By Judith Flores
(Analysis) The radicalization of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo beheaded the opposition, canceled legal status to three political parties, kept more than 200 political prisoners in dungeons, consolidated the repressive state with the hiring of more agents, and has the backing of the Armed Forces, the Police and paramilitary groups.
Almost five years after the socio-political crisis that broke out in 2018, the dissidence in exile has not managed to consolidate an opposition bloc.
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Distrust and opportunism of the dissident Sandinismo that governed with Ortega during the first Sandinista regime (1979-1990) have prevailed, which aims to head the leadership of that opposition and come to power and install a leftist regime.
THE DIFFERENT SANDINISMO
Some Nicaraguans believe that the tendencies of Sandinismo could be “understood” again. Their arguments are based on two historical facts that support this thesis.
Before the war against the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was divided into three tendencies – the Prolonged Popular War, the Proletarian, and the Insurrectional or third tendency.
The last one, headed by brothers Daniel and Humberto Ortega and Victor Tirado Lopez, to which Dora Maria Tellez belonged, today a politician imprisoned by her former ally.
The other two tendencies were made up of Tomás Borge Martínez, Carlos Núñez Téllez, Bayardo Arce Castaño, Jaime Wheelock, Henry Ruiz, and Luis Carrión Cruz.
The three tendencies united in December 1978 in the final offensive against the Somoza government, which they overthrew on July 19, 1979.
In the communiqué announcing the unity, they declared their “anti-imperialism” and the mediation of the U.S. government.
“We reject the imperialist mediation, which is nothing more than a crude interventionist maneuver by means of which Yankee imperialism tries to mock the revolutionary aspirations of the Nicaraguan people by implanting a reactionary government subjected to its designs, a Somocismo without Somoza.
We warn that we will intransigently oppose imperialist intervention, raising our revolutionary rifles against it,” the published document stated.
They were ranting against the United States even though they received the support of the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter, who, after the Sandinista triumph, received in the White House Ortega, Sergio Ramírez Mercado, and Alfonso Robelo, members of the Government Junta of National Reconstruction.
The three Sandinista groups governed in a single bloc and established a socialist dictatorship following the directives of the communist regime of Cuba.
It was common to see Sandinista leaders, the so-called nine “comandantes” and “guerrilla commanders” like Téllez, meeting and smiling with the dictator Fidel Castro.
It was a time when there were extrajudicial executions, public executions, mass graves, and imprisonment of anyone who had been a Somocista or an opponent of Sandinismo.
Thousands fled the country, first for political reasons, then for economic reasons.
The Red Christmas, in 1983 on the Atlantic Coast, and the mass graves of La Pólvora, are among the crimes committed by Sandinismo documented at the time by human rights organizations.
The abuses, persecution, and crimes against the population during a decade led Sandinismo to lose the elections in 1990, after the attrition of a second war financed on the one hand by the United States and, on the other hand, the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Five years after the loss of power, the Sandinistas were divided for the second time.
A sector of Sandinismo led by Sergio Ramírez Mercado, former vice-president of Nicaragua, and other leaders created their own party: the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS, today Unamos), which calls itself “democratic left”, despite the criminal background of its founders.
REUNIFICATION TO SUPPORT ORTEGA
Six years later, in August 2021, the Sandinistas united again.
This time for the elections to support Daniel Ortega, the FSLN’s perpetual candidate, who two years earlier had been denounced for sexual abuse and rape by his stepdaughter Zoilamérica Ortega-Murillo.
In March 1998, Zoilamérica denounced the abuse to which her stepfather had subjected her since she was 11 years old in Costa Rica.
Some Sandinista dissidents supported her, but the denunciation was stoned to death when they joined Ortega in returning to power. The stories of sexual abuse mattered little.
The photo taken in 2021 where Ortega and Dora María Téllez, the MRS leader, raised their arms to seal their alliance was captured for history. The denunciation of Zoilamérica was left behind.
These and other facts continue to create distrust in the population.
Almost five years after the April 2018 crisis, the dissident Sandinismo has located its activists in different countries to create its support network and get funds to “fight” against its former comrade Ortega.
But despite this, it does not manage to create a unity bloc, even with the support of a media machine.
This is due to the distrust they generate in the population because of their past crimes, which remain unpunished thanks to the amnesties approved in 1990.
Historic Sandinismo and its tendencies are once again facing an internal conflict. It is worth mentioning that more than 70% of Nicaraguans do not support Sandinismo, according to polls.
And while the tyrant Ortega shows arrogance and launches expletives against “imperialism”, thousands of Nicaraguans are fleeing to the United States for political and economic reasons.
History repeats itself for the second time.
With information from Gaceta
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