Nicaragua Rulers Grow Arrogant

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

 

The year 1979 was very much a zeitgeist shift in many parts of the world. We especially remember the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. But it was also when the Sandinista rebels took power in the Central American nation of Nicaragua.

I was a journalist in Washington in the 1980s, when they were the darlings of the progressive left, who were dubbed the “sandalistas” by the press. 

The Sandinistas were enraged when U.S. President Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, began supporting the so-called “contras” fighting Ortega’s revolutionaries.

Named for César Augusto Sandino, a hero of Nicaraguan resistance to the American military occupation of the country from 1927 to 1933, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was founded in 1962 as a revolutionary group committed to the overthrow of the Somoza family that ruled the country. 

By the mid-1970s their attacks led dictator Anastasio Somoza to unleash bloody reprisals against them. 

But the Sandinistas gained support and, headed by the brothers Daniel and Humberto Ortega, overthrew Somoza in July 1979. 

When Reagan began to support the” contras,” Nicaragua became dependent on the support of Cuba and the Soviet Union.

By 1990, Nicaraguans, weary of war and economic depression, voted for a coalition of opposition parties, and the Sandinistas relinquished power.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. The FSLN retained a base in the country’s army and police forces.

In 2006, the FSLN regained power when Ortega was elected president. Re-elected in 2011, Ortega also won a “supermajority” in the National Assembly, allowing him to amend the constitution by removing presidential term limits, setting the stage for Ortega’s re-election in 2016.

But, as is so often the case, the revolutionaries, having tasted power, begin to abuse it. Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who is today vice president, soon faced accusations of enriching themselves with government funds. 

Their children ran their business empire via a web of media companies that function as the government’s communications department.

The couple made institutional changes that allowed them to control the Supreme Court and the National Assembly, and were accused of electoral fraud. The Court blocked a leading opposition candidate from participating in the 2016 election.

Today, other Nicaraguans are fighting for freedom -- from Ortega and his cronies. In April several days of violence and mass unrest left some 60 people dead. 

The uprising was sparked by an overhaul of the social security system, which required workers to pay more and retirees to receive less. University students, already angry over a forest fire at a natural reserve that the government failed to extinguish, rallied against the changes.

Students took over the Polytechnic University in the capital, Managua. Radio Dario in the country’s ­second-largest city, Leon, was burned. 

Murillo issued a stream of belittling comments, calling the protesters “bloodsuckers,” “criminals,” and “vampires.” 

As word of the protests spread, Ortega’s government sought to punish the demonstrators. Police attacked crowds in the capital; they entered the Metropolitan Cathedral grounds and fired on hundreds of students huddled inside. 

Ortega was finally forced to rescind the changes to the social security system, and he agreed to negotiations with the students, but the damage was done.

Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes has now told the demonstrators that Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic Church would give Ortega one month to reach agreements that satisfy society's demands.

As is so often the case in Latin America, a revolution comes full circle: yesterday’s liberators become today’s elites, and the political cycle starts anew.