The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The day that 94 opponents showed Ortega that being Nicaraguan goes beyond what a paper says

2023-05-29T11:03:14.487Z

Highlights: It has been 100 days since the dictator Daniel Ortega withdrew the Nicaraguan nationality of 94 opponents, dissidents or critics of the government. Desperate measure of an authoritarian without limits, the measure was tackled with dignity by the "stateless" of paper, but Nicaraguans of blood, memory and future. The writer Sergio Ramírez, Cervantes Prize 2017, tweeted: "Nicaragua is what I am and everything I have, and that I will never cease to be, nor stop having"


The Sandinista regime stripped dozens of dissidents and critics of their nationality, but it could never get rid of their desire to fight for a more just and free country.


It has been 100 days since the dictator Daniel Ortega withdrew the Nicaraguan nationality of 94 opponents, dissidents or critics of the government, whom he considered traitors to the homeland and fugitives from justice. Desperate measure of an authoritarian without limits, the measure was tackled with dignity by the "stateless" of paper, but Nicaraguans of blood, memory and future. The writer Sergio Ramírez, Cervantes Prize 2017, tweeted: "Nicaragua is what I am and everything I have, and that I will never cease to be, nor stop having, my memory and my memories, my language and my writing, my struggle for its freedom for which I have pledged my word. The more Nicaragua they take from me, the more Nicaragua I have." The poet Gioconda Belli tore up her passport in a live interview, as a sign that an official recognition of nationality is not what makes her Nicaraguan. "I am not this document, I am Gioconda Belli, I am a Nicaraguan poet and when history has forgotten these tyrants (Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo) I will still be in my books as a Nicaraguan poet," he said as he cut a leaf from his passport.

This new onslaught by Daniel Ortega ―former Sandinista guerrilla and president of Nicaragua from 2007 to date― against critical voices adds to the repression exercised since 2018, when massive citizen protests broke out in the country that received as a response from the regime the murder of more than 360 demonstrators ―many of them students―, the persecution of the alleged leaders of the mobilizations, exiles, dispossessions, threats and intimidation against peasant leaders and other activists, which forced them into exile in Costa Rica, a country considered the epicenter of Nicaraguan exile.

Another of the people whose Nicaraguan nationality was withdrawn is the peasant leader Francisca Ramírez, exiled precisely in Costa Rica due to the intimidation suffered by her and her family, after opposing for years to give their lands to the Chinese tycoon Wang Jing to develop the project of the Interoceanic Grand Canal of Nicaragua. The girl Ramírez, as she is affectionately called, was forced to emigrate in September 2018 with 41 members of her family for her safety, so in La Fonseca, Nueva Guinea – her hometown – she only had her house left, which was now confiscated by the government with Ortega's decision to expatriate them.

100 days later I talk to her, she shows me the two sides of this forced disappearance of papers that Ortega has imposed on her. "Our assets are already in the hands of the state. They continue to take away from people, no one can object, we no longer appear in the property registers, we do not appear in the games, that is, we no longer have a birth. There is no longer anything that we appear, that we are born in our villages. We show that we have our Nicaraguan identity card, our passports; that we were Nicaraguans, and that a single person made the decision to take away that right, but in Nicaragua there is nothing anymore: no birth registry, no property registry, no longer exists," Doña Francisca tells me.

The human rights defender assures that, although the effects of forced displacement have been many, the economic ones increased since their nationality was withdrawn, because before at least they had a space in Nicaragua and possessions that were sometimes sent to them, they even deposited money, but all that changed. "Do you don't have anything in Nicaragua anymore?", I asked. "Nothing, just the hope of returning to our homeland."

That hope is fueled by knowing that the persecution of the Ortega regime is based on illegal and unconstitutional actions, Ramírez points out, so the exiles hope that these actions will not last either. "That fills us with hope that soon we will also be able to see this Nicaragua that we want, and that we will return, it will not be easy but we will return to work in our Nicaragua. We see that the persecution continues towards us even though we are in exile, and to see that they also take away our nationality, because it also shows us that we continue to be hated by them although we have never done any harm, but what we always demanded was that our rights as peasants be respected, that our lands be respected. "

But there is also a positive aspect of Ortega's decision to take away the nationality of the 94 citizens, reflects La Chica Ramírez. Having made that list of the "stateless" has united them more than ever, it took away the distance between Costa Rica, Spain, the United States and other countries. After the stripping of their nationality, several of them approached and initiated a contact that continues 100 days later, to plan legal actions, either local or international, against this and other abuses of the regime against them.

"We continue together and seeing what we do, always thinking about Nicaragua. We always have conversations about what is happening, maybe before they took away our nationality what is happening now did not happen and I think that Ortega with everything he does rather unites us, because we had not had that approach with so many people that today we are in the same situation, today he has generated us as that unity of being in solidarity and helping each other. So I think that on the one hand it has been sad and emotionally angry for a person to make those decisions, but it has also been very good because it has helped us to unite and to be closer and to be aware of ourselves, "said the founder of the Anti-Canal Peasant Movement of Nicaragua.

Taking away their nationality by decree has brought them together, has given them strength, has created a network that feeds on hope and with the certainty that Nicaragua is already everywhere.

Subscribe hereto the newsletter of EL PAÍS Mexico and receive all the informative keys of the news of this country

75% discount

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-05-29

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.