Advanced Praise for Provocation and Protest This book is at once a work of social science and a homage. At the same time that he offers a nuanced analysis of the student mobili- zations in Nicaragua, José Luis Rocha reveals the great respect he has for the willingness of the university students to assume risks, to imagine a new and different Nicaragua, and to mobilize without depending on the top-down, masculinist hierarchies that were one of the Achilles’ heels of social movements of the past. José Luis has an enviable ability to move easily back and forth between social the- ory, historical comparison, and empirical analysis of the reality. He gives us a detailed understanding of why and how the student mobi- lizations happened, and of why the government of Daniel Ortega is so terrified of a social group whose demands are not—as this book shows well—radical or transformative, much less terrorist. In a certain sense, José Luis presents these mobilizations as performing three vital functions simultaneously: they demand a cultural change toward a society that is more open, just, and sustainable; they trans- mit this cultural change by their very existence; and they reflect cul- tural changes that are already happening in Nicaraguan society and that no government can hope, in the long run, to completely control. In sum, this book has convinced us that change will inevitably come, thanks to the combination of social and ethical values already present in the country’s youth, the greatly increased number of stu- dents, and the social media to which the great majority have access. Whether the change comes with or without blood will be a decision made by the powers of the state. In any case, it will come. That is a “decision” that has already been made. — Anthony Bebbington, Clark University (U.S.A.), University of Manchester (England), University of Melbourne (Australia) 1 Provocation and Protest: University Students in Nicaragua’s Uprising Provocation and Protest: University Students in Nicaragua’s Uprising JOSÉ LUIS ROCHA Foreword by Elena Poniatowska Translated by Joseph Owens Copyright © 2019 by José Luis Rocha Gómez ISBN: 9781691103690 Translation © 2019 by Joseph Owens of: Rocha, José Luis. Autoconvocados y conectados: los universitarios en la revuelta de abril en Nicaragua José Luis Rocha; prólogo Elena Poniatowska. — 1a. ed. — San Salvador, El Salvador: UCA Editores y Fondo Editorial UCA Publicaciones, 2019. (ISBN: 978-99961-1-063-4) Foreword © 2019 by Elena Poniatowska Afterword © 2019 by Javier Nart and © 2019 by Marc Zimmerman Cover Photo and other photos in book © by Jorge Mejía Peralta Copyright © 2019 of this edition by LACASA Chicago Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic, laser or other type of reproduction LASA CHICAGO 2120 W. Concord Place Chicago, IL 60647 (281) 513-9475 www. Lacasachicago.org Marc Zimmerman, General Editor, LACASA [email protected] Contents Foreword by Elena Poniatowska 9 1. Introduction 15 2. University Struggles in the Mimeograph Age 33 3. Antecedents and Origins of the April 19th Movement 57 3.1. The Objective Conditions 59 3.2. The Subjective Conditions 66 3.3. Reflections on the Objective and Subjective Conditions 87 4. The Struggles of University Students in the Information Age: Forms of Struggle, Ruptures, and Reproduction of Cultural Patterns 95 4.1. Events as Seen by Their Protagonists: Toward Freedom via the University 96 4.2. Strategies and Resources for the Struggle: Social Networks 121 4.3. Relations with Other Actors in the April Rebellion 130 4.4. The Role of Women and the Continuities and Ruptures with Patriarchal Culture 135 5. The University Struggles of April as Seen by Other Actors 145 6. Conclusions and Comparisons: University Organizations and Social Movements in Nicaragua 169 Bibliography 185 Afterword 199 A Note by Javier Nart 199 A Note by Marc Zimmerman 203 About the Author 207 “The revolution evaporates, and there is left only the slime of a new bureaucracy.” —Franz Kafka1 “History is like a relay race of revolutions; the torch of idealism is carried by one group of revolutionaries until it too becomes an establishment, and then the torch is snatched up and carried on the next leg of the race by a new generation of revolutionaries. And thus the revolutionary cycle continues forward.” —Saul Alinsky2 1 Janouch 1968: 165. 