Nicaragua’s “Co-Presidents” Withdraw the Country from Acnur
Citing no evidence, Ortega and Murillo accuse the UN Agency of publishing “biased and one-sided” information, and of “interventionism.”
HAVANA TIMES – On June 12, the Nicaraguan government led by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo announced their country’s withdrawal from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur). They accused the international body of presenting “biased and one-sided” information, and of “becoming an instrument of manipulation with a double standard, and of interfering in the internal affairs of the States.”
The Nicaraguan government communicated their irrevocable decision to withdraw in a letter dated June 12, 2025, and addressed to Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“We greet you in this moment, making reference to the biased and partial publications that this organization has issued, full of deceit and manipulation, totally distanced from the true reality of the Nicaraguan people and families,” wrote Valdrack Jaentschke, Nicaragua’s Foreign Affairs Minister, in a letter whose diction bears the mark of Rosario Murillo’s inimitable prose style.
The letter continued: “Acnur, as a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly, has left to one side the character agreed upon by the member nations, to become an instrument of manipulation, double standard, and interference in the internal affairs of the States, at the service of the powers that don’t yet accept the right of the peoples and nations to their sovereignty and self-determination.”
Nicaragua maintained that Acnur, “applies different measures between countries, acting permissively and tolerantly, with total indifference to the irrational barbarities that the big powers commit against the developing countries.”
“To the Government of Nicaragua, these practices contradict the principles established in the United Nations Charter and attack the sovereignty of our people, a fact that has led us to make the irrevocable decision to discontinue forming part of this organ,” the letter stated.
“Therefore, we present notification of our sovereign decision to withdraw, effective immediately, from the UN Agency for Refugees,” the letter concluded.
Nicaragua’s sixth withdrawal from international bodies
On February 4, 2025, Nicaragua announced its withdrawal from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, ordering the immediate closure of its representation and offices in Managua. That decision was a response to the organization’s inclusion of the country in a list of the world’s nations suffering the greatest hunger crisis.
Three weeks later, the Sandinista regime – in power since 2007 – announced its withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council after learning of a report from the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua that recommended conditioning Nicaragua’s preferential trade agreement with the US and the European Union on demonstrated improvement in the country’s human rights parameters. The report also urged the filing of a demand against Nicaragua in the International Court of Justice for stripping some 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality.
The next day, February 28, the Sandinista ruling couple announced their withdrawal from the International Labor Organization and the International Organization for Migration, who they accused of behaving in a “politicized manner, lending themselves to destabilizing and interventionist maneuvers,” and of not fulfilling the mission for which they were created.
Then, in May, the Ortega-Murillo duo added Unesco, the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture, to their blacklist. This body was notified that the government of Nicaragua was withdrawing in protest over Unesco’s decision to award the Nicaraguan [oppostion] newspaper La Prensa their World Press Freedom Prize. La Prensa, Nicaragua’s oldest newspaper, was forcibly closed in 2021, its general manager jailed, and its property and assets confiscated. They still publish online.
Acnur has the honor of being the sixth agency from which Ortega and Murillo have withdrawn this year.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.