Nicaragua’s campaign of silencing dissent
What can the international community do about it?
What’s going on in the tiny and impoverished Central American country of Nicaragua? The sham democracy of Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front government barely registers on the media radar screen these days. Is that about to change?
Accusations of Ortega’s child molestation of his stepdaughter clearly dirtied up the former Sandinista guerrilla commander in 1998. There were also the controversial presidential elections of 2011 and 2016, which consolidated Ortega’s firm grip on the country. And anointing his wife and partner, Rosario Murillo, as Nicaragua’s vice-president in 2017, only cemented his non-democratic credentials.
More shockingly was Ortega’s violent crackdown against anti-government protesters, many of them students, beginning in April of 2018. A good many of the demonstrators were catalyzed by the lack of political freedoms, arbitrary detentions, media restrictions and harsh economic conditions (including proposed pension cuts). Well-armed national police and pro-government militias reportedly killed over 300 civilians and seriously injured over 2,000 others.
HUMAN RIGHTS
After hundreds of Nicaraguans were arbitrarily arrested, the Inter-american Commission on Human Rights documented the cases of almost 800 detainees. According to its report, many were brutalized by electric shock and asphyxiation and subjected to torture and rape while in prison.
International pressure, including from the Trudeau government, has been building since 2018 for Ortega to step aside — even though he pushed through legislative changes that permit him to run for re-election indefinitely. (When I visited Nicaragua some 10 years ago, there were similar rumblings internally even then.) But he is having none of it.
Defiantly, Ortega contested, and prevailed in, the highly-suspect November 2021 presidential elections (his fourth consecutive term since 2007). Of course, he sought to secure his victory by arresting and jailing many of the top presidential hopefuls. Ortega has obviously lost his way since the heady days of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution.
Not surprisingly, a growing number of Nicaraguans have responded to the worsening internal situation by leaving the country altogether. Indeed, the numbers have surpassed previous years by a large margin — expecting to reach well over 150,000 Nicaraguans at the U.S. border in 2022 (up from 3,100 in 2020). In neighbouring Costa Rica, the number of asylum-seekers has grown exponentially to almost 80,000 in 2022.
CATHOLIC DISCUSSIONS
Throughout much of this period, the conservative Catholic Church has been working as a mediator between the protesters and the Ortega government (similar to what it did during the bloody days of the U.s.-backed “contra war” of the 1980s). But in May of 2018, the church released a statement indicating that it would not resume discussions with Ortega while Nicaraguans “continue to be repressed and murdered.”
At the same time, Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez noted: “We hope there would be a series of electoral reforms, structural changes to the electoral authority — free, just and transparent elections, international observation without conditions. Effectively the democratization of the country.”
Then in mid-july, another Catholic bishop, Silvio José Báez, tweeted: “Government of Nicaragua crosses the limit of which is inhuman and immoral. Criminal repression since Friday night against civilians, mostly students, is condemnable from every point of view.”
None of this was wellreceived by Ortega and his confidantes.
At one time, there were actually Roman Catholic priests in the first Sandinista revolutionary government of Daniel Ortega. He has obviously had an on again/off again relationship with the church. Right now, that relationship is bordering on non-existent.
DETAINED BISHOP
In late August of this year, the Nicaraguan government sought to silence and punish the church by detaining several Catholic priests. It also raided the residence of outspoken Bishop Álvarez of the Matagalpa diocese and detained him for allegedly inciting violent groups “to carry out acts of hate against the population.”
As of this writing, the bishop still remains under guard and house arrest in the capital of Managua.
In a country where loyalty to the church is very high, the word of a bishop can carry a lot of political weight. That helps to explain why the Nicaraguan government has moved to crush the interventions of religious voices.
As a member of the leading hemispheric political institution, the Organization of American States (OAS), Canada has taken a hard line toward Ortega’s Nicaragua. Most recently, the Trudeau government supported a toughly worded OAS resolution that stated pointedly: “To condemn strongly the forced closure of non-governmental organizations, and the harassment and arbitrary restrictions placed on religious organizations and those critical of the government and its actions in Nicaragua.”
The Ortega government obviously doesn’t believe that the world community will do much to alter its repressive behaviour. There is absolutely no chance that countries of the Americas want anything to do with employing military force against Nicaragua. And imposing additional punitive sanctions against the country will only make life more difficult for those who OAS member states are purporting to help.
That doesn’t change the fact that it is long overdue for Ortega to go. The problem, however, comes in trying to find an effective way to nudge him along.