This interview provides insight into a perspective from the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, a voice not often heard in current debate. It also highlights the internal struggle in the opposition with the business sector, precisely when the government passed a reform to the consumer defense law which is designed to force the business sector to negotiate with the regime again, as the law puts them between a rock and a hard place. They face either fines and punishment for not reopening bank accounts of the 28 top Sandinista leaders facing international sanctions, or they face losing their ability to do international banking if they do reopen those accounts in violation of the sanctions. The only way out of the impasse is to reach a working agreement with the government and ignore the political reality of the dictatorship. Exactly the critique of the business sector´s behavior prior to the explosion in April 2018.
Interview: George Henríquez: “My candidacy makes racism visible”
By Abixael Mogollón in La Prensa, Feb 7, 2021
Henríquez tells about the different ways that they have tried to achieve unity with the Civic Alliance, and states that it is the moment to pressure the business sector. In addition, he talks about Yatama, abortion and the position of CxL.
When the first pre-candidates were announced for the 2021 elections, the name of George Henríquez was not among those expected. The Caribbean activist became one of the youngest contenders to participate in these elections, if they end up being held.
He began to get involved very young in leadership positions in his community and school. But, even though in recent years he has been part of the Yapti Tasba Masraka Nahih Aslatakanka party (Yatama), he continues in the shadow of the former deputy Brooklyn Rivera, who he called the “maximum leader”.
Since before elections began to be talked about in Nicaragua it was common to hear opposition leaders avoid uncomfortable questions. But George Henríquez did not avoid responding to all the questions that he was asked in this interview, and he gave his opinion about relevant issues and other polemic ones like his position on abortion.
Before beginning the interview, he made it clear that his activism did not begin in April 2018 and emphasizes his formation and years of struggle for the rights of the people of the Coast.
What would be your project of nation, if you were a candidate to the Presidency of the Republic?
From the National Coalition we are preparing a national plan and what I will take in my political campaign is that plan.
You will have your proposals.
That women can decide about their bodies, the issue of the exoneration of taxes on small and medium businesses, the subsidy for the electric rate for small and medium businesses. The issue of the Army, that we do not need it and we have to decrease the spending of the Army slowly and redistribute that budget to educational matters.
The topic of abortion is pretty controversial within Nicaragua.
Racism causes controversy, tax exoneration causes controversy, we cannot avoid those topics and we have to talk about them. We cannot give empty, double meaning speeches. People have to know what the position of the candidates on these topics is before voting for them, so that later on they don´t come out with surprises for us. These topics must be on the national debate and a lot of people are not going to like it. You have to give women the right to decide about their bodies, you have to protect life and we cannot be judge and jury. Each one is going to be judged for what each person considers a sin.
Almost always when the April protests are talked about, people talk about the men beaten in León. What do they talk about in the Caribbean?
We began the protests in March 2018 in Bluefields. But our protest was in support of the transportation workers of local buses. We joined as civil society and no one talks about this, but we did a barricade on a bridge that links Nueva Guiena with Bluefields, and leads to the highway that goes to Managua. It was nearly a day and a half of blockade. Then in April the other protests exploded.
When you announced your pre-candidacy, the lawyer Manuel Urbina Lara did a publication in mockery of you.
When he referred to me and said that I was a cousin of Bob Marley, that was really a compliment. But the problem was when he said that what I do was barbaric. I am not going to give to any of these actors the power, nor do they have the power, that any comment that they might make about my ethnic identity can affect me.
Are those type of comments frequent?
Of course, with my candidacy racism became clearly visible and the classism of a lot of the political and economic class of the country. It was visible and they could not hide it.
In the last CID Gallup survey, you do not show up among the first three most popular candidates.
