The feminist movement has been one of the main targets of Daniel Ortega’s repressive government in Nicaragua, with 57 feminists now in jail, 56 being forced to leave the country and 70 women hiding in “secure houses”, what Nicaraguan people call clandestine shelters. This is mainly because, in the last 20 years, the feminist movement has been one of the strongest voices against the violation of human rights, against arbitrariness, says Violeta Delgado, member of the Autonomous Women’s Movement of Nicaragua. She was also member of CINCO, a Center for Communication Research, but that organization was closed down by the government. Violeta was forced into exile, together with her fifteen year-old son.
Government’s action against feminists has a common pattern, of trying to firstly delegitimize them by using media, who are supportive of the ruling government. Authorities like the Vice President, Rosario Murillo, call feminists “terrorists”, “pro-coup”, “abortionists” and accuse them of attacking the institution of the family. Secondly, they try to intimidate them. Policemen or paramilitaries go to women’s houses and also start to keep a close watch on them. The same cars parked in the same places becoming part of the landscape. Finally, if the government can’t reach their objective by intimidation, they kidnap these women by using paramilitary groups. There is no reason given, there is no judicial order, many women are incarcerated without even appearing before the courts.
This doesn’t just happen to national leaders but also to local leaders, many of whom have now been forced into exile or forced to hide. Violeta says that “most of the feminist leaders from the Autonomous Movement are in secure shelters, operating clandestinely whilst the government is still searching for them”. After Violeta provided her testimony to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in October 2018, there was a permanent threatening presence at her house with a patrol parked in front taking photographs who have continued to stay there. She had to take her son to a relative’s house and some days later, she decided to flee the country with her son.
There was a time when the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (SFNL) represented hope for many people in Nicaragua. Violeta Delgado became part of the SFNL when she was just ten years old. At eleven, she was part of the literacy campaigns that the Sandinistas promoted. When she was 15 years old, she was put at the front of a Sandinista battalion.
As time passed, the situation started to deteriorate. Nicaraguan feminists identify two key moments which represented the start of the change. In 1998, Ortega’s stepdaughter, Zoilamérica Narváez, accused the Nicaraguan president of having raped her since she was nine years old. The SFNL and even Rosario Murillo -mother of Zoilamérica and Ortega’s wife- supported the president. “This fact, and also the fact that the party negotiated his impunity, was a point of total disappointment for most of us”, says Violeta.
Then in 2006, during the electoral campaign, Ortega made an alliance with the Catholic and the Evangelic Church and promoted the penalization of abortion, even if the mother’s life was at risk. The initiative was finally approved by parliament. These two cases greatly impacted the feminist movement.
Dolly Mora, who is just 27 years old, belongs to the University Coalition, that is part of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy in Nicaragua. “A lot of comrades have fled the country and gone into exile due to the persecution, but we stand here. We respect their decision to leave the country, and we understand that threats are different in each case, but we think that we have to stay here, because we must fight here”, Dolly says.
When Dolly was 11, her grandmother took her to a feminist meeting: the “Women 8th of March” group. All her family used to support the SFNL, but the case of the Zoilamérica accusations was a turning point. Dolly said “many historical feminists broke away with Daniel Ortega’s government, whilst others supported him. The movement became divided”. She says that Ortega’s government is not leftist, but capitalist and extractivist, as they sell national resources to foreign enterprises, especially from China.“They just make rethoric”, she says.
Ways of resistance
Last year in May, when students occupied university buildings in Managua, Dolly was there. Now she has gone into hiding in the secure houses. Most of the students who participated in that protest are in exile or were expelled from universities, universities who have no autonomy from the government. Last December 17th, many activists working clandestinely gathered together to protest against the government. They stood in the streets with posters calling on the government to free political prisoners, outwitting the government, as no demonstrations of this sort are tolerated. They then returned to the secure houses. Policemen couldn’t find the demonstrators, so they instead arrested their family members. In the case of Dolly, they went to her family house and took her mother and her sister to the police station to question them. Policemen also left messages for Dolly saying to her relatives: “she is crazy”, “tell her that she has to apologize to the country”, “tell her that she will go in jail”.
The Nicaraguan people use other ways of resistance: lobbying against state enterprises, turning off the power for hours, and singing. At 6pm, some days, they coordinate the singing and playing of instruments to the song “Ay Nicaragua, Nicaragüita”. Dolly says that one of the main characteristics of the Nicaraguan political crisis has been the persecution of human rights defenders, peasants, students and feminists. Being young and/or carrying the flag of the country is enough of a reason to be arrested.
In November last year, Ortega’s government arrested, deported and took away the nationality of historic feminist Ana Quiroz, who is well-known for her fight for LGTB rights. In December, Miguel Mora, director of the TV channel “100% News” –the first TV channel in Nicaragua focused only on news– was arrested. At night, policemen went into the building and arrested Mora together with one of the most well-known journalists in Nicaragua, Lucía Pineda. Till today, they are still in prison, accused of supporting terrorism. Lucía Pineda sleeps on the floor and she is not allowed to have any visitors including her relatives and just, this month, a 17 year old boy was killed by paramilitaires, Dolly says: “You can feel people’s fear”.
Nicaragua outside
In spite of the murders and the violation of human rights, the international community hadn’t focused on Nicaragua until last year, when the crisis deepened. Violeta says that“little by little, international organisations and the international community are becoming aware of the situation, and of the vulnerability that many of the leaders of social movements, especially peasants, students and feminists are facing”. The global feminist movement and social networks have continued to be a great support for the fight, denouncing the ongoing violation of human rights.
During the interview, Violeta has made no mention of the country in which she is living in exile, as she does not know how far Ortega’s reach is. She doesn’t know if she will ever be able to return to the country where she was born. She used to be a member and a fighter of the Sandinista Front, but now she says that these old leaders are part of the ongoing problem of the violation of human rights: “They are the antithesis of the utopias that we dreamed off”.