Nicaraguan Resistance Circumvents Ortega’s Police State

Apr 18, 2021

Opponents clandestinely carried out actions that included placing posters and graffiti with protest messages.

By Ana Lucia Cruz (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – A few hours from commemorating three years since the outburst of April 18, 2018, several expressions of citizen resistance managed to circumvent the de facto police state prevailing in the country. Daniel Ortega’s police were out in mass as of Saturday to repress any protest no matter how small.

Clandestinely, citizens carried out protest actions around the country, especially in Managua and Bluefields. The Articulation of Social Movements reported through its social networks, that from the night of Friday, April 16, members of the organization were carrying out “commemorative activities,” despite the police siege and the constant threats they received.

Some of the actions included placing protest posters and graffiti and throwing blue and white confetti and paint of the same national colors.

“April in resistance for the relatives of political prisoners, for the victims, for all those killed. We shall remain in resistance until Nicaragua is free,” the group said in a short video they recorded while placing a poster on the outskirts of the Divine Mercy Church in Managua.

“I don’t forget April” and “April in resistance,” were two of the messages plastered by the Articulation of Social Movements.

The group notes that these kinds of actions are what the “Ortega regime is terrified of” because “neither its guard nor its threats can contain the determination of a people struggling to achieve freedom, justice and democracy.”

The Blue and White National Unity also reported actions of citizen resistance. These included graffiti with the face of President Daniel Ortega with the caption of “Wanted,” placed on posters in which they demand a “Free Nicaragua.” Other actions were the erecting of altars demanding justice, with photographs of the more than 300 people killed in the context of the protests.

Several of the streets of Bluefields also woke up “blue and white” from the confetti spread by members of the Caribbean city’s civil society organizations.

Bluefields protesters placed messages where, besides recalling the three years of civic resistance, stated that Bluefields’ citizens “do not surrender.”

Elsewhere in the country, not identified by civil society for security reasons, they placed messages stating that “April is not forgotten,” “We don’t surrender,” “Out with Ortega” and “Nicaragua demands justice and freedom for political prisoners.”

Some Commemorate April in their Homes

Inhabitants of Carazo, according to the report of journalist Gerall Chavez of “Nicaragua Actual,” also joined the citizen resistance, but from their homes.

The journalist reported that one of his “friends” placed an altar in which she commemorated these three years of citizen rebellion. At the altar you can see a Nicaraguan flag with the shield inverted, a model of a mortar dated April 18, 2018, a lit candle, and a bullet. The same that smashed into her house when the Cleanup Operation executed by the Ortega regime was carried out in that municipality.

Former political prisoner Lenin Salablanca recorded a video in which he denounces the constant police siege of which those who dissent from the Ortega regime are victims. He said that despite “the siege, the repression, with which they want to frighten us, they have not succeeded and will not succeed, because our strength comes from God.”

This April 18, citizen resistance actions against the repression of Daniel Ortega’s regime are expected to continue across the country. On social media, a call was circulated announcing express pickets at five different points of the capital. However, no further detail was given of the time and places where they will take place, for “security reasons.”