Managua, Nicaragua.- The Nicaraguan Parliament, dominated by the ruling Sandinista Front party, closed the Nicaraguan Red Cross on Wednesday, considering that it threatened peace and stability during the social protests of 2018, when members of that entity would have attended to injured civilians.
The deputies unanimously approved, with 91 votes and with urgent processing, the cancellation of the decree creating the Nicaraguan Red Cross Association, issued in 1958, and in its place ordered the creation of a new institution attached to the Ministry of Health and under “a Christian, socialist and supportive model”, as detailed in the legislative resolution.
The same text indicated that the 2018 protests against the Daniel Ortega regime threatened the peace and stability of the nation and in this context some affiliates of this Association (Nicaraguan Red Cross) and the association itself transgressed the laws of the country by disregarding and to support this act of its subsidiaries.
According to humanitarian organizations, the social revolt left 355 dead and more than 2,000 injured, most of them civilian protesters shot by police and paramilitaries, who were evacuated by ambulances and taken to private hospitals from the conflict zones.
The initiative was presented by the government parliamentarians Gustavo Porras, Edwin Castro, Alejandro Ferreti and Gladys Báez, among others.
The deputies also alleged that the Red Cross “failed to comply with its duties and obligations established in Law No. 1115,” which regulates non-profit organizations, according to a report issued by the Ministry of the Interior.
Parliament also ordered the creation of a new Nicaraguan Red Cross that the Ministry of Health will “take charge of” and that will operate as an “autonomous, decentralized entity, with legal personality, its own assets, indefinite duration and full capacity to acquire rights and incur obligations.
Likewise, it was ordered that all the patrimony, assets and shares of the closed entity pass into the hands of the State.
The closure of the meritorious institution is added to the closure of more than 3,000 organizations in the last five years, most of which were outlawed since the beginning of 2022.
The 2018 rebellion gave way to a serious political and social crisis, which worsened in 2021 when Ortega was re-elected in general elections for a fourth consecutive term, the second along with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice president, after sending his men to jail. main political rivals.
