This Wednesday marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the protests that made Nicaragua “convulse.” What began with a claim against the reforms to the social security system, ended in a series of demonstrations against the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, which as a consequence, left hundreds dead, detained, and thousands of displaced people in the country.
This rebellion also left some phrases that marked the struggle of April 2018 and that are still valid in the memory of Nicaraguans, who live both inside and outside the country. The main phrase was: “no party represents me.” In this report we review the 10 most famous.
1. “Those tiny groups”:
«A perverse manipulation is what we have seen in recent days. They do not reflect the aggressors, and they put the attacked as aggressors. (…) Those tiny groups, those small, toxic souls, full of hate, do not represent the sentiment, the need for peace, work, and affection of the Nicaraguan people who have suffered so much,” said Rosario Murillo on April 19, 2018. .
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With the start of the protests, Murillo began a series of epithets against all those who showed their discontent with the regime, which by then already had several deaths due to police repression.
2. “Yes it was possible, yes it was possible”:
“Yes it was possible, yes it was possible,” protesters located on the west side of the Managua Cathedral shouted, after knocking down the first tree of life. This very phrase resonated with protesters at the Jean Paul Genie roundabout on April 20 as they felled another metal tree.
3. “You are the moral reserve of this country”:
«I would like to thank you on behalf of the Church. Because you are the moral reserve of this country. Thank you because you have awakened this nation,” Monsignor Silvio Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, told the youth entrenched in the Managua Cathedral on April 21, after a violent and repressive day.
4. “It hurts to breathe”:
That same April 21, one of the phrases that became a symbol of pain and struggle was born. “It hurts to breathe, it hurts,” said 15-year-old Álvaro Conrado, before dying from a shot to the throat, launched in the vicinity of the Managua Cathedral by snipers, when he was carrying water to the protesting university students. against the regime. That day there were also protests, attacks, repression and murders in various departments of the country.
5. “Strength Nicaragua, strength!”:
“Fuerza Nicaragua, fuerza!” said Christopher Nahiroby Olivas, a university leader and political prisoner originally from the department of León, who was tried in Managua on September 29, 2018.
Olivas was captured along with six other student leaders from León in August of the same year. He and Byron Estrada, another university leader, were accused of aggravated murder, terrorism, arson and robbery to the detriment of the CUUN offices, in León, in April 2018.
6. “The resolution that served as a trigger”:
«So, this Resolution that I am making known at this time, which has just been approved by the Board of Directors of Social Security, what it is doing is revoking, that is, canceling, putting aside the previous Resolution of April 16 of the year 2018, which was the Resolution that served as a trigger for this whole protest situation to begin,” said Daniel Ortega, during a message to the nation on April 22 of that year.
Ortega annulled the INSS resolution which, as he admitted, was the trigger for the outbreak, in a country with more than a decade of his government. Despite the revocation of the resolution, the protests did not subside. And the repression did not abate either. That same day there was an armed attack on the Upoli facilities.
7. “Surrender to all this people”:
«You know very well the pain that we have experienced in 28 days. Can you all sleep peacefully? We haven’t slept peacefully. We are being persecuted, we are students, and why am I speaking, and why did your word assail you, because we have listed the dead, we have listed the disappeared (…) The people are in the streets, we are at this table, demanding the cease repression. Surrender to all this people,” university leader Lesther Alemán told President Daniel Ortega, during the establishment of the National Dialogue, on May 16, 2018.
8. “The design of a route for a coup”:
“The agenda that we are seeing has approximately 40 points and seeing it concentrated leads us to a new point, the design of a route for a coup to change the Reconciliation government outside the Constitution, violating the Constitution and violating the laws », said Foreign Minister Dennis Moncada during the fourth session of the National Dialogue, on May 23 of that year.
While the 2018 crisis became unmanageable, and the protests did not subside, in the fourth session of the National Dialogue, the Government began to fabricate its speech as a “coup d’etat.”
9. “We have decided to call a strike”:
“Given the lack of initiative to continue the dialogue, we have decided to call a strike.” We send an unequivocal message for there to be a change and the democratization of the country,” said Juan Sebastián Chamorro when he called for the National Strike on June 12, 2018.
During 2018, four strikes were officially carried out. The first, was held on June 14 and was called by the main business chambers, as an “extreme measure” to force President Daniel Ortega to respond to the country’s democratization proposal, according to newspaper records of the time.
10. “There is no evil that lasts a hundred years”:
“There is no evil that lasts 100 years, nor a body that can bear it (…) the challenge is to sit down and talk before reaching a precipice,” said Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes on September 23, 2018.
On this date, the last civic protest was held before Ortega criminalized them days later. During that demonstration several people were injured, attacked at close range by paramilitary forces and riot police.
By United Voices
