DOCSLIB.ORG

Grassroots Social Movements and Nicaragua's Civic Insurrection

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Grassroots Social Movements and Nicaragua's Civic Insurrection CITIZEN PROTESTS AND GOVERNMENT REPRESSION IN NICARAGUA Beyond Left and Right: Grassroots Social Movements and Nicaragua’s Civic Insurrection by Jennifer Goett | Michigan State University | [email protected] Nicaragua has become unrecognizable in criminalize protesters, grassroots activists, human just a few short months. Those of us who have rights defenders, and journalists. Meanwhile, tens followed events closely since the April 18 protests of thousands of citizens have applied for asylum against social security reform have witnessed the in Costa Rica.3 Claiming divine protection, Ortega disintegration of a country through the mechanism and Murillo have responded to international of state repression. The standoff between the condemnation with a disinformation campaign, popular resistance movement and the government labeling the diverse and largely nonviolent of Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president resistance movement “satanic,” “terrorist,” “criminal,” Rosario Murillo has resulted in levels of brutality “golpistas” who are working at the behest of the US not seen since the civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s. government to overthrow the socialist state. Although violence has been documented on both sides of the conflict, national and international Despite clear evidence of gross human rights human rights organizations have attributed the abuses by the government, progressive sectors vast majority of human rights abuses and deaths to in the United States remain divided on how to the Nicaraguan state. According to these sources, respond to the crisis. Some on the Left are reluctant police and parapolice have killed more than 300 to disavow a leftist state, even one that has become men, women, and children, resulting in a massacre increasingly violent and authoritarian in the last of significant proportions in this country of just 6 decade. Others have expressed concerns about million people. Thousands of citizens have been US intervention and maintain a healthy distrust injured, and hundreds have been illegally detained of mainstream media coverage of Latin American or disappeared. In contrast, violence against affairs. A vocal group of solidarity activists and government forces and supporters has resulted in commentators have defended the Sandinista state, the deaths of some 50 people.1 reproducing the Ortega/Murillo narrative. These sources suggest the US government has played In addition to the astonishing violence, Ortega and a lead role in orchestrating the civic insurrection. Murillo have sought to punish their critics, suppress They label the resistance movement “right wing,” the resistance movement, and deny responsibility focus on opposition violence, calling into question for the bloodshed and instability. For instance, the findings of human rights organizations, and the state funds parapolice forces, or masked frequently overstate the progressive achievements gunmen in double cabin pickup trucks, to terrorize of the state. The Sandinista Revolution, as one of communities and obfuscate its role in the violence. the few successful examples of popular national Catholic clergy have been threatened and attacked resistance to the long and bloody history of US for their efforts to mediate the crisis. Hundreds of intervention in the region, looms large in the doctors and other hospital personnel have been pieces. They fall short, however, on serious analysis terminated from their positions for providing care of Nicaraguan politics since the 1990 elections to injured protestors, leaving a shortage of medical removed the Sandinistas from power.4 Thus, as staff in public hospitals.2 In July, lawmakers passed an antiterrorism law that the state has used to LASA FORUM 49:4 25 the standoff continues, there is little consensus on in 2013. Not surprisingly, my perspective on the the Left about the origins of the crisis or how to crisis is informed by my years of engagement respond to the violence. with Monkey Point and other community-based struggles for land rights in the region. What strikes This article offers some starting points for me most about these grassroots movements is the understanding the conflict via an account of social continuity in forces that drove mobilization against movements that oppose the state’s plans to build the neoliberal Right (1990–2006) and those that an Interoceanic Grand Canal. The resistance has now drive resistance to the self-styled socialist Left been represented in the now defunct National (2007–2018).6 Although each era has seen distinct Dialogue with the state by the Civic Alliance geopolitical alliances, state ideologies and agendas, for Justice and Democracy, an amalgam of and degrees of official inclusion in the political diverse interests from the private sector, student sphere, certain conditions endure. State violence movement, grassroots social movements, and and land dispossession under mestizo racial rule civil society. Spanning the political spectrum, continue to shape the everyday lived experience of these groups make for strange bedfellows, giving community people. the Alliance a certain ideological incoherence beyond the desire to see Ortega and Murillo step Indigenous and Afro-descendant demands for land down, a restoration of democratic institutions, and self-determination date back to Nicaragua’s and an end to the violence. An examination of military annexation of the Caribbean coast in grassroots social movements, however, provides 1894. Nevertheless, contemporary movements an often-overlooked entry point into the roots of for territorial demarcation emerged after the the civic insurrection. These movements illustrate Sandinista state negotiated regional autonomy why traditional ideological and political divisions as a settlement to armed conflict with these between the Latin American Left