Ortega closes the 19 chambers of commerce in Nicaragua

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Nicaraguan government on Monday declared the Superior Council of Private Enterprise and the 19 chambers that compose it illegal, alleging failure to update their work permits.

The closure of the country’s main employer, whose top executives were imprisoned in 2021 and expelled last February, was formalized by a publication in the newspaper La Gaceta in which it was stated that the Council had not presented “the validation of his files”.

The argument is the same used by the Ministry of the Interior to proceed with the closure of some 3,300 non-governmental organizations since the social rebellion of 2018 and most of which were closed last year.

The measure was interpreted by some businessmen as “a new blow” for the private sector. Lucy Valenti, former president of the former National Chamber of Tourism (Canatur), attached to the Council, said it was “part of the process of Talibanization of the dictatorship”.

“They feel cornered and their response is to destroy. Canatur has marked the history of tourism in the country and they will not be able to erase that. We will continue!”, tweeted Valenti, exiled from Nicaragua for about two years.

Consulted by the AP, she added that “these are revenge measures” by the government against the Council, which had already been closed during the first Ortega administration in the 1980s. She considered that because of this economic activity “will be hampered”. because “the private sector will no longer have a dialogue” with the government.

Valenti stressed that this “is a terrible message” for foreign investment and “seriously damages the image of the country”, for which he asked Latin American business organizations “not to recognize” another employer seeking to establish itself as a representative of the Nicaraguan private sector.

In 2021, Ortega sent seven council administrators to jail, including former president José Adán Aguerri, former employers’ association president Michael Healy, and vice president Álvaro Vargas. The seven were released and deported to the United States along with 215 other opponents on February 9.

The Council, currently under the leadership of businessman César Zamora, identified as close to Ortega, issued a message of thanks to the government after the release and expulsion of the prisoners, who were also stripped of their nationality Nicaraguan.

The current Board of Directors has not pronounced the cancellation of its legal personality.

Nicaragua has been going through a serious crisis since 2018 when the government’s crackdown on a social uprising left at least 355 people dead, more than 2,000 injured and some 100,000 exiled, according to human rights organisations.