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Three months ago, they began great mobilizations against the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo. The protesters call Movimiento de Estudiantes 19 de Abril, and basically demand the exit of power Ortega-Murillo from power.
Daniel, along with his brother Humberto and a group of young guerrillas affiliated to Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), led 40 years ago, in 1978, the popular uprising that succeeded in overthrowing the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle July 19, 1979.
The story repeats itself, but this time the liberator became the dictator. Ortega led Nicaragua for the first time between 1979 and 1990; it was the years of the cold war. Seventeen years later, he returned to power through the election process on January 10, 2007 and was re-elected in 2011 and 2016. He has accumulated 22 years in office. Since 2007, his government has gradually appeased the democratic opposition and controlled the legislative and judicial powers. It is considered an authoritarian regime where the democratic equilibrium in state institutions has been almost completely diluted.
Protests emerged for the approval of a reform of the social security system that would allow the government to use retirement resources to finance current public spending. The conflict has intensified and the opposition demands the resignation of President and Vice President Murillo. They are asking for elections ahead of next March, and not for March 2021, as they are scheduled.
Since 1979, support for the revolution has been based on external support. Between 1979 and 1990, Cuba and the socialist camp made possible the survival of the revolution and, later, when the Sandinista came back to power since 2007, the country was able to survive thanks to Venezuela's generous oil and liquidity donations. to the Bolivarian project promoted by Hugo Chávez
The deep crisis of the government of Nicolás Maduro is reflected in the impossibility of helping his external allies such as the Sandinistas, which led Ortega looking for resources in the savings of the elderly . This provoked anger and popular indignation, first of all students and gradually spreading to all sectors of society .
Despite being one of the poorest countries of the continent, the Nicaraguan people he does not forget the long dictatorship of the Somoza family, and now they see Ortega as a leader who imitates the means to perpetuate himself in the power of him who was his sworn enemy. In those years, in the indigenous district of Monimbó, in the town of Masaya, just 26 kilometers from the capital Managua, the popular uprising began that led to the Sandinista triumph. Somoza's troops besieged, as now, the para-police forces and Sandinista snipers the insurgent district. Like then, Monimbó has become the symbol of resistance and fights against the oppression of the government.
In 100 days there were 448 dead and more than 2 thousand 800 wounded, according to human rights organizations . The paradox is that the government says that there were only 49 dead. These demonstrations generated great international sympathy and many governments condemned Ortega's mandate demanding an end to repression and violence. On June 1, 20 former Latin American state leaders went to Ortega to demand a cessation of the crackdown, and the last sentence was pronounced by 12 Latin American governments. The French government and the US State Department also spoke in the same tone, as did the UN Secretary-General and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The popular uprising against the government is growing in the country. neighborhoods of cities, schools, and universities, and increasingly adheres to religious communities, traders, and workers' sectors. The Ortegas are accused of enriching themselves at the expense of the state in one of the poorest countries of the continent.
The crackdown is carried out with military-hooded experience, in the image of paramilitary groups who defended dictatorial governments in Latin America during the Cold War. The streets prevent ambulances from attending the wounded and all dialogue efforts have failed.
For the moment, the axis of the repression is constituted by the forces of the national police and the groups of paratroopers hooded. Nicaragua, despite its poverty, does not have the levels of violence from its neighbors, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The national police were very respected by the population. That has changed and now the police are the repressive reserve of the regime.
The Nicaraguan army has remained clear for the moment. This sends the message that the armed force could be one of the institutions that can mediate or, on the contrary, if the demonstrations intensify in the coming weeks, Ortega will be obliged to use them. We must remember that the current Nicaraguan army detached from the Sandinista Front after the triumph of the revolution, and its leader was Humberto Ortega – Daniel's brother – who is now separated from politics.
It is very sad to see Nicaragua the ills of Latin America: corruption, weak democracies, people raised against governments that do not respect the minimum democratic formalities and, in attempts to silence and to repress the population, growing violence organized by the state
that repeat the stories of the recent past in a tragic way. We hope that in this beautiful country of Central America, the reason will prevail, that the international pressure will convince the oppressor-dictator-leader that Ortega has returned to leave power and negotiate a way out of the violent.
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