and Right have communities in the 1980s. The Sandinista state limited utility for parsing relationships among enshrined multicultural citizenship rights in 1986 diverse sectors of the resistance movement and the with the adoption of a new constitution followed state. An analysis of the factors that drive grassroots by the passage of an autonomy statute for the mobilization against Ortega and Murillo, such as region in 1987. After the 1990 Sandinista electoral Sandinista economic policy, corruption, autocratic defeat, however, neoliberal administrations rule, state violence, racism, gender oppression, and were generally hostile to multiculturalism as land dispossession, reveal a Sandinista state that no a project of the Left and treated indigenous longer embraces leftist politics and a country that and Afro-descendant lands as little more than has outgrown its old political categories. vehicles for economic development. Despite state intransigence, international human rights decisions A View from the Caribbean Coast upheld community demands for territorial recognition,7 while multilateral development banks I first traveled to Nicaragua as a graduate student sought to reconcile capitalist accumulation with in 1998. Since then, I have spent more than four indigenous and Afro-descendant property rights. years on the Caribbean coast of the country, where Both compelled the state to negotiate territorial my research and activism focus on indigenous rights with communities, which it did reluctantly, and Afro-descendant territorial rights. Most of ultimately resisting demarcation and titling. During my work has been with a small Afro-descendant these years, demarcation became the central Kriol community called Monkey Point, which demand from communities that were experiencing since the late-1990s has been at the center of extractivist exploitation, megaproject development, national debates over a series of interoceanic canal mestizo land colonization associated with the proposals that have targeted communal lands for advance of the agricultural frontier, and “drug war” infrastructure development.5 The US$50 billion militarization. Chinese-backed Interoceanic Grand Canal, the centerpiece of Sandinista economic policy, is the latest and most controversial proposal to emerge LASA FORUM 49:4 26 Given the neoliberal state’s resistance to territorial The Interoceanic Grand Canal recognition, Daniel Ortega’s return to power in Although communities of the Rama-Kriol Territory 2007 after a 17-year hiatus was met with cautious have been challenging infrastructure concessions hope that he would fulfill his campaign promise on their lands since the 1990s,11 after the passage and title indigenous and Afro-descendant lands. of Law 840, the massive and unprecedented scale Between 2007 and 2016, the Sandinista state did of the canal project spurred a national protest just that, titling some 30 percent of the country.8 As movement led by mestizo campesinos living along part of this process, Monkey Point and eight other the proposed route. Particularly shocking were the indigenous and Afro-descendant communities terms of the canal concession, which privatized received title to the Rama-Kriol Territory in 2009. the venture and authorized subprojects such as But after titling, most of the contradictions of free trade zones, tourism resorts, and a petroleum state-led capitalist intensification remained, even pipeline as well as any other infrastructure intensified, as did the repressive strategies used to deemed necessary by the concessionaire, a Hong secure these policies. Like neoliberal predecessors, Kong–based firm backed by a Chinese billionaire. this new Sandinista state proved unwilling to stop The
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Declaration by the Heads of States and Governments of Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Dominican R
    DECLARATION BY THE HEADS OF STATES AND GOVERNMENTS OF BELIZE, COSTA RICA, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, NICARAGUA, PANAMA AND DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FACING THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19 CENTRO AMERICA ALLIED AGAINST CORONA VIRUS 12th, March, 2020 The Heads of States and Governments of Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Dominican Republic having a extraordinary virtual session under the pro tempore Presidency of SICA, with Honduras in the charge. Considering That the World Health Organization, with globally alarming levels of spread and severity of cases by COVID-19, has declared this disease to be a pandemic. This implies the necessity of regional agreements on containment against its spread for the safety of our inhabitants. The Resolution COMISCA 01-2020 adopted during the Extraordinary Meeting of the Council of Ministers of Health of Central America and the Dominican Republic (COMISCA), held on 3rd of March, 2020, relative to the situation of threats of COVID-19, and the regional reaction in public health against the pandemic, where joint actions are established. That faced of the threats of COVID-19, the General Secretariat of SICA and the Executive Secretariat of COMISCA have made efforts to establish regional, intersectoral approach in response to the pandemic DECLARE 1. The importance given by the Governments of the member states of SICA for the tutelage and protection of the human security, public health and common good for population in th e region, mainly in view of the expansion of COVID-19, which requires adopting joint meas ures and coordination to face it. 2. To the nations of the region, that our national health systems attend to the pandemic acco rding to the protocols guided by the World Health Organization / Pan American Health Org anization (WHO / PAHO), taking national measures through the Ministries and Secretaries of Health, including binational and cross-border collaboration of health services for compre hensive care of suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 and other public health probl ems.
