Farewell to Nicaragua (2)
By Matthias Schindler
Stages of Alienation
My estrangement from Nicaragua was a long process that stretched over several decades. It was not my intention to go down this path, but now I have come to its end. It began with a deep identification with the goals of the Sandinista Revolution and a great ignorance of Nicaragua and the people who live there. It ended with many people in Nicaragua being closer to me today than ever before, while my connection with the FSLN has reached absolute zero. However, I am firmly convinced that it was not I who distanced myself from the revolution, but the FSLN itself that first forgot, and later betrayed, its own roots and its original goals.
Of course, political conditions and convictions have not remained static on either side from 1979 to 2022. But while the once revolutionary Sandinism developed further and further in an authoritarian and finally even dictatorial direction, I have become increasingly convinced that democratic structures and methods have an essential meaning for all social development. Without them, every emancipatory claim is just smoke and mirrors.
At this point, I can only mention a few significant stages that were important for this process of separation. More detailed explanations can be found in my book From the Triumph of the Sandinistas to the Democratic Revolt: Nicaragua 1979 – 2019,[1] which unfortunately has not yet been published in English.
In the beginning, there was an almost unadulterated enthusiasm for the revolution. The sacrificial struggle against Somoza’s dictatorship, and no death sentences for the former oppressors after the triumph. The construction of a self-determined Nicaragua and the coming together of Marxism and Christianity. Political pluralism, the expropriations of the former dictator, and more found broad support within Nicaragua and internationally, including mine. When the USA started to attack this revolution politically, economically and militarily, I did not hesitate to get involved in the worldwide solidarity movement for Sandinista Nicaragua. From the beginning it was clear that we, as solidarity committees, did not see ourselves politically or organisationally as an extension of the FSLN, but as an independent movement in support of the revolution.
The first serious test came in 1981 with the armed conflicts between the Sandinista army and the ethnic group of the Miskitos on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. Important parts of the German solidarity movement publicly criticised Managua’s repressive measures. However, this criticism was still accepted as solidarity-based criticism by the FSLN leaders at the time. Furthermore, after more conflicts and even forced relocations, an internal discussion process among the Sandinistas eventually led to a dialogue with the Miskitos, and later even to the elaboration of an autonomy statute for their settlement areas, which was internationally regarded as exemplary for the rights of ethnic minorities in their states.
Later we heard of the arrest of leading representatives of the PCdeN, one of two communist parties in Nicaragua, and its affiliated trade union CAUS. We did not agree with this either, but it was seen as a minor issue.
During the 1980s I travelled to Nicaragua many times. I conducted educational tours, organised solidarity projects, visited grassroots projects, collected information material for solidarity work in Germany, provided translation services, and even participated in international political activities. During this time, especially in León, I was able to immerse myself deeply in Nicaraguan society and get to know the Sandinista Revolution from the inside. However, despite all the sympathy with the people and all the support for their revolution, it became clear in many situations that Sandinism suffered from a lack of internal democracy, and that it was strictly vertically organised from top to bottom.
This was combined, especially in the second half of their government, with an ever-increasing personality cult regarding the nine Comandantes de la Revolution, the FSLN’s highest governing body. This became especially clear through the repeatedly chanted slogan: “Dirección Nacional: ¡Ordene!” (“National leadership: command!”).
After the FSLN’s 1990 electoral defeat, the so-called piñata[2] occurred before the government was handed over to the newly elected president, transferring many companies, lands and other properties from state ownership to the private ownership of high FSLN officials. This was the birth of a new “Sandinista” capital group in Nicaragua. However, I did not realise until many years later that this was one of the decisive turning-points through which the quest for wealth and power on the part of the party leadership became more and more prominent, coming into ever clearer contradiction with the original social and political goals of the FSLN.
Pulled quote: Since this incident the solidarity movement has been divided between those who feel justified supporting a rapist as president, and those who reject this as an inadmissible crossing of boundaries.
