Statement from IWL Central American Sections
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega released more than 200 political prisoners on Thursday, February 9. Without further explanation, the prisoners, including independent activists, students, peasant leaders, trade unionists and journalists, were taken out of prison and put on a plane to the United States.
They will have the right to remain in the United States for two years with political asylum, although they will not be granted work permits. They will also have to join the regular immigration programs with their high economic cost and will receive no other type of benefits.
At the same time, they will lose their Nicaraguan nationality and any possibility of returning to the country. In addition, the country’s judicial system has declared them “traitors to the homeland” and an official communiqué affirms the decision that these political prisoners are guilty “for undermining the independence, sovereignty, and self-determination of the people, for inciting violence, terrorism, and economic destabilization.”
Ortega’s case is a conscious maneuver typical of Stalinism: denying people’s status as citizens of a country in order to deny them their political rights. When they do this, they swell the ranks of Nicaraguan exiles around the world. Imperialism and the regime are attempting to clean up their image with this measure, but for us it continues to be a capitalist dictatorship against working people.
From the Central American sections that make up the International Workers League, we celebrate the release of political prisoners as a result of the tireless denunciation of the dictatorship by Nicaraguans in exile. But at the same time, we believe that it is part of an agreement between the regime and US imperialism to cover up the regime’s actions against working people.
Celebrating their release from prison does not mean that we acquit Ortega. Of course, it is a victory that they have been liberated, but that should not make us think that we are facing a change in the workings of the regime. As we have seen previously, what we are dealing with in this case is an expulsion, a banishment that deprives 220 people of their political rights.
In Nicaragua, there is a bloodthirsty capitalist dictatorship that persecutes and kills dissidents. The repression has gone on unceasingly since 2018, the year of the historic popular uprising against the dictatorship that could only be extinguished by a bloodbath that ended in almost 700 people killed, hundreds disappeared, thousands displaced, and the loss of all democratic freedoms for those who remain in Nicaragua.
This situation continues to be true today, the proof of which is that there are still 34 political prisoners in the country’s jails. Bishop Rolando Alvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison and was included among those released, but he decided to remain in Nicaragua and was stripped of his nationality.
We also point out the hypocritical attitude of U.S. imperialism, which took the opportunity to celebrate Ortega’s measure and say it was a good sign. This discourse contrasts with reality because both the Trump administration and now Biden have never stopped doing business with the dictatorship, and have refused to implement strong sanctions. European powers hold the same attitude, such as the Spanish State who joined the chorus of support by offering the exiles asylum and Spanish nationality.
Just as we have not stopped denouncing the Ortega dictatorship, and we owe him no thanks for this measure, we do the same with imperialism that keeps its policy of plundering and looting our countries intact, while also siding with the different regimes that guarantee its business interests.
The Biden administration maintains its imperialist policy towards Ortega, which seeks a way out via the framework of diplomacy while continuing its repression and the elimination of democratic freedoms. Biden knows that an uprising similar to that of 2018 could lead to the questioning of imperialist domination in the region, which is why he remains firm in his pact with the Ortega dictatorship.
In this context, CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) has not made any statements on the democratic problems that exist in Nicaragua. Like all the other imperialist organizations, as well as the regional bourgeoisie, they limit themselves to celebrating the measure and saluting the flag, without taking up the struggle for the liberation of all political prisoners, or the fight against the dictatorship.
The spokesmen of imperialism, the big international media, and the world’s right-wing try to paint themselves as the defenders of human rights and freedom and put all their efforts into denouncing what is happening in Nicaragua. Yet, we do not see them denouncing the persecution of political prisoners in Chile during the mobilizations of 2019, or Honduras with the narco-government of Juan Orlando Hernández. The struggle for the liberation of political prisoners should be the banner of oppressed peoples against capitalist governments, whether they are dictatorships like those of Ortega, Maduro, Diaz Canel in Cuba, or in the case of regimes wrongly called democratic as in Chile, where there is a government that claims to be progressive but continues to keep Piñera’s political prisoners in detention.
The release of political prisoners in Nicaragua reminds us of this struggle’s validity throughout the world. Capitalism uses the state as a tool of repression and domination to eliminate any trace of opposition. The misnamed “justice” is in reality justice for the bourgeoisie: the owners of the means of production, the bankers and landowners. While for the people who struggle, prisons and the criminalization of protest is what awaits them.
In Central America, we have not only the dictatorship of Ortega, but also a Bonapartist government like that of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. The latter’s regime, since it has taken control of the powers of the Republic in order to benefit the business interests of big national and foreign capitalists, has undertaken an intense repression of activists and leaders of trade unions and the popular movement, using laws recently passed to imprison union and community leaders.
In Costa Rica, in the face of the assassination of indigenous leaders, the justice system has developed complex legal proceedings that often leave those responsible unpunished, as in the case of Sergio Rojas, while it also persecutes those involved in the struggle with laws that limit the right to strike. The authoritarian style of Rodrigo Chaves is part of this regional tendency towards authoritarianism that the popular sectors must resist.
In Honduras, a systematic policy of assassinations and persecution of leaders has also been implemented. Let us remember the assassination of Berta Cáceres, and dozens of popular leaders by the repressive forces of the State, with the total complicity of the rulers and their judicial system. Let us not forget Santos Hipolito Rivas and his son Javier, and many other activists assassinated during Xiomara’s government.
That is why the Central American sections of the International Workers League celebrate the release of the 220 political prisoners as a victory for the movement for the liberation of political prisoners. We demand that these people have their citizenship restored and the possibility of returning to their country; furthermore, let us not forget that there are still 34 political prisoners, for whom we demand their total liberation.
In order to achieve true freedom, Ortega must go, not the political prisoners. That is why we believe that we must fight for the fall of the dictatorship. The workers and the Nicaraguan people need to wage a heroic battle as they did in 2018. The weakness of the resistance was not taking the confrontation to its final conclusion, not deepening the blockades, not developing the general strike nor the armed self-defense of neighborhoods. The struggle must lead to our definitive victory, which will be fall of the regime through revolutionary methods.
We must take up as our cause the region’s struggle against dictatorships, organize to destroy the bourgeois state, and remove the bourgeois and oppressors from power by means of a socialist revolution, not by diplomacy. In this way we will undertake the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, and, by installing a workers’ government, we will put the means of production and the country’s wealth in the service of meeting the popular sectors’ needs.
In order to do this we need to build a revolutionary party in Nicaragua that will lead to the defeat of the dictatorship and of capitalism, as a fundamental part of the Central American revolution. Faced with the dictatorship’s support from Stalinism, and the complicity of the reformist parties, now more than ever we must build a revolutionary leadership in Central America that will wage an all-out struggle against dictatorships and capitalist domination.
Workers Party – Costa Rica
Socialist Workers Party – Honduras
Working Class Platform – El Salvador