A survey measures in some way the pulse of the population at a certain moment. But that pulse it seems to me is too early to provide a tendency, because first of all the opposition does not have a place on the ballot. The second thing is that there is no defined presidential formula, and the survey was done of 1200 people, which is not even 100 people per province or autonomous region and was mostly done in the urban zone of Managua and the Pacific. That percentage is very low and I am very sorry, but I am not going to abandon my candidacy.
There is not enough time left, do you think that you can score better in a new survey?
Of course, definitely. As long as the survey is accessible on the social networks, if it is accessible in different territories and zones of the country that are not urban, I think that I could get a better percentage than that.
Up until some years ago Yatama was a declared ally of the Sandinista Front.
They always ask that question and I think that it is based on a very poor analysis and lack of knowledge of the history of Yatama. The alliance of Yatama with the Sandinista Front was done because the Nicaragua Triumph Alliance had agreed upon between 11-13 points to achieve for the Caribbean Coast and indigenous peoples. That is why the alliance was made, then during the second period of the Frente in power Brooklyn Rivera went to the dictator and said to him that they were not complying with the agreements signed and the dictator, who felt that he had already settled, went and stripped Brooklyn Rivera of his seat, and that was before 2018. Rivera returned to Bilwi and is once again elected the maximum leader of the party.
This means that, if Ortega would have complied with those accords, Yatama would continue being an ally of the Sandinsta Front?
It is clear that when one has an cohabitation agreement, and those agreements are followed, you continue with the relationship. But from Yatama we had already seen the authoritarian and dictatorial tendency of the regime, that is why it was broken. We are talking about 2014, but your question comes in reference to 2018 and it was not possible to continue in alliance with the regime if we had already broken it.
Does the alliance continue broken?
You all from the Pacific do not do the analysis either. In 2017 they burned the party´s building in Bilwi, they burned radio Yapti Tasba with Brooklyn Rivera inside and we had to get him out. In addition, they removed the Indian of Bilwi, which is one of the most symbolic statutes of the indigenous struggle. Other followers of Yatama had to run in those days because they were persecuted by paramilitaries of the regime.
Does Brooklyn Rivera currently have some type of relationship with the Sandinista Front?
We do not have any type of relationship with the Sandinista Front. This is demonstrated, but they do not follow up on our work nor on the autonomous regions. Yatama still has political credibility and as a social movement in the autonomous regions and also on the national level. That is why the Social Movements that called for the National Coalition identified Yatama as a key political actor.
How much power does Rivera continue having within the party?
We try to ensure that power is not concentrated in just one person. There is an assembly and a board of directors that decides. Brooklyn Rivera is the maximum leader of the representation of Yatama, but we try to ensure that it not fall on just one person, but yes, Brooklyn Rivera has a lot of power in decision making.
And why has that decision making power not alternated?
Look, the leadership and initiatives within parties function differently from those of civil society and I believe that Yatama is committed to generational replacement. Because the people who are representatives of Yatama in the National Coalition are young indigenous. Yatama is committed to the replacement, but this does not happen overnight. I could not appear at the age of 23 saying that I want to be the maximum leader. It does not work that way and leadership posts are won and assigning leadership by pointing a finger does not work. In March of this year, we are going to elect the new national board of Yatama and I hope to be part of it
You, for example, could be the leader of Yatama if Brooklyn Rivera would step aside.
It is that Yatama has several leaders, but what happens is that the national press only focuses on Brooklyn Rivera, because he has been the image and reference point for the Contra fight. But there are many leaders and he has already said that these spaces have to be ceded with the accompaniment of the entire leadership.
Is it not difficult to achieve leadership on a national level, when you have not been able to achieve it in your party?
When that happens, I am not going to go on my own to represent the opposition. If I win the primaries, I will have the support of the entire National Coalition. So, I would not be alone in that boat.
With a divided opposition, what do you aspire to?
You cannot hide what is clearly seen. There is division and there are two factions of the opposition. One that includes the National Coalition, and another that I call the business faction, which is the faction of the Civic Alliance. I sincerely aspire that we might be able to create a solid block against Ortega out of these two opposing tendencies.
