Nicaragua: Organized Rebellion or Hopeless Resignation
The key to Nicaragua’s liberation rests on a strategy of cohesion and cooperation among the opposition groups.
By Jose Antonio Peraza (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has transformed Nicaragua into a jail, where the one great rule is that we Nicaraguans must remain submissive and silent out of fear. It’s common to hear the opposition groups say that very little can be done within the country, and that the only option left is to organize and wait for Ortega to die, hoping his demise yields a political opening that would allow a return to Nicaragua, to develop the struggle from within.
The opposition’s approaches towards confronting the dictatorship range from those who promote the “opposition of the opposition,” and look down on all those who weren’t exiled since the eighties, to those who wait for a great rebellion that supposedly will head for El Carmen (the presidential residence/bunker) where, despite the deaths, the rebellious people will end up victorious. They base their hopes on a spontaneous uprising that no one knows when, how, or who will lead it. Nonetheless, many of those who aspire to promote or lead it are safely lodged in San Jose or Miami.
Other groups repeat over and over that they are the figures of reference for the liberation, because they have the best organization, the most high-profile leaders, and – supposedly – the approval of the cheles. [Nicaraguan word meaning “white people,” here referring to North Americans and Europeans]. Most of these groups are permeated with the arrogance that privilege bestows. They debate in orgasmic sessions the “definitive” words they’ll put onto statements directed at the international community.
There are also those who are sure they’re the only pure ones. They alone have the “wand” to defeat the dictatorship and look with great distrust upon all those who don’t adhere to their beliefs. They consider that their altruistic demands are on the right side of history, and that giving up any of them amounts to a betrayal of the principles of April, of Nicaragua, and of humanity. They’re activists who believe that only pure actions can yield positive results.
It’s also common to encounter social media posts smelling of gunpowder, from those who only trust in the power of arms to resolve the Nicaragua problem. Be it for their age or some other reason, most of them ceased being apt for an adventure of that type decades ago. Further, when they were young, they didn’t opt for this route either, even during the time when that choice was very popular.
In addition, there are those who believe they’re destined to lead the struggle, due to political tradition, their economic situation, or their family or class background. They await Ortega’s death to begin the real struggle. Finally, there are some very popular proposals among the radical groups who profile themselves as ideological purists. To them, only the adhesion to an ideology – always taken from some international proposition – could give them the body of ideas to save Nicaragua from the dictatorship.
Possibly, the alchemy needed to defeat the dictatorship lies in this mix of postulates that we Nicaraguan exiles sustain. However, we also need to study the successful experiences of resistance against dictatorships in other parts of the world, such as Poland’s “Solidarity” union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and the Popular Power revolution in the Philippines.
The strategies for evicting these dictatorships varied in emphasis and intensity. For example, in Poland, Solidarity depended on an organization with a grassroots base and ethical principles to open up the regime; in South Africa, the struggle was organized, sustained, and legitimized in the face of power. In Serbia, a non-violent, organized, and irreverent struggle was employed to overcome the fear. In Chile, a broad unity among organized social sectors was forged in order to overturn the military regime. And in the Philippines, massive citizen mobilization forced the dictator out. The common elements in all these processes were citizen organization (liberty depends on that), popular mobilization, and a fundamental emotional element – an ethical conviction of the struggle’s legitimacy.
It’s clear that confronting dictatorships from exile is very difficult, but history has shown that those in exile can and should play a key role in the resistance against authoritarian regimes. In the Nicaraguan case, the most important strategies to free us from the dictatorship should include at the tactical level: 1) creating international awareness of the terrible human rights situation within the country via social and regular media, international forums and organizations; 2) demanding economic and diplomatic pressure against the dictatorship from governments, democracies and international financial organizations; 3) promoting sanctions and boycotts against companies tied to the regime; 4) organizing politically by unifying, or at least coordinating, the opposition groups in exile; 5) supporting the internal resistance groups by participating together in forums and debates to legitimize the opposition; 6) providing information, resources and training to the activists and government opponents within the country; and finally, 7) designing a long-term strategy to maintain the morale and legitimacy of the struggle, avoid division and contemplate a plan of transition to democracy.
The key to Nicaragua’s liberation lies in defining a strategy that allows for cohesion and cooperation among the opposition groups; establishing a territorial and international organization that could guarantee the persistence of the joint work (or at least a minimal agreement for confronting the dictatorship); and supporting the internal resistance as the motor for change, while preserving the spirit of struggle and the long-term hope, which is what will allow for rupture from within the regime. Finally, all these efforts should be oriented towards generating a process of political transition to democracy, which would let the population visualize what would be achieved by ending the dictatorship.