Ortega's Nicaragua walks out of the Central American Parliament

Mexico City: Nicaragua is withdrawing from the Central American Parliament, deepening its isolation on the international stage as the country faces accusations of rampant human rights abuses. In a statement on Saturday, the foreign ministry said it had decided to denounce the 1987 treaty establishing the six-country parliament "in the full exercise of its sovereignty", adding that the move would take immediate effect. The government did not immediately respond to requests for further comment. The announcement followed a resolution on Friday from the Organization of American States calling on Nicaraguan authorities to free political prisoners and restore civil liberties. Nicaragua itself left the OAS in 2023, describing the diplomatic body as a tool for US interventionism. In 2025, Managua also announced it would withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council, after a UN report urged the international community to address human rights violations by Nicaragua. The pattern is unmistakable: each time an international body demands accountability, Nicaragua walks out of the room. The Central American Parliament, known as Parlacen, was created by a 1987 treaty signed by six countries as the region's legislative arm; withdrawal from it is the latest step in a decade-long retreat from multilateral scrutiny. Nicaragua has been in the grip of a political crisis since April 2018, when social protests were suppressed by police in violence that left more than 350 dead, 2,000 injured and thousands detained or forced to flee the country. The government run by Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, the vice-president elevated to co-president, announced last July that the country would no longer hold elections. Ortega, a former Sandinista commander, has held power continuously since 2007 after an earlier presidential term in the 1980s. With the exits from the OAS, the UN Human Rights Council and now Parlacen, Nicaragua's rulers have systematically dismantled every forum in which their record could be questioned. What remains is a government accountable to no one, and a population whose grievances have nowhere left to go but the streets, and beyond them, exile.