T-shirts in homage to the Sandinista Popular Revolution are sold these days in July on Avenida de Bolívar a Chávez, in Managua. They worship Daniel Ortega and place him on a par with Latin American figures such as Sandino or “El Che” Guevara. However, the most striking message is the slogan with which the repression was justified four years ago: “Not one step back, they could not and will not be able to”.
The government party celebrates this July 19 the totalitarianism of Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, after a stormy 2021 in terms of human rights and the illegitimate re-election of the rulers, questioned by the international community.
However, despite the absolute power exercised by the presidential couple, the State-party-family machinery does not dare to convene a mass act on July 19.
The former political muscle of the FSLN is facing its worst level of attrition and national rejection. The celebrations will take place in neighborhoods, counties and municipalities, on July 17 and 18, and on July 19 they will hold an act in the Plaza de la Revolución with a reduced number of guests, on a national radio and television network as in 2021.
In the social network accounts, linked to the ruling party, although they are invited to celebrate without offering details about the call for the party act, the militants are also urged to raise the flag of “dignity” in their homes, under the motto ” each house, a square”.
Murillo said on July 14, in his speech in the official media, that as an Administration they fight against poverty and also against “the unforgivable betrayal of the homeland, surrender and submission to the destructive imperialisms”, alleging that in 2018 there was a failed coup attempt. At the end of the week, the regime’s spokeswoman assured that they have 277 people, from different countries, who will join the party party.
Despite Murillo’s “enthusiasm,” a state worker from the Nicaraguan Institute of Tourism (Intur) confided that the instruction they received did not specify that there would be a massive act, nor did they summon them. “Now (the assembly) is for the (National Palace of Culture) and the old Cathedral of Managua, where Murillo performs his ritual with the youth,” he assured.
The Calvary of State Workers
For government employees, although the regime will give July 20 as a national holiday, participating in the marches and assemblies means submitting to political surveillance and the obligation to raise the flag of a party in which they do not believe.
“Pedro”, a worker from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, says that in his case he must attend party activities, because not doing so could expose him to “losing his job”.
“We are kidnapped public employees. You keep at it so you don’t lose your job, but it gets tiring. In the programs that they send us to the phones, there are forced walks, children’s parties, assemblies of militants from the Electoral Victory Units (UVE), vigils, it is pure control-control in the neighborhoods. Until reveille at five in the morning on July 19, “he said.
He also regrets that, in advance, the political commissioners in the State institutions are requesting three lists: that of the officials who will participate in the mobilizations, that of those who will celebrate the day of joy – when Somoza’s flight from the country is remembered – and another of the cultural activities “highlighting the historical date and the legacy of our heroes and martyrs.”
State workers like “María”, who asks that the institution in which she works not even be mentioned, must wait for the mobilization of buses that look for them in the neighborhoods to take them to the activities. There they monitor them politically and force them to upload photos to their social networks, “one in the place and another with the UVE.”
Ligia Gómez, former political secretary of the Sandinista Leadership Council at the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN) and today a researcher at Urnas Abiertas, laments from exile that July 19 is an imposition for public employees.
“There are few who are convinced; Generally, those who have liked to go without being enlisted are those who participated in the war of the eighties and believe the story that everything bad that has happened in Nicaragua is the fault of the United States. People who are already 60 years old or more, and who in some cases have managed to influence their children who, in some cases, now work for the State”, explains Gómez.
For the former BCN official, however, despite government control, there is a majority of workers who do not go of their own free will, but must go so that they are not put on a layoff list, as “Pedro” said.
Murillo’s struggle with the “historical”
“They are convinced that they have lost support among the historical combatants and there have also been events such as the death in prison of Hugo Torres (retired general) that has hit them hard, not only in their militancy, but at the international level,” explains the guerrilla commander Mónica Baltodano, former FSLN leader and critic of the ruling couple for decades.
Towers, a hero of the fight against Somoza, died in captivity last February. The case of the historical combatants obeys a logic of displacement to reinforce Murillo’s leadership.
In March, the party leadership ordered the “historical Sandinistas” to be deactivated. provoking the public claim of this sector, represented by the lawyer Marlon Gerardo Saénz Cruz, known as Chino Enoc on social networks, who admitted that in 2018 he participated in the “Operation Cleanup”. Because of his criticism of Murillo, he was arrested by the Police on alleged drug trafficking charges, making him one of the 190 political prisoners in Nicaragua.
“The historical militants were first relegated, used and now captured and persecuted,” added Baltodano about a country marked by contrasts. While the justice system punishes critics of Ortega, in general impunity prevails for officials from the circle closest to the ruler, accused of committing crimes against humanity.
According to a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), attached to the Organization of American States, at least 355 Nicaraguans were killed in the context of protests in 2018, more than 2,000 were injured and more than 100,000 went into exile to protect their safety.
However, Ortega and his circle have denounced without evidence that they were victims of a coup, imposing an atmosphere of terror among citizens. “They are trying to generate the sensation of the dictatorship of the seventies. The context of those years favored armed struggle. They are trying to provoke, which would give him an argument that he is facing groups that want to overthrow them by force of arms. It is also the continuity of his account of the attempted coup d’état, ”added Baltodano.
The guerrilla commander mentions a series of acts that cause repudiation at a national and international level, such as the persecution of journalists, religiousthe closure of civil society organizations, which has increased in the last two weeks, four months before the municipal votes.
For another former guerrilla, critical of the FSLN, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the acts of July 19 promoted by Ortega are a “falsification of history.” “They are trying to take advantage of a historical fact and reaffirm that they are stealing it as if they were the anointed and today (Ortega) is the messiah to the promised land.”
The source said that it cannot be erased on July 19, 1979, nor on April 18, 2018, when the State repressed the demonstrations that demanded the resignation of the ruling couple, the citizens then have to “learn from the successes and errors” of these historical facts.
Small activities in the neighborhoods
In the days prior to the Ortega and Murillo party, the FSLN carried out walks that they baptized as the “replieguitos”, in reference to the anniversary of the Tactical Withdrawal, as the strategy carried out on June 27, 1979, when hundreds of guerrillas and thousands of residents mobilized from Managua to Masaya to protect their forces and deceive the National Guard.
The protagonists of the new “withdrawals” are the figures that emerged with the repression. Police chiefs such as the sanctioned general commissioner of León, Fidel Domínguez, were identified by residents, wearing the red and black flag on a headband. Other officers also accompanied the FSLN festivities.
Last July 2, Fidel Moreno, the political secretary of this party in Managua and an operator close to Murillo, participated in the “replieguito” that left the Ducualí neighborhood towards the four corners of Las Enramadas.
The official media highlighted that the current Minister of Health, Martha Reyes, “did not miss the withdrawal,” despite the rain. Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, defender of the Ortega regime in the international arena, also participated.
On July 15, a youth congress was held in honor of Commander Julio Buitrago, in which Murillo encouraged young people to “dedicate themselves firmly” to follow the examples of those who taught them to “defend sovereignty.”
Mónica Baltodano defined the FSLN as a minority that dominates the majority based on weapons, with the absence of precisely the youth in these mobilizations”. “In the photos you see the gray-haired old men. One of the great challenges for them is to recover the youth,” she added.
The historian affirmed that these walks are due to the fact that Ortega is not in a position to replicate the withdrawal. “It is terrifying – she maintained – it only appears on closed stages with groups where people are sitting, as has happened in recent years in the Plaza de la Revolución”.
