by Alfonso Malespín in DIVERGENTES, April 24, 2026
Since 2018 the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have moved from the shock which the massive protests in the streets of the country caused them, to squashing them with bullets, and developing the idea that they were a “failed coup attempt” against a popular revolution beloved by the majorities. As always, according to the ruling party, “the Empire” was behind that movement, maliciously pulling the threads against the poor copresidents.
Ortega and Murillo did not accept, do not accept and will not accept that it was common people who freely and voluntarily took to the streets to repudiate them. He, his consort, and all that they represent. And they cannot accept it – even though they know it – because that would be to accept that they are no longer loved and that the acronym of what was a “vanguard” party quit being one for many moons now.
Nearly a century has gone by, 80 years, since the end of the Second World War. Since then, the production of testimonies, books, documentaries, films, archives continue on because Fascism and Nazism must be repudiated as long as there are human beings on the face of the earth.
In the case of Nicaragua, only 8 years have gone by since the massacre of the popular movement that showed Ortega and Murillo who the streets belonged to. That civic demonstration had so much effect that the copresidents were no longer able to re-edit those massive street demonstrations – to which they were brought in, but also many came on their own – and sent their police and paramilitaries to obstruct them at any cost.
To this physical dispute, which Ortega and Murillo settled with persecution, bullets, death, blood, exile, jail, and daily insults, is added a symbolic dispute which is still not resolved. Ortega sells the idea that he – a David – was attacked by a Goliath – the Yankee Empire. He presents himself as the Sandino of our times and all those who rebel are traitors of the homeland.
Let´s take a look:
- The flags: Ortega lost the blue and white one forever. That is why he has imposed his party flag in the Constitution. He cannot raise the blue and white one of the country, because that would be to raise the flag of his mortal enemies, like the crucifix shoved in the face of the vampire.
- The songs. The Abril rebellion produced a songbook which continues to be productive. Ortega has been able to impose a few pieces which play and continue to be played in the propaganda media and intramural congregations. The copious songbook of April is being played out there…at times. Even the emblematic songs of the 70s and 80s have been snatched away from him!
- The deaths. The political culture of Nicaragua is necrophilic. Ortega and the dissident citizenry fight over the statistics and the source of the deaths. Ortega hammers on the fact that 22 of his own were killed by those who were behind the barricades, and that the deaths were 300. On the other side they reiterate that Ortega ordered that at least 355 Nicaraguans be killed, including 29 children and adolescents. For Ortega only his deaths count. The white and blue forget to emphasize daily that the demand for investigation and justice is for all the deaths of 2018.
- The cause. The self-convened white and blue movement grew in a nearly spontaneous and explosive way in April 2018. Ortega, aware that he came to power with only 38% of the votes, was not able to publicly admit that since then he represents a minority and that in 2008 the elections were fraudulent. That is why he shouts every day that his cause is legitimate and God backs him. On the other side they say just the opposite, that Ortega is illegitimate, fraudulent, corrupt, dictatorial, and that he only represents his own interests. The white and blue have not been capable of creating concrete messages which reach the heart and minds of the people who survive in the country. Concepts are important, but real life is powerful.
- The sacred cows. Rosario Murillo since 2007 has been responsible for selling the idea that she and her husband are on the altar of the homeland. Those are the enormous, flowered stages. That she is the supreme priestess, “I am the mother of all” – and that he is the sacred cow of whom Gabriel Márquez talked about in “The Autumn of the patriarch”. Being so, there cannot be anyone who casts a shadow on him. That is why all the rest of the symbols must be destroyed, be they pastors who preach revivals, bishops who denounce and exorcise, or venerated images of the Blood of Christ.
- The literature. Here it looks ugly for Ortega. He has emptied the country of intellectuals and has no one who writes for him. From the white and blue, 2018 continues being an inexhaustible source for producing historic memory and fiction. The weight of memory has been on the shoulders of journalists and human rights activists. That is why Ortega needs to vilify, jail and expel them. Sergio Ramírez, (Tongolele did not know how to dance), Gioconda Belli (A silence full of whispers), Gabriela Selzer (Chronicles of April), Arquímedes González (Like waiting for April), Roberto Samcam Ruíz (Ortega the Calvary of Nicaragua) are banned in Nicaragua. As well as those who have produced documentaries, reports and testimonies.
- Daniel Ortega would have liked to have awoken with the miracle that the Macondian plague had come to Nicaragua, and that everyone lost their memory. But that did not happen. He and his wife live with insomnia. He said it himself, “you have to sleep every night with one eye open.” And that is why April is filled with shouts, insults and activities for those forced to participate. On the other side, memory persists because of the work of activists, victims of Ortega and human rights organizations, who are surveyed in the stories of the media and words in world forums, where they do not cease to be surprised by the transformation of someone who said he was a revolutionary, but has shown himself to be an exterminator. This no is not Abaddon.
- The speeches. The white and blue movement was also protesting all of the political class of Nicaragua, who they hold responsible for the emergence of this no longer new dictatorship. But their discourse is not well polished, and their spokespeople continue being inarticulate and even dispersed. It has been left without leaders. On the other side, Ortega hammers a nearly biblical thread which goes from Diriangén to Sandino to Carlos Fonseca to Ortega, in a heroic trajectory who confronts the bad children of the homeland.
This dispute over the memory of what really happened in Nicaragua during the dictatorship of Ortega will begin to settle with the extinction of that ignominious regime. Then the country will have to be detoxicated from Ortega – as they de-nazified Germany in 1945 – doing justice for the victims with the proper judicial processes, and keeping alive forever the reasons why the heroic deed of April 2018 happened. The country will begin to turn over that sad page when what Carlos Mejía Godoy sang half a century ago happens: “when the placards of the tyrant are references to an old history…”
