Latest News Update from Nica

Once again, the NY Times has printed another informative and vital article regarding the current political situations and relationships in Nicaragua. In my opinion, this is one people should read.
The writing emphasizes the interesting shift that has occurred amongst the Sandinista Party (FSLN)... from those who used to be staunch revolutionaries side by side with Daniel - to those who have become deeply disillusioned by Daniel and what they believe to be his betrayal of the Sandinista Revolution's principles... When reading, notice the revolutionary Dora María Téllez who was one of the founders of the break-off FSLN party - the MRS (Sandinista Renovation Movement) - and who is the former President of the MRS... The group and I met with her for nearly two hours yesterday. She could not come to the Center for Global Education house (because it is on the same block as President Ortega's house and she has been a conflicting figure during these past weeks surrounding the elections - not to mention her criticisms of Daniel's ruling) so we met her in a conference room of a pastry restaurant. What a hidden place to meet, eh;) But she was awesome - I mean literally this woman is a huge Nicaraguan - furthermore a Central and Latin American - figure. Dora was 18 yrs old when she joined the FSLN...And when the Sandinistas took over the National Assembly (from Somoza before the revolutionary triumph) she stood on the balcony as the only female and Second in Command. What a woman.
Two friends and I will be doing on final project on the MRS; Dora said she would meet with us privately again... wow alright!
Read on to find more...

Sandinista Fervor Turns Sour for Former Comrades of Nicaragua’s President
Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Sandinista supporters celebrated a victory in mayoral elections in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, this month. Many Sandinistas, though, have left the movement.
By MARC LACEY
Published: November 23, 2008

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The music of President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista party, the rousing songs sung during political rallies and street protests that draw his supporters by the thousands, is the same as what rang out during the war years of the 1980s. “Brother, give me your hand, we now march united toward the victorious sun, on the path to liberty,” goes one.

Esteban Felix/Associated Press

Carlos Mejía Godoy, left, and Edmundo Jarquín in 2006, when Mr. Jarquín ran for president. Mr. Mejía Godoy, a songwriter, was his running mate in a party made up of former Sandinistas.

But Carlos Mejía Godoy, the revolutionary singer-songwriter who dreamed up those songs when he was the Sandinistas’ chief balladeer, has told Mr. Ortega’s government to stop using his music and in recent days has been furiously scribbling new lyrics that lament the direction that Mr. Ortega is taking the country.

Like many prominent Sandinistas who have left Mr. Ortega’s movement in disgust, Mr. Mejía Godoy is now denounced by party members as a sellout who has lost his revolutionary fervor. But ex-Sandinistas, it turns out, are some of Mr. Ortega’s harshest critics these days, hounding him and provoking his ire.

Mr. Ortega’s critics have accused him of rigging this month’s municipal elections in an effort to spread his power. Leading the charge against Mr. Ortega have been some of his former comrades in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s and returned to power two years ago. The dissenters include cabinet members in Mr. Ortega’s old government and intellectuals who championed the revolution that brought him to power.

“I want a peaceful and harmonious Nicaragua,” goes Mr. Mejía Godoy’s latest song, which he pulled out proudly on Thursday afternoon after spending much of the previous evening working on the arrangement and fine-tuning the lyrics. “I want a Nicaragua that is free, where nobody destroys the flower of my happiness, nor puts a straitjacket on my way of thinking.”

Present-day Sandinistas brush off the criticism from their former comrades in arms.

“The revolution is like a train. People get on and off,” said Elías Chévez, a Sandinista legislator and former guerrilla, who stood with his arms crossed in the street Thursday night watching a raucous group of party supporters await final results from the Nov. 9 election.

Recent actions by the government have made it clear that the defections are rattling Mr. Ortega. Orlando Nuñez, an adviser to the president, acknowledged that the infighting among former comrades could have the intensity of a family feud.

Edmundo Jarquín, a former Sandinista, said of Mr. Ortega, “He views us as traitors.” Mr. Jarquín challenged Mr. Ortega for the presidency in 2006 as a member of the Sandinista Renovation Movement, a political party made up mostly of former Sandinistas. Mr. Mejía Godoy was Mr. Jarquín’s vice presidential candidate.

Mr. Nuñez said the Sandinistas had stayed true to their principles and continued to focus on the poor masses in a country with an economy that is only a notch above Haiti’s. “We’re continuing the themes of the revolution of the ’80s,” he said, a point vehemently disputed by Mr. Ortega’s detractors.