    [Show full text]
  • A Nicaraguan Exceptionalism? Debating the Legacy of the Sandinista Revolution
    A Nicaraguan Exceptionalism? Debating the Legacy of the Sandinista Revolution edited by Hilary Francis INSTITUTE OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES A Nicaraguan Exceptionalism? Debating the Legacy of the Sandinista Revolution edited by Hilary Francis Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2020 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/. This book is also available online at http://humanities-digital-library.org. ISBN: 978-1-908857-57-6 (paperback edition) 978-1-908857-78-1 (.epub edition) 978-1-908857-79-8 (.mobi edition) 978-1-908857-77-4 (PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/220.9781908857774 (PDF edition) Institute of Latin American Studies School of Advanced Study University of London Senate House London WC1E 7HU Telephone: 020 7862 8844 Email: [email protected] Web: http://ilas.sas.ac.uk Typesetting by Thomas Bohm, User Design, Illustration and Typesetting. Cover image © Franklin Villavicencio. Contents List of illustrations v Notes on contributors vii Introduction: exceptionalism and agency in Nicaragua’s revolutionary heritage 1 Hilary Francis 1. ‘We didn’t want to be like Somoza’s Guardia’: policing, crime and Nicaraguan exceptionalism 21 Robert Sierakowski 2. ‘The revolution was so many things’ 45 Fernanda Soto 3. Nicaraguan food policy: between self-sufficiency and dependency 61 Christiane Berth 4. On Sandinista ideas of past connections to the Soviet Union and Nicaraguan exceptionalism 87 Johannes Wilm 5.
    [Show full text]
  • Nicaragua | Freedom House
    Nicaragua | Freedom House https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/nicaragua A. ELECTORAL PROCESS: 3 / 12 A1. Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4 The constitution provides for a directly elected president, and elections are held every five years. Constitutional reforms in 2014 eliminated term limits and required the winner of the presidential ballot to secure a simple plurality of votes. President Ortega was reelected in 2016 with over 72 percent of the vote in a severely flawed election that was preceded by the Supreme Court’s move to expel the main opposition candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, from his Independent Liberal Party (PLI). The decision crippled the PLI, and Montealegre withdrew from the election. Ortega’s closest competitor, Maximino Rodríguez of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), received just 15 percent of the vote, with no other candidate reaching 5 percent. Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, ran as Ortega’s vice presidential candidate. Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) won 135 of 153 mayorships contested in 2017 municipal elections. There were reports ahead of the polls that the FSLN had ignored local primary surveys in order to put its preferred candidates up for election. Seven people were killed in postelection clashes between government and opposition supporters, according to the Nicaraguan Center of Human Rights (CENIDH). A2. Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections? 1 / 4 The constitution provides for a 92-member unicameral National Assembly. Two seats in the legislature are reserved for the previous president and the runner-up in the most recent presidential election.
