[su_label type=”info”]Updated on August 23, 2018 [/su_label]

Anti-riot police respond to Nicaraguan citizens protesting the government of President Daniel Ortega in April 2018. Courtesy: Republica.gt

Pamela Harris is a 43-year-old marketing professional from San Francisco, who was on sabbatical in Nicaragua from January 2018 – July 2018, when the country entered into its biggest national crisis since the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979. What follows is part one of her first-hand account of when the current crisis began and why it continues.

Nicaragua as I know it no longer exists. Where I once saw hundreds of lazy tourists—walking happily through the streets of León, or sitting quietly in one of the many open-aired restaurants, or bustling through one of the dozens of markets—I now found that I was the only gringa walking those streets, eating in those restaurants and shopping in those markets. Tourism was dead. The roads that used to team with taxis, tortilla stands and various other vendors felt eerily empty with many shops boarded shut, or open for only a few short hours a day.

It was on April 18, 2018, that Nicaragua changed forever. People hit the streets in protest of President Daniel Ortega’s announcement to increase taxes and decrease benefits in order to support a failing social security system.

The government, in turn, responded violently, in what has become one of the worst crises in recent Latin American history. From May 30 (Mothers Day in Nicaragua) to July 19, the Nicaraguan government launched an attack on the protesters, opening fire directly on its people. A little more than a 100 days later over 450 are dead, 2,800 injured and 700 are still missing.

The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights has found that nearly 90 percent of those killed so far have been civilians, the people protesting the government. The other 10 percent have been police and government paramilitaries.

Al Carbon, a restaurant in León, Nicaragua, was burned to the ground on April 19, 2018, during the first night of deadly protests against the government of President Daniel Ortega. Photo: Pamela Harris

On the first day of those nationwide protests I was walking through the streets of León with a friend headed to lunch. We’d heard that there might be protests that day, but at the time had no idea the magnitude to which these protests would grow. While there did seem to be some tension in the streets—people running in various directions, the sound of what I thought were firecrackers in the background—we simply didn’t understand what was about to happen until we heard people shout:

“¡No vayas por esa calle! (Don’t go down that street!)

“¡Entrar ahora!” (Get inside now!)

“¡Salir de las calles!” (Get off the streets!)

So we ducked into the nearest restaurant and soon thereafter found ourselves locked in with a handful of other guests, and through the cracks in the front doors we watched a battle begin outside between the police (dressed in blue uniforms) and the students (complete with backpacks). We saw the police attack the students with tear gas and what we thought were rubber bullets, and the students responded by pulling up the bricks from the streets to build barricades, and launching retaliatory rocks.

After about two hours the battle outside died down and it was considered safe to leave. I said goodbye to my friend and started the walk home, until I realized it was still unsafe, and again ducked into the nearest doorway, a local hotel.

That evening the city of León went into lock down while the battle between the protesters and the police continued.  The police turned the electricity off in central León, and the streets were designated “no pasada” (no passing). No one was going in, and no one was going out.  Even though I lived less than two miles away, the hotel manager said it probably wasn’t safe for me to return home that night, and I should plan on staying there. I called my cab driver friend and he confirmed the streets were not passable due to the many barricades being thrown up—and he wouldn’t be able to help get me home.

So, from the doorway of the hotel I watched the night. Folks ran by, their mouths covered by bandanas, sweating from the heat, yelling:

“¡Ellos tienen pistolas!” (They have guns!)

“¡Necestiamos mas agua!” (We need more water.)

“¡Estan atrapados en ese edificio!” (They’re trapped in that building.)

Shopkeepers and hotel owners (including the hotel I was in) ran out to those people to offer food and water, ask for updates, and provide immediate care to the injured.   

After a few hours, still not fully understanding the magnitude of what was happening, I got it into my head that I would just walk back to my apartment. So I walked those two miles back home, in the pitch black, amid the sounds of what I would later learn was gunfire. I figured if I kept off the main streets, stuck to the alleyways, ran in the shadows and turned my phone off so the light wouldn’t give me away, then no one would see me and I would be safe.

Little did I know, that by the morning more than 20 people would be dead, dozens more injured, arrested and missing, and the restaurant where I had been the previous afternoon, would be burned to the ground.

The protesters are now demanding the resignation of Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, and calling for new elections. Ortega and Murillo have refused to step down and have denied all responsibility for the killings, instead blaming the violence on international coups seeking their removal.

Today, it is a common occurrence to see heavily armed Sandinista police and paramilitary forces roll into town in pick-up truck convoys known as “caravans of death.” They shoot people on the street and pull people from their homes, never to be seen again. They attack churches where people are hiding and burn the homes of Ortega opposition leaders.

While some would call what is happening in Nicaragua the equivalent of a civil war, it is not, because the people are unarmed and the government, under the direct order of President Daniel Ortega, is massacring its own citizens.

The government has also begun enforcement of a new “anti-terrorism” law, which essentially criminalizes anyone who participates in anti-government protests with penalties of 15-20 years in prison.

