Bachelet to Present Report on Human Rights Crisis in Nicaragua July 10th in Geneva
The report will be presented in the framework of the 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council, between June 24 and July 12, 2019
By Jose Adan Silva (La Prensa)
HAVANA TIMES – The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, will present an update on the ongoing situation of human rights violations in Nicaragua, on July 10th before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The report will be presented orally at the Palais des Nations, headquarters of the Human Rights Council, in Switzerland.
It will be presented as part of the 41st session of the Human Rights Council, taking place from June 24 and July 12, 2019.
“La Prensa” confirmed in Geneva that “Bachelet will update without reservations the report on the grave situation of human rights violations that continues to affect the people of Nicaragua.” According to diplomatic information from Switzerland, the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights has not stopped monitoring the situation of the country and for this has travelled to Central America, to hold interviews and meetings with her special team based in Panama to follow-up on the situation of repression in the country.
In fact, Bachelet visited Central America between May 20 and 22 to receive direct reports from the Regional Office for Central America, whose headquarters are located in Panama City, but carries out monitoring activities and has presence in five countries of the isthmus: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama.
This visit was made just a few days after the Universal Periodic Review to the State of Nicaragua was held at the Palais des Nations, in Geneva, where 259 recommendations were made to improve the human rights situation.
Nicaragua did not respond to the proposals of the United Nations and reserved the right to answer until September of this year, but the universal review resulted in an international diplomatic defeat for the regime and a platform of global repudiation and rejection of the human rights violations of Nicaraguans by the administration of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Final report in September
During the visit to the region, apart from some protocol and diplomatic events in Panama, Bachelet held meetings with Nicaraguan human rights defenders and civil society activists based in Costa Rica and other countries of the isthmus, including an interview with Vilma Nuñez Ph.D., from the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights and Francisca Ramirez, peasant leader of the Anti-Canal Movement, in view of her oral report in June and the final report in September.
On the OHCHR website, civil society and human rights defenders were also invited to send their contributions for the Joint Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights on “the situation of human rights defenders in the Americas.”
The report is part of the general framework to improve cooperation between UNOHCHR and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and will be launched tentatively in October 2019.
America is persistent against Ortega
According to diplomatic sources in Geneva, strong American countries and delegations of “influential European States” that are part of the Human Rights Council, very closely followed the human rights situation in Nicaragua and support the efforts of the High Commissioner to maintain the issue of the crisis in Nicaraguan crisis on the international agenda.
Ramon Castro Munoz, Director of the International Network for Human Rights (RIDH), based in Geneva, Switzerland, confirmed to La Prensa that the Nicaragua issue is still present and active in the international arena.
“UNOHCHR’s oral report that must be presented at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council, as mentioned by those diplomatic missions, was established on March 21 in the resolution entitled Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Nicaragua,” Castro Munoz said.
“The document ended with a request to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to prepare an updated oral and written report on human rights violations in Nicaragua and to present it in the next sessions of the Council,” explained the director of RIDH.
How appropriate it is that the former socialist President of a Latin American country is responsible for the investigation of Human Rights abuses in Latin American countries. There is plenty to investigate in Venezuela and Nicaragua where her former colleagues Maduro and the Ortega’s hold responsibility. They cannot reasonably claim that it is the right wing imperialists who are persecuting and maligning them.