US support for the Contras: Managua demands reparations
Managua estimates that Washington, which supported anti-Sandinista guerrillas in the 1980s, owes Nicaragua a “historic debt” of more than $12 billion.
Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada in Moscow on March 30, 2023.
AFP
Nicaragua filed a complaint with the UN on Tuesday against the United States for refusing to comply with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling. 1980s.
Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada has delivered a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in which he argues that Washington owes Managua a “historic debt” of more than $12 billion.
On June 27, 1986, the ICJ in The Hague condemned the United States for damage caused by “military and paramilitary operations” carried out to destabilize the Sandinista government in the Central American country, particularly for cutting off ports and petroleum facilities. .
Following this ruling, the US withdrew from the ICJ. They also vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding compliance with the court’s ruling.
“This is a judgment that is in effect, which Nicaragua has not waived at any time in the interest of the United States, to pay the reparations ordered by the International Court of Justice,” Denis Moncada said.
50,000 people died
In 1979, Marxists of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza and seized power in Nicaragua. Then-US President Ronald Reagan, concerned about Managua’s integration with Cuba and the Soviet Union, later signed a secret order authorizing the CIA to provide $20 million in aid to the Contras, the counter-Nicaragua revolutionaries. The civil war, which ended in April 1990, killed around 50,000 people in the country.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said at a ceremony in Managua on Tuesday that “we have the duty, the obligation, to continue to demand that the judgment be carried out.” “When we considered suing the United States, brother countries, even allies, told us: + it’s a lost case +”, recalls Daniel Ortega, who ruled Nicaragua for the first time in the 1980s.
After seven years in opposition, Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007 and has since been re-elected in opposition-contested elections. The European Union and the United States have imposed numerous sanctions on Nicaragua and its rulers over the past four years, specifically citing human rights abuses.
AFP
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