Update June 8, 2018: The situation in Managua has severely deteriorated in the past weeks. Peace talks have been suspended and the death toll continues to rise as Ortega refuses to step down. The silver lining of all the violence and bloodshed is that it has brought great unity to the resistance against the current regime. The Atlantic recently published a great article on the current state of country: The Unraveling of Nicaragua (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/nicaragua-ortega-protests/562094/)
These are two questions I have seen asked a lot over the past month across social media and major travel websites. Anxious vacationers are expressing second thoughts about their plans to visit Nicaragua; it’s become increasingly difficult to know what’s true in the news, especially regarding any official reports coming out of the country that most certainly will have an agenda. (After all, President Ortega owns much of the media in Nicaragua and has censored or shutdown outlets that have lobbied criticism at his government.) You go online, read a few articles, but then have the same questions: What’s it really like there? Will I be safe? What’s the outlook for the future?
To understand what’s going on today, you will first need at least a bare bones understanding of the past 100 years or so of Nicaraguan (or nicaragüense) history. If there’s one name you must know before traveling to Nicaragua, it’s Augusto Sandino. He’s basically the Nicaraguan George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. rolled into one. His image and name are everywhere and you can’t understand anything about politics or the national psyche without first knowing Sandino’s story.
Sandino was born in 1895, the offspring of a powerful Spanish landowner and his servant of native descent. In the early 1900’s U.S. Marines were stationed in Nicaragua to protect American businesses and ensure that politicians supportive of American interests in the country maintained their power. Sandino’s primary objective was to remove all foreign forces from his country and return the lucrative profits from mining and other industries to the Nicaraguan people. Neither the conservative nor liberal armies wanted much to do with Sandino- why risk alienating U.S. support for this one man without any army or weapons? So Sandino turned to the people and found support among prostitutes, farmers, miners and other working class people. In the eyes of the government Sandino was a “common” man, but there was nothing common about him.
Sandino organized his band of misfits and led a successful guerrilla warfare campaign against the Marines. The U.S. tried in vain to find and capture him, but to no avail. In 1933, the last Marine left Nicaragua and the government agreed to a peace treaty with Sandino and his rebels to lay down arms and start rebuilding the country. The following year, Sandino went with his father, brother and generals to work out the details of the treaty, but it was a trick, and he was assassinated by General Somoza, who two years later began a dictatorship dynasty (along with his two sons) that controlled Nicaragua until 1979.
Somoza and his sons, Luis and Anastasio, were generally ruthless leaders. They began amassing all the wealth in the country, all the while allowing the general population to become poorer and poorer. Anastasio famously said when asked about education reform, “ I don’t want an educated population. I want oxen.” In 1972, during Anastasio’s reign, a massive earthquake hit Managua killing 10,000 people and destroying nearly 75% of the city’s buildings. International aid poured in, but much of it was stolen by Somoza’s family and downtown Managua remained in ruins for decades.
During the 1970’s a group of students and revolutionaries founded the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or the Sandinista National Liberation Front) and in 1979 they forced Anastasio into exile and took down the Somoza dynasty for good. The battle was bloody and 50,000 Nicaraguans lost their lives.
The FSLN was a socialist party, supported by the U.S.S.R. and hated by Reagan, who illegally funded Honduran “Contra” rebels with money from weapon sales to Iran in an attempt to bring down the Sandinista government. The FSLN had some noble goals: major education and health care reform; equality for women; improving infrastructure and conditions for workers. They were also terrible to some of the indigenous groups and have been accused of genocide in certain areas. Nicaragua never fell to the Contras, but the war kept the Sandinistas’ hands full and they were not able to fully enact all the lofty ideals they put forth. Daniel Ortega was one of their leaders who assumed the presidency from 1985-1990; after Ortega’s term, the FSLN lost the 1990 elections in a shocking (for them) defeat to Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua’s first female president.
In 2006, Ortega ran for President again and won. He then changed the constitution so he could run again in 2011; in 2016 he began his fourth term as President, with his wife, Rosario Murillo, serving as his Vice-President. Ortega began buying up businesses, amassing more and more power at the top. The irony of the once revolutionary FSLN leader who helped remove the Somoza dictatorship now acting a lot like a dictator was not lost on the protestors with whom I spoke, which brings us up to April 2018.
Last month, Ortega proposed cuts to social security that triggered nationwide protests, the likes of which Nicaragua had not seen in decades. On April 19th, students armed with the power of technology and social media took to the streets and were met with resistance from the National Police. 76 were killed and although Ortega rescinded the proposed social security cuts, it became about more than that: the people have had enough and are demanding nothing short of Ortega and Murillo’s resignations. The protests, while most explosive in Managua, have spread across the entire country and the protesters are now more than just students. They are young, old and from all walks of life. Ortega and the FSLN have organized counter-protests and tensions are running high.
