare to usurp our national sovereignty and dignity,” Managua challenged in that letter signed by Nicaragua’s chancellor, Valdrack Jaentschke, in which he also sentenced: “We are not even afraid of them, not even respect.”
The impasse in the sica
Two weeks ago, the Sandinista government accused Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic of interfering with their internal affairs after rejecting the candidacy of the Nicaraguan former chancellor Denis Moncada as the new Secretary General of the SICA.
The General Secretariat of the SICA has been vacant since, in mid -November 2023, Nicaraguan lawyer Werner Vargas resigned from the 202-2026 period, for which he was appointed as a proposal of Nicaragua.
The Sica, created in Tegucigalpa in 1991, is made up of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic as full members, while Mexico, the United States and other countries have the category of regional observers.