Gioconda Belli: It’s Time for Ortega/Murillo to Resign
Dies Irae is the day of judgement. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have been judged as leaders: they should resign
By Gioconda Belli (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – We didn’t expect it to arrive so conclusively, but the Day of Rage came for our government leaders on April 19th.
In one blow, amid the sound of shattering glass, the opinion polls, the assurances, the belief that they were governing with the support and approval of the majority, all crashed down. All at once, their ambitions of getting away with violating the laws, destroying the Constitution, and remolding the country in their own shape and image, hit the ground.
The arrogance with which they’ve gone on ignoring the criticism of so many; the impunity with which they’ve acted to terrify peaceful demonstrations and keep the public from demonstrating on the streets; the violence that they believed they could unleash without paying a price: all came due for payment at once.
They can keep repeating their discourse about love, alleging that they want dialogue, crediting themselves with defending the family, daring to call themselves revolutionaries, accusing their adversaries of being “rightists” or instruments of the CIA, but after this April 19th, their discourse has been left empty. The lies of this image that they’ve tried to make us believe for eleven years, has been left clearly evident before all the people. You can’t block out the sun, nor the events of April 23rd, with one finger.
That fiction of “the people are the president” that they’ve fed to us while ignoring us, has abandoned the mode of silent condemnation and become a reality, bringing charges at full volume against their bad government, their unfairness, their lack of scruples, the electoral frauds, the cover-up of delinquent actions, the twisting of the laws, the delivering up of our lands, the sale of our national sovereignty, the neglect of our resources, the arrogance of their informational black-out, their refusal to be transparent in State affairs, the distrust of even their own ministers who they’ve treated like straw dolls, the abuse of state employees – forcing them to circle the roundabouts under threat of firing those who are not submissive and adoring – the crime of having overturned an essential advance by reversing the apolitical nature of the Army and the Police, and insisting in subduing their heads, ruining them, obligating them to set their own military codes to one side and kowtow, not before the people as president, but to an authoritarian couple who are blind to reality.
The blood of those who fought for a free country; those who died in the struggle against Somoza and those who have fallen in these eleven years – above all during this week of valor – has returned to life in this new generation of Nicaraguans ready to recover the dream of a Free Country. It wasn’t in vain that generous men and women existed who wanted to shed light in the darkness. Their ghosts are with us, their legacy is with us. Sandino lives.
Dies Irae is the day or judgement and now is the hour of judgement. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have been judged as leaders; they’re not what we want for our country. They were given the opportunity and weren’t worthy: they were finished off by ambition, blinded by messianism, the arrogance of their own interpretations.
We Nicaraguans now find ourselves with a problem: they speak of dialogue. It’s said that this is the most civilized thing, but – How do we dialogue at this point? It’s impossible to overcome the distrust of Daniel and Rosario. They’ve already given ample demonstration of their totalitarian vocation. How are we to believe that they’ll have the tolerance and the democratic spirit, the ethics and transparency that a good government should have? What dialogue can there be with them when we don’t believe they’re really disposed to obey the will of the people? Who will be the guarantor that the accords will be followed when we’ve seen Daniel Ortega ignore the accords and commitments he signed to reach power?
There’s only one solution to this problem: the President and his wife should have the courage to understand that their time is up.
The people as president are asking them to resign. They should resign. Without anyone else dying, without forcing the Nicaraguans to return to the streets, they should resign. They failed, they went too far. Humbly, accept it and resign.
It’s the only decent and dignified out left to them.