Within the framework of Student’s Day in Nicaragua, which is commemorated every July 23 and in which the massacre carried out by the Somocista guard in 1959 is remembered, the student leader Lesther Alemán pointed out that to speak of that date at this time is to remember “a day of mourning, of sadness, of a day where there is absolutely nothing to commemorate”, because the Ortega dictatorship also “murdered and imprisoned” dozens of students in the social protests of 2018.
«In Nicaragua it is a total shame to talk about the dictatorship commemorating, celebrating or speaking on behalf of Nicaraguan students because in this case the student body was the second sector affected by the repression of 2018, I put the elderly first, our grandparents who were affected by the INSS reform in 2018, but then the most affected sector was the student body and that the young person not yet a student joined these demands in which only We asked that the rights of Nicaraguans be respected,” Alemán told Article 66.
The member of the Nicaraguan University Alliance also recalled that since the regime’s onslaught against the people in 2018, “the balance today is more than a hundred who were students and who were active within a campus who were murdered by the Sandinista Police, thousands who were also imprisoned while active students, and more than hundreds of thousands who have been driven into exile by the Daniel Ortega dictatorship.”
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For the young opponent, this July 23 there is nothing to commemorate, “if not let’s review history. This day was born as a result of the murder of four students (by the Somoza dictatorship) to demand the student struggles, so many years later we are still pending those struggles. There is no clear view that there is a change for the good of the student community in Nicaragua, much less for the youth in reality.”
Likewise, Lesther Alemán denounced that what is known as the student community in Nicaragua “has been totally partisan by the Sandinista Front and is currently creating a country of swamps where the goals, dreams, and development of young people are totally bogged down and frustrated because there is no single guarantee to be a student and be young within Nicaragua.”
«On July 23, I tell you again, that being a student and being young in Nicaragua is a crime. This is how the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo sees it,” he added.
For his part, the released politician Juan Sebastián Chamorro pointed out that “dictatorships always repress and try to kill the young spirit. Let’s not forget history so it doesn’t repeat itself. In the youth is the future of Nicaragua.
The Ortega regime held dozens of students and university leaders captive for more than 18 months, accused of common crimes or alleged “treason,” including Samantha Jirón, Max Jerez, Lesther Alemán, Yader Parajón and Muhamar Vado.
One of the repressive actions of the dictatorship against students was the massacre at the Divina Misericordia church in Managua, on July 13, 2018, where a group of students who had entrenched themselves in the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (Unan) took refuge, where young university students Gerald Vásquez and Francisco Flores were murdered. All crimes committed remain in impunity.
