The Nicaraguan writer and journalist Sergio Ramírez, persecuted by the regime of Daniel Ortegaaffirmed this Tuesday that one of the consequences that literature has had in his life is “living now in exile, because there are no innocent books when you write from within and not half measures.”
That has always happened “throughout the entire history of humanity”, especially “when words challenge arbitrary power”, affirmed the Cervantes Prize in 2017.
Ramírez made this reflection at a press conference offered in Alicante (eastern Spain), hours before giving the conference “La Nicaragua que yo escribo” and presenting the last novel of his trilogy of black genre, titled “Tongolele did not know how to dance” and banned in his country for recounting the popular revolt against the Government of Daniel Ortega.
Regarding the political situation in his country, Ramírez, who was a Sandinista revolutionary against the dictator Anastasio Somoza, defended applying the “trial” of a “peaceful change” and explained that the current Nicaraguan regime remains “on the defensive” because it is mounted about “more and more repressive measures”.
The sustainability of “a regime of whatever nature, in the medium or long term, is based on a minimum of social or political consensus, and in Nicaragua there is none. The regime’s only weapon is repression, and that obviously wears out in the long run,” he stressed.
The justice of the regime
“Yesterday, a peasant from the depths of mountainous northern Nicaragua was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for cybercrime and he doesn’t know what whatsapp is, he doesn’t know what internet is. He only has a poor phone that only serves him to communicate, but he has never entered the social network and they condemned him (…)”, he declared.
Ramírez affirmed that “this is the type of justice that prevails in Nicaragua” and to which he would also be subjected if he lived there. “Between prison and exile, I chose exile (…)”, he added.
The writer assured that Daniel Ortega, who is serving his fourth term, has been in power longer than any of the Somozas, has considered that “the revolution ceases to be of the left and of the right,” and he opined that Nicaragua’s is “the the only regime in the world that is esoteric.”
“Some rulers who believe in the trees of life, in the five-pointed star, in the eye of Fatima and use it as a symbol of power” is still “a seduction for someone who writes novels,” he said.
“History Essay”
In his opinion, a kind of “vicious circle that has to be broken once and for all” persists both in his country and in others in Latin America, in which the “tyrant settles in modernity, being an archaic figure.”
“I think the remedy will be when we make the changes truly democratic (…) history teaches us that an armed revolution triumphs, spawns a tyrant, then another armed revolution comes and spawns another tyrant and the blood that is spilled becomes useless” , said.
For Ramírez, “perhaps the next test in the country’s history is to achieve a peaceful change, where institutions are favored for the first time.”
He expressed that he does not lose hope of one day returning to Nicaragua and expressed his confidence that Daniel Ortega’s regime ends without resorting to arms.
“What remains of the revolution? Nothing, a tyranny; it is hard to accept it,” said Ramírez, who alluded to the 40,000 Nicaraguans who left their country in one year and were subjected to asylum processes in the United States.
On the other hand, the writer revealed that the noir novel gives him the possibility of putting distance from the events, as in his trilogy that culminates with “Tongolele did not know how to dance” and the events that occurred in 2018, when he went out to the streets of Nicaragua peacefully to demand a regime change.