In 1998, Daniel Ortega’s stepdaughter, Zoilamérica Narváez, publicly accused him of having sexually abused and raped her over many years, beginning in her early childhood. However, this was either strictly denied by every possible instance of the FSLN or merely considered a pardonable peccadillo (minor sin). The FSLN saw no reason to remove him from the party leadership or even to withdraw him as their presidential candidate. I found this matter an unacceptable political and ethical scandal. Nevertheless, at that time I was not prepared to sign an appeal demanding that Ortega be stripped of his parliamentary immunity so that he could be held accountable in court. My argument at that time was that such an appeal could also be signed by right-wing opponents and politically misused against the FSLN. Only years later did I realise that this was the biggest political mistake I ever made in Nicaragua solidarity. It was only much later that I understood that elementary human rights, such as the right to physical and mental integrity, apply unconditionally and must not be subordinated to political interests under any circumstances. Since this incident the solidarity movement has been divided between those who feel justified supporting a rapist as president, and those who reject this as an inadmissible crossing of boundaries. But it also revealed a split between the solidarity movement and the FSLN that could never be healed.
New political shocks were caused by the 1999 pact between Ortega and Alemán, in which both agreed not to touch the parliamentary immunity of the other to protect each other from prosecution; Ortega for the rape of his stepdaughter and Alemán for the embezzlement of over 100 million dollars of public funds.
Only a few days before the 2006 presidential elections, the parliament passed an absolute ban on abortion with the votes of the FSLN to win over the official Catholic Church under Cardinal Obando y Bravo and various Protestant sects. While some Sandinistas initially touted this as a clever electoral manoeuvre, the increasing openly fundamentalist and pseudo-religious appearances of the president’s wife, Rosario Murillo, made it clear that women’s right to self-determination would remain profoundly violated by this ban in the long term.
Nevertheless, many activists of the solidarity movement associated Ortega’s re-election and his assumption of office in 2007 – despite all the criticism – with a cautious hope for an improvement of the situation in the country. He had run a very moderate election campaign, but at the same time he had also campaigned for a departure from the neoliberal policies of the three previous liberal-conservative governments and announced a fight against corruption. I decided not to accept the invitation to attend his inauguration. After all, he had only been able to win this election with barely 38 percent of the vote because of his pact with Alemán. Moreover, it was known that the highly corrupt Alemán had also been invited as a guest of honour – for me, a situation I could not accept. It would soon become clear that my scepticism was completely justified. Already in the local elections of 2008, there was massive electoral fraud in favour of the FSLN and violent attacks against political rivals, especially in the capital Managua, as well as in León and many other cities. The system of electoral fraud has been perfected since then by the FSLN’s ever-growing control over the electoral authorities from election to election.
In 2009, some judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court declared Article 147 of the Nicaraguan Constitution, which prohibited the re-election of the president, unconstitutional. This means that the highest state authority for the defence of the constitution did exactly the opposite of its actual mandate and partially declared the constitution invalid. This allowed Ortega to run again in the 2011 elections, which he subsequently won. Only much later, in 2014, was the possibility of presidential re-election legalised by a corresponding parliamentary resolution. In other words, the facts were created first, but the legal basis was only established with hindsight. This process was a major milestone in the abolition of the rule of law in Nicaragua.
Between 2007 and 2017, Nicaragua received almost four billion dollars in economic aid from Venezuela. These funds were not channelled and controlled by Nicaragua’s state budget, but by the private company ALBANISA whose board was under Ortega’s direct control. In addition to social and infrastructural projects, large amounts of these funds ended up in the pockets of his family and closest friends. This not only promoted an unprecedented level of corruption in the state and society, but also brought the second major capital boost, following the 1990 piñata, for the newly emerged “Sandinista bourgeoisie”.
What is particularly repulsive is how Ortega-Murillo’s children, who have never had a serious education, are given entire business enterprises by the state, are entrusted with the highest state functions, or host state-financed luxury fashion shows. Depending on the mood of the presidential couple, they are sent on diplomatic missions around the world, or are allowed to live their lives as third-rate rock or opera musicians at state expense. Nicaragua is still the second poorest country in Latin America, but its ruling family lives in feudal opulence.
