The Daniel Ortega regime, through the state of terror imposed in Nicaragua, has criminalized the use of national symbols. to the extreme that no one dares to wave the country’s flag on public roads or place it in his home; not even in September, considered the “patriotic month”, when Central America commemorates its independence from the Spanish crown.
“This year we have not reported a single activity where people dare to raise the flag or dare to raise a national symbol”, assures Ivania Álvarez, a member of the organization Urnas Abiertas. Within Nicaragua the use of the national flag is “non-existent”, she asserts. “No one dares to face the level of siege, repression and the threat of jail,” she adds.
With the Civic Rebellion of 2018, the flag and the national anthem became symbols of resistance against the brutal repressive attack of the Daniel Ortega regime, which immediately criminalized their use. However, opposition groups, students and citizens in general challenged the de facto police state with blue and white pickets, handing out small flags in strategic areas of different departments of the country. All of that has disappeared.
Álvarez, who participated in these resistance activities, explains that the persecution has been escalating since 2018, beginning with policemen who snatched the flags in the blue and white marches, the subsequent confiscation of the national symbol from merchants and finally, jail.
Sergio Betta He was arrested on December 21, 2020 for protesting with the Nicaraguan flag and burning the one of the Sandinista Front on University Avenue. He was accused of “drug trafficking” and “illegal possession of weapons” in a trial questioned by independent lawyers. He was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison.
“The terror that has been sown about the use of symbols has been so great that people even for clothing, to paint their house or their business prefer to use another color -blue and white-“, expressed the member of Urnas open.
Recently, the organization has only had reports of posters appearing in various areas of Chinandega, Bluefields and Matagalpa, demanding the freedom of Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí, converted into a political prisoner by the Ortega regime since last August 4.
The “capture” of the patriotic symbols by Ortega
In September, the Ortega regime ordered the State institutions and urban transport units in Managua to be “dressed” with the national flag accompanied by that of the Sandinista Front. Public employees were forced to participate in walks, raising both flags in salute to the country.
In Nicaragua, the regime “has captured the patriotic symbols”, in such a way that only the operators of the Sandinista Front are the only ones authorized to use the national flag, says the member of the political council of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB), Juan Diego Barberena.
That control over the use of national emblems is a reflection of the “totalitarian purpose of the dictatorship to exercise power,” which is also manifested in the control of social spaces, political spaces, state institutions, the coercive forces of the State, said the opponent.
If a person who dares to place the Nicaraguan flag on their vehicle or display it in public, they risk being arrested by the Police, who have already beaten and repressed merchants for selling the national symbol.
For Barberena, it is an act that violates the citizen rights of Nicaraguans, dividing them into Ortega fanatics who have the power to demonstrate publicly and express their ideas, and the vast majority of the population, government dissidents, exposed to repressive acts.
Photo: Taken from social networks
indoctrination in schools
Since August, public schools have organized patriotic parades, in which, in addition to the symbols established in the country’s Magna Carta, they also exalt the flag of the Sandinista Front, the flag of the National Literacy Crusade and photographs of historic Sandinista combatants, including General Augusto C. Sandino, Ortega and his wife and Vice President, Rosario Murillo.
Álvarez, from Urnas Abiertas, points out that they have received reports of this way of worshiping the presidential couple and characters from the Sandinista Front, who place them above national symbols. The national flag no longer has a position superior to the red and black one, but it is placed alongside the party emblem.
“There has been a handling” of the patriotic symbols, says Álvarez, who views with suspicion the probability that these representations of the Sandinista Front will be established de facto, together with those recognized in the Constitution within the educational system. Political indoctrination in schools has been denounced by teachers, who have assured that they must comply with teachings attached to the interests of the ruling party.