Some high-ranking members of the Catholic Church have come out in support of the protesters, which was seen as a big blow to the Ortega regime. The church has also been attempting to mediate peace talks between the two groups, but the talks were recently suspended indefinitely. Ortega and Murillo were willing to negotiate terms, but for the protesters there is now only one item on the docket and it isn’t up for discussion: resignation.
So what does all this mean for tourism? Nicaragua had been seeing a steady 10-12% increase in tourism over the past few years and was ranked as one of the safest countries in Central America. Now hotels and hostels are faced with endless cancellations and restaurants sit empty or have temporarily closed.
I was not about to be deterred and the wonderful staff at La Bicicleta Hostal (labicicletahostal.com) kept me updated on the situation before I arrived. I felt like I was the only American or visitor from any country in all of Managua. The historic downtown area was essentially deserted, except for the armed National Police stationed throughout. The protests usually didn’t begin until 3:00-4:00pm each day, so I had the entire morning to walk around and explore the virtual ghost town of Managua. Everyone- protesters, police and moderates in between- treated me kindly. I never felt less than 100% safe and perhaps because I was seen as a neutral outsider, people were willing to open up about their views on Ortega and the protests.
I spoke with an older woman who had lived through the bloody revolution of 1979 and she was generally unsupportive of the current protests. She told me how she watched 50,000 of her fellow citizens be killed back then and she didn’t want to see anymore bloodshed now. She was exasperated with the students wanting a sudden change of power now; where were they in the last elections? They don’t like the candidates; they’re apathetic; they stay home and don’t vote. She believed they should do things the “right way” by putting forth a proper candidate in the next election and voting him or her into office. (This is a nice thought, but hard to do if the elections are tampered with; corruption is extremely widespread in Nicaragua.)
She did raise an interesting point though, and it made me draw my own parallel to the Bernie Bros in the U.S. who were so unhappy with Hillary that they stayed home from the polls and didn’t vote. Now we’re stuck with Trump. Ortega officially won the last election with 70% of the vote and it’s true that many abstained in protest, but even in a rigged system, you still have to vote.
I asked another person, how did it all come to this? How did Ortega gain all this power? (Can you imagine if Clinton or George W. Bush or Obama had attempted to change the constitution and run for a third term? It’s unfathomable to an American, but it appears to have happened in Nicaragua with little resistance, so what gives?) The answer was little by little and with a dollar here and a dollar there. The economy was good in Nicaragua. People were comfortable and had become apathetic to corruption and abuses of power. Corruption just became a way of life and the people adopted an “it is what it is” attitude towards it. Until they couldn’t any longer.
While a few protest signs have compared Ortega to Somoza, the person most fear him becoming is President Maduro of Venezuela. Maduro has essentially assumed dictator status and Venezuela has fallen into a crime-ridden economic and social tailspin ever since. Frankly, the country is a total disaster and Nicaraguans don’t want to see their nation follow suit.
So what do the members of the National Assembly think of the protests? Is the FSLN opposition trying to capitalize on this widespread public sentiment and get Ortega out? The answer was a chuckled question: What opposition? Over the years, Ortega has seen to it that the FSLN is basically the only party in Nicaragua, giving him resistance-free control over everything. Sure, they still vote on measures, but it’s essentially rubber stamping anything the first couple desires. Each member has benefited so much from the corruption over the years that it will be hard for any of them to bite the hand that has fed them. One person told me there is no government in Nicaragua, only politics.
On top of all of this, there is also a taxi strike going on, which is semi-related to the political protests. One of the industries Ortega controls is the gas company, and prices have skyrocketed since the uprising began. About half of the taxi drivers in Managua have gone on strike, causing demonstrations against those continuing to drive from their protesting counterparts. When I walked to the Mercado Roberto Huembes, one of the nicest markets in Managua, I witnessed a big scene of taxi drivers forming human barricades and forcing taxi drivers to turn around and not pick up passengers. The scene was chaotic and much less organized than the political protests I had observed in the late afternoons.
I think I should make it clear that while I learned much about Nicaraguan history and the current political state during my brief time in Managua, I only peeled back the first few layers of this tricky situation. I’m not ready to completely condemn Ortega and Murillo as monsters, nor am I writing off the protesters as a small group of student hooligans. Some of the more moderate people I spoke with actually liked Ortega at one time, but thought he had simply overstayed his welcome, allowing power to corrupt a once idealistic man. They laughed when I wondered if Ortega compared to Somoza, asking me in return if I saw 50,000 dead in the street. He had good intentions, but 11 years is too long. A change is long overdue.
While others might shy away from visiting Managua or Nicaragua at this time, I found it a fascinating and humbling experience that ranks among the best of my travels. The protests have unified many in the country and there is a real sense of community right now, despite the intensity of the situation. To be welcomed with such open arms and told stories about history, people’s lives, businesses and families was something very special. This current conflict is very complex and there will be no easy or fast solutions. The future is hard to predict and things could turn on a dime for the worse. I hope my next visit will be one in a true time of peace, but if you can keep your wits about you, don’t rule out coming to this country full of wonderful people now.