In 2013, the planned construction of an inter-oceanic canal through the middle of Nicaragua was the focus of public interest. This project was to be realised in cooperation with the Chinese swindler Wang Jing. It was to have a cost of 40 billion dollars and be paid off over 100 years. From the beginning, there were massive political, economic, ecological, and social objections to this project. To pave the legal way for this, a corresponding law was whipped through parliament, in a fast-track procedure, within 72 hours. Later even the Constitution was amended for this purpose. The legendary freedom fighter Sandino had a clear position on the question of such a canal through Nicaragua, which had already been discussed 100 years ago: Firstly, he strictly refused to put such a project in the hands of a foreign international superpower, and secondly, he declared that such an undertaking could only be carried out – if at all – as a joint Latin American project.
The Last Illusion
In April 2018, there were largely peaceful mass demonstrations against the Ortega-Murillo government. But the regime responded with extreme brutality under the slogan “¡Vamos con todo!” (“Now it’s all or nothing!” or “Any means will do!”). This destroyed even the last illusion. The last taboo had fallen. The regime’s armed formations were shooting at their own people. Military snipers, police and paramilitaries wreaked havoc. There were over 300 deaths, over 2,000 injured, over 600 political prisoners and over 100,000 people seeking refuge abroad. The independent judicial commission GIEI[3] concluded that the government had committed crimes against humanity.
As Ortega’s political power increasingly asserted itself within the FSLN, and from 2007 onwards in the Nicaraguan state system, the character of the town twinning arrangements, which had developed primarily between Germany and Nicaragua, also changed. Political solidarity with a social emancipation process and help for self-help, gradually became a business model to organise external funding for local development projects. The authorities loyal to Ortega profited from this in two ways: On the one hand, they were able to present themselves to the ordinary population as benefactors, and on the other hand, this left the Nicaraguan state with more funds to expand its repressive apparatus. In return, the local Nicaraguan rulers patiently listened to the German side’s references to the importance of democratic structures, without ever responding to them or taking them seriously in any way.
“The Cybercrime Law makes all statements critical of the government, made publicly or privately, in any medium, or on any platform on the internet, punishable by one to ten years in prison.”
Since September 2020, the Ortega regime has passed four laws legalising state repression. The Foreign Agents Act puts international solidarity organisations on the same level as arms dealers, spies, and terrorists. In addition, employees in projects that receive financial support from abroad automatically lose their right to stand for election. The Cybercrime Law makes all statements critical of the government, made publicly or privately, in any medium, or on any platform on the internet, punishable by one to ten years in prison. Under the Act against Hate, any criticism of the government is treated as spreading hate and carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. For this, even the Constitution was amended because the maximum sentence up to that moment had been limited to 30 years in prison. Finally, the Sovereignty Law stipulated that people who advocate outside interference, or support sanctions against Nicaragua, or Nicaraguan citizens, are traitors to the fatherland and thus also lose the right to run for any public office.
On 20 June 2021, the left-liberal internet magazine Confidencial was raided by the police, its production rooms occupied, computers and other work equipment confiscated and some of its staff arrested. Its editor-in-chief, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, had already been forced to take refuge in Costa Rica for security reasons. On 13 August 2021, the editorial offices and printing press of the conservative newspaper La Prensa were occupied by the police, and the publication of its printed edition was banned after 95 years. However, both media continue to appear via the internet.
The “elections” of November 2021 were the culmination of electoral manipulation and at the same time the definitive end of the illusion that democratic conditions still existed in Nicaragua. At that moment, there were 150 political prisoners, including persons who wanted to run for the presidency. All public meetings and rallies were banned. The election campaign was limited to internet activities and social media messages. All parties that participated in the voting process ran directly in alliance with the FSLN or had other links to that party. Independent election observers from home or abroad were not allowed. Under these conditions the vast majority of the population stayed at home on election Sunday. Those who had participated had to have their right thumb marked with a non-washable paint. In the following days I looked at people’s hands everywhere I went, and only about one in ten people had their thumbs marked. Afterwards the hand-picked government-invited acompañantes electorales (electoral companions) – not “observers” – from friendly organisations of other countries, praised this voting process in the highest terms, agreeing completely with the Orteguista propaganda media not only concerning the technical procedures but also in their choice of words.
