Nicaragua: Surveillance of NGO’s Finances Tightened
The Interior Ministry will supervise accounts, donations and computer operations of the NGOs to “avoid digital terrorism.”
HAVANA TIMES – Two new legal regulations were published in Nicaragua on February 13th, outlining increased supervision of the Ministry of the Interior (MINT) over Nicaraguan and foreign non-profit organizations, under the argument of monitoring NGOs “suspected” of “terrorism”.
The regulation on “financing of terrorism” establishes that the MINT will monitor NGOs through the General Directorate of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations, to identify if any “legitimate organizations” are being used to divert funds to “terrorism,” a term used by the dictatorship to refer to any citizen or institution that criticizes them or their policies.
The monitoring of NGOs was already contemplated in the “General Statute of Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations,” published in February 2023. The new regulations now expand the controls over the information to be provided by the associations, and the scope of the Interior Ministry’s oversight.
The new regulations order the NGOs to turn over to the Ministry of the Interior all of their financial documentation, including the detail of the donors, the cooperation agreements, and all financial transactions and activities. In addition, they will have to identify and declare who their beneficiaries are, and in case of on-site supervision, they must provide access to computer equipment.
The Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations can impose administrative sanctions ranging from warnings and fines to the cancellation of non-profit status. The published regulations detail the criteria that will be used to determine the sanctions, according to whether the infraction is considered light, serious, or very serious.
- Thirteen types of light infractions are detailed, ranging from incomplete information to not having updated the financial registries or the operations and transactions files.
- There are ten serious violations, including failure to provide supporting information and documentation, or having two or more recurring mild infractions.
- The fifteen violations considered very serious include failure to cooperate with authorities to financing or promoting financing of any type of organization or movement engaged in illicit activities.
Ministry of the Interior will decide how to keep tabs on NGOs
In article three of the regulation, the MINT states that persons or groups “with the potential to cause harm by raising, moving, holding or using funds and other assets (whether from legitimate or illegitimate sources) for terrorist purposes” will be considered a “threat.”
Also considered threats are “domestic or international terrorist organizations and their facilitators and funds, as well as past, present, and future terrorist financing activities, and persons and populations sympathetic to terrorist organizations.”
To prevent such “threats”, the Regulation and Control office will monitor the NGOs to prevent them from diverting funds. The regulating entity will be free to “define the period of time to be monitored and the date of execution; as well as the duration and the place where the supervision and/or monitoring will take place”.
Among the responsibilities of this agency is “to identify the characteristics and types of non-profit organization that are especially at risk of being used for terrorist financing purposes and to provide detailed follow-up in case of suspicion of acts or deeds that may constitute a crime”.
If the Interior Ministry’s NGO Regulation branch suspects an organization of receiving financing for terrorism, they are directed to inform the Ministry’s Financial Analysis Unit. Criteria for mounting more serious monitoring include:
- Suspicion of being a fundraising “front” for a terrorist organization.
- Using the organization to evade asset-freezing measures.
- Hiding or covering up the clandestine diversion of legitimate funds to terrorists or terrorist organizations.
NGOs must “cooperate” and avoid cash transactions
The second set of regulations is focused on the requirements organizations must meet in order to be registered as NGOs, as well as the infractions and administrative sanctions that may be applied to them.
The NGOs are obliged to cooperate with the monitoring carried out by the Regulations and Control Agency. They must keep and make available their detailed financial statements and the national and international transactions of the last ten years. They must also allow the Ministry of the Interior management access to the NGO’s computer programs and report when they have “suspicions of something illicit” on the part of the donors.
Article 11 of the regulations establishes that the monetary operations of the NGOs must be made “through regulated financial and payment channels in order to avoid the risk of using cash.”
They also authorize the DFRC-OSFL to carry out on-site, off-site or surprise supervisions, defined as follows:
- On-site supervision: applied to the NGO considered as “high risk” and carried out at the NGO site and in the presence of the NGO representative.
- Off-site supervision: applied to the NGOs considered “moderate and high-risk.” The organization will be instructed to bring their legal and financial documentation to the Registration and Control Agency for review.
- Special supervision: Consisting in an un-programmed visit, to be carried out whenever it’s determined that immediate supervision is necessary.
Ortega’s “war” against the NGOs
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has been at war against NGOs in Nicaragua for more than five years. These non-governmental organizations were accused in 2021 of “laundering money and distributing it for destabilizing terrorist activities.”
The rulers’ hate speech culminated in the closure of some 5614 NGOs, according to a count by Confidencial. Of these, 5418 were shuttered by the Ministry of the Interior, while another 196 requested their dissolution due to the obstacles of the regime.
At the legal level, the dictatorship has implemented a series of changes, beginning in 2020, with the Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, which obliges organizations receiving any outside support to register as a foreign agent.
In March 2022, the Ortega regime passed Law 1115, or General Law of Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations, which prohibits directly or indirectly carrying out political proselytism and forbids organizations to use their structure “to violate public order” or promote “destabilization campaigns” in Nicaragua. In August of that same year, control of non-profit or non-governmental organizations was passed to the Ministry of the Governance, which subsequently was re-baptized as the Ministry of the Interior.
In February 2023, a law was published to legalize the ongoing confiscation of the property and assets belonging to the shuttered NGOs. The law established that in case of closing an NGO for non-compliance with Law 1115, their movable and fixed assets would be transferred to the State of Nicaragua, among other control measures.
These “reforms” continued in 2024, when the regime stripped the NGOs of their right to autonomous control over their projects, forcing them to work in alliance with the Interior Ministry. At the same time, it eliminated the tax exemptions and other fiscal benefits they had enjoyed.
Finally, in February of this year, the regime published the regulations described above, tightening the surveillance over them. Despite all these measures, the Ortega regime continues insisting that – somehow – the “terrorists” are being financed through the remaining NGOs.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.