5 years ago Nicaragua broke the silence and rebelled against the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship. It was the beginning of an unfinished process. A work under construction to rescue and rebuild the mutilated and kidnapped democracy.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the 2018 repression left a balance of 355 murders; more than 2 thousand wounded; 1,614 detainees; hundreds of arbitrary dismissals of health professionals; more than 150 unjustified expulsions of university students and; more than 150,000 people would have been forced to leave the country.
Ortega wanted to impose lies for truths. The dictator and his consort knew that the first battle they had to win was that of control of the narrative. There arose the lie of an attempted coup, a false national dialogue and various agreements that would never be fulfilled. Ortega never wanted to hand over power, but to retake it with blood and fire.
All of Nicaragua is a crime scene. The United Nations Group of Experts, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and even Pope Francis have agreed to denounce the atrocities of the regime and its similarity to fascism. After the 2018 massacre, the dictatorship prevailed in power, but it never managed to impose its lies.
The Ghost of April and the ORMU Panic. Five years into the civic struggle, Ortega has paid a very high price for screwing himself into the presidency. Nicaragua became a prison of almost 7 million inhabitants. Today no one is safe from suspicion and police siege. Nobody. Not even the most obtuse Sandinistas.
international isolation. After the 2018 massacre and the installation of the single party, Ortega lives his last days old, sick and lonely. There is not a single Latin American president who visits Nicaragua or celebrates his false electoral victories. Nobody, except the dictators of Cuba and Venezuela.
The strategy of fear has failed. Ortega has again threatened to banish more Nicaraguans. Even while in prison, the voice of those who demand freedom is stronger than the harassment and repression. Confiscations and civil death are used by the regime to punish those who oppose them and intimidate those who accompany them.
Resilient in the face of repression. Despite jail, exile and exile, the dictatorship has not managed to annihilate the spirit of April. If in 2018 the discontent was massive and public, now the discontent is cautious and clandestine. The silent protest is still alive throughout the country. Journalists, student leaders and human rights defenders do their work with greater creativity and courage. In resistance and resilience.
Unity is the antidote. The blue and white unit was fertilized in prisons and is giving birth in exile. It stopped being a promise to become a process. A unit with diverse nuances, voices and creeds. It is not a one-party red-black unit that kills and purges dissent. No. It is a voluntary, intentional and inclusive unit, with a very clear objective: the end of the dictatorship. April was the beginning, but not the end.
*The author is a journalist, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS and former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps (FK).
