In Nicaragua, being against Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo can mean four things: living in fear, fleeing into exile, ending up in jail or, in the worst case, in a grave, as happened with almost 400 people in the protests in 2018. After the most recent hunt undertaken by the Sandinista regime, which has left at least 24 detainees and a new wave of exiles, three Nicaraguans who oppose the government tell EL PAÍS how dissenting made their life hell.
Fátima Vivas, the mother of police officer Fáber López Vivas - according to her murdered by her own colleagues for refusing to repress the population - raising her voice against the government meant a long exile of more than 16,000 kilometers and three countries.
For Álvaro Conrado, the repression of the protests also left him without his 15-year-old son, the “child martyr” killed during the 2018 protests. But he has decided to resist in his land and continue in the search for justice, even if that means living in fear and being chased by the police wherever he goes.
Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, the peasant leader Francisca 'Chica' Ramírez, has set up a camp with other exiled peasants and, after the new hunt undertaken by the Government of Managua, she is looking further back to her country.
Political crisis in Nicaragua
Lesther Alemán: "Nicaragua is a prison that reaches the borders"
Ortega jails student leaders and the peasant movement in Nicaragua
The voices of exile: "The Nicaraguan struggle knows no borders"
Fatima Vivas: a murdered son and an exile from three countries
July 8 marked the third anniversary of the death of Fátima Vivas' son, the police officer Faber López Vivas. According to his mother, the young man was murdered at age 23 by his own companions because he refused to repress the Nicaraguans who in 2018 came out to demonstrate en masse against the Ortega government. "There are three years of pain, anguish, despair, knowing that I have never been able to put a flower on his grave, going to visit him," laments Fátima (48 years old) in a video call from her home in Huelva, in the south of Spain. He arrived there in 2020 with his youngest son, Wilber, 16, after a pilgrimage in exile through which he traveled more than 16,000 kilometers and three countries with the pain of having lost his third child and having to separate from the two greater.
His nightmare began on the morning of July 8, 2018, when a photo of Faber began to circulate on social media with the news that he had been murdered. Twelve hours later, and after many unanswered calls to the police, an agent confirmed that he had died. The next day, the woman was able to see her son's body. Upon leaving the Managua Institute of Legal Medicine, where the body was, he denounced to the media that his own colleagues had tortured him for wanting to leave the Police.
According to the official version, the agent had been assassinated by “terrorists with firearms”, as the Government referred to the protesters.
But the mother has no doubts that her son was tortured: “He was totally unrecognizable.
I knew him by his teeth, because his face was disfigured, his eyes were ruined, his nails were torn off.
It was terrible, "he says.
In addition, Fátima maintains that, a few days before his death, in a call, Faber told her that he had requested his discharge, but that he had been told that if he resigned "they would kill him because he was a traitor and that they would murder his entire family."
Fátima Vivas on June 30 at her home in Huelva, where she lives in exile.PACO PUENTES
At that time, Nicaraguans were facing the Ortega government behind the barricades. The mother, who in April 2018 had traveled to Managua to participate in the mass protests, later became a regular face at the roadblock that the peasants had erected in Lóvago, in the center of the country. Meanwhile, the son had been summoned to repress the demonstrations and then to "Operation Cleaning", a joint operation of police and paramilitaries to violently lift roadblocks.
“My son told me that they had them without eating, without drinking, without sleeping for 48 hours ... It was a terrible situation and I told him: 'Don't shoot: your mother is in those protests. If you shoot the town, you are shooting your mother. ' And he told me: 'No mother, I'm not going to shoot.' But the block boss forced them ”, he assures. According to Vivas, when 'Operation Cleaning' began, her son warned her when there would be operations to dismantle the roadblocks and she gave the warning voice to the protesters so that they were prepared.
But his superiors knew of the mother's activism and did not trust agent López Vivas. ”My son did an incredible job. Then their phone was tapped and they looked at some photos where I appeared with the peasant leader Medardo Mairena who was on social networks and they told him I was a gate, a traitor and a terrorist. Unfortunately, in Nicaragua it is a crime to upload a photo with a flag in your hand and with an opponent, ”says the woman. "And for the policeman who refuses to carry out Ortega and Murillo's orders, we already know that three things await him: burial, jail or exile," he laments.
Vivas believes that dissent was what led his son to the cemetery. And her into exile. When making his complaint public, he says that he began to receive threats. “On the day of my son's funeral they called me that they were going to burn my house, that they were going to kidnap me, a number of things, but that did not scare me and I said: 'I'm going to do the funerals for him. to my son and just as he would have liked: with mariachis, which was his favorite music, '”he says. Then came the calls asking him for a price for his silence and, on the advice of some friends, he decided to leave.
