There cannot be any middle ground, negotiation, or ambiguity, to fully restore freedom of the press, expression, association and mobilization. The self-convoked movement has the right to protest civically and to march in the streets today and tomorrow, without asking the dictatorship for permission…
The rebellion of April of last year was born as a spontaneous protest against social security reforms that, when repressed with extreme violence, led to the citizen demand for free elections and for the resignation of Ortega and Murillo. The independent press and cell phone communication became a formidable vehicle of citizen empowerment that multiplied the resonance of the protest.
The package of fiscal and Social Security reforms imposed by the Nicaraguan Government, hoping to raise tax collection, faces a unanimous rejection by business chambers: “It means a coup d’état to the economy, it will cause more unemployment and capital flight,” summarized the President of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), Jose Adan Aguerri.
Two big surprises in the news today regarding Nicaragua. One, a revealing interview from Costa Rica by Carlos F. Chamorro with recently resigned Supreme Court Justice Rafael Solis, a key member of Daniel Ortega’s inner circle. The second shocking news item was Chamorro himself explaining that under serious threat, he has made the decision to go into exile in Costa Rica.
The state of emergency imposed by Commander Daniel Ortega, severely undermining the constitutional right to free mobilization and the right to petition, represents the final period of the political exhaustion of the Ortega-Murillo regime.
About a year ago, the Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Silvio Baez, revealed in an interview on “Esta Semana” (This Week) the warning that Pope Francis made to the members of the Episcopal Conference, during a meeting at the Vatican. Take into account, warned Francis, that if the Church of Nicaragua maintains its commitment to the people, denouncing injustice and telling the truth, it will also be the object of “espionage, persecution and martyrdom.”
“We are winning,” chant the people in the streets, and in effect, you can feel in the air the strategic defeat of President Ortega as Supreme Leader of the repression. His failure lies in that after having perpetrated the worse bloodbath in national history in times of peace, the only thing he can offer the country is the threat to remain in power as a feared and bloodthirsty dictator.
During my adolescent years, while poring through the shelves of my father’s library at our home in the Managua neighborhood of Las Palmas, I discovered the book Estirpe Sangrienta: Los Somoza [Bloody Lineage: the Somoza family].
The aggressive attack launched by the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry against the OAS’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, has meant a declaration of war against this institution, whose report about the grave human rights violations in Nicaragua is being backed by 21 countries on the continent.
Daniel Ortega, the autocrat that promised to end presidential hegemony in Nicaragua, built the most autocratic regime in the history of the country, even outbidding Somoza’s concentration of power through his state-party-family scheme.