This April 19 marks one year since the beginning of the Nicaraguan popular rebellion, which went quickly from a struggle against neoliberal pension reform to a true popular and youth rebellion that managed to put the dictatorship in check for several weeks.
By PT-Costa Rica
The roadblocks and the opposition control of cities like Masaya were a reflection of the most important moment of the struggle during the months of April and May. Quickly the self-proclaimed student spokesmen, the COSEP businessmen and the Catholic Church authorities took the fight to a dialogue that only served to demobilize and give time to the dictatorship, a serious betrayal that costs lives, prison and thousands of exiles .
Instead of seriously discussing the need for the barricades and cities in resistance to prepare for self-defense to face the repression that was coming, the opposition led by COSEP imposed the dialogue route, it called to ” ease the roadblocks” and to renounce any type of weapons to defend the cities, it boosted confidence in the support from imperialist countries such as the United States and its respective organizations, such as the OAS and the UN.
With the dialogue started in May, the Sandinismo had a break and reacted like a wounded beast. Reorganized the police and paramilitary forces, launched the cleanup operation in July to control cities such as Masaya, and dismantled, one by one, the roadblocks that maintained brave resistance but with no more weapons than a few mortars.
The Sandinistas , with the continental support of Chavismo and the Sao Paulo Forum (Frente amplio de Costa Rica, FMLN of El Salvador, Libre from Honduras) initiated the massacre of its own people. Today there are 523 deaths and more than 800 political prisoners, thousands of exiles. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment are frequent, the dictatorship has generated exemplary sentences: peasant leader Medardo Mairena was sentenced to 216 years in prison.
Now, unlike April and May, we are in a defensive wave against the dictatorship, the affirmation of “we are winning” on the part of the Alliance is irresponsible.
Today all the pressure from the Alliance is to negotiate under the terms of Ortega and big bankers (The Pellas Lafisse group and Banco de la Produccion). Similar to the 1971 pact between conservatives and the Somoza dictatorship , or the Ortega-Alemán pact of 2008, what the new dialogue aims for is an agreement to save bankers and businessmen, at the expense of people continuing to face the dictatorship tyranny; in the banking sector profits went from 14 million dollars in March 2018 to 2 million dollars in December 2018. That’s why it is not surprising that bankers are desperate to “normalize” the situation and business.
The new negotiation is seen with deep distrust by the Nicaraguan people, accustomed to the pacts of the leadership. The leaders of the Alliance at the negotiating table are all male and mostly businessmen; their demands no longer include the immediate removal of the dictatorship , the political prisoners are being used as negotiating currency, they opt for uncertain elections that the regime refuses to carry out, nor do they demand the dissolution of the repressive bodies ( paramilitaries, Sandinista Police and the Army), much less the trial, punishment and confiscation of Ortega’s property.
From the International Workers League and its parties in Central America we have been from the first day in favor of the rebellion against the Ortega-Murillo tyranny. Now it is essential to draw political conclusions in order to resume the struggle against the tyrant. That is why we must begin by pointing out that this new dialogue led by the bankers and the COSEP will only lead to more defeats, to the strengthening of tyranny and an increase in repression.
In Nicaragua, it is urgent to build a true revolutionary alternative, one that confronts the dictatorship and that opposes the Civic Alliance’s treacherous plan that bets for a new useless dialogue. From the IWL we advocate building that political alternative without which the Nicaraguan people will continue to be the prey of two factions that are enemies of their interests.
Translated by Blas
