Zoilamerica: Ortega and Murillo are “Wounded Gods Capable of Everything”

HAVANA TIMES – Zoilamerica Ortega Murillo, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega’s stepdaughter, said the president is “capable of anything to hold on to power” and that he and her mother, Vice President Rosario Murillo, act “like wounded gods” faced with the protests that shake the country, reportó dpa news.

In an interview given to the local newspaper “La Prensa“, Zoilamérica, who lives exiled in Costa Rica, said that Nicaragua is living “the same catastrophe” that she suffered 20 years ago when she denounced her stepfather for repeated sexual abuse and rape starting when she was 11 years old. Ortega, then a legislator, evaded the courts protected by parliamentary immunity.

“From a pseudo-religious, messianic thought, they have been justifying themselves to be the owners of Nicaragua and to be the chosen ones to be in charge of the country.” From that position of the anointed ones, they could not believe that the people were going to rebel against them. This is dangerous, because all the reactions we have seen are those of the wounded gods,” she warned.

Zoilamerica said that Nicaragua is going through “a difficult, complex moment” and that there is “a serious threat” to repeat a war like the one that led to the fall of the dictator Anastasio Somoza, overthrown in 1979 by Sandinista guerrillas, including her stepfather Ortega.

“Definitely, the end will show the dimension of their own actions and their own responsibilities,” said the 50-year-old sociologist, who has been living in exile in Costa Rica since 2013, when the government expelled her husband of Bolivian nationality.

The protests in Nicaragua began on April 17 with a student demonstration against a Social Security reform that affected thousands of workers and retirees, but they quickly extended after the violent action of the police and paramilitaries against unarmed civilians.

Since then, the death toll now stands at 79, mostly students and other young people, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), in addition to 868 injured and 438 arrested. The Government only recognizes 21 dead until May 25.

According to Zoilamarica, the crisis was the product of an accumulation of abuses of power by the presidential couple. “They were wrong in believing that the people were going to endure forever and that the subjection was going to be eternal,” said the sociologist.

In her opinion, Ortega, 72, and Murillo, 66, do not act in the face of the crisis “with a response showing political logic” but instead one “with the arrogance of those who have established themselves as the gods”.

Zoilamerca pointed out that her mother was “imposed” by Ortega in 2016 as the candidate for vice president by the Sandinista Front, but did not achieve recognition among party bases because “the more power she has, the more she uses it in an overwhelming, erratic and implacable manner.”

She also believes that the protests should not stop, because “if we stop they’ll crush us”.

“They are capable of everything to maintain power (…) If we stop at this moment, they will crush us (…) They will continue and will aggravate the abuse of power as a lesson to those who we have shown their disobedience,” concluded Zoilamerica.