    [Show full text]
  • Nicaragua: Revolution and Restoration
    THE NEW GEOPOLITICS NOVEMBER 2018 LATIN AMERICA NICARAGUA: REVOLUTION AND RESTORATION RICHARD E. FEINBERG NICARAGUA: REVOLUTION AND RESTORATION RICHARD E. FEINBERG EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Since independence, Nicaragua has suffered periodic internecine warfare, deep distrust between contending factions dominated by powerful caudillos (strongmen), and interventions by foreign powers. While the United States was frequently a party to these conflicts, local Nicaraguan actors often outmaneuvered U.S. diplomats. At the end of the Cold War, internationally supervised elections yielded an interlude of relatively liberal democracy and alternation of power (1990-2006). To the consternation of the United States, Sandinista Party leader Daniel Ortega regained the presidency in 2007, and orchestrated a successful strategy of coalition-building with the organized private sector and the Catholic Church. Supported by the international financial institutions and the Venezuelan Chavista government, Nicaragua achieved strong economic performance with moderately inclusive growth. President Ortega used those economic resources to gradually capture or suppress—one by one—many of the nation’s political institutions, eroding institutional checks and balances. Ortega’s strategy of co-opting all centers of power extended to the military and national police. The restoration of traditional caudillo politics and the fusion of family-state-party-security forces were all too reminiscent of the Somoza family dynasty (1934-1979). Frustrated by Ortega’s narrowing of democratic
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Rosas Sin Pan: The
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Rosas Sin Pan: The Cultural Strategies of the Sandinista Devolution A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Sociology by Cristina Awadalla Committee in charge: Professor Denise Segura Chair Professor Jon Cruz Professor Kum-Kum Bhavnani June 2019 The thesis of Cristina Awadalla is approved. ___________________________________________________________ Kum-Kum Bhavnani ___________________________________________________________ Jon Cruz ___________________________________________________________ Denise Segura, Committee Chair April 2019 Acknowledgements Para mi mama, que me enseñó desde que era pequeña a amar, luchar, y alzar mi voz. A mi hermano mayor que ha estado a mi lado a lo largo de este viaje, alentándome incondicionalmente a confiar en mi trabajo. Para todas las valientes feministas Nicaragüenses, las que me brindaron su tiempo, historias y análisis profundos, las que siguen luchando y que siguen imaginando y creando nuevos mundos a pesar de toda la repression física y idiologica. Sin ellas, este proyecto no se podriá realizar. To my parents who came from different lands, whose endless hours at work have allowed me to dream and go places none of us could have imagined. To all my friends and family who support, motivate, and inspire me—thank you for letting me talk your ears off, engaging me and showing interest in my work. I would also like to thank the department of Sociology at UC, Santa Barbara, for the training and support provided to me that has helped me realize this work. Thank you to Denise Segura who has shown me what it is to be a bold woman of color in academia, who was the first here to show me my potential, giving me the support to cultivate it, and has provided endless feedback on an ever-evolving project.
    [Show full text]
  • Independent Final Evaluation of Combating the Worst Forst of Chils
    This page intentionally left blank. Independent Final Evaluation of Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor through Education in Nicaragua, ENTERATE USDOL Cooperative Agreement IL-17759-08-75-K 2011 This page intentionally left blank. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The evaluation of the ENTERATE Project in Nicaragua was conducted and documented by Michele González Arroyo, an independent evaluator in collaboration with USDOL/OCFT staff; the ENTERATE project team; and stakeholders in Nicaragua. ICF would like to express sincere thanks to all parties involved in this evaluation: the independent evaluator, the American Institutes of Research and its partners, and USDOL. Funding for this evaluation was provided by the United States Department of Labor under Task Order number DOLJ089K28130. Points of view or opinions in this evaluation report do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Labor, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the United States Government. ~Page iii~ This page intentionally left blank. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF ACRONYMS vii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ix I PROJECT BACKGROUND AND DESCRIPTION 1 1.1 USDOL’s Education Initiative Projects 1 1.2 Target Population 1 1.3 Project Strategies and Activities 2 II EVALUATION PURPOSE AND METHODOLOGY 5 2.1 Evaluation Purpose 5 2.2 Methodology 5 III RELEVANCE 11 3.1 Findings 11 3.2 Lessons Learned/Good Practices: Relevance 20 IV EFFECTIVENESS 23 4.1 Findings 23 4.2 Lessons Learned/Good Practices:
    [Show full text]
  • Culture and Arts in Post Revolutionary Nicaragua: the Chamorro Years (1990-1996)
    Culture and Arts in Post Revolutionary Nicaragua: The Chamorro Years (1990-1996) A thesis presented to the faculty of the Center for International Studies of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Tatiana Argüello Vargas August 2010 © 2010 Tatiana Argüello Vargas. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Culture and Arts in Post Revolutionary Nicaragua: The Chamorro Years (1990-1996) by TATIANA ARGÜELLO VARGAS has been approved for the Center for International Studies by Patrick Barr-Melej Associate Professor of History José A. Delgado Director, Latin American Studies Daniel Weiner Executive Director, Center for International Studies 3 ABSTRACT ARGÜELLO VARGAS, TATIANA, M.A., August 2010, Latin American Studies Culture and Arts in Post Revolutionary Nicaragua: The Chamorro Years (1990-1996) (100 pp.) Director of Thesis: Patrick Barr-Melej This thesis explores the role of culture in post-revolutionary Nicaragua during the administration of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1996). In particular, this research analyzes the negotiation and redefinition of culture between Nicaragua’s revolutionary past and its neoliberal present. In order to expose what aspects of the cultural project survived and what new manifestations appear, this thesis examines the followings elements: 1) the cultural policy and institutional apparatus created by the government of President Chamorro; 2) the effects and consequences that this cultural policy produced in the country through the battle between revolutionary and post-revolutionary cultural symbols in Managua as a urban space; and 3), the role and evolution of Managua’s mayor and future president Arnoldo Alemán as an important actor redefining culture in the 1990s.
