The news, simple in its impact, is enormous in symbolism: for the fourth consecutive year the celebration of the Sandinista festival of July 19 will not be held in an open square before enthusiastic masses. The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship enthroned in Nicaragua does not risk conversing with its fans and has chosen a small square in Managua under surveillance and absolute control.
The decision, announced by the regime’s political operator in the Managua mayor’s office, the sanctioned Fidel Moreno, announces that the July 19 party will be held in the “dignity” square, located next to the old national baseball stadium. in Managua.
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By all accounts, it is a small, open place and subject to extensive surveillance by the police and the army at the service of the regime of dictator Daniel Ortega. Years before, the party designated for crimes against humanity was celebrated in the two largest squares in Managua: Plaza de la Revolución and Plaza La Fe.
However, since 2019, Ortega and his clan have been separating from the massive parties in the public square and are now restricting participation, choosing who participates, and forcing fans and public employees to watch the celebrations on network television.
What remains of July 19 in Nicaragua?
Gonzalo Carrión, a lawyer from the Nicaraguan Nunca Más human rights collective, from exile, comments that from that date and that organization, nothing remains but a regime of terror sustained by the weapons of the police and the army to preserve the power of a family clan and a circle of power that benefits from them.
“What there is 44 years later is an organization that has structured a whole machinery at the service of power, which is sustained at the point of terror caused by war rifles in times of peace,” says Carrión.
In his opinion, that organization called the Sandinista National Liberation Front “is a machinery organized to bring a family dictatorship to power that is concentrated in the Ortega Murillo family and his closest circle, who have sustained since 2018 a systematic, generalized and extensive repression with serious violations of human rights”.
“All of this is summed up in crimes against humanity, all of this under the responsibility of that power structure, that party is rather an organization whose main objective is to maintain that power machinery, which today is a true attack against the project of life of the majority of Nicaraguans,” says Carrión.
a partisan party
Two more experts, one a historian and former collaborator of the Institute of History of Nicaragua and Central America of the Central American University, from Nicaragua, and a former professor of the Department of Social Communication of that same university, from exile, list the reasons why they consider that July 19 is a party party in similar decline as its main figure: Daniel Ortega, dictator of Nicaragua.
They, separately, find seven facts that contribute to considering that July 19 in Nicaragua are increasingly decadent.
First: From World Event to Restricted Family Party
The historian comments that the first celebration of July 19, 1979 was a national commemoration, the second and others were truly international events.
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“July 19, 1980, until 1985, were events of global impact. Nicaragua was an international attraction in the cold war that brought together international leaders and delegates in love with the Sandinista revolution. Then the charm for the civil war of the Sandinistas and their abuses against the people began to wane, and the great world delegations began to distance themselves,” he recalls.
Second: from large delegations to few and unknown
Writers, journalists, prime ministers, presidents, international leaders, Nobel laureates, and all sorts of politicians used to come to celebrate in Nicaragua on July 19 in the 1980s.
They are part of history. Now come characters of little weight, but excellent raw material for memes.
Internationally isolated—due to the repression provoked in 2018—Ortega and Murillo, are accompanied by people like Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who was the main protagonist of July 19, 2022 and not because of his kilometer and kilometer speech out of focus, but because he ended up dancing with Rosario Murillo and her relatives in the small and restricted space that year. As a reward, the regime awarded the Augusto C. Sandino Order to the unexpected dancer from the Ortega-Murillo family.
Third: from nine commanders, to one
For the former professor of communication at the UCA, the July 19 party was a true “news filet” for the national and international press, because the speeches and participation of nine leaders who were the nine commanders of the revolution were processed.
Currently, July 19 is now celebrated with a main speaker who is Daniel Ortega, because of those nine commanders that existed in the eighties, only two remain next to the FSLN and one of them has the right to speak in acts .
Fourth: a speech, repetitive and boring
The memory of the former professor of communication at the UCA leads to a fourth example of the decline of July 19 as a party party of the FSLN: the quality of the speech.
“Before, the speeches were made by people of great weight in the revolution, with different data and perspectives, Ortega was not the main voice as he has been for years when he privatized the FSLN celebration as a personal and family event,” says the historian. .
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“One could listen to Tomás Borge, Sergio Ramírez or Bayardo Arce who had more oratory capacity and interesting data than Ortega, not now, only Ortega remains and his speech is the same as 44 years ago: imperialism is the bad guy and we, the Sandinistas, the victims.”
Fifth: From open spaces to closed circuit
The first celebrations of July 19 were in the old Plaza de la Revolución and then in the 90s, in the Plaza de la Fe, with massive concentrations.
From 2020 to date, the acts are exclusive, with selected and uniformed personnel with an established script, nothing spontaneous and everything under control and surveillance.
Apart from that, the other Sandinistas must consume the party party from where they are directed: marches, rallies and caravans.
Sixth: voluntary assistance to the national chain
In the eighties, the attendance of Nicaraguans to the celebrations of July 19 was organized and strict, but there was no obligation to listen to the speeches of the participants.
Now the Sandinista regime forces Nicaraguans to listen to their crazy speeches from a national network that includes even cable programming and private radio stations and channels.
Despite having media power with channels, portals and radios and hundreds of journalists employed in favor of the regime, the audience levels of Ortega’s speeches and on July 19 continue to have very low ratings.
“It’s simple: the official media and journalists have neither credibility nor an audience. Nobody listens out of sympathy, empathy or interest to a speech that is repeated every year, full of false information, insults and threats”, says the former professor.
Seventh: from celebrating the overthrow of one family to celebrating the rise of another
The two experts agree that July 19 went from being a national anniversary to an act of worshiping the Ortega-Murillo family.
In Nicaragua every July 19 marks the anniversary of the end of the Somocista dictatorship that ruled Nicaragua for 43 years.
At that time, in 1979, the left-wing Sandinista guerrillas defeated the Somoza family, dynastically enthroned in power, by force of arms.
Since then the date was considered an anniversary as a national holiday, but since 2022 the Ortega-Murillo family dictatorship decreed the date as a national holiday.
“In the end, the celebration became the same reason that gave rise to July 19: from celebrating the fall of the Somoza family to celebrating the new dictatorship of the Ortega-Murillo family,” says the historian.
By: United Voices
