Nicaragua has a bad history of strongmen rulers. The current example: Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega recently stripped many prominent Nicaraguan opposition leaders and journalists of their citizenship. This follows many other actions his government has taken over the years to ensure that no one can challenge his tight grip on the small Central American country. Ortega has amended the constitution so that he can be president for life, made sure any opposition politicians or independent media voices are jailed, scared, or disappeared, and eliminated any checks on his power. This is bad news for Nicaraguans, Central America, and the US.
Admittedly, Nicaragua holds a special place in my heart because I lived there for many years in my 20s. I still have friends there and they are suffering. These developments should worry Latin American countries and the US as well, mainly for the destruction of democracy in Nicaragua and the suffering of its people.
What a spectacular fall this has been for Ortega. He represents a group, the Sandinistas, that fought to overthrow the last dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Somoza was also a strongman. As author/journalist Stephen Kinzer writes about the Sandinistas in his wonderful book Blood of Brothers, it doesn’t have to be this way for Ortega. Kinzer’s take is that initially Ortega and the Sandinistas genuinely wanted to improve the lives of the many poor people in Nicaragua. They started health clinics, schools, a literacy campaign, all things Somoza did not ever care about. Somoza cared only about enriching himself, his family, and a small clique of friends. The US supported him because he painted himself as anti-communist. His brutality and greed led to the Sandinista uprising of which Ortega was an instrumental leader. Now we have come full circle with Ortega acting as the new Nicaraguan strongman and the Sandinista party helping him along the way.
Ortega would be wise to remember what happened to Somoza. He was overthrown and fled to Paraguay where he was shot down by Sandinista assassins. Ortega is now as corrupt and violent as Somoza and is showing all the signs of maintaining that course. The whole situation reminds me of the last line in George Orwell’s masterpiece, Animal Farm: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
