In the late 1970s, Daniel Ortega led a ragtag group of leftist Sandinista guerrillas in an overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza. Today, President Ortega’s crackdown on protesters in Nicaragua shows he has become a dictator himself. Along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, who is vice president, the couple seeks to install dynastic family rule much like the regime they overthrew, using violent means to repress dissent. In the absence of meaningful political opposition, the Catholic Church is at the forefront of these protests — not as an ally of old-fashioned Latin American authoritarianism but as a voice for oppressed Nicaraguans and as a sanctuary for the persecuted.
The duo’s response to any who dare challenge their rule has been ruthless and unrelenting. The couple count at their disposal the national police force and directly arm thousands of roving paramilitary groups. Their war against civil society shuttered famed news outlets and severely curtailed reporting on human-rights violations. Prosecutors fabricate evidence against protesters, police arrest citizens arbitrarily, and Human Rights Watch reports the existence of grisly torture centers. This is not the Nicaragua of the 1980s, an era of battles between leftist nationalists and right-wing counterrevolutionaries, with U.S. and Soviet fingers stuck in the pie. Today’s conflict is a bitter struggle between an erstwhile “man of the people” turned oppressive dictator and the citizens he had pledged to lead — who now engage in nonviolent resistance for democracy and freedom.
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