Juan Sebastian Chamorro became a political prisoner on June 8, 2021 after announcing his intention to run for the presidency in the elections that were held in November of that year. All his fellow candidates were also jailed around that time. He wrote this piece shortly before Christmas in 2019 and published it on his personal webpage. Now 3 years later we translate it and make it available, because its content is still very relevant.
December 23, 2019
By Juan Sebastian Chamorro
While I am writing, I have the feeling that there will be Christmas with political prisoners. I hope I am mistaken and at the last moment Prisoner 198[1] remembers the times that he was there, so many Christmases locked up and without seeing his family members.
Doña Lidia[2] strong, fighting for her son like many are doing now. Like a generation before, and the one before that one, and so on, there go the desperate mothers, taking over churches, fighting, stopping traffic, putting up with the sun, clubs, and the stares of the indifferent. There they go, anxious over the health of their boys; whether they have light, whether the common prisoners are treating them badly, concerned about the mosquitos, about how they dry off when they are allowed to bathe, whether they are beaten, whether they are given pills. Torture day and night.
Let us not hope much from 198, rancor and resentment are more powerful. The words of Christianity, solidarity and love are just letters that have been left on the faded signs that still remain on Bolivar Avenue, those that were in other places they burned, and these they have not replaced due to lack of money.
The incarcerated one incarcerating youth, like when he was young and the paunchy one threw him in jail and others from his generation. And in jail, 198 maybe dreamed the same things as these youth, who no longer have a number because they have lost count. It no longer matters to count them, all the records were broken, 198 won the contest and now has the record for the largest number of prisoners in our history.
But going back to the mothers of the political prisoners, let us think about them in this Christmas Eve. About that empty chair, in the face of which many families will not be able to avoid the anguish. About ours, where a hopeful smile and some green eyes should be, there will be an emptiness, a silence, an unopened gift and a child asking about where his mother is, and a relative saying “she is not here to fight for you, she will come and when she returns there will be no more Christmases where you will have to be apart.”
There will be no more empty seats in any home of Nicaragua, that Nicaragua is possible.
Juan Sebastian Chamorro
Politician committed to the development and future of Nicaragua. Candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. Executive Director of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy from 2019 to January 2021 and Executive Director of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic, and Social Development FUNIDES. Executive Director of MACESA, Director General of the Millennium Development Account, Vice Minister of the Treasury and Public Credit, Technical Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic and Director of the National System for Public Investments. Doctor (PhD) in Economics for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with specialization in Econometrics and Economic Development, Masters in Economics at the University of Georgetown
[1] Prisoner 198 was Daniel Ortega, it was his prisoner number when in Somoza´s jails.
[2] Daniel Ortega´s mother.