When, in April 18, Nicaraguan students began mobilizing on the streets to protest against the Social Security reform, in support to the retirees, no one could say that the movement would turn into a true popular revolt against Daniel Ortega’s government, his vice-president (and wife) Rosario “Chayo” Murillo, and the Sandinista Front of National Liberation (FSLN).
By Bernardo Cerdeira.
The government’s reaction to the first demonstrations was brutal. The police repressed the students violently using fire weapons, helped by armed groups of the Sandinista Youth and the so-called “Sandinista Mob,” paramilitary groups linked to the government. The Inter American Committee of Human Rights (CIDH) counted, so far, 76 death by the repression forces, plus hundreds of wounded and imprisoned.
The repression had the opposite effect: students occupied the universities and technical schools; popular neighborhoods made barricades; the population reacted with improvised weapons; public buildings were set on fire; and the demonstrations grew in the main cities, the most expressive of them counting over 200 thousand people all over the country.
The government took back the Social Security reform, but the demonstrations gained a more important goal: to defeat the dictatorial government. The main slogan of all demonstrations was “Out with Ortega!”
The president is trying to save his government demobilizing the fight through a national dialogue proposed by the CEN (Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua) and the COSEP (Superior Council of the Private Company,) main Nicaraguan bourgeois organization. Neither of these organizations pose the leave of the Ortega family from the power as a condition. However, Ortega’s goal is not the dialogue but to earn some time to crush the students’ and popular movement and stay in power.
The situation in Nicaragua and the popular fight to defeat the dictatorship of the Ortega couple and the FSLN divides waters among the left. The most extreme wing of the so-called Bolivarian left affirms that the popular revolt would be something articulated by the CIA and the Nicaraguan right-wing with the goal of destabilizing another progressive government, like in Venezuela and the alleged coup in Brazil.
Nothing less true! The Ortega government is a bloody dictatorship, that exploits and hands the country over to imperialism. Thus, the entire Latin American left is forced to pick a side: or together with the heroic fight of the Nicaraguan people against the repression and exploitation, or next to the dictatorship that tries to hide behind a fake progressive mask. We chose our side already: with the students, peasants and workers fighting on the streets.
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Originally published @ https://www.pstu.org.br/abaixo-ortega-fora-ditador-assassino/
