The National Assembly of Nicaragua on April 13th declared April 19th “National Day of Peace”. The official spokesperson for the government, Vice President Rosario Murillo, announced that on April 19th the government will inaugurate the new cultural center in the building which the government confiscated from the La Prensa newspaper in August 2021. Two years ago the government declared April 19th as the day of the Nicaraguan sportsperson. It is making every effort to erase the meaning given to the date by the repressive actions of the government in response to the student led protests on April 19, 2018, when the first murders of the massacre of 2018 occurred: Richard Pavón, 17 in the municipality of Tipitapa; Darwin Manuel Urbina, 34 year old worker in Managua; and Hilton Rafael Manzanares Alvarado, Policeman, 33 years old. This article gathers the reactions of different dissidents to the announcement.
Dissidents respond to Murillo: There will be peace only with freedom and justice
In nicaraguainvestiga, April 14, 2023
Nicaraguan activists state that Rosario Murillo intends to wipe out the historical memory of Nicaragua in one fell swoop.
April 2018 was a turning point for young Alejandro Moraga, because since that date he began to see life in a different way, more grounded and more humanely, and after participating in the barricades of Niquinohomo and Monimbó, he realized that Nicaragua continues to bleed.
Now, on being asked what he thinks about the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship ordering that April 19th be decreed a “Day of Peace”, Moraga only laughs ironically and states that that decree is just part of the deranged minds that live in a constant negation of what history is going to make them pay.
“They are the desperate tactics of the regime to erase the collective memory of the events of April 19, 2018, something it will never do. And they have wanted to sell us a false peace, with apparent amnesties, with supposedly free elections, now the people have taken the blinders off their eyes and know that all the actions of the dictatorship are designed for political theatre,” stated the young man.
He added that nothing will erase the memory of an entire people, the crimes that the regime committed and continues committing, because they have left wounds which are difficult to heal.
Reverse psychology
“Ana” is a former barricade participant from one of the universities of Managua. She responded without hesitation to the same question that that statement is nothing more than part of the reverse psychology of Murillo because she is terrified of that date which agitated her. She says that the day justice is applied, she will want everything to be done in peace.
“But in the end, it will be the people themselves who will decide what we are going to call that date, because April 19th will be a date of contradictory feelings. Many of us are going to celebrate it with a lot of pride, and others are going to cry over all the blood that Sandinism shed since that date,” she maintained.
Professor Gabriel Putoy, who joined the civic struggle and anti-government protests in Monimbó, reiterated that peace will only be achieved promoting freedom and justice, and not violating the human rights of those critical of the government.
“For us dissidents we recognize April 19 as a day of patriotic pride, like a day of national memory, the civic insurrection of Nicaraguans, therefore, that announcement of the regime is offensive to people because ironically the one who raised the blade of war was Rosario Murillo herself by ordering that she was going to go all out, and bled Nicaragua out,” explained Putoy.
Rosario Murillo refers to the peace of the cemetery
For the activist Félix Maradiaga, what the dictatorship wants is the peace of the graveyard, which is the silence that death, imprisonment and exile bring, but maintains that that “type of peace” is not what the great majority of Nicaraguans want, but a peace with justice and freedom, which is the only true and sustainable peace.
“Certainly, we Nicaraguans want peace, but that call from the regime does not have credibility, while the actions of the dictatorship themselves say just the opposite,” emphasized Maradiaga.
Since April 2018 organizations which are defenders of human rights, national ones as well as international ones, have documented more than 300 murders resulting from state repression, thousands of people in exile, hundreds of people imprisoned and wounded. In the face of this the State of Nicaragua has been accused of crimes against humanity, which up to now continue in complete impunity.