If there is a particularly uncomfortable opponent for the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, it is Dora María Téllez.
Under the pseudonym “Commander Two”, Téllez (Matagalpa, 1955) fought hand in hand with Ortega in the Sandinista revolution that in 1979 put an end to more than four decades of Somoza family dictatorship.
After participating in the first Sandinista governments as Minister of Health, the ex-guerrilla and historian became disillusioned and went over to the opposition to vindicate the ideals of democracy and social justice that she considered forgotten.
His former guerrilla partner, who has been in power since 2007, never forgave him.
In June 2021 Téllez was locked up in the feared El Chipote prison in Managua for “treason” and was later charged with “conspiracy”.
After more than a year and a half in prison, he arrived in Washington DC on Thursday on a flight from Managua along with 221 other dissidents who remained locked up in various prisons in the country or -at least- under house arrest.
The government of Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, deported opponents to the United States, from students to priests and politicians, whom it considered “traitors to the homeland” and revoked their Nicaraguan nationality.
Among them, the legendary figure of Dora María Téllez stands out, whom BBC Mundo interviewed in the US capital 24 hours after her arrival.
Why do you think they have been released?
Because we resist more than the regime.
This is a resistance fight. The regime could not stand the international solidarity, the prayers, the pleas that people made for us in churches or at home, the pressure from Nicaraguans, governments and international organizations for our release.
We resisted and there was not a single prisoner who apologized to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, who told them ‘get me out of jail and I’ll speak well of you.’ Not one.
How did you feel when you were free?
Already mounted on the plane, I felt a contradictory emotion. It is a huge heartbreak to leave Nicaragua, but at the same time the joy of being free. We are free here in the United States, but we have the right to be free in Nicaragua. It is our right as people and citizens.
They say that exciting moments were lived on the plane.
Yes. I saw my partner after a year and 8 months of not speaking to her, because she was imprisoned in another gallery.
It was the meeting with people we had not seen, we had not touched, we had not hugged, we had not talked, for a long time; the prisoners who were in the (La) Modelo prison, the women… it is a very strong thing.
As carry that they have taken away your nationality Nicaraguan?
Frankly, no one can take away my Nicaraguan nationality. Neither Daniel Ortega nor anyone.
I was born in Nicaragua, I am the daughter of Nicaraguans and I have the right by territory, by blood, those are my roots and no one can take away my nationality.
And we are going to recover the right to prove my nationality along with all the rights of Nicaraguans, because it is not only with us. The Ortega-Murillos have taken away the nationality of all Nicaraguans: we do not have the right to vote, to freedom of expression, of mobilization, of nothing.
What were the conditions like in the prison where you spent 20 months?
El Chipote is a maximum security prison where four women were in solitary confinement, in separate individual cells, with no one to talk to and forbidden to talk to anyone. I spent 20 months practically in total silence.
And I was in a totally dark cell. It was sealed with a concrete slab on top, and if you walked in from the hallway you just couldn’t see. When he returned from the sun area, he had to wait 20 minutes to see the things in the cell.
Total deprivations. The regime of that prison is designed so that you are deprived of everything: family visits, connection with your family, your ability to defend yourself by talking to a lawyer, books or social activity. Socialization is reduced to zero and that is a form of emotional and psychological torture.
I have been hungry twice in my life: once it was physical, for food, extreme, and this time it was hunger for life, for not having anything to read. I read the labels of the drinks that came to me; I knew by heart how many calories they had, how many grams of sugar, how much protein, who made them and where, the expiration date, the batch number, everything.
What consequences have been left?
I have come out with skin depigmentation, vision problems, balance problems, tooth problems, and also certain memory gaps that one has to recover as one contacts reality.
Every time I go out into the light I start to sway, because I have a loss of balance due to changes in light, from always being in the dark.
There are other people who lost teeth and suffered from anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, and skin problems.
He has spent his entire life fighting in Nicaragua. Are you going to continue the fight from the outside? What plans do you have?
The same. Nicaraguans have the right to recover all of our freedoms. We’re going to keep fighting for it until we make it, and we’re going to make it. I am convinced that we are very close to recovering our rights as citizens.
What makes you see him close?
I believe that the regime is in a process of decomposition that is accelerating, and the evidence is excessive control. In addition, resorting to an unprecedented action to forcibly expatriate more than 200 Nicaraguans is a sign of their inability to face the resistance of the Nicaraguan people and international solidarity.
How are they going to organize themselves?
We don’t know yet because it’s too early. Jail is like dizziness, you have to adjust a bit, stabilize, and think. The comrades are currently talking to their families and seeing what to do.
What remains of the guerrilla Dora?
Myself. It is my past and I am my past. I am here because I was there.
In jail one of the interrogators asked me a question and I refused to answer him without seeing my lawyer or my family. And he told me: ‘You are a rebel.’ And I thought, how happy, to be rebellious at 14, 16 or 22 years old is wonderful, and to be so at 65, which I was then, is another wonder.
Human beings always want to be better, so we have to rebel against what is wrong. If there is no rebellion there is no progress.
If we had told the guerrilla Dora what was going to happen in Nicaragua, what would she have thought?
That someone was telling me a bad story. Frankly, he believed that the revolution opened doors to a different Nicaragua. I feel that the democratic conviction of the Sandinista revolution was not as deep as that of social justice, but I would not have imagined that it would evolve into a Somoza-style dictatorship.
I feel that I am consistent with myself and with the young person that I was. I stand in front of that young guerrilla and I feel that I have not let her down.
And how is he positioned ideologically today?
I am a woman of the left, but not of the left of the authoritarian model, but of the democratic left. I believe that there have to be individual liberties, social liberties, and social and economic rights; that there has to be a market economy but also concern for improving the conditions of the majority of people in our countries who are extremely poor. No country can get ahead with extreme poverty and the shortcomings that we have.
How do you see the left in Latin America?
It is evolving. I feel that the authoritarian left of the 60s, 70s and 80s, even the authoritarian left of Chávez, has been being displaced by other models such as that of Colombia, that of Lula in Brazil, Chile or Uruguay.
It is a left that acts as a democratic left and that makes me very happy, because this displacement of the Stalinist model is essential in Latin America.
And what about the Nicaragua-Venezuela-Cuba axis of the left?
I doubt that Cuba is from the left and Daniel Ortega is not from the left; he has no ideology. He is a political opportunist whose only ambition is power and he can juggle anything of any nature to stay in power.
How did Sandinism go wrong in Nicaragua, from fighting against a dictatorship to the current situation?
It is a complex subject. But what is a fact is that what I call Orteguismo was engendered within Sandinismo, which is the ideological and political nucleus of this dictatorship; that is there in front of us. And it is clear that the two great political forces of the 20th century, liberalism and Marxism, both spawned dictatorships.
You fought hand in hand with Ortega. Do you think he was an idealist who changed over time, Or did you always seek power?
I don’t know, it’s something that interests me little. What does interest me is that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have a dictatorship, a tyranny over Nicaragua and Nicaraguans, and that we are going to liquidate that tyranny. We are going to recover our rights and freedoms.
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