Nicaragua: Living Under the Shadow of Fear
Before, the order was clear: “National Directorate, give the order.” Now, the command comes wrapped in a phrase everyone understands: “the Compañera (Rosario Murillo) says so.”
HAVANA TIMES – In Nicaragua, millions of people live trapped in permanent repression. A sense of hopelessness has taken root in daily life. Managing the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring is an exhausting exercise. Institutions do not function, and the law has ceased to be an instrument for protecting human rights. Against this backdrop, one question echoes in every corner: How can you move forward in the midst of so much adversity?
The anguish is even greater for those linked to the party structures of the FSLN. Official Sandinismo has always used the so-called “party sanction” to punish “ideological diversionism”—any disagreement, any independent thought that does not reproduce the official narrative. Before, the order was clear: “National Directorate, give the order.” Now, the command comes wrapped in a phrase everyone understands: “the Compañera says so.”
In this system, fear exists on two levels. Grassroots party activists fear losing their family’s livelihood; all it takes is for a colleague to report them falsely to fall into disgrace. Those who hold positions of power—ministries, mayor’s offices, or National Assembly seats in so-called elections—live with the same fear. They know that with a simple accusation of “loss of trust” they can be removed from their post, and in the worst case, imprisoned.
Those who feed such accusations are the internal surveillance structures—an invisible but omnipresent network. Telephone conversations are guarded as if they were state secrets: everyone knows that the lines of mid-and high-level officials are tapped. Surveillance is carried out by experts trained in the feared General Directorate of State Security (DGSE), some of whom, ironically, are now also on the list of those persecuted by the very same Compañera.
The question resounds: Who is really safe? In this environment, survival depends on small alliances, on staying in the good graces of those with the power to sink you. Servility has become the currency of exchange for not being the next name on the blacklist.
The FSLN, as it operates today, has ceased to be a political party. It functions more like a family-run business clinging to power. Its followers no longer defend an ideology, but material benefits and shares of influence. The Ortega-Murillo family’s control is based on fear, and self-censorship has become more effective than direct surveillance.
For both leadership and the base, daily life has turned into a minefield. The possible ways out are few and risky: staying silent and waiting for the system to collapse on its own; fleeing the country to save your life; or keeping a careful distance while in Nicaragua, trusting that strategic friendships or favors to mid-level officials will offer fragile and temporary protection.
The great unknown is whether those mid-level officials have control over their own lives—or whether the Ortega-Murillo family also decides the fate of their families and children. All signs suggest that such independence has already been lost. And in a country where fear rules, that may be the deepest defeat of all.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.