The emails that confirm the political control of the FSLN over public employees
In DIVERGENTES, Oct 13, 2022
A leak of emails from public institutions exposes the control that the structures of the Sandinista Front exercise on State workers so that they participate in party activities. The orders are transmitted by members of the Sandinista Youth and political secretaries. The functionaries are forced to participate in walks through neighborhoods to promote “support for the comandante” and other political activities. The objective of the strategy is to create the appearance of “popular support” for the regime.
The political secretary reads the list out loud. One by one he marks the names of the ten workers of the Ministry of Health (MINSA) who showed up one morning in September to comply with a new “work assignment.” Nevertheless, the activity is not part of the regular work of the public employees, but attending is obligatory if they do not want to be fired. This supposed “assignment” is part of a strategy for the political-party control that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo impose on State institutions, as confirmed in some official emails that DIVERGENTES analyzed.
“It does not matter whether it is Saturday or Sunday, whether it is morning or night, we have to be ready for the call,” says Sandro, one of the workers who participated in this campaign.
The order that the political secretaries gave to Sandro and his fellow workers was to go house by house asking about the number of members of each family and whether they are of age to vote in the coming elections organized by the Supreme Electoral Council without competition scheduled for November 6th this year. “They want have clarity about who is voting and who is not,” continues Sandro, who accepted doing this interview under conditions of anonymity.
The leak of hundreds of emails that this communications media analyzed confirms the testimony of Sandro. The emails expose how this party control is rigorously carried out in the institutions since the end of 2018. The objective, as public employees consulted for this article confirmed, is to ensure “popular support” for the Sandinista regime in their party activities, which has been constantly shrinking.
The emails were leaked by a group of hackers who call themselves “GhostSec.” “While citizens deal with poverty, the regime enjoys their lives without concern for those who are suffering,” they say in one of their messages published in their Twitter account.
The strategy for control to which Sandro and thousands of Government workers are subjected is not new. It was carried out before, but most functionaries who participated did so in a voluntary way. But since the social and political crisis of 2018 the situation changed: now the order is that everyone must attend the party activities in an obligatory fashion.
The leak confirms that the regime orders go from attendance in a march at any point of the capital to the participation of public employees in the delivery of food packages in poor neighborhoods in the country. For several weeks DIVERGENTES analyzed an enormous number of leaked documents and this is what it has found so far.
From “we are going with everything” to “Death to Somocism.”
On April 20, 2018, two days after Nicaraguans came out to protest over the failed social security reforms, the Vice President Rosario Murillo sent an email ordering the Sandinista militancy to propagate an official message on social networks. According to a publication of Confidencial, the email had two documents: a memo with orders to ramp up the discourse of the regime on social networks. And the second, a “strategy” with “principal points and aspects” to strengthen it.
The emails sent by Murillo go from April 19 when she ordered “we are going with everything” and the first three deaths were produced, to April 25 when she announced that the regime would be present in the first national dialogue called for by the Catholic bishops.
According to a source close to the regime, Murillo continued behind the strategy of repression and control, but this time using the political secretaries and other functionaries installed in the offices of the different ministries. They would transmit to the rest of the public employees what the directions were to show support for the “comandante.”
This time the emails sent to the functionaries had a less “violent” tone but continued with the same narrative:
“Good afternoon, dear compañeros. The reason for this email is to make it known to you that we are being called to participate in the activity called #DeathtoSomocismo #VictoriousOctober, for the purpose of showing support for our government in the different traffic circles,” says an email dated October 10, 2018.
This email was sent by Francis Solís, the coordinator of the Sandinista Youth (SY) in the National Forestry Institute (INAFOR). The order at that time was to position themselves in the principal traffic circles of the capital during two time periods; from 8am to 12 noon, and from 1-5pm.
“This task is for the entire month of October, in other words, we will be affected once a week without counting the Wednesdays, Saturdays and days where there are massive convocations,” Solís wrote in the rest of the email.
Luis, a public employee who worked in INAFOR between 2015 and 2020, confirmed that the party orientations were not to the liking of public employees, nevertheless, they had no other option than obey each one of the recommendations.
“If we would disobey, they would fire us. And it was not a simple threat. I saw several of my fellow workers on the way to human resources because of her letter. The message was clear. You are either with us or not,” explained Luis.
Another email sent that same day under the subject “Information SY” communicated about the role of each functionary in the delivery of food packets to be handed out in several municipalities of the province of Managua. The activity, as nearly always, had a party component.
“In the case of the deliveries everything is the same, nothing has changed. The men carry the packages, the women note down the data and both transmit the message from the comandante and his wife. In the case of new people, try to put them with people who have already done this so that they are not so lost,” says the email sent by Solís.
The coordinator of the Sandinista Youth called on the workers to be watchful of the day and hour for participating in the food delivery, and not look for them at the last moment. The orientation, according to Solís, was also sent by Whatsapp to avoid other problems.
“It was stressful to be receiving messages on the phone, by email, cell phone calls. And it was worse when some fellow workers resigned, because those who came in, did not take on the burden of participating in the party activities because they were friends of the political secretary and the SY,” stated Luis.
According to the emails analyzed that year, the employees of the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development, the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the Central Bank of Nicaragua, the General Income Office, the Attorney General of the Republic, and other Government offices, dedicated themselves exclusively to following the orders issued from El Carmen, the residence and presidential office of Ortega-Murillo.
In 2019 the tasks of handing out the food packets were done just as the authorities of the Sandinista Party had ordered. In 2020, despite the fact that the pandemic became a mortal threat for the entire world, activities continued without being able to question the fact that the State personnel were being exposed, which caused problems.
“In MINSA they forced us to go house to house to leave medicines which are not even indicated for the treatment of patients. Many fellow workers resigned, and others like me, we put up with it because there was no opportunity to change jobs,” stated Sandro.
This support under pressure, according to a sociologist consulted for this report, ends up being translated into a fictitious support which within the narrative of the regime is necessary to feel themselves strong every time they go out in public. “It comforts them to know that they have this support,” he added.
Working in the State or leaving the country
An enormous concern passes through Patricia’s head. The pressure to which she is subjected in her place of work within the Ministry of Promotion, Industry and Commerce creates stress for her and episodes of neuralgia since last year. “I don´t know whether to continue or leave the country,” she states.
In addition to being forced to attend each one of the party activities to which they are called by the political secretary of that institution, Patricia has to finish her assignments and carry out a new function: “watch over” or “spy” on the movements of her fellow workers.
“I can go to the marches, visit homes and do my work, but spying on my fellow workers…I cannot, I do not like it,” says Patricia, who is a single mother.
Patricia does not want to leave Nicaragua. she has made her life here and does not want to subject her children to the unnecessary stress that migrating implies. Nevertheless, she knows that resigning is not an option, and abandoning her job can create a conflict for her with the regime.
The conflict that Patricia refers to has to do with the threat of jail if she discloses everything that they have asked her to do in recent months. This public employee knows that resigning translates into leaving the country in order to not be a victim of persecution.
Sandro, who has been working for several years in MINSA, thinks the same as Patricia. But he is afraid of leaving and not getting anything in the United States, the preferred destination for Nicaraguans in the last two years. The pressure to which he is subjected he only puts up with because he is the only support for his family.
“It is tiring, and it is not just I who think that, also all of us who have spoken to the communications media think it. But some of us do not have any other path than this one, which is what we know how to do, and we have to put up with this control,” indicated Sandro.
In recent weeks several public employees have broken the silence that the Sandinista regime has imposed on them. Some have decided to provide interviews to media like Confidencial, and other continue contributing information anonymously.