The National Assembly dominated by a Sandinista super majority passed a decree making May 30th, Mother´s Day in Nicaragua, a paid national holiday. The Association of Mothers of April immediately put out this press release saying Mother´s Day is now a national day of mourning, after Sandinista police and paramilitaries fired on the largest demonstration in Nicaragua modern history on May 30, 2018. This demonstration was called by this same Association to support the mothers of those young people killed between April 18-May 30, 2018. The attack on the demonstration resulted in 15 deaths of young people, 5,000 people fled onto the campus of the UCA seeking refuge from the shooters. What follows is the translation of the press release of the Association of Mothers of April.
May 2022: COLLECTIVE ACTION CAMPAIGN
WITH MEMORY AND RESISTANCE, WE DEMAND JUSTICE AND FREEDOM
CALL FROM THE ASSOCIATION OF THE MOTHERS OF APRIL
On this month of May 2022, we MOTHERS raise our voices amid the grief, indignation, persecution, and exile, remembering the appeal with which The Mothers of April, along with the students, issued the invitation to the “Mothers March” on May 30, 2018:
- IT IS NOT A CELEBRATION, IT IS NOT A PARTY
- IT IS A MARCH IN UNITY TO DEMAND JUSTICE
- NICARAGUA IS GRIEVING, because our children were murdered under the orders given by Ortega-Murillo to fire to kill with sure shots carried out by the police forces, paramilitaries, sharpshooters supported by Sandinista shock groups with premeditation and cruelty for having joined a civic struggle.
TODAY, as AMA [Association of the Mothers of Apri]l WE REITERATE THAT CALL TO UNITY IN ACTION, TO THE SOLIDARITY demonstrated as never before in the history of Nicaragua on that May 30, 2018 that the regime tried to bury with the Massacre committed:
- In the face of the declaration of May 30th as a national holiday decreed by the dictatorship: We declare May 30th A DAY OF NATIONAL MOURNING!
- In the face of the refusal of the regime to recognize the crimes against humanity committed. In the face of the refusal to investigate the facts. In the face of the Lies that the Dictatorship attempts to impose: let us unite our intelligence and knowledge from the different trenches to CLARIFY THE TRUTH AND BLOCK IMPUNITY
- In the face of the repression that seeks to sow terror, let us unite efforts to block the silence, so that the cry of the mothers of Nicaragua not just echo in the entire world, but that people make it their own to pave the way for the TRUTH that would take those responsible for the crimes against humanitycommitted against the children of Nicaragua to the courts.
WE DECLARE OURSELVES IN ACTIVE RESISTANCE AGAINST IMPUNITY:
AS VICTIMS WE WILL CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE, ADDING DETERMINATION AND SOLIDARITY SO THAT PROGRESS IS MADE IN CLARIFYING THE TRUTH AND THOSE RESPONSIBLE ARE TAKEN BEFORE THE COURT OF JUSTICE!
JUSTICE WITHOUT IMPUNITY!
THE MOTHERS DO NOT GIVE UP, THEY DEMAND JUSTICE!
NEITHER SILENCE NOR FORGETING!
FREEDOM NOW FOR THE MOTHERS AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS