The Central American country Nicaragua severed diplomatic ties with Vatican City through an official communique released by the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry, TASS, Kawsachun News, and Vatican News among others reported on Sunday, March 12th.
Nicaragua, once a centre of gravity of the Cold War, suspended its diplomatic relation with the Vatican after citing the remarks from Pontiff Francis where he allegedly compared the Naicaragua’s government with a dictatorship.
Earlier on March 10th, Vatican News reported that the pontiff expressed his concern over the deterioration of the socio-political and social rights situation in Nicaragua under the presidency of Daniel Ortega.Â
President Ortega was a distinguished figure of the Sandinista revolution that overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979. Ortega lost the election in 1990 to the National Opposition Union (UNO) after an eventful 11-year rule from 1979 to 1990.
He returned to power again in 2007 and under his regime, Nicaragua witnessed some constitutional amendments. In 2021, he won the election and after that, his government allegedly took a hostile stance against the Catholic Church of Nicaragua.
In the statement, the Vatican blamed the Ortega government for expelling a host of Catholic Church representatives from Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan government, on the other hand, blamed the Catholic Church all along for involving in a conspiracy to subvert the national integrity of the country. In connection with this allegation, Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez Lagos of Matagalpa was sentenced to a 26-year prison term in February.
The Foreign Ministry of Nicaragua, through the communique regarding the suspension of diplomatic ties with Vatican City, blamed the latter for endorsing the alleged conspiracy against the national integrity of Nicaragua.
Earlier, on March 9th, several countries such as China, DPR Korea, Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Eritrea, Cuba and Belarus rejected the alleged politicised use of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the weaponisation of human rights against Nicaragua following the release of a UN report on Nicaragua, reported Kawsachun News.Â
Oppugning the UN report on Nicaragua, the countries said that the UN allegedly made a 300-page hostile report on Nicaragua using unverified findings and excluding a large number of major Nicaraguan news channels which have been publishing relevant and credible data since 2018.