on orders from Ortega and Murillo
The dictatorship has plunged Nicaragua into diplomatic crises, expelled international monitoring mechanisms, and withdrawn from international organizations since 2018.
HAVANA TIMES – The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has withdrawn Nicaragua from nine international organizations to which it had belonged for several decades. The latest was the Central American Parliament (Parlacen), whose withdrawal was announced on October 3, 2026.
Nicaragua was a founding member of this organization in 1987, when Daniel Ortega himself participated in the founding treaty that established Parlacen, although it did not begin operating until October 1991.
The withdrawal from this organization adds to a long list of diplomatic tensions, severed relations, expulsions or suspensions of United Nations agencies operating in the country, and definitive withdrawals from at least eight organizations to which Nicaragua belonged.
Goodbye to UN Agencies
In 2025, the regime withdrew from five United Nations agencies of which Nicaragua was a founding member:
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
- International Labor Organization (ILO)
- International Organization for Migration (IOM)
- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
The regime withdrew Nicaragua from FAO on February 4, 2025, after the organization listed the country among the nations with the highest levels of hunger in the world. It also ordered the closure of FAO’s offices in Managua. The organization had been the third-largest international donor to Nicaragua’s public sector over the previous three years.
On February 28, 2025, the dictatorship notified the ILO and IOM of its decision to withdraw from both organizations, accusing them of acting in a “politicized manner, lending themselves to destabilization and interference” in Nicaragua, and of failing to fulfill the missions for which they were created. The withdrawals will not take effect until 2027.
In 2024, the ILO called on the Nicaraguan state to restore freedom of trade union association in Nicaragua, and in 2025 it decided to establish a commission to investigate the situation of labor rights under the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Meanwhile, the IOM published a migration report documenting the Nicaraguan exodus and the passage of migrants through the country. The regime described the report as containing “false, malicious, and irresponsible information.”
On April 4, 2025, the regime withdrew Nicaragua from UNESCO over its decision to award the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize to La Prensa, Nicaragua’s oldest newspaper, which has been persecuted and confiscated. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the decision “shameful” and said it “undermines the values of national identity and culture.” Nicaragua had been a UNESCO member since 1952.
On June 12, 2025, the regime announced its irrevocable decision to withdraw from UNHCR, accusing the agency of issuing “biased and one-sided” publications and of “becoming an instrument of manipulation, double standards, and interference in the internal affairs of states.”
Other Withdrawals in 2025
In March 2025, the regime withdrew Nicaragua from the Central American Court of Justice, a regional body belonging to the Central American Integration System (SICA). The withdrawal became known just hours after the regime failed in its attempt to install former Nicaraguan foreign minister Denis Moncada Colindres as SICA’s secretary-general.
Nicaragua claimed it was withdrawing because “the Court is subject to the decisions of the Central American and Caribbean Judicial Council, which is not part of the Central American Integration System (SICA).”
The organization ceased to exist in August 2026 following the withdrawal of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
In February 2025, the regime announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council, after describing as “falsehoods, slander, and lies” a report presented by the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), which confirmed the Army’s active participation in the repression of 2018.
Nicaragua withdrew from the Council and “all activities related” to the Council and all its associated mechanisms. This means the regime refuses to submit to periodic evaluations such as the Universal Periodic Review and is ending cooperation with UN committees, missions, and special rapporteurs.
Withdrawal from the OAS
The Organization of American States (OAS) was the first international organization from which the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship withdrew Nicaragua, despite the country having been a founding member since 1948.
The withdrawal was announced on November 19, 2021, seven days after the OAS General Assembly of foreign ministers approved a resolution declaring the 2021 elections, in which Ortega and Murillo secured reelection without political competition or democratic guarantees, to be “without democratic legitimacy.”
The withdrawal became effective on November 19, 2023. By leaving the OAS, Nicaragua is no longer bound by resolutions or declarations the organization might issue concerning the country.
Expulsion of International Monitoring Mechanisms
In 2018, the regime expelled three international human rights monitoring mechanisms from the country:
- The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
- The Special Monitoring Mechanism for Nicaragua (MESENI) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
- The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI)
These mechanisms had arrived in Nicaragua to monitor the country’s human rights situation following the April 2018 Uprising.
The regime itself had invited OHCHR to support the work of the Verification and Security Commission, which was established during the first National Dialogue to reduce violence. The mission arrived on June 28, 2018, but remained in the country for only two months because the regime withdrew its invitation after the United Nations published a report accusing it of excessive use of force and human rights violations against protesters.
MESENI, the IACHR, and the GIEI were expelled from Nicaragua on December 19 and 20, 2018. The decision became known one day after MESENI published a report warning of “the intensification of a fourth stage of state repression.” The organizations were in the country visiting victims of the repression.
“The IACHR, MESENI, GIEI, and OHCHR have become a platform for disseminating false information to promote international sanctions against our country,” Foreign Minister Denis Moncada told representatives of these organizations during a meeting.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.