His first stop was El Salvador and, after passing through Uruguay, he flew to Spain, where some of his brothers had already sought refuge. But the arrival was not easy and he spent eight days with his youngest son waiting at the Adolfo Suárez airport with dozens of asylum seekers, unable to communicate with his family and being harassed by the police. "They said that we were liars, that we came to take away jobs from the Spanish," he recalls. “They put us in a gallery where we were like a hundred and every day you saw the deportation of Nicaraguans. Every time one was called, we all cried because we knew they were going to deport him. "
Fatima Vivas and her son Wilber were granted asylum. She makes a living caring for the elderly or cleaning houses, dreaming of being able to return to her country when the government falls. And the boy has managed to be the best student in his class. In the time they have been away from home, the attacks on his family in Nicaragua have not stopped. The Ortega government has used his son's name for a police station and two courses at the institution - in line with the official version that he was a "hero" killed by protesters. In addition, they decorated an agent whom they posed as his wife, while who was his real partner and his daughter - a girl about to turn three who López Vivas never met -, they left him without benefits until reported the situation.
And the two sons who stayed in Nicaragua continue to be besieged by paramilitary groups.
"My daughter is put in a van with dark glass or without a license plate in front of the house and, if she goes to the cemetery to see my son, she is surrounded by police (...) People there are afraid to report.
Whoever is inside has to be quiet and not say anything and they are even controlling social networks, "he says.
For this reason, she does not miss the opportunity to denounce what is happening in Nicaragua, especially now in the "worst wave of repression" in the country since 2018. "Those of us outside can raise our voices on behalf of those who cannot speak." .
The persecution of a father who seeks justice
The search for justice has been an emotional ordeal for Álvaro Conrado. After the murder of his son in the 2018 protests, this man has had to find strength in order to confront a government machine that tries to ground the crimes committed by the Daniel Ortega regime during those demonstrations, when tens of thousands of Nicaraguans they demanded in the streets the end of their mandate. For Conrado, impunity is not an option, and despite the de facto state of siege that Ortega has imposed in Nicaragua and the daily persecution of which he is a victim, he remains in resistance. “We feel powerless. They deny what they did and there is no one here to defend our rights. But they and the police are to blame. And the more time passes, they think we're going to forget the case.That's a lie. 30 years may pass, but as long as we do not have justice, we will not have peace, "says Conrado by phone from Managua.
Álvaro Conrado in front of photos and cartoons of his son, murdered in 2018, at his home in Managua.Miguel Andrés
For Nicaraguans it is Alvarito. And he is considered a martyr. Conrado's son was assassinated at the age of 15, on April 20, 2018. The young man had decided to join the anti-government protests, despite the opposition of his parents. That day he boarded a bus to the vicinity of the National Engineering University (UNI), the epicenter of student protests at that time. Managua was in chaos: the police, the riot police, the Ortega army, and vigilante groups tried to control the capital, where a true citizen insurrection had broken out. Conrado came to the campus with the intention of giving water to the rebellious students, say the testimonies collected by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). It was an accurate bullet fired by a sniper,according to complaints from human rights organizations, the one that took the boy's life. "It hurts to breathe," he said when a group of students carried him and another covered the wound with a handkerchief. The projectile pierced his throat. Several hospitals refused to receive him, on orders, according to the same reports, from the Minister of Health, a faithful ally of Ortega. The young man died hours later in a private hospital. He was the first minor to be killed in the protests, but not the only one. At least 28 young people died from the violence.from the Minister of Health, a faithful ally of Ortega. The young man died hours later in a private hospital. He was the first minor to be killed in the protests, but not the only one. At least 28 young people died from the violence.from the Minister of Health, a faithful ally of Ortega. The young man died hours later in a private hospital. He was the first minor to be killed in the protests, but not the only one. At least 28 young people died from the violence.
His father is part of the Madres de Abril organization, which brings together the relatives of the murdered boys. Their fight is for justice and against impunity. But for Conrado it has been a real nightmare. Day by day he is chased by police officers wherever he goes. The interview with EL PAÍS was granted aware that her phone was tapped. “We can't go anywhere, because wherever we go the police show up. I recently had a meeting at the Central American University [UCA, Jesuit] and five minutes after I entered the riot police were already outside. Is one a criminal? They take everything as one walking against them. We are not doing anything wrong. We simply do our daily routines and, if there is a need to go out for an April Mothers meeting, it is done. They are not going to keep us locked up, ”he says.
Conrado assures that there is a lot of fear among the members of the organization and more so at a time when Ortega has unleashed a new repressive offensive, with the arrest of dozens of opponents. “Most mothers are afraid and don't want to move, but we have to move, because if we don't plan actions, no one is going to help us. We have to follow the justice process. Analyze what the next steps are. We are in it. Organizing ourselves to see what we are going to do in the face of repression ”, explains Conrado.
Despite the fear, he adds, he is not willing to give up in his battle to achieve justice for the murder of Alvarito: “We are clear that this is a long process, regardless of whether there is a change of government.
