On the occasion of International Youth Day, which is commemorated every August 12, young people from the Nicaraguan University Alliance (AUN), through social networks, highlighted some of the major demands they hold, especially in relation to the “restoration of democracy and respect for human rights” in Nicaragua.
In the “new Nicaragua,” says the AUN publication, young people want a country in which “respect for the will of citizens to elect and be elected is guaranteed,” but also where youth participation is guaranteed, at least 50 percent, in “decision-making structures and elected positions.”
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They also mention the urgent need to guarantee quality education in Nicaragua, through the depoliticization of the educational system and the promotion of university autonomy.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo maintains control over Nicaragua’s education system, especially in the public sector, where it orders teachers to “pass” students even if they fail to complete the necessary grades to move up a grade. It has co-opted the autonomy of public universities, has cancelled and stolen the facilities of private universities, hires personnel affiliated with its party and controls and installs its own student groups within the universities.
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The young people of AUN also recalled that the country urgently requires guarantees of “citizen freedom, freedom of expression and organization” and “justice,” including the “installation of an international commission against impunity in Nicaragua.”
The demand is being made in a context in which there are more than a hundred people in prison in the country for political reasons, linked to the exercise of their freedoms and rights; and while impunity persists in more than 300 cases of Nicaraguans killed in the context of the social protests of 2018.
#12Aug | On International Youth Day, young Nicaraguans have great demands for the restoration of democracy and respect for our human rights.
What do we young people want for the new Nicaragua? Leave us your comment ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/3eJZRrkJYq
— AUN (@AUNNicaragua) August 12, 2024
Debts with Nicaraguan youth have only worsened
Student leader Max Jérez, released from prison and political exile of the Ortega-Murillo regime, in an interview with Article 66, He said that the debts that exist with the youth date back to before the Ortega administration and have been dragging on and worsening, especially as a police, dictatorial and repressive state has been installed in the country, which violates all the rights of Nicaraguans.
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Jerez mentioned that among the pending issues to be resolved for the youth and for all the Nicaraguan people are those linked to guarantees of a life in full exercise of freedom, democracy, in which “the cycle of political violence, authoritarianism and war is broken.”
He stressed that, unfortunately, “the majority of young Nicaraguans have never lived in a democratic country.”
It is important to remember that dictator Daniel Ortega, once he completes his fourth consecutive term, which began in January 2022 and ends in 2027, will have been in power for 29 years, meaning that there are young Nicaraguans who do not know any other form of administration than that of the Ortega regime, which follows in the footsteps of other presidents such as Fidel Castro of Cuba, a regime allied with the Nicaraguan dictatorship.
The young opposition member also mentioned that the State must “improve access to quality education and job opportunities in line with the modern world, which will allow the new generations to have a better quality of life in their own country and not have to see our families separated to seek opportunities elsewhere.”