On 1 February 2022, political trials began against prominent opposition representatives who had already been in pre-trial detention, or under house arrest, for up to 9 months. On 2 February 2022, 6 private universities were illegalised by depriving them of their legal personality. Opinions may differ on how to assess the information in these newspapers, or how to think about the teaching in the universities in question, but the suppression of a free press, free university teaching, and the persecution of political dissenters, can only have one result, the further intellectual impoverishment of Nicaragua.
If there is one overarching phenomenon to be observed at present, it is this: There is fear in Nicaragua. There is fear on the street, in the restaurants, on buses and taxis. Fear of one’s neighbours, fear of colleagues at work, of superiors. Fear of police checks on the roads, and even fear in the family, or one’s own circle of friends. Of course, many people can be seen sitting quietly in a rocking chair in front of their houses, children playing exuberantly in the street, or families enjoying loud music and cheap food at the Salvador Allende amusement park, as if everything was fine. But if you know the people better, if you speak to them in their language, and if you have been able to build a real relationship of trust with them, then you can experience how great people’s fear is. Fear of saying something wrong somewhere, of being overheard, of ending up on one of the black lists or even of being arrested. At the same time, the presence of the police in public is currently much smaller than it was one or two years ago. But the brutal repression of any critical movement in public during the last three years has left deep scars on everyone. Everyone in Nicaragua knows that even the slightest attempt at public protest would have the police on the scene within minutes to crack it down.
“In this way he gradually expanded his position of power, by ostensibly democratic means, in order to then further destroy the democratic functioning of society from within.”
Ortega only came back to power in 2007 through a pact with his corrupt accomplice, Alemán. With the municipal elections of 2008, the FSLN expanded its power through massive electoral fraud. Ortega was only able to win the 2012 presidential elections because the Supreme Court overruled the constitutional ban on re-election. Before the November 2021 elections, Ortega had many potential presidential candidates thrown in jail, and had all opposition parties banned to enable him to celebrate his own “election victory” afterwards. In this way he gradually expanded his position of power, by ostensibly democratic means, in order to then further destroy the democratic functioning of society from within. This finally led to the “democratic” abolition of democracy and the establishment of the full-scale dictatorship that Nicaragua is currently suffering.
If you want to travel to Nicaragua nowadays, you first have to fill out a digital entry application form, in which you not only have to enter your name, passport number and travel dates, but also who invited you, their email and postal address, why you want to travel to Nicaragua, what “special reasons” you have for going there, whom you want to visit there, and more. Once you have sent this application to the Ministry of the Interior you will receive an acknowledgement of receipt, but no information as to whether your entry has actually been approved or not. On the corresponding homepage, the status of this entry application remains frozen as “in process” until long after the journey has been completed. Whether someone is really allowed to enter Nicaragua in the end is only decided immediately, on the spot. Only half an hour before departure, at the last transit airport, will the passenger know whether or not he/she will be allowed to board the plane bound for Managua. This was the way in which the journeys of many international journalists ended at the airports of Panama, or Mexico City, before the “elections”. They had to turn back without having achieved anything because the Nicaraguan authorities had forbidden the respective airlines at the last minute to let them travel on to Nicaragua. If I had written on my entry application that I wanted to see for myself the situation of democracy and human rights in Nicaragua I would certainly have been refused entry as well. But I got through because I had given “tourism” as the reason for my trip. Finally arriving in Managua I had to undergo another interview at passport control, which was more like a political interrogation, and where I had to avoid any impression that I was travelling to Nicaragua out of political interest. After 43 years of active solidarity work with Nicaragua, I was now treated like a drug trafficker or an imperialist spy! It is true that – unlike many others – I managed to enter Nicaragua once again. But I am not prepared to get used to such a treatment. The idea of having to endure such a humiliating situation once again is unbearable for me. As long as the Ortega-Murillo regime is still in power, I will not return to Nicaragua.
