Nicaragua’s communist regime announced over the weekend that it withdrew from South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) due to its “high financial cost.”
The Central American nation was one of the several leftist-led countries that requested to intervene in the ICJ’s case against Israel as per Article 62 of the court’s statute, formally filing its corresponding request in February 2024. At the time, Nicaragua claimed that Israel stood in “violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention” through its self-defense operations against the jihadist terror group Hamas.
On Thursday, the ICJ confirmed Nicaragua’s decision to withdraw its application but did not provide further details. On Saturday, the regime issued a formal press note titled, “Nicaragua with Palestine Always” in which it claimed that its decision to withdraw from the court proceedings is due to the “high financial cost” of the judicial process.
El 19 Digital, a regime-affiliated newspaper, published a copy of the note in both Spanish and English, which read:
This decision is due to the high financial cost for a developing country, and given the economic restrictions Nicaragua faces, in order to continue these judicial proceedings. Nevertheless, Nicaragua clarifies that it will continue to support the Palestinian People and State in all other areas within its reach and will not cease to fulfill its international obligations in defense of the Brotherly Palestinian People.
Nicaragua also reminds the States with greater resources that international judicial channels remain open to demand respect for Palestinian rights.
Likewise, Nicaragua wishes to thank all the collaborators who extended their assistance in these proceedings before the International Court.
Nicaraguan dissidents have called the regime’s financial justifications into question. Félix Maradiaga, a former political prisoner banished from his country by dictator Daniel Ortega in 2023 and stripped of his nationality, asserted to the newspaper La Prensa on Sunday that the real reason for withdrawing was the fear of possible retaliation against Nicaragua by President Donald Trump, who imposed human rights sanctions on Ortega during his first term. Maradiaga suggested Managua is also attempting to avoid further global isolation.
“The withdrawal of the Ortega and [wife and ‘co-president’ Rosario] Murillo dictatorship from the case before the International Court of Justice has nothing to do with the high financial cost,” Maradiaga said. “We all know that they were not the ones who were paying for that process, but that they were acting as pawns of a geopolitical strategy promoted by Russia and China.”
Maradiaga further asserted that the Ortega regime used the “Palestinian cause” as an international platform to project a favorable image as it continued to repress its own people, stressing that “it is not about principles or solidarity with Palestine. It is about a dictatorship that calculates every step in terms of its survival.”
“The withdrawal responds to an evident change in the geopolitical winds. Ortega does not want to expose himself to isolation or to the hardening of measures by actors who are beginning to take seriously the dangerous alliances of the Nicaraguan regime,” Maradiaga said.
La Prensa pointed out that, although Nicaragua withdrew its case to intervene in the ICJ case against Israel, it nevertheless maintains its ICJ case against Germany, in which it accuses the European nation of “facilitating the genocide” in Gaza by providing military aid to Israel.
An exiled unnamed former Nicaraguan diplomat, who served under the administration of former Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños, also asserted to La Prensa that the withdrawal is not due to “budgetary reasons” and explained that the lawsuit against Germany costs more than participating in South Africa’s case against Israel, as it is a direct action and not an adherence to another cause.
“The Trump administration publicly warned that countries that sue Israel or the United States in international courts risk severe reprisals,” the diplomat said. “Ortega and Murillo understood this well. Where there is no gain, the loss is certain, and there is no clear gain.”
“The ICJ system shows that this lawsuit is still active. So why does one hold up and not the other? The answer lies in the fear of Trump, ” the diplomat continued, and added that the Ortega regime had accounted for its participation in the ICJ case against Israel in its budget, which the diplomat stressed, “reinforces the idea that the withdrawal is a political decision and not a financial one.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
