The author of this article is a well known Nicaraguan poet who had a lot of contact with the current Vice president Rosario Murillo in artistic circles during the 1980s, from which she draws lessons for the current situation, especially to analyze the coming elections.
Chronicle of a presidency foretold
By Daisy Zamora in Revista Abril
Nicaraguan writer and poet, one of the most important of our contemporary literature. She was Vice Minister of Culture of Nicaragua, author of seven collections of poems in Spanish and four in English in the United States and England. Her most recent book is an anthology of her poetic work published in Spain, titled “La violenta espuma (Visor, 2017). She is the editor of several anthologies, among them the first anthology of Nicaraguan women poets published in her country and in Latin America, and the first anthology of poetry workshops in Spanish published in the United States. She was a combatant of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation (FSLN) during the war of liberation. She is known for her struggle in defense of women´s rights.
In Memory of Ernesto Cardenal and Vidaluz Meneses
I no longer know how to explain what I have said so many times, and what the priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal made clear in his last poem, published posthumously: el país en manos de una loca [the country in the hands of a crazy woman]. Because the delirium for power, the megalomania and other serious mental and emotional problems can only be measured by their external manifestation, but as such they are intangible
In the 80s the megalomania of Rosario Murillo was expressed in her obsession to control the cultural environment of the country, and in her fixation against Ernesto Cardenal and the Ministry of Culture that he led. We experienced and suffered her from the first moment; in the beginning sneaky and later cunning, but as soon as she positioned herself as secretary general of the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers (ASTC), she deployed her offensive and intensified to the maximum her attacks against the cultural institution.
Nevertheless, at that time not only was there no resolute support from the leadership for the Ministry of Culture of the State, but there was a lot of support for the web of lies invented by Rosario Murillo against the institution. One of the more vitriolic attacks was directed against the poetry workshops, backed by outstanding members of the ASTC. At the same time, secretly, the party leadership committee of the FSLN in the Ministry of Culture and certain members of the party also were doing the work of subversion from within, undermining the programs of the institution and favoring the interest of Murillo in the ASTC.
The prolonged campaign of Murillo against the Ministry of Culture involved maneuvers for coopting members of the ASTC through perks, favoritism, trips and the projection of their works so that they might submit to her methods, and there were those who for years took the most advantage of those “opportunities” as a platform for standing out, in spite of the fact that they knew that the ASTC in the hands of Murillo did not function as a union of artists and writers, but as an instrument of parallel power to the Ministry of Culture, which she opposed and discredited in its cultural work. In the book Entre la poesia y la pared, Poíítica Cultura Sandinista, 1979-1990, published by FLACSO Costa Rica and the University of Utrecht, Amsterdam (1994), the author Klaas S. Wellinga writes:
In the Congress of February 2-3, 1982, Rosario Murillo, the spouse of commandante Daniel Ortega […] is elected secretary general of the ASTC. She was the only candidate proposed – or imposed, according to some – by the FSLN and performed that function until the dissolution of the ASTC in February 1989. Under her dynamic leadership, the ASTC lost more and more its trade union nature, becoming in fact a second Ministry of culture, as was left demonstrated by the fact that it was 90% subsidized by the state.
In addition to the fact that the “method” of the election of Rosario Murillo sounds very familiar and current, her “stye” of leadership has not changed. Wellinga quotes Ernesto Cardenal from an interview given to El Semanario:
“there was a systematic attack of the ASTC and jealousy toward the Ministry of Culture, trying to annul everything that the Ministry of Culture was trying to do, from the magazine Ventana criticizing everything that the Ministry did, be it the International Festival for Political Songs, the movie Alsino y el condor, the Festival of Romantic Songs, whatever it was. We were the victims of Rosario Murillo until the Ministry was closed and turned into the Cultural Institute of Rosario Murillo…”
It is important to clarify these complexities and note the times, because a flat and superficial narrative has been established on the letter-pronouncement signed by artists and writers against Rosario Murillo, which was silenced appealing to the discipline of the members of the ASTC who were also militants of the FSLN. It is true that there was that protest, but also it is true that it happened very late, once Murillo blatantly dismantled the Ministry of Culture, terminated the Minister Ernesto Cardenal (on an official trip to Japan, where they called him to tell him that he was no longer the Minister), and named herself director general of a recently created Institute of Culture created by herself (and that still functions), at the same time that she continued being secretary general of the ASTC. In the face of such legal absurdity, the protest did happen, but this happened years after ongoing harassments and attacks on the Ministry of Culture, about which the artist and writer members of the ASTC had been perfectly informed, but likewise had endorsed Murillo in her campaign of slander.
