Nicaragua Needs Organized Peaceful Citizen Resistance
By Guillermo Cortes Dominguez (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – I have heard statements that the population should organize itself so that its opposition to the dictatorship has a good electoral coverage for the November 2021 elections. However, this seems to be wishful thinking to me. As if there is certainty that there will be free elections, something about which there is no certainty and rather, on the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that indicates it will not be possible.
Ortega-Murillo are too discredited by the massacre of 2018 and all the terrible and dramatic repressive wave that continues in Nicaragua where we live as in a country occupied by an invading army, with a state of siege and de facto martial law.
Repression is reaching unprecedented levels, this time focused on the Catholic Church, victim of a terrorist attack that set fire to the “La Sangre de Cristo” (Blood of Christ) chapel, perhaps the image that inspires greatest respect and devotion to Catholics and other Christians.
Such an attack can only be the product of irrationality, since it has caused strategic damage to the dictatorship, but has not yet manifested itself in concrete actions.
Hours later, Noel Hernandez, 24, an opponent and religious devotee in charge of the care of the Virgin of Monserrat in “La Concha,” Masaya, was beaten to death.
The mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic has finally put the lid on the bottle, because the irresponsible indolence of the State is guilty of the death of hundreds of people infected by the virus, who, with a government acting as suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO), may have survived.
The dictatorship does not want to loosen its grip on power
Only in the outrageous,ly rigged M&R opinion polls is it possible for the dictatorship to win the elections, and the Ortega-Murillo leadership knows it. That’s why it ignores the calls of the Organization of American States (OAS) to reform the electoral law and establish a system that guarantees free and transparent elections in which the votes are truly counted and the party, coalition or person favored by popular will is elected.
It is known that the dictatorship doesn’t want to loosen its grip on power and won’t lose it until society takes it away. If we know that an electoral solution is not possible and that the solution is not international pressure, perhaps it would be better if the organization should be to reactivate the peaceful resistance of citizens.
Only the people save the people! says a very realistic slogan that I heard the peasant leader Dona Francisca say for the first time, and that implies what should be the fundamental principle of the fight against “Orteguism.” To be consistent with “Only the people save the people” is to trust the formidable power of an organized and empowered citizenry.
It’s an urgent task to reactivate the organized peaceful resistance of citizens, adjusted to the highly repressive situation that we live in, with an organizational, planning capacity, and evasion and circumvention of the violent actions of the Police, their special forces, the paramilitaries and the shock groups of the dictatorship.
Peaceful actions permitted by law
It is not about going to war or carrying out violent actions, but to do everything that the Constitution allows, such as the right to protest, organize, mobilize and to express oneself from a perspective of how to circumvent the repressive agents that prevent the population from exercising their rights.
The reactivation of the peaceful resistance so that citizens can recover their rights violated by the dictatorship is not possible with good will or spontaneity. It requires a high level of organization and impeccable planning that guarantees the realization of civic actions while preserving the safety of participants, especially the agile and disciplined young people with a lot of love for Nicaragua.
Organizing for electoral purposes would be a waste of time. Organizing to reactivate peaceful citizens resistance is the only way to victory. International pressures are only complementary. This organization is not to violate the laws, but for the population to regain their constitutional rights.