(The journalist who wrote this report from Managua cannot sign it for security reasons.)
Nicaragua is a country ruled by fear; a country taken over by a police state; A country where even waving the blue and white flag can be considered a crime, like holding mass in a rural church or celebrating the triumph of a beauty queen. Expulsions, return bans, prison sentences, confiscations, harassment, threats and, in hundreds of cases, loss of citizenship are common punishments under a regime imposed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo that tolerates no dissent.
That's why, as a journalist, I write on the condition of anonymity. This article compiles a fresco of the catacombs inhabited by opponents of the regime. The sources consulted are journalists, Catholic religious, former members of political parties or active members of movements that emerged from the rebellion. These are citizens who want to be quoted under pseudonyms in order to protect themselves and their families. Their statements show an internal opposition that is disjointed, inactive and, above all, fearful, even after fleeing the country.
“God forbid I say I’m a journalist”
Lucy, in her early 50s, hasn't gone to the cinema in five years for fear of what might happen to her in a public place. She is a journalist and critic of the government, a forbidden cocktail. Even something so simple and seemingly insignificant is “painful” to him. Before the 2018 protests, when she was involved in several opposition movements involved in the marches against Sandinism, her favorite pastime was going to the cinema. Later he took part in the committees to help the families of the murdered, injured and political prisoners.
When I met her in mid-2019, she was delivering food to La Modelo prison in Tipitapa, on the outskirts of Managua. He woke up at dawn and picked up the mothers of faraway political prisoners in his vehicle to drive them to prison. Lucy was forced to withdraw from solidarity movements as repression increased. But his face was visible in his city's prison, where he called for demonstrations. So he decided to disappear. “I live as locked in as possible,” admits the opposition figure, who moved two years ago. Now he only leaves the house to attend family events.
“I don't go to public places because I don't want to meet people I know who are connected to the regime,” he reasons. In fact, many of his acquaintances believe that he left Nicaragua, went into exile or emigrated to the United States, as more than 600,000 citizens have done since the crisis began. Her biggest fear is that Sandinista sympathizers will recognize her and report that she is in the country. The consequence would be immediate: arrest or banishment.
The decision to stay was of course linked to the task of practicing his job. “God forbid I say I’m a journalist,” he says, as if being one were a crime. There are few journalists who remain in Nicaragua and we are taking similar measures to them: we do not publish anything related to the Ortega government on social networks or in WhatsApp groups, and we do not attend meetings with other colleagues or critical unions that are still in the country. The latest report by the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy, published in October 2023, found that at least 222 journalists were forced into exile due to harassment and repression.
Sheynnis Palacios, Miss Nicaragua, after her crowning as Miss Universe during the 72nd Miss Universe pageant in San Salvador.JOSE CABEZAS (Portal)
On May 3rd, the police carried out a major hunt for opponents. Dozens of officers were deployed in simultaneous raids in 13 of Nicaragua's 15 departments and two autonomous regions shortly before 6 p.m. Within hours, they arrested 57 citizens, including informants, political activists and farmer leaders. They were immediately taken to Managua to be tried in secret sessions. They were interrogated during their 12-hour detention. They were returned to their homes early in the morning on the condition that they report regularly to the police. From time to time they sign a document stating that they are under control in Nicaragua.
As a precaution, I hid during the raid. I slept outside my house for several days. I was afraid that the police would come looking for me. This isn't the first time I've hidden to avoid capture. When the homes of a team of journalists from La Prensa were followed and searched in mid-2022, I lived at a different address for months. But I came back. The longing for my family outweighed the fear of arrest.
One of those arrested in this raid was Juan, an opponent from a northern department who was involved in the 2018 protests. I met Juan in those turbulent days when he told me his version of the police attack on some protesters who had blocked the access streets of a city highway, in which three young people were shot. At that time, I interviewed him in a secret house while patrolmen patrolled outside.
When I called him about this chronicle, Juan told me that he was no longer involved in “these issues” and ended the conversation. EL PAÍS tried to communicate with other people arrested during the massive crackdown in May, but none of them wanted to talk about it. “We decided that it was better to be quiet and remain silent than to go into exile,” says Lucy, who clarifies: “The truth is that people are so afraid that they don't even want to come forward anymore “If a family member was arrested for political reasons.”
The capture of the communities
The last time I spoke to Julio, a 60-year-old farmer from the middle of the country, he was working on his farm with his family. The city where he lived was one of the cities most opposed to the Ortega government. When I arrived at his house in early 2021, he belonged to a liberal political party that had won every election in which it had participated up to that point. Sandinism had never ruled there.
Julio met with other colleagues at his home to talk about politics. He said without fear that his people “should be an example so that there is no longer any fear of tyrants throughout Nicaragua.” But everything changed with the results of the local elections in November 2022, when the country's 153 mayoralties were in the hands The Sandinistas remained without real opposition in elections after several parties were disqualified, accelerating the implementation of a one-party regime. “When we lost the mayor's office, Sandinista militants started harassing me. The police parked in front of my house and threatened me so that I would not continue to be active in politics,” Julio remembers.
In February 2022, masked men entered a plot where corn was being grown. Without saying a word, they threw him to the ground, held him with his hands behind his back, took his cell phone to check it and threatened to kill him if he continued to participate in politics. “That’s where I decided to leave the party because I didn’t want to be arrested or killed,” he continues.
