Nicaragua is going through hard times. Especially in the bigger cities (Managua, Masaya, Leon, Matagalpa, Jinotepe and others) people cannot be sure about their lives. Since mid April people have taken to the streets in protest against the Government; and the protests are continuing.
Besides police forces there are terrorist groups which sow fear and try to persuade the people to stop their protests. But it appears to be counterproductive. The violence is met by even more protests and a raised awareness that the president doesn’t care for the welfare of his people. So far 280 people have lost their lives, among them also youth (below 18) and even some babies died from stray bullets. Besides demonstrations, road blocks are raised which hamper the free movement in and out of the cities; this affects the economic situation in the country.
Road blocks
These roadblocks are a sore point for the government. At the national dialogue they demanded that the road blocks need to disappear before any further negotiations can take place, and consequently the negotiations were cancelled for an indefinite period. After some time the negotiations reconvened, led by the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, but due to the rigid attitude of the president nothing concrete was achieved and the negotiations were cancelled again.
Travel is near impossible in Nicaragua at present. Sometimes the barricades are hermitically sealed, sometimes trucks and other vehicles are allowed through once in a while. Shops and markets cannot rely on being supplied and it means that in our community home we stocked up on e.g. food, drinks, and candles. For Jonathan, who is autistic, these are difficult weeks as his routine activities outside are sometimes not safe which frustrates him. He also cannot go on our monthly visits to Managua to stay with a friend there, which is always a welcome break for Jonathan from community life.
‘Arms’ – non-violence
We also have had one day of a national strike which was a big success. The population do not want to take to arms, so the risk of a civil war seem minimal, although there are criminal groups who try to take advantage of the situation by using small-scale violence to promote their interests. They plunder shops, raise fires and intimidate people. The remainder of the population resists these gangs, and gang violence has remained small-scale so far.
Since Monday the representatives of the human rights organisation CIDH (part of the Organisation of American States, OEA) are in Nicaragua again after they got sure enough permission from the president. It is a follow-up visit after CIDH wrote a report in May about observations they made in an earlier visit. The hefty report about people dead, injured, tortured or missing presents 15 recommendations. Delegation from the European Union and the United Nations are also expected. But it seems the President doesn’t really care what these delegations do or say. During a special meeting of the OEA in which the CIDH presented its report, the spokesperson of the Nicaraguan simply called the report ‘subjective’ and the Government did not seem to be moved by the condemnation of its violence, expressed by several OEA member states.
The Government refuses to talk about organizing early elections, and that is exactly what the people want, not later than March 2019, but preferably earlier. It has plunged Nicaragua into a period of great uncertainty.
But it is clear that many Nicaraguans are peace-minded and determined to bring real change to the country, for which they are willing to pay the ultimate price of their lives. It is not because they want to be martyrs, but because they are driven by the injustices they suffer. Please remember Nicaragua in this difficult period.