Daniel Ortega: The guerrilla turned autocrat

(Originally posted in elpais.com)The Carretera a Masaya, a long artery that pretends to be the business center of the capital of Nicaragua, which connects it with the city that has always been the epicenter of the Nicaraguan rebellion, boiled to the rhythm of chicheros — traditional musicians — scandalous vuvuzelas and answering music. The melodious voice of Carlos Mejía Godoy, the singer of the Sandinista revolution, was heard on a parquet floor. Above, a sky of intense blue, the clear Nicaraguan tropical sky. At the teacher's order, silence was imposed to hear him sing “Ay, Nicaragua, Nicaragüita”, the revolutionary anthem that sings to a country free of family dynasties. There were dozens of women dressed in white, with black ties on their breasts. They were the "mothers of April"who lost their children a month earlier in the repression unleashed by President Daniel Ortega against whom - mostly young university students - demanded the end of his regime. They sang Mejía Godoy. "But now that you're free, Nicaragüita, I love you so much more." It was Mother's Day in the Central American country and tens of thousands of Nicaraguans filled this avenue to commemorate the victims. "Daniel and Somoza are the same thing!" The mass shouted. The march advanced between the celebration and solemnity until the pum! Pum! from the bullets it burst. On the burning asphalt, young people killed by snipers fell - as determined by human rights organizations - while a few blocks away, wrapped by thousands of followers, Daniel Ortega decreed:

That scene illustrates the fracture suffered by the country celebrating this week the 40th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, and that was the fantasy of the Latin American left when a group of idealist young rebels defeated the Somocista dynasty. Daniel Ortega (La Libertad, Chontales, 1945) today you no longer saw an olive-green military suit or left Nicaragua to denounce "Yankee imperialism." The myth of the young man who joined the underground Sandinista Front in the late sixties, who raided banks and participated in conspiracies against the Somoza guard, who was imprisoned and tortured by the dictatorship, and later returned triumphant from exile to forge the “New Nicaragua,” gave way to an aged man, hunched over, with a beaten face, who spends most of his days locked in his bunker, a militarily sheltered fortress, from where the coup of the April rebellion in 2018 fits, when thousands of Nicaraguans - mostly young idealists as he once was - challenged their power by taking control of the streets. Ortega now rules next to his wife,Rosario Murillo , whom he has baptized as the Eternally Loyal, and his children, who control a powerful media apparatus, become rich entrepreneurs, while fulfilling their whims. One formed a rock band; another takes the Pucciniano Festival to the tropical Managua to show off as a tenor in the Turandot drama; and another sets up a fashion show to imitate the catwalks of New York. A whole splurge in the poorest country in America after Haiti.

Since April 2018, Ortega has been dedicated to massacreing his people through attacks on demonstrations and rebel strongholds in the so-called Operation Cleaning, caravans of armed men who have left at least 325 dead according to international human rights organizations. He tries to maintain the control of a power forged since 2006 - when he returned to the presidency - with an alliance with the fortunes of Nicaragua that, although they despised him, saw in the commander a strong man capable of maintaining stability in this country volcanic, always on the edge of the eruption, so violently sweet, as Julio Cortázar said.

The oil aid that came from Caracas allowed Ortega to maintain a system of gifts for the poorest while amassing a great fortune, but with his ally in full crisis, the Sandinista leader is increasingly isolated. Its alliance with the Army dome - in exchange for juicy business - is one of the pillars that sustains the regime. But the military nervously sees the sanctions of the United States and Canada and the isolation to which most Latin American nations have subjected them. Ortega is an old political fox, knows the vices of the Nicaraguan elite and has managed to overcome other crises, such as the blow given by his stepdaughter, Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, when he accused him of rape in 1998.

To avoid new sanctions, he has shown openness by opening himself to an uncertain dialogue with the opposition and freeing dozens of political prisoners, while, like the last of the Somoza in the late 1970s, he tries to demonstrate strength and stability to his bases. Like Somoza in his last days, the old guerrilla, who became an autocrat, attends rallies in armored vehicles with a great security display to affirm that in Nicaragua the "revolution" continues and that he has no plans to leave power. "Here we all stay!" He decreed.

Source: elpais.com