Det meddeler udviklingsminister Dirk Niebel
In response to the controversial elections in Nicaragua, Germany is imposing restrictions on official development cooperation.
Dirk Niebel (FDP) stated in a press statement Wednesday:
– We have drawn up strict guidelines for our cooperation with partner countries – human rights and good governance are non-negotiable. The Nicaraguan regime must now bear the consequences of the increasingly autocratic way it is governing the country.
– One thing is clear: We will proceed very judiciously so that our withdrawal from the projects concerned does not impact on the wrong people, namely the poorest of the poor. What that means is that we will not be stopping all development cooperation completely and immediately, and we will not be leaving abandoned projects behind us.”
The BMZ (det tyske udviklingsministerium) will, in particular, continue to support civil society in Nicaragua – with the declared aim of strengthening important non-governmental organisations that are playing an active role in crafting democratic alternatives.
Bilateral cooperation will be limited to one priority area – namely water (which means drinking water supply and wastewater dis posal). This cooperation will be continued because of its particularly immediate impact on the target group and its impor tance in terms of addressing poverty.
Cooperation in the priority areas good governance and environment, on the other hand, will be wound up at the end of 2013 and no further bilateral commitments will be made.
This means that the BMZ, in accord with the Federal Foreign Office, will be taking the steps announced to the Nicaraguan government at the government negotiations in November 2010.
At that time the BMZ had declared that development cooperation would only be continued if the presidential and parliamentary elections in November 2011 were conducted fairly and in accor dance with democratic rule of law standards, with adequate provisions being made for national and international observers to monitor the elections.
In actual fact, international election observers from the EU and OAS noted considerable deficits in the way the elections were conducted and extensive scope for hidden manipulation of the results.
The parties and their political representatives did not get equal opportunities. In the run-up to the elections there were already massive irregularities, for example in drawing up the electoral role.
President Ortega’s renewed candidacy was quite definitely not in accordance with the constitution, ends the statement from the ministry in Berlin.
Kilde: www.bmz.de
