People Who Can’t See Past Their Nostalgia

 

It isn’t strange for members of the Left, who stand in solidarity with Ortega, to have a blurred vision about our current situation.

 

By Onofre Guevara Lopez  (Confidencial)  

HAVANA TIMES – Over time, we have discovered that international defenders of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, who belong to an outdated Left, aren’t analyzing the situation in Nicaragua as Marxists, but through their prism of nostalgia for a revolution which ceased to exist many years ago. 

Stuck in the past like they are, they say something along these lines, ”I lived and saw the Nicaraguan Revolution and I discovered the people’s heroism in the face of Imperialist intervention, defending their revolution, which intellectuals who are attacking Daniel Ortega are now betraying.”

They believe that the Revolution only suffered a simple defeat in the 1990 elections and they leave out the FSLN party’s internal struggle between those who wanted to rectify their mistakes and adopt a democratic path forward to come into power again, on the one hand; and on the other hand, those who decided to hold onto economic power by stealing State assets, under the pretext of giving future political struggles the financial resources they would need in order to come back into power again. 

And they ended up without a revolution, but with their pockets full, which the mechanical international Left pretend to be ignorant to: that the corrupt leaders, headed by Ortega, returned to power involved in traditional politicking and, with an agreement between political mafias that allowed him to return to a personal power, which he then shared with the large capital interests guided by a neoliberal economic program. For a decade, it functioned like clockwork as a society of mutual benefits.  

The dogmatic Left pretends to be unaware of the fact that this corporate government is defined by its dismantling of institutional powers until the State became a machine controlled by Ortega, supported by his family and a corrupt elite of politicians, military leaders and police chiefs. He applied the IMF’s formulas and accepted tenders for the country’s economic sovereignty, with duty-free areas and burdensome concessions to the Chinese, mining companies and (mostly US) commercial companies. 

The formula for Ortega’s dictatorship was: leave me to the politics and you deal with business.  Nevertheless, Ortega also stuck his nose into business and shared the market and laws with business people so that institutions could be unlawfully dismantled. The result: a corporate, neoliberal and corrupt regime.  

The position the nostalgic are adopting abroad is unacceptable, not only because they are ignoring our historic sitation, but because those of us who consider ourselves members of the Left and live in Nicaragua are suffering our reality which has been stained with the blood of hundreds of patriots. These mostly young people didn’t live at the time of the revolution, and they also didn’t make a living out of it , like those who are killing to defend their power and personal accumulated fortunes.

The fight for justice and democracy against the Ortega-Murillo regime isn’t being carried out by intellectuals who want to disgrace the country in the eyes of its sister nations. They are well-known figures here and their works are renowned the world over, like the Sandinista intellectuals who didn’t accompany the corrupt in their pillaging of the State, and who refused to be hit men for the social parasites that Ortega followers became. 

Better yet: they don’t follow those who are repressing and killing young people; those who make a living off of the Revolution’s corpse which they themselves killed.  This is the abismal difference between the Ortega-Murillo supporters and the intellectuals. And even though dogmatists deny them the right to be called the Left, at least we are sure that nobody can accuse them of being thieves and murderers!

The Honeymoon’s over

These intellectuals are rejecting and fighting against the Ortega-Murillo regime, which is the result of ten years of abuses of power, corruption and impunity.  The people affected by their latest abuse (social security reforms) took to the streets in protest on April 18th and repressive acts by mobs of Ortega youth, including the hitting and stealing cameras away from journalists, could be seen at the Camino de Oriente shopping center this time. 

But, it was also the last act of repression that went unanswered. And dogmatists cover up this not-so-small detail. The next day, university protests continued and it was the first protest to be punished by the Ortega-Murillo regime with murders, which haven’t ended over 100 days later, along with kidnappings and the persecution of a brave and rebellious youth who are unarmed.   

The social security reforms (which hadn’t been consulted with the population) led to the end of the honeymoon of businessmen with the dictatorship, the former now joining students and civic society, forming part of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy. And even though it was clear that they were sleeping in the same bed as Ortega beforehand, they have given signs of rectification and wanting to fight by taking part in the Civic Alliance, which has also made them worthy of Ortega’s wrath, with properties being invaded and administrative decisions being made against them.  

This Civic Alliance (which is unprecedented in Nicaragua) continues to stand firm and together in this struggle for democracy and justice in the face of the Ortega regime’s criminal acts . The fast pace of this process forced it to overcome its differences and to be in constant touch with its popular bases, which is why it exists and where their strength lies. This is much more necessary right now in the face of the Ortega government trying to neutralize the bishops in the dialogue, to create another “dialogue” with allied political figures.  

The right-wingers awakened

It isn’t strange for members of the Left, who stand in solidarity with Ortega, to have a blurred vision about our current situation, which is due to their ideological schematism more than geographic distance and the time that has passed since the revolution they once witnessed. 

However, it’s also not strange that right-wing politicians are snatching the opportunity to take on the role that Daniel Ortega has just handed out to them, as leaders of the civic uprising which is at a stalemate, very close to a checkmate, and over 100 days of popular rebellion, repression and murders have passed without them taking any action.  It was only after they saw that the 21-member states of the OAS, the US Congress and other governments in the world were condemning the Ortega-Murillo regime’s criminal repression that leaders of political parties in alliance with Ortega, demanded their participation in the national dialogue process, claiming that members of their party had been repressed and killed.

They pretend to not realize that members of traditional political parties are the object of the dictatorship’s repression, not because of their political affiliations but because they are taking part in a struggle of people who don’t have a party and are taking part in national uprising activities.  

The politicians demand to take part in the dialogue process in the name of unity of the opposition, but real unity won’t come about with a bureaucratic position in the Civic Alliance. Their statements of unity are hard to believe because they share seats with Ortega’s government in a fake National Assembly, where they don’t stand apart because they don’t take a firm stand against the dictator’s power.  

Ever since the crisis began, students and young people in general were the first ones to reject traditional parties. They started this struggle and they are the ones who are suffering repression the most at the hands of the Ortega-Murillo regime.  Out of loyalty and respect to our young people, we can’t accept that these politicians take part in the National Dialogue Process, where the Civic Alliance isn’t doing this because they want to, but because they want to represent the people who took to the streets to fight against the dictatorship. 

Traditional politician’s involvement in the [currently suspended] dialogue process (if this actually resumes) won’t strengthen unity but contaminate it with their vices.