2 Alinsky 2012: 58. Foreword The history of Nicaragua has known many struggles waged to defend the identity of the people. Like the rest of Latin America, Nicaragua fought for its political, cultural, and economic independence, finally triumphing on 30 April 1838. After that the combat was mostly internal because Nicaragua had to define the direction it wanted to take. When I wrote “Tinísima” I discovered that Tina Modotti and Julio Antonio Mella had been attracted to Nicaragua during the 1930s by the great figure of Sandino, who was a hero for us Mexicans also. At that time all the power was in the hands of the Sacasa, Debayle, Chamorro, and Somoza families. Their sons went to West Point for training, and their daughters attended the Sacred Heart convents in the United States. At Eden Hall in Torresdale, Pennsylvania, I was a classmate of Liana Debayle, a very intelligent, precocious, and beautiful young woman. She was also at the top of her class. We were all privileged girls, but we envied her because she was the only one who had a hair dryer. I remember that many sons and daughters of Caribbean and Central American dictators were educated in the United States; they returned to their countries not only speaking English but having a strong addiction to the “American Way of Life.” Meanwhile, the people of Nicaragua gave us a great example of perseverance and resistance. The Revolution of 1979 marked another beginning for Nicaragua, which was able to save itself despite all the obstacles. It seemed to be taking a stable direction until 18 April 2018, when we heard the painful, horrible news that our beloved Central American country was being stained once again with blood. The repression unleashed by the government of Daniel Ortega, who along with his wife and vice-president, Rosario Murillo, has been more than 12 years 9 in power, inflicted a deep wound on the citizens and the political analysts of Central America and on the many inhabitants of Latin America who before cared little about the politics of the isthmus. As José Luis Rocha tells us in his book: “First, the kids took to the streets because they were oppressing the old folk. Then, the kids themselves were repressed in León, in the Camino de Oriente, and at the UCA. … On April 19th they killed one youngster and then a second, and the pot exploded.” On April 18, 2018, Central America experienced a new political and economic rupture when the Ortega government decreed social security reforms that would severely affect pensioners. The reforms incited fierce anger in many people, and they were not slow to take to the streets to express their repudiation of the measures. In his new book, José Luis Rocha has collected the emotional testimonies of the most violent days of the conflict and presents them in a way that will move his readers. He also provides a clear analysis of the history of social struggles in Nicaragua, that marvelous and most poetic nation of Central America. Despite a toll of 325 deaths and 700 political prisoners, the people continue to resist the wicked repression. The repression is “wicked” because it is coming not from the regime’s enemies but from the new form of treason practiced by the Ortega-Murillo duo, who have forgotten the reason for their own lives and turned their backs on their youthful ideals. They have mounted a bloody and treacherous Shakespearian scenario that exposes the cruelty of those who will never be able to wash from their hands the blood of the young Nicaraguans they have murdered. “The question of national sovereignty was a call that did not appeal to the people. But when they began killing and repressing kids at the university—that was a much stronger message, and the people really understood it.” As usually happens when such despicable acts are committed, the young people were the first to respond, the first to act, and also the first to pay the consequences. They are the ones who most readily risk their lives, their beautiful lives not yet lived. They are the ones whom Rubén Darío in his day recognized as courageous, the ones who now guide this generation of the new Nicaraguan spring. … And the sun that today lights up the new victories won, and the hero who guides his company of fierce youth; the one who loves the insignia of his maternal soil, the one who defied, girt with steel and with weapon in hand, the suns of red summer, 10 the snows and winds of freezing winter, the night, the frost and hatred and death, for the sake of his immortal homeland: him the horns of war salute with bronze voices, playing the triumphal march! The 20th day of April 2018 will be forever impressed on the memory of Nicaragua, for it was the day when Álvaro Conrado, a 15-year-old lad, was killed by a bullet that pierced his throat while he was carrying water to the students defending the campus of the National University of Engineering (UNI). How many more youngsters offered their lives for the sake of justice? “They are at home in the streets.