Haley, the current council president, addressed the UN saying that Nicaragua violent repression of opposition and student protests, leaving over 300 dead and thousands leaving the country since mid-April, Associated Press reported.
READ MORE: Nicaragua Expels UN Human Rights Mission Over Scathing Report
“With each passing day, Nicaragua travels further down a familiar path. It is a path that Syria has taken. It is a path that Venezuela has taken,” Haley said. She added that Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro “are cut from the same corrupt cloth […] And they are both dictators who live in fear of their own people”
US Ambassador argued that the only way to restore peace and security for the country is to end “dictatorship,” and the release of arbitrarily jailed protesters “to prevent tyranny.”
Haley’s arguments were countered by other members of the UN Security Council, including Russia, China, and Bolivia. Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that the current Security Council meeting represented the US ambitions to “stoke social unrest, foment intolerance with a single aim — to change the government,” and is “a glaring and grim example of destructive foreign intervention.”
United Nations had been monitoring the situation in the country since the protests broke out. Last week on Wednesday it released a report describing government repressions against the protestors who were charged with terrorism charges. Two days later the government expelled the UN human rights team from the country.
Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Denis Moncada Colindres stressed that Nicaragua promotes and defends human rights in a “holistic way”, strengthening country’s security. “There is a consensus in this council Nicaragua does not represent a threat to international peace and security,” he said. “Therefore, its inclusion in this meeting is a clear case of interference in internal affairs of Nicaragua and a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and indeed international law.”
The protests in Nicaragua started in April triggered by cuts to the social security system, following the protesters demanding Ortega to resign. Nicaragua’s President refused to step down before the presidential elections scheduled for 2021.