    [Show full text]
  • Stepdaughter Charges Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega with Sexual Abuse LADB Staff
    University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository NotiCen Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) 3-19-1998 Stepdaughter Charges Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega with Sexual Abuse LADB Staff Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/noticen Recommended Citation LADB Staff. "Stepdaughter Charges Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega with Sexual Abuse." (1998). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ noticen/8397 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in NotiCen by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 54819 ISSN: 1089-1560 Stepdaughter Charges Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega with Sexual Abuse by LADB Staff Category/Department: Nicaragua Published: 1998-03-19 Explosive allegations against Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega have rocked the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) just weeks before the party convention. In the aftermath, the FSLN is taking drastic measures to forge a united front and purge itself of dissidents. Former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega (1979-1990) called on supporters to unite following accusations by his stepdaughter that he had sexually molested her. In early March, Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo, 30, faxed a letter to the media charging that Ortega started molesting her when she was 11 and continued "in a repeated manner, for many years." She also said she was the victim of aggression, threats, and blackmail. Ortega, 53, neither confirmed nor denied the allegations and said he was "saddened" by them. His wife, Rosario Murillo, who is Narvaez's mother, said the charges were lies.
    [Show full text]
  • Sembrando El Terror
    INSTILLING TERROR: FROM LETHAL FORCE TO PERSECUTION IN NICARAGUA Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who campaign for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all. Our vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. We are independente of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations. © Amnesty International 2018 Cover and back cover photo: Except where otherwise noted, content in this document is licensed /GODGTUQHVJG0CVKQPCN2QNKEGCTOGFYKVJ#-TKƃGUCPFC&TCIWPQXUPKRGTTKƃGKP/CUC[C,WN[ under a Creative Commons (attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives, 1UYCNFQ4KXCU international 4.0) licence.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/legalcode For more information please visit the permissions page on our website: www.amnesty.org Where material is attributed to a copyright owner other than Amnesty International this material is not subject to the Creative Commons licence. First published in 2018 by Amnesty International Ltd. Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street. London WC1X 0DW, UK Index: AMR 43/9213/2018 Original language: Spanish amnesty.org 1 CONTENTS INSTILLING TERROR: FROM LETHAL FORCE TO PERSECUTION IN NICARAGUA 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 2. METHODOLOGY 6 3. TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS 8 4. ESCALATION OF THE STRATEGY OF REPRESSION 11 4.1 AN OFFICIAL DISCOURSE OF DENIAL AND CRIMINALIZATION 11 4.2 WIDESPREAD USE OF PRO-GOVERNMENT ARMED GROUPS 13 4.3 EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE AND EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS 17 4.3.1 ANALYSIS OF THE CONTEXT OF OPERATION CLEAN-UP 18 4.3.2 POSSIBLE EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS 21 4.3.3 FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS 30 A.
