This opinion piece by exiled editor of La Prensa provides some common sense perspective to the worsening situation in Nicaragua.
The last kicks of a drowning man
By Fabian Medina, Editor of La Prensa
Sept 29, 2022
Optimism
This column runs the risk of sinning on the side of optimism in the face of the generalized pessimism that the Ortega Murillo regime got their way, and there is no way, in the short and medium term, for Nicaragua to be the country, with all its problems, where we can live together and be free. I will run that risk. Not to lift the spirits of anyone with pious or calculated lies, because I am not in that business, but to explain to the world just how I see it. I could be mistaken. Of course! That is what it means to write an opinion.
Death throes
I do believe that the dictatorship is dying. I do believe that there is no way that it will get back up. It is defeated and the only thing it has left are the last kicks of a drowning man. Swipes of claws. The fact that in these death throes they are destroying Nicaragua, that is another matter. The fact is that we are so accustomed to associating evil with Ortega Murillo that when they do damage to Nicaragua, we believe that for the fact of being able to inflict pain they are winning. And that is not how it is.
Taking on water
Does anyone really believe that the expulsion of the Ambassador of the European Union benefits the dictatorship? Or that the persecution of the Church is a symptom of good health? Or that the prohibition on their militants and functionaries to leave the country is a sign of strength and cohesion? Let us not even talk about the jailing of Chino Enoc, the former mayor of Jalapa and another 21 Sandinista militants. What we have is a boat taking in water from all side and some insane crewman making bigger holes to see if they can plug the others.
Ideology
The regime of Ortega Murillo is condemned to die, in my view, for four principal reasons: one, the lack of ideological basis. Internal and external. Even the traditional left disparages this dictatorship in particular. There is no, this time, political “cement” which might make their grassroots unite and make them put up with hardships under the promise that they are moving toward a better society for their lives. That a family might become richer or not be tried, does not seem to be a good reward for the suffering that the dictatorship demands and will demand to maintain itself.
Resistance
The other reasons are: two, the impossibility of continuing to hand out government favors as it did before; three, the ever-increasing international isolation; and fourth, maybe the most important of all, the passive resistance that it faces. That is not to believe that because an armed guerrilla group is not seen in the mountains, nor an active opposition in the streets, the regime is not playing against anyone. No. If that were true, there would be no need to maintain the military apparatus that is watching over the country and it would not be making these almost daily blows against an enemy that it is not able to see, but it feels it, is cornered by it and is exasperated by it. It is killing it. No one like it. Ortega can appear alone and winning, because there is no organized opposition that is confronting it. That is true. But he does have resistance. And he is making mistakes.
Opposition
I am not going to blame the structural opposition, to give them a name, about the fact that they are not in the streets, cornering Ortega, because I understand the brutality with which the regime has responded to these actions that seek to bring the establishment of democracy through the civic struggle. In fact, many of these people of the “structural opposition” are in the jails of the regime, and others in exile paying r the consequences of their ideas. What I do accuse the organized opposition about is for not reaching an agreement to establish an alternative to the dictatorship. We are doing so poorly in this that if for some reason the dictatorship might see itself obliged to negotiate their departure, there is no counterpart with whom to negotiate. And if the dictatorship would fall on its own in one of these days, there still is no opposition that could fill the vacuum of power that it would leave behind.
Wounded
Nor am I going to be irresponsible and say that the fall of the dictatorship is just around the corner. The death throes can take a lot of time, even though there are always imponderable thigs that can flip the tortilla in a matter of hours. Anything can happen, but I do not think that they, nor us, we resist another 20 years in this situation which is decomposing every day. What we are seeing are the dying kicks of a drowning man. A dying body. The regime of Ortega Murillo has been mortally wounded since April 2018. They still need to recognize it. We need to recognize it.