Has any of the business people explained why they left the National Coalition?
They left because people with money are not accustomed to negotiating and debating with people from the street and with people on foot. When the business people see and listen to some of the positions of civil society, they feel that they are on another level and do not have to sit down and debate and negotiate power, because they are rich. And to some fashion they wanted the opposition to revolve around the Civic Alliance. They want to be the head and that when they say that we have to jump, we all jump. As the National Coalition we said no. That when we go to jump, we are going to discuss how high we are going to do it and why, and then we will do it. I think that the Alliance did not like that.
And why did the CxL never want to join the National Coalition?
Because of the same approach of the Civic Alliance. It is that they see everyone like “the others” who have to follow them as the chosen ones. We see each sector as a complementary and important actor to defeat the regime. CxL feels that they do not need complements and have not won anything. I feel that this party overvalues itself and have not won anything.
There are sectors within the CxL itself that attack the Coalition, calling them the radical left.
With a regime that is shooting at you and jailing you, there is no space for false oppositions and being on the grey side. Possibly they might not like this, that we are not false opponents and we are fully into this. The issue is not that they accuse us of radicals, the issue is that we are facing a totalitarian regime.
So the Citizen Alliance are false opponents?
I think that they represent an important sector with some type of influence on the national level and economically. But they alone cannot be the opposition in the country without taking into account all the organizations that were there previously and after April. I do not think they are a false opposition, but I do think that they in some way want to accommodate and they have to demonstrate the opposite.
Have you challenged the Alliance about this position at some time?
Our discourse was always clear and direct, and we could discuss it, but when they did not like something, they would not show up. The problem is that they do not have control nor dominion over people like me, who owe them nothing.
Do you think that you can overcome these positions of both of you?
I hope so. From the Coalition we maintain the invitation to talk and get to a solid and consolidated opposition block. The country demands this and if it is important to cede on some things, then it is important to cede for the country.
What has Yatama ceded?
We have ceded a lot from the moment in which our demands (of the Caribbean Coast) have not been made visible in the national demands. We are clear that the National Coalition is not going to resolve those demands. But we see the Coalition as an entity that can resolve it after coming to power in the short and medium term. We cannot place our demands and the political agenda of the Caribbean Coast to one side, they go hand in hand with getting rid of the dictatorship. It is urgent to get out of the dictatorship.
If that unity is not achieved, will you go to the elections divided?
That decision still has to be made on the part of the National Coalition. It has not been decided how to participate in elections.
Yatama might surprise us participating in elections without electoral reforms and a divided opposition?
Yatama cannot participate to take power on the national level and if we only opt for regional deputy positions, the regime once again is going to steal the presidency. So that is the reason for the pressing need of these leaders and political parties from the Pacific. The conflict in the opposition is in the leadership of the Pacific, not in Yatama.
I suppose that you have said this to the Coalition, and you have pointed out their mistakes to them.
Definitely, in the spaces that we have had I have brought this up to them. Another strategy that could force the business sector to form part of a solid block is if we apply economic pressure through national strikes of work stoppages and economic boycotts. I think that the only way that the business sector is going to sit down is if we put them against the wall and we carry out an economic boycott.
The business sector will feel that as an attack.
Look, talking has been attempted, spokespeople have attempted, but there are people in the country who function like the regime, and if they do not feel corralled, they do not sit down to negotiate. Independent consultants have been used, ambassadors, celebrities, and leaders. All the academic part and traditional political part has been done, and still it has not been achieved. It is time to try another mechanism to see if it will work, and then make a decision to say that everything was now tried, and they do not want opposition unity in just one block.
You know that this type of statements later they will use to call you radicals.
But how is radicalism defined, if radicalism is not bad. Jesus was a radical person. The radicalism that we present is a non-violent radicalism and does not look for blood. It is a radicalism that has different forms of pressure when the traditional way does not work.