    [Show full text]
  • Countries at the Crossroads 2012: Nicaragua
    Countries at the Crossroads COUNTRIES AT THE CROSSROADS 2012: NICARAGUA INTRODUCTION Nicaragua’s November 2011 elections marked a major step forward in President Daniel Ortega’s consolidation of power, and a served as a stark demonstration of the authoritarian tendencies he has exhibited since his return to office in early 2007. A onetime guerrilla leader and the head of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) during the1979–1990 Sandinista revolution, Ortega has ruled Nicaragua with increasing disrespect for the constitution, electoral integrity, and the rule of law. In order to run again, he engineered a questionable ruling from the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) to eviscerate a constitutional ban on successive terms for sitting presidents, as well as a limitation to two total terms of office.1 Ortega then secured 62 percent of the popular vote, although irregularities were widespread enough to cast doubt on the size of his victory margin. The disputed election also gave his party, the FSLN, 63 of 92 seats in the National Assembly, a majority large enough to pass ordinary legislation, change the constitution, and even call a constitutional assembly. Armed with this supermajority, Ortega is now in a position to govern in the temperamental manner of his ideological brethren in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) headed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who has provided him an economic lifeline since 2007. During his first term as president (1984–1990), Ortega presided over the drafting of a constitution in 1987 that reflected the quasi-socialist character of the revolution, which was marked by wealth redistribution and widespread confiscations of private property.
    [Show full text]
  • El Nuevo Sandinismo De Daniel Ortega En Nicaragua: ¿Qué Ocurrirá Con El Gran Canal Interoceánico?
    El nuevo sandinismo de Daniel Ortega en Nicaragua: ¿Qué ocurrirá con el Gran Canal Interoceánico? Por Carmen Grau Vila1 “Los nicaragüenses no les pedirán nada, pero no pueden impedirme que yo lo haga por ellos, y que lo haga por admiración y por amor frente a su coraje y a la lección histórica que están dando a nuestra amarga, sufriente América Latina”. Julio Cortázar, 19842 Probablemente el escritor argentino que en sus visitas al país centroamericano plasmó admirado los esfuerzos de la revolución sandinista, lamentaría hoy el giro autoritario del sandinismo del siglo XXI. Nicaragua celebró el pasado 6 de noviembre unas elecciones presidenciales rodeadas de polémica y bajo un régimen, el de Daniel Ortega, que ya toma diversas calificaciones. Medios periodísticos hablan de dictadura dinástica o clan de los Ortega, los académicos lo definen como autoritarismo popular o caudillismo. Por unos días Nicaragua fue noticia global, sin embargo poco después, las elecciones de EE.UU. ensombrecían de nuevo la situación política del país centroamericano. La Nicaragua sandinista de este siglo se autoproclama “cristiana, socialista y solidaria” y en carteles que recorren el país apela a un pueblo que triunfa unido, “El Pueblo Presidente”. Estas proclamas oficiales del gobierno de Daniel Ortega y por extensión de la compañera Rosario Murillo, quienes siempre encabezan los carteles de colores estridentes, son un aviso más del carácter personalista del régimen Ortega en la Nicaragua actual. Una Nicaragua que además está inmersa, desde 2013, en la proyección de un Gran Canal Interoceánico, unas obras que todavía aguardan para iniciar pero que han creado unas expectativas en un pueblo cuyo imaginario e historia no puede desligarse del canal.
    [Show full text]
  • President Daniel Ortega Wins Third Consecutive Term in Nicaragua Benjamin Witte-Lebhar
    University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository NotiCen Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) 11-17-2016 President Daniel Ortega Wins Third Consecutive Term in Nicaragua Benjamin Witte-Lebhar Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/noticen Recommended Citation Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin. "President Daniel Ortega Wins Third Consecutive Term in Nicaragua." (2016). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/noticen/10391 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in NotiCen by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 80147 ISSN: 1089-1560 President Daniel Ortega Wins Third Consecutive Term in Nicaragua by Benjamin Witte-Lebhar Category/Department: Nicaragua Published: 2016-11-17 Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and the governing Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) cruised to victory in national elections that were as polemical as they were predictable. Against a field of five lesser known candidates, the long-serving leader and one-time Marxist revolutionary easily won his bid for reelection, drawing more than 72% of the votes cast Nov. 6, according to the Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE), the country’s top electoral authority. Ortega’s closest challenger, former contra fighter Maximino Rodríguez of the conservative Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (Liberal Constitutionalist Party, PLC), received 15% of the vote. The other four candidates drew just 12% of the vote between them. The results give Ortega, 71, a third consecutive five-year presidential term and fourth overall, not including his tenure as head of the country’s post-revolutionary junta government (1979-1985).
    [Show full text]