2023-04-17 12:57:53
Although civic resistance remains alive despite the increase in repression by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, four former politicians urged a change in strategy that would allow the opposition to be reorganized in order to turn it into a “government option” in the face of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega.
The former presidential candidate Félix Maradiaga, the civic leader Violeta Granera, Ana Margarita Vijil, from Unamos, and the youth leader of AUN and the Civic Alliance Lesther Alemán, participated in the television program Esta Semana this Sunday, April 16, to analyze the political scenarios of the situation of the opposition, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the April Rebellion.
Those out of conscience agreed that the reorganization of the opposition is a “process” without a defined political deadline, but that it is urgent given the situation in the country. “I feel a huge sense of urgency, I think those of us who have been in jail know that every day that a Nicaraguan is arbitrarily deprived of their liberty is a day of suffering, and absolutely no one should be deprived of their liberty in Nicaragua,” Maradiaga stated.
The reorganization of the opposition would imply a strategy of struggle through “unity in action” —without sectarianism or ideological schemes— and that should allow a greater connection of the exile leadership with the territories, which is taking place despite the repression of the dictatorship that has isolated itself from the international community to avoid accountability for the abuses committed since 2018.
Justice without impunity
Maradiaga said that it is not possible to think of a democratic transition without justice, which would imply that it take place in a context of impunity. For him, it is a complex issue.
On this point, he agreed with Aleman who believes that the topic is “delicate” precisely because people are upset with the operators of the repression. The student leader spoke in favor of clearly determining their participation in the repression. Justice first needs the truth, according to his words.
“I am convinced with the approach of the majority of Nicaraguans, there can be no peace without justice, there can be no stability without justice, we cannot perpetuate the culture of impunity, which is what has been causing us such serious problems in the country, but I also believe that we have understood that in dictatorships there is no justice and that we have to democratize Nicaragua and that we also have justice now, a common good, a global good”, outlined Granera.
Vijil was confident, on the other hand, that there will be justice and democracy in Nicaragua “sooner than some of us imagine, because we are still in resistance.”
citizen networks
The UNAMOS leader highlighted the resistance within Nicaragua and recalled that the temples were full during Holy Week, despite the prohibitions and the repression of the Government, and the demand for the freedom of Monsignor (Rolando) Álvarez, sentenced to 26 years, was kept alive years and four months in prison by the justice system under Ortega’s control.
“Those networks (of citizens) exist; You, the media, continue to work, continue to report what is happening in Nicaragua, even from exile. They are doing it because there are people inside who are informing”, Vijil exemplified.
The restrictive acts to which the opposition leader referred were carried out during Holy Week, while Vice President Rosario Murillo justified the police operations, invoking the “true God” in her speeches. Thus they prohibited religious processions and locked up 17 people who have not yet been charged by the Prosecutor’s Office, in another wave of arrests that keeps the families of those affected and the general public in suspense.
Strategic “catacombs” work
Granera explained that in this “recomposition” of the opposition, the criteria of those who remain within Nicaragua are essential. That is, those who, for security reasons in the face of increased oppression, meet in small, highly reliable groups to do “clandestine (civic) work, in catacombs.”
According to Maradiaga, the leadership in exile must meet four conditions in order to develop: maintain the political link with the territorial leaders, have a clear strategy and spokesperson before the international community, remain current with the daily issues of citizenship, and request greater international pressure. .
Maradiaga maintained that it is necessary to “demand to the international community that the pressures, that the diplomatic sanction, with all its force and with all the measures, be so that we can return to Nicaragua to establish our operational political capacity from non-violence, but working in the territory”.
Maradiaga, Vijil, Granera, and Alemán are part of the group of 222 former political prisoners who were exiled by Ortega to the United States on February 9, stripped of their citizenship rights, denationalized, and declared “traitors to the homeland.”
In prison they lived an ordeal. They were detained six months before the 2021 presidential vote, when Ortega eliminated electoral competition and continued in power in a process without democratic guarantees, the results of which were considered illegitimate by the Organization of American States (OAS).
Lesther Alemán affirmed that Ortega is facing opposition in the universities, the streets, the neighborhoods, in the communities, in the Catholic Church and in the State itself, which shows a greater rejection of the dictatorship.
They insisted that the much-needed unity process was experienced in prison days. In that period, ideological differences were put aside. Vijil said that the essence remained: solidarity, love, knowing the other person and knowing what can be done together for Nicaragua.
international pressure
“Here we are also doing these activities in the same way, but we are together in the same action and in the same hope and in the same task, which is to build a Nicaragua where everyone can live and I think that is the most important thing when we are talking about unity,” Vijil reiterated.
Granera added that the ex-consciences have a chat, in which they share their experiences and the processes they are going through. She considers that the same communicative space also reflects another of the challenges of current Nicaragua: “knowing how to listen and communicate.”
Any person can be an interlocutor before the international community to denounce Ortega and Murillo, highlighted Ana Margarita Vijil. She stressed that especially the advocacy efforts of the diaspora have opened channels so that the situation in Nicaragua is better known.
The UNAMOS leader recalled that an American child—the son of Nicaraguans—sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking the United States to do something to free political prisoners, which was completed last February.
Maradiaga affirmed that the work of documenting human rights abuses has also enriched the work of United Nations experts, whose mandate has been extended for two years.
A recent UN report denounced the commission of serious crimes against the population in 2018 and also the impunity for the same attacks, under a political system that the researchers compared to that established by the Nazis.
Maradiaga observes an important change in the way things are being done now. “People would like to see an interlocutor, a spokesperson, but I think that, in a collegiate way, it is being achieved, and there are some diaspora organizations that have done it in an extraordinary way,” he exalted.
Alemán urged broadening the leadership with representatives that “is not limited to 2018” and that includes exiles, the diaspora in general, those released, and nascent organizations. “We are all necessary and we are all dispensable too,” said the student leader.
Public employees, “without blood stains”
The four former political prisoners called on the public servants who resist authoritarianism and political violence imposed by the FSLN in the institutions to join the vision of a democratic Nicaragua.
According to a report published last year by CONFIDENTIAL, political commissars keep state employees under political surveillance, force them to attend party marches, and harass them to impose the will of the FSLN. Deep down, those workers are waging an internal struggle with the dictatorship, but Maradiaga makes a difference with those who committed attacks on citizens.
“Within the same state apparatus, as public servants, I am very clear that many of them would like to get out of that apparatus, but there must be alternatives, democratic policies, especially those who do not have blood on their hands and who are there for a necessity, nurses, stretcher bearers, primary and secondary education teachers, people from the public administration in administrative positions”, Maradiaga affirmed.
In this sense, the former presidential candidate added that these people have a space in this Nicaragua that seeks justice, freedom and respect for human dignity, for which the democratic transition protects them.
Granera affirmed that having an ideology is not a crime, but “violating human rights is.”
“That Nicaragua, we have to build it among all of us, and that includes people who are working in the State, who are within the Sandinista Front, who are part of it and I, I mean, the National Police is too big a body to to put them all in the same bag, one thing is the leaders, the bosses and another thing is the line police and the people who are simply and simply doing their job”, added Vijil.
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