Part 2

Nicaragüenses Nicaraguans protest Daniel Ortega’s social security reforms on April 18, 2018. Photo: Jan Janssens

I’ve lived in Nicaragua for the past six months and have witnessed first hand, what poverty and corruption look like.  President Daniel Ortega, who first became a visible leader in Nicaragua in 1979, when the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew the violent Somoza family dictatorship, has served presidential terms in 1979, 1990, and again in 2007. In that time, he has slowly eroded all forms of democracy, eliminating presidential term limits and re-arranging all forms of business in the country to benefit him, his family and those faithful to his Sandinista Party.

While the Sandinistas were once a party of the people with civic programs designed to increase literacy rates, make healthcare more accessible, and help people out of extreme poverty, the party has gradually turned into a vehicle for doling out benefits in return for political allegiance to Ortega.

The party has taken over all branches of government (including police and military) and owns or controls most of the media. Ortega himself has managed to change the constitution in order to get reelected by decreasing the percentage of votes needed to declare victory. He has also put his wife, Rosario Murillo, in the place of Nicaragua’s vice president, and in the process accumulated an estimated wealth of $50 million.

For more than a decade now, Ortega’s policies have been characterized by an alliance with the private sector and big business, both domestic and foreign. He has provided corporate tax-cuts, created “free-trade zones,” nearly outlawed independent labor unions, and made deep cuts to social security (a move that sparked the current civil unrest).

As former Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations Alejandro Bendaña put it, “He [Ortega] himself is no longer a Sandinista. Yes, the trappings, the colors are still there, but his entire government has been, in essence, neoliberal. Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive.”

While the wealth and prosperity of Ortega and his allies is plainly evident, the people of Nicaragua are impoverished. The country has been identified as the least developed and poorest in all of Central America. More than 46 percent of Nicaraguans live below the poverty line, surviving on just over $1 a day. Unemployment is over 12 percent, but in rural areas it’s over 20 percent.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then that Nicaraguans are currently shouting in the streets:  “Ortega, Somoza, son la misma cosa!” (Ortega, Somoza, they are the same).

Daily life in Nicaragua

A small Nicaraguan home sits next to a water pipe from nearby factory owned by President Daniel Ortega. Homes like these are common in Nicaragua, which is one of the least developed countries in Latin America. Photo: Pamela Harris

During my travels I visited many small towns, and bigger beach towns. I found that only Ortega-owned factories had running water. I saw with my own eyes a water pipe that bypassed all the local dwellings and went straight to one of the factories.

From restaurants to hotels to local dwellings, water was only accessible via water tanks, which were filled weekly by a water truck. If water delivery skipped you, (which happened to me at least half a dozen times) you had to pay extra to have it “re-delivered.” In addition, water tanks don’t usually come with a property. They need to be purchased. No tank? No water. The same goes with septic tanks. No septic tank. No toilet.

One small beach town I stayed in had an Ortega-owned oil pipeline that ran through it. Not one local person was employed at that pipeline—only Venezuelans. I was told the Venezuelans received free housing, along with a salary of $800-$1200 a month. I’m unsure why locals were not employed at the pipeline but some said it was tied to the contract Ortega had with the Venezuelans, or that it had more to do with Sandinista Party politics.

Between 40 percent and 60 percent (80-90 percent in the smaller towns) of all the houses I saw were what the locals called “plastic houses,” meaning some or all of the walls of the house were made out of sheets of plastic. They reminded me of glad garbage bags. I was told that plastic walls can last anywhere between three and six months, after that the plastic starts to fray and needs to be replaced. These plastic houses didn’t have floors, so when it rains (which it does a lot), the floors become mud and that is what you have to walk through.

The “nicer” homes aren’t made of plastic, rather, found pieces of wood, metal, and on occasion handmade concrete bricks, but many of them lacked floors as well.

My Spanish tutor, a 21-year-old college student, said that the women in his family, and women all across Nicaragua have three choices in life: they can cook, clean or sell their bodies for a living. All three are looked upon as equal opportunities. His 65-year-old aunt was still a working prostitute.

My friend’s grandmother, at the age of 70, still cooked and sold tortillas on the street. There was one 17-year-old woman, who lived near me in a giant house on the beach built by a 68-year-old man from Texas. She had already had one kid with him and was pregnant with her second. I was told many women in Nicaragua are encouraged by their families to seek this sort of situation out, as a way to get themselves out of poverty.

The good fight

So, you ask, “Why are the people in Nicaragua revolting against their government?” I would say that they’re tired of being lied to, of being poor, of lacking opportunity, of another dictatorship that is profiting off the land and leaving them to starve. The government’s violent response to the protests is only adding fuel to the fire.

As of July 19, the government’s “cleaning operation” had officially finished, and President Ortega had announced that the situation in the country had normalized again. Police and paramilitaries, however, are still going door-to-door, looking for and arresting those who had participated in the protests. Because of these tactics of intimidation and state-sponsored terrorism, the situation for most Nicaraguans is far from over.

At this point most people just want Daniel Ortega gone, so they can hold real elections and rebuild their failing economy. But with little support from the international community, it is sure to be a long, hard road. It’s a road that many are committed to taking though, for the love of their country and the desire to be free.