We are also clear that we will continue to fight in the search for justice.
The first thing we want is for the state to recognize that our kids [boys] were not criminals.
That the State gave the order to kill, that it was the Ortega - Murillo couple.
Our children were students who took the right to express what they thought.
We are not going to give up ”.
The 'Doña Chica Camp', resistance at the foot of the plot
Francisca Ramírez walks among the yucca bushes with ease.
As he goes, he fumbles with his small, plump hands at the bushy leaves that sprout on top of the tuber.
It reaches the center of the plot, where a work shed stands, saying good morning to the peasants who work.
He lights the stove to prepare lunch and, like every morning, he looks around the field full of crops with satisfaction, because the coming harvest will give him "more stability" to "continue his struggle."
Francisca Ramírez, in San José, in a 2019 file photo.
M.
Francisca Ramírez's "fight" is against the government of Ortega and Murillo and dates back to 2013, when the Sandinista president promised the construction of a pharaonic Interoceanic Canal, which threatened to expropriate the lands of the peasantry. But three years ago he had to move his battle into exile. Now he resists from Costa Rica, in a plot located in the canton of Upala, on the border with Nicaragua, where the rain is as persistent as in La Fonseca, Nueva Guinea, his hometown. She had to flee there in 2018 after a Sandinista sympathizer tried to stab her at a protest in New Guinea.
Those were the days of social protests in Nicaragua when citizens rose up against the government over failed social security reforms, a popular uprising that was extinguished at the point of bullets by police and paramilitaries. Ramírez, a figure already on the national letterhead at that time, did not escape that repression, due to his intense activism against Ortega's canal adventure that never was. The peasant leader joined the protests and the persecution was such that, together with her family and hundreds of peasants, she fled to Costa Rica to take refuge.
At first, the destination was San José, a capital as noisy as it was rainy. It was the end of 2018 and Costa Rica was collapsed with so many Nicaraguan exiles (about 80,000, according to the United Nations refugee agency, Acnur). The peasants had left with nothing, suddenly, leaving everything behind and with the certainty that tormented those who fled Nicaragua: to return was death or jail. Soon after, Ramírez and a handful of peasants settled in the city of Cartago, some 25 kilometers from the Costa Rican capital.
They tried to do their thing, sow. But they did not do well in Cartago, a land more given for coffee, vegetables and orchids than for the tubers and red beans on which they used to live. In the absence of harvest, they worked in the city's National Horticultural Market as laborers and assistants to local producers. “There were a lot of people who were psychologically unwell. There was a level of stress, because being in a city, under four walls, is the same as being a prisoner in a jail. Not only those in jail suffer. Exile is similar to a jail. For us it was a total change, ”he says. The leader remarks that the peasants are not used to being someone else's employee either.
“Autonomy is the main pillar of us. That is why we had a dignified fight against the interoceanic canal. For autonomy we resisted for five years against that project, because we spent our own money in the marches, because with our lands we financed ourselves. So we went into exile with that vision: not to be anyone's workers, ”he says. Francisca Ramírez always speaks of the peasantry in the plural. She is a seasoned leader who led thousands of men and women who, with their rubber boots for work, went out to the main cities of Nicaragua to stand up to Ortega for more than seven years.
Exiled in Costa Rica, the peasants took advantage of his leadership to manage the rental of land and secured a 65-block plot north of San José, in Upala.
"We wanted to continue fighting for the freedom of Nicaragua in exile, but we needed stability for our families," says the woman, known as "Doña Chica."
The land lease contract was signed for three years, the exact time in which the peasants planned their return to Nicaragua, after the general elections scheduled for November 2021. However, the current repressive escalation of the Ortega-Murillo regime it has closed that exit for now with the arrest of the main opposition candidates and leaders.
"That was our dream: to return in 2021. It was the deadline," he says with a broken voice.
The hope of return is increasingly elusive, elusive ... Ramírez returns to his forests to regenerate his resistance in exile, to the administration of the plot, popularized as 'Doña Chica's camp'. “Here we work 40 peasants and 19 women; there are 32 children. The countryside has given us guarantees, a fixed place and food to continue the struggle, ”he says. “Exile is a thousand times easier here. For the farmer, the important thing is not to have money or a card in his pocket, but to have a guarantee of food. Here we have it ”, says Ramírez bluntly. The inventory begins with yucca, quequisque, plantain, taro and red beans, basic for the Nicaraguan gallopinto.
The exiled peasants now sell their produce in the Costa Rican market.
In Upala they have met other Nicaraguans, migrants of yesteryear, with whom they have established a relationship and friendship.
“We have found integration here, we are sorry;
community.
That gives us a bit of stability, especially to think that we are going to continue working, to accommodate ourselves a little more to be able to continue in the fight ... because our autonomy always let us know and be clear that Ortega was going to make this story long, ”says Ramírez .
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