Nicaraguans exiled in Costa Rica participated in the activity “Masaya has memory” to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the massacre, called “Operation Cleanup”, perpetrated by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo against the residents of the department, in the bloody repression against protesters in 2018.
On July 17 of that year, police and paramilitaries violently dismantled the barricades in the indigenous town of Monimbó, in Masaya, taking control of the city, after months of attacks carried out in different departments of the country in “Operation Cleanup.”
The 9-hour attack with weapons of war left at least six dead, according to human rights and opposition organizations. The organizations registered the murder of Edgardo Antonio Hernández Ñamendy, Erick Antonio Jiménez López, Josué Rafael Palacios Aguilera, Yader Antonio Mercado Arriaza, Bayardo José Jarquín Guneras and Macario Hernández.
The “heroic” city, which was a Sandinista bastion, became the rebel city against the Ortega dictatorship. Since then, the dictator did not step on Monimbó again as he used to do, year after year, in the supporter activity of the Tactical Withdrawal to Masaya.
«We decided to make a commemoration for those 89 days of resistance. In those 89 days, Masaya said “Justice for the murdered!”. We want justice for the crimes that were committed in our department. The people of Masaya do not want any more dictatorship, that is why they rose up on April 19, 2018”, declared Indira Guadalupe Mayorga to Article 66.
The exiles, originally from the nine municipalities of the department, met on Saturday, July 16, and remembered the date “between tears and hugs for that dark day in which they became survivors of the voracious dictatorship and its attacks.”
Related news: Four years of Ortega’s “Operation Cleanup”: Death, fear and exile
“Having historical memory is also resisting. Nicaragua will once again be a Republic and Masaya will always be the capital, not only of folklore, but of rebellion and resistance against the tyrannies of the day,” they pointed out from the Nicaragua Exiliada en Costa Rica page.
During the activity, those present wore traditional clothing, listened to marimba music and shared videos and images of the events and victims of the massacre.