Armed police officers patrol the streets of the city of Jinotega, Nicaragua.Cristobal Venegas (AP)
He emigrated to the United States in September of that year, but things didn't go well for him. He fell at work, broke his pelvic bone and was bedridden for four months to recover. “I hope to come back, but I see that the situation is getting more and more difficult,” Julio says by phone from Indianapolis.
—What is the opposition like in Nicaragua? -I ask him.
—Disabled… because of these people [Ortega y Murillo] They are satanic. Only they want the organizations [políticas]. There is nothing for us. There is no way to have a room. They notice something and are already looking for a way to neutralize you.
The fear of the priests
Fear. This is what Catholic priests experienced when the police hunted down six priests from the north of the country at the beginning of October last year. Then there was one last Christmas, which ended last Sunday with the expulsion of the 17 arrested priests and seminarians, as well as two bishops: Isidoro Mora and Rolando Álvarez, a symbol of resistance against Ortega and Murillo, who had been imprisoned since August 2022, all after Rome banished. A police source told me that the arrests came in October after Australian journalist Prue Lewarne of SBS News published an interview with a priest – without showing his face or identifying him – in which he spoke about the repression, which he learns about church in Nicaragua. According to this source, the arrests were made to find out who had spoken to her.
The Catholic Church has become the target of repression. After destroying the opposition – more than 1,300 have been imprisoned and at least 300 exiled in the past five years – and eliminating political parties and more than 3,000 NGOs, the Ortega government has focused its attacks on critical bishops and priests. Investigator Martha Patricia Molina keeps a detailed log of the attacks. By the end of 2023, 275 attacks were registered, the highest number since this data systematization began as a result of the political crisis of 2018.
Priests were the subject of constant surveillance and damage to churches, shootings, exorbitant charges, cuts to basic services, fires, looting, suspension of masses, confiscations, and the freezing of bank accounts of Catholic organizations were also documented. In addition, more than 100 priests were expelled from Nicaragua.
Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo lead a demonstration in Managua in 2018. Alfredo Zuniga (AP)
On December 7th last year, I was walking through my neighborhood while one of the country's most important and significant Catholic traditions was being celebrated: La Gritería. Thousands of people take to the streets to sing to images of the Virgin Mary on household altars. After the song, the hosts toast in exchange for a candy, juice, box of matches, whistles, headbands, nacatamales or plastic corduroys. It was an unusual day for Nicaraguan Catholics as several processions, such as those during Holy Week, were interrupted by police. However, screaming is still tolerated.
Control via WhatsApp
Roberto is a young political activist in a movement that emerged in 2018. He was one of the organizers of the marches in the city where he lived. In the early months of the revolt, he was captured along with other members of his family and sentenced to five years in prison for “attacks on members of the National Police.”
It came out six months later, in June 2019, with an amnesty law passed by the National Assembly for those detained during the protests. However, that did not mean the end of the harassment. “I had the impression that I was a political prisoner,” complains Roberto, who is in his early twenties. In fact, he was captured four more times, although he never spent a night in prison. “They captured me and quickly released me… they just told me not to get into any more trouble,” he says.
Roberto continued to meet secretly with several young activists while police patrols besieged his home. “They always came to rebellion commemorations because they wouldn’t let me leave the house… But they never caught me at a political meeting,” he says.
One day a police inspector came to his house. The man threatened him: “Don’t get into trouble, otherwise you’ll end up in prison.” The police officer asked him to report monthly via WhatsApp from that day on. On a certain day of the month, Roberto sent the inspector a photo and the location where he was. “If you don’t answer me, the patrol will come to your house immediately,” the man warned him.
Protest posters with the message “SOS Nicaragua”. PETER MARSHALL / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO
Roberto reported to the commissioner for four months until a raid took place in mid-September in which several colleagues from his political movement were arrested. “I thought they were coming for me,” Roberto remembers. And he fled the next day from the country.
Weeks later he managed to enter the USA irregularly. He is now in Texas, where he works in construction. However, one afternoon he received a message from the inspector. Roberto had forgotten that it was his turn to report that day. He told him everything and replied that he needed a photo and the exact address of his house in Texas. With some fear, Roberto wrote him the last message to end the conversation: “You can send the patrol to the house so you can see that I am no longer in Nicaragua.”
Roberto's fear, like that of most émigrés and exiles, did not end when he crossed the border into the United States. Although he is thousands of miles away, he does not want to be identified and still speaks quietly on the phone because he is afraid of what might happen to his wife and two young children, who are still in Nicaragua. With the internal opposition devastated, Ortega and Murillo's new strategy of sowing terror targets the relatives of the critics who have been forced to flee. In recent weeks, for example, relatives of dissidents have been banned from entering and leaving the country to mark Christmas, leaving entire families separated and in limbo. The same thing happened with Miss Universe, Sheynnis Palacios, and with the owner of the Miss Nicaragua franchise, Karen Celebertti, and her family.
It is the same helplessness that parishioners feel when their priest is arrested, the feeling of emptiness that a family feels when the police break down the door of a house to take one of their members into custody for opposing the regime. Ortega and Murillo have made Nicaragua a country silenced by fear, a place where oppression reigns.
Rolando Álvarez in the National Penitentiary System of Nicaragua. Ministry of the Interior of Nicaragua