More than a week after the official celebration of the 43rd anniversary of the Police, which took place on September 5, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have only had time to commemorate the founding of the Army and the national holidays, leaving them on the “list of awaits” the anniversary of his quintessential repressive body.
The National Police Headquarters, made up of Director Francisco Díaz Madriz—the President’s in-law—and General Commissioners Ramón Avellán and Jaime Antonio Vanegas—Deputy Director and Inspector General—attended a discreet act on September 5 at the Plaza facilities. El Sol, the main headquarters located in Managua.
The institution, accused of committing crimes against humanity and of politically subordinating itself to Ortega—its supreme leader in the hierarchy—paid honors in that act to 517 officers who had died “in the line of duty” since its foundation. In that list they include 22 who perished while participating in the massacre ordered by the tyrant against the citizenry in 2018. They are called “heroes of peace and security” in official propaganda.
In recent days, the spokeswoman and number two of the regime, Rosario Murillo, made various public announcements, including some patron saint festivities. This Tuesday, September 13, he even mentioned a baseball game between the Boer and Dantos teams, in which “our National Police ensures in the stadium the joy of living in peace, the joy of being a blessed, free and sports-loving country. ”. But she did not refer to the annual event, in which the dictator is one of the main protagonists.
In recent years, the dictatorship has celebrated the police anniversary on different dates, even going so far as to commemorate the 40th anniversary on September 23, 2019, that is, more than two weeks after the official date.
“In the logic of the Ortega-Murillo family, the Army and the Police do not have the same political weight. (To the seconds) He does not see them as allies or as political actors, but as a mere apparatus, an instrument. And that is the role he has assigned to him in the policy of repression that he has imposed on Nicaraguan society since 2018. They do not have the same importance in the list of priorities that he has in his circle of power. Therefore, it is not surprising that it has passed without much news (the anniversary),” said sociologist Elvira Cuadra, an expert on security and human rights issues.
The public “affection” to the Army
Unlike the Police, Ortega and Murillo accompanied the Armed Forces, led by General Julio César Avilés—who has been in office since 2010—in a central anniversary event and also in a parade. The tyrant highlighted the “pacifying” role played by the military power in the 2018 massacre, when the regime attacked citizens, causing the death of more than 300 people and human rights violations documented by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ( IACHR).
“The combination of the Army guarding the strategic points that they (anti-government protesters) were trying to destroy was very important,” said Ortega in his flattery that was reciprocated by Avilés, who publicly thanked the ruler for including sailors and soldiers in the pension systemas if it were a personal gift.
In the convulsive days of 2018, the Army was questioned by civil society, because they did not disarm the paramilitary groups that attacked civilians in coordination with the Police. They alleged their “attachment” to the Constitution.
repressive forces increase
In the last 15 years in power, the Sandinista ruler and Murillo have carefully shaped a direct relationship between the police institution and the FSLN secretariat, cultivated personal relationships with the high command of the institution, but also shielded them with impunity from the accusations of human rights abuses, carried out by citizens and national and international human rights organizations.
According to data from the annual report of law enforcement, the number of police officers increased. There were 9,200 in the first year of the regime (2007) and there were already 17,349 in 2021, registering an increase of 47%. Ortega also increased their institutional budget, going from 1,193 million córdobas in 2008 to 3,923 million córdobas in 2021.
For Cuadra, the police institution reaches its 43rd anniversary plunged into institutional disrepute. A report of CONFIDENTIALpublished in January 2022, revealed that the previous year the authorities chose to change their strategy: they went from a direct attack to a “preventive action” to prevent any meeting of the opposition. In recent months, however, they have had an active participation in the persecution of the Catholic Church, which the dictatorship intends to silence for denouncing the human rights abuses committed by Ortega.
“The Police arrives at its anniversary discredited in every way; against Nicaraguan society, the international community, the Ortega Murillo group itself, because they see it as an instrumental position. For the citizens, it has become one of the main agents of repression, there is no trust in the police institution, it no longer enjoys legitimacy among the people,” added the sociologist Cuadra.
Juan Carlos Arce, a lawyer for the human rights group Nunca más, affirmed that the Police evolved from being an institution with problems to another that at this moment “is one of the worst in the history of Nicaragua in relation to human rights violations.”
“He turned into a monster. There is not the slightest certainty that human rights are respected. The Constitution is not valid, it is not governed by any parameter, the only one is to comply with the orders of the regime. It is an institution that has shown enormous effectiveness in repressing the population, repressing it without disgust,” Arce lamented.
Founder of the Police: “They celebrate when they feel like it”
For a founder of the Police, interviewed on condition of anonymity, no event has been known about the anniversary, because in practice “they celebrate when they feel like it, always looking for ways to erase historical references.”
According to this official, the Ortegas focus their celebration on highlighting a body faithful to their political designs, which they sell internally and externally as a synonym of “cohesion and legitimacy”, just at the moment when they are most questioned.
In 2021, after elections marked by repression and the lack of democratic guarantees, the OAS declared illegitimate results that allowed the prolongation in power of the dictator and his wife Murillo. In an attempt to reinforce their internal position, they alleged that they were victims of a campaign of interventionism to avoid being held accountable for the human rights abuses committed since 2018, when they maintain without evidence that they were the object of an alleged coup attempt.
“The Ortegas began to denaturalize the Police since 2007. Years of institutionality no longer accumulate, because it is another body and more with the actions of 2018 to date. There is a whole concept to use the police as control mechanisms for citizens”, he explained.