So, it is important to leave clearly said that outstanding people from the ASTC who did accompany Murillo in the beginning in her campaign against the Ministry of Culture, later got scared when they caught on to the schemes and protested, but it was too late. Up to today there are people in the little literary world in Nicaragua (and who at that time supported Murillo) who said that the poetry workshops – one of the most visionary programs of Ernesto Cardenal – was damaging for Nicaraguan poetry, because they continued repeating slander engineered against that program, that they only read exteriorizing poetry, and that they wanted to create “Little mass produced Cardenals”, etc. At that time some of those people who still repeat such false statements were invited to participate as instructors in the workshops so that they might confirm that poetry of all times and styles were studied in those workshops, from all over the world (it is enough to read the collection of Poesía Libre, the monthly magazine for study in the workshops). But even though they had never visited a workshop, they continue repeating the lie invented at that time by Rosario Murillo, who was set on destroying the institution and removing the minister of culture, Ernesto Cardenal, and she did it. Nevertheless, she did not do it alone, she had enough accomplices to achieve her dream.
Of the old supporters of Murillo today there are those who can have the luxury of being critical; others who continue being loyal surreptitiously, but do not need to publish it because they are independent; and there are many more who, since then until now, see themselves needing to continue thriving in the aqueous Olympus of power of Murillo. Even though they try to pass unnoticed, they are required from time to time to make their loyalty public, paying in this way for favors received (for example, the shameful “Letter of support to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo” signed by artists and writers in 2018).
A megalomaniac like Murillo does not get to power on her own, but because she finds people who endorse her in her ravings for their own benefit. If before her dream was to be the big shot in culture, and found cronies to support her, now her dream is to be president of Nicaragua and she is going to be so by hook or by crook, because now there are people, as there were previously, who endorse her because it works to their advantage.
It has been very difficult for Murillo to wield the power that she has. When she tried to stabilize her relationship with Ortega, the most powerful leader in the revolution, she put up with insolence and humilliations and the sexual abuse of Ortega against Ziolamérica, her oldest daughter, until she positioned herself as his official consort. It was then that she took on the post of secretary general of the ASTC and editor of the cultural supplement Ventana of the newspaper Barricada, from whose trenches she tested her power, doing away with the Ministry of Culture. In order to establish herself as the spouse of Ortega, she was the most traditional of women, because she endured everything that in the heteropatriarchal and backward society in Nicaragua is endured from men, and in addition, she had many children from him and continued to allow him to abuse his stepdaughter. When the Sandinista Front lost the elections, Murillo had to experience difficult times, even though neither Ortega nor she desisted in the search for power. The pact with Arnoldo Alemán opened the path for them, but the public denouncement of Zoilamérica of the sexual abuse of Ortega was the inflection point, the key that Murillo seized, while repudiating her daughter and unconditionally backing the rapist Ortega, to obtain the maximum quota of power possible. Now by the elections of 2007 that Ortega won, the campaign was designed by her, who, contrary to all the advisors and consultants of the party, insisted on a complete change in the look of the candidate, who she dressed in white as a guru and surrounded him with bright colors and messages of love, peace and reconciliation. Ortega owed his victory to her, and after two periods with two vice presidents, Murillo demanded her turn and was handpicked by Ortega as his vice president.
Finally, vice president, Murillo saw herself on the threshold to the presidency, a dream for which she had paid a very high cost, but when she now saw it within her grasp, suddenly the civic protest and explosion of April 2018 happened, unconceivable for Ortega and Murillo, and in addition, incomprehensible for her that, in her megalomania, could neither assimilate nor tolerate that reality. From there the order of “we are going with everything”, her declaration of war to the death against the rebellious citizenry of Nicaragua. So, to the immense costs that Murillo has paid to get to where she is, have been added the massacres, persecutions, and arrests of which she is a co-author, in addition to the massive exile of Nicaraguans, caused by the misrule of her and her husband. Murillo does the accounting of all that it has cost her and what she still needs to pay to culminate her dream of being the absolute top dog of Nicaragua, and she is not going to let any human nor divine power from keeping her from realizing her dream.
Therefore, there will be no elections in the country because the narrative is that the United States and the European Union and the OAS, and all international organizations who pressure for free elections and impose sanctions, are “enemies of Nicaragua.” All the candidates for the presidency who present a minimal possibility of winning the elections, are also seen as mortal enemies, and will be jailed and inhibited at any cost, the people who raise their voices in protest and are perceived by Murillo as a threat, will also be jailed, and in the improbable case that there are “elections”, they will be only a parapet for Ortega and Murillo to legitimize themselves in power, and then, even though it might seem absurd, it is possible that then Ortega might say that for reasons of health or whatever, he would delegate the presidency to his consort Murillo. Neither the constitution of Nicaragua nor all the laws and international pressure will be able to block it, because now, like before, there are people in the country who endorse any craziness of this dictatorship, to continue benefitting personally. The Ortega Murillos will create any absurdity – one more in a long list – and Murillo will be our next president. If we do not understand that we are in the hands of a madwoman, as Ernesto Cardenal told us, and that there are enough cronies and sycophants who allow her to do and undo for their own benefit (beginning with her husband, Daniel Ortega), even though she does away with the country, we have not understood anything ever.