Shotguns and pigeons

I have never really liked the saying "pigeons shooting shotguns", because it presupposes that the indefectible role of shotguns is to kill pigeons, and that of pigeons to quietly resign themselves to their role as victims. How is a pigeon going to turn against a shotgun? It is a justification of the law of the strongest, against which there is nothing to do. Shotguns are shotguns, that's what they were made for, to shoot and kill, and pigeons are pigeons, that's what they were born for, to be riddled with pellets, and die.

My old friend, the commander of the Fabarundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) Joaquín Villalobos, in a recent article in EL PAÍS, affirms that it is an absurd mistake for Pope Francis to compare the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega with that of Hitler; another mistake, no less reckless, that of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to denounce him for crimes against humanity, because rather that strengthens him, and he will be able to die in the bed of pure old man, consolidated by such a festive condemnation. When shotguns fire, pigeons better shut up.

According to this allegation, Ortega, in an act of unilateral grace, without asking for anything in return, took more than two hundred prisoners out of jail to put them on a plane; And the simple detail of immediately stripping them of their condition as Nicaraguans, which he repeated later with about a hundred other citizens, among whom I am, being unnecessarily criticized by the international community, prevented us from seeing the transcendence of the magnanimous gesture. Banana dictators are like that, they have their eccentricities. Something had left for the radical bases, to keep them peaceful and happy.

This reminds me of the tale of the unbridled thug who terrorized the neighbors every night. Many escaped in secret, and changed neighborhoods. As soon as dawn came, a preacher visited them advising them better to keep quiet because otherwise the fury of the energúmeno would be worse. Let them be patient. The solution was dialogue. The victims give in, and the bully gives in. There is always the middle ground.

"Without opposition, international condemnations are useless," says Commander Villalobos. But did the opposition become in Nicaragua? All its leaders were imprisoned before the 2021 elections, on charges ranging from treason to money laundering, many of them only for having declared their intention to run as candidates against Ortega, who won as a sole candidate.

And then, since after putting them on the plane he declared them stateless, inside Nicaragua there is no visible opposition. But opposition prisoners will never be missing. In recent days, dozens more have been arrested, which again fills the prisons.

"No one will invade Nicaragua to overthrow Ortega, nor will there be another popular revolt, that opportunity was lost and is not repeatable at will. There will be no new "contras" and a coup d'état is impossible and undesirable because it can turn into a civil war. In short, there is no strength to achieve change," adds Commander Villalobos.

I have never heard any of the opposition leaders in exile call for a military invasion of Nicaragua. The rebellion of April 2018 had a civic character, because this new generation of Nicaraguans who came out to demand democracy and freedom in the streets, is against the use of weapons. They are aware that the civil war of the eighties in Nicaragua only brought mourning, destruction and blood, another dictatorship, and more corruption. The same thing happened in El Salvador. But it is not written anywhere that young people do not take to the streets again, despite constant persecution and the imposition of terror and silence.

And it seems to me that it would be too much to ask the pigeons, that in addition to not shooting shotguns, since that's how shotguns are, they are made to kill pigeons, and to kill people, who in addition to fleeing by hundreds of thousands to save their lives, and look for food far from the borders of Nicaragua, Despite how "the capitalist economy continues to work quite well", they demand that the international community not only not impose more sanctions against the dictatorship, but lift those that already exist, "to facilitate a dialogue".

Refusing the possibilities of dialogue as a way out of a political crisis seems foolish. But in the case of Nicaragua, we must first ask ourselves what kind of dialogue, and with whom. And for what. The model that I see taking hold in my country is not that of a dictatorship like Somoza's, which sometimes hardened its positions and at others sought respite, decreed amnesties, or restored freedom of the press.

Rather, what is consolidated every day is a model similar to that of Cuba in the sixties, however obsolete it may seem, or like that of North Korea, however absurd it may seem. All opponents in jail or in exile, civil society dead, media disappeared, churches closed, borders sealed. A single party, a single discourse, a single family in power. International isolation. Silence and submission.

What dialogue then? I just ask.

Sergio Ramírez is a writer and Cervantes Prize winner

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