Chickens vs. democracy?
Supporters of Ortega often do not know how to justify his dictatorial regime. That is why they keep coming back again and again to the hospitals and new roads built under his rule. They try on the one hand to distract from the debate on freedom and democracy, and on the other they want to show how good his government is despite existing criticisms. Since Ortega took over the presidency again in 2007, there have certainly been some improvements in the country’s infrastructure as part of the capitalist modernisation of the country. These are not Ortega’s benefactions, but basic tasks that every state has to fulfil. Moreover, the financial resources for this did not come from Ortega but from abroad. On top of that, large parts of these funds did not flow into these projects but ended up directly in the pockets of Ortega’s closest relatives and friends. But above all – and this is the crucial point – asphalted roads, or new hospitals, are no argument at all when it comes to freedom and democracy. After all, the motorways built under Hitler, or the industrial progress of the Soviet Union under Stalin, are not acceptable justifications for their reigns of terror. Whoever thinks that social progress justifies violations of human rights and military oppression of the people should then also clearly, and unambiguously, do the maths: How many kilometres of newly built highways justify the abolition of democratic elections? How many new health centres can be a justification for trampling the country’s Constitution underfoot? How many wind turbines must a president approve to be allowed to give his ignorant children television and petrol stations? How many new sewage pipes justify throwing political dissidents into jail? How many electricity connections does a government have to lay to be allowed to banish human rights organisations into illegality? How many zinc plates must a ruler give away to be allowed to keep a highly equipped private army of paramilitaries? Or how many chickens must the ruling couple distribute to the poor before they may order protesting students to be murdered by snipers?
One has nothing to do with the other? Then, dear supporters of the Orteguista dictatorship, please do not start connecting these issues! You are the ones who bring up the roads and the hospitals because you don’t want to talk about the undemocratic conditions in Nicaragua. And you don’t want to talk about them because you know very well that there is unbearable political repression in Nicaragua, and that in you can’t present any acceptable justification for it.
At the same time, you should never forget one thing: dictatorships come to an end. All dictatorships come to an end. Hitler’s ended. Stalin’s ended. Somoza’s has ended. The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship will also come to an end. We don’t know when, and we don’t know how. But it will end. Then, at the latest, you will have to think about how to go on. And you will have to think about whether you want to be treated in the same way as the current regime treats its critics and opposition members – when government power and all state authority is no longer controlled by Ortega.
Sovereignty vs. Human Rights?
As a second important issue in defence of the Ortega-Murillo regime, its supporters often point out that every state has the right to regulate its internal affairs freely, according to its own ideas. This is absolutely correct. However, this principle of sovereignty, which originated in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, was supplemented after the Second World War by the obligation of governments to respect human rights. The experience of fascism under Hitler led to human rights becoming a core component of national and international law. Accordingly, no government has a right to violate human rights in its own country and to oppress its own people. This is why human rights have become an integral part of many of the constitutions written after 1945.
This is also the case in Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan Constitution clearly declares that every person living in Nicaragua enjoys the full protection of human rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. Yet in real life there is hardly any article of this declaration that is not massively violated in Nicaragua.
Article 46 of the Constitution reads: “In the territory [of Nicaragua], every person enjoys State protection and recognition of the inherent rights of every human person, the full respect, promotion and protection of human rights, and the full validity of the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations, and the American Convention on Human Rights of the Organisation of American States.”
…
Next: Farewell to Nicaragua (3) The many faces of my farewell
[1] German: https://diebuchmacherei.de/produkt/vom-triumpf-der-sandinisten-zum-demokratischen-aufstand/; Spanish:libros.matthias@gmail.com; French: https://www.syllepse.net/nicaragua-1979-2019–_r_74_i_843.html
[2] A piñata is actually a game played at birthday parties in which children have to grab as many sweets as possible for themselves.
[3] Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes (Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts), a commission invited by the Nicaraguan government to investigate the events of April and May 2018, which published a 463-page report.