Both sides in the political skirmishing in Nicaragua these days portray themselves as the true disciples of Augusto Sandino, the nationalist leader who conducted guerrilla raids against occupying American soldiers in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the past two years, the government has renamed Managua’s airport for Sandino and posted his photo in public offices and public spaces.

To outflank the former Sandinistas, Mr. Ortega’s government managed to keep Mr. Jarquín’s party off the ballot in the municipal elections two weeks ago. That move prompted Dora María Téllez, a former rebel leader who fought alongside Mr. Ortega and was once his health minister, to go on a 12-day hunger strike.

In 1978, Ms. Téllez helped lead a Sandinista raid of Nicaragua’s National Palace in which the guerrillas took the entire Congress hostage. The operation’s second-in-command, Ms. Téllez managed negotiations with the regime of the beleaguered dictator Anastasio Somoza, who ceded the rebels a $1 million ransom and Sandinista political prisoners.

Nowadays, she focuses her wrath on what she considers Mr. Ortega’s repressive ways. She said he had deformed the movement so that it would “revolve around him” and not any revolutionary ideals.

Mr. Ortega’s government found itself on the defensive recently when it took on one of the most cherished icons of the revolution, Ernesto Cardenal, the 83-year-old priest and poet who helped create the intellectual backbone of the revolution.

This summer, after Father Cardenal lashed out against Mr. Ortega while in Paraguay, calling him a “thief” who runs “a monarchy made up of a few families,” a Nicaraguan judge revived an old court case against the poet and froze his bank accounts. Politics frequently creeps into Nicaragua’s judiciary, and the action prompted widespread condemnation from intellectuals both at home and abroad.

“It’s vengeance,” Father Cardenal said Friday in a telephone interview from Brazil, where he was giving a reading. “I spoke out against him, and he’s striking back.”

For the past 30 years, a left-right schism of Sandinistas and anti-Sandinistas has largely defined Nicaraguan politics. Mr. Ortega has shaken that up by making political agreements with ideological opposites aimed at bolstering his political future. But with former Sandinistas now playing a more vocal role, Nicaraguans find themselves in two opposing camps: Ortegistas, who back the president, and anti-Ortegistas, who denounce him.

One of those in the latter group is Sophia Montenegro, whose office was recently raided by Mr. Ortega’s government. It accused the group she works for, the Autonomous Women’s Movement, of laundering overseas donations. The organization has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Ortega’s record on women.

Women’s empowerment was one of the cornerstones of the Sandinista revolution, but Ms. Montenegro said that ideal had been lost. Especially infuriating to her was the decision by the Sandinistas to support a ban on all abortions, even when mothers’ lives were threatened. That decision in 2006 came as part of Mr. Ortega’s effort to improve relations with the Roman Catholic Church, which clashed with the Sandinistas during the war.

The sexual abuse allegations leveled against Mr. Ortega by his stepdaughter in 1998 are another point frequently raised by his female critics. Women’s rights advocates in Nicaragua have helped organize anti-Ortega campaigns throughout Latin America, and the president faces the threat of ugly protests on the issue wherever he travels. In Nicaragua, he had legal immunity and was never prosecuted.

Mr. Ortega’s relationship with one of his close advisers, Dionisio Marenco, the departing mayor of Managua, has also crumbled recently. Mr. Marenco traces the shift to his decision to oppose a vice mayoral candidate put forward a year ago by Rosario Murillo, the president’s wife. Since then, Mr. Marenco said, Ms. Murillo has accused him of conspiring against the president.

“Treason is the worst thing you can be accused of,” he said, indicating that he might become the latest Sandinista to leave the party.

“We have to wait and see how the water feels,” he said. “It’s very tense and complicated right now.”

As for the music, Ms. Murillo, the president’s closest adviser, has dismissed Mr. Mejía Godoy’s attempt to keep his revolutionary notes to himself. She had an orchestra play one of Mr. Mejía Godoy’s most famous songs, “La Consigna,” at a government rally and the party put out a CD featuring others.

As Mr. Mejía Godoy tries, with little effect so far, to use lawyers to restrain the government, it is clear that Mr. Ortega’s supporters prefer the singer’s older works.

Ms. Murillo, herself a poet, wrote on her Web site: “There will always be, for me, one Carlos who was on the left, who was a leftist in his heart, and another Carlos, the one of today, who has lost his voice.”


Blake Schmidt contributed reporting.
More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on November 24, 2008, on page A6 of the New York edition.