Commentary: Nicaragua's cruel dictatorship tightens grip; targets the poor and needy

The long list of victims under Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega’s experiment in totalitarianism continues to grow.

Hundreds of his political adversaries and civil society leaders have been jailed, many later forcibly exiled, with the state stripping them of their property and citizenship.

For half the population, poverty and hunger are the daily reality. But particularly sad are cases involving the elderly, orphans, mothers and children, and those with disabilities, who Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have thrown in the streets by closing shelters and services run by local humanitarian organizations, including Nicaragua’s churches.

Nicaragua’s independent newspaper, Confidencial, now forced to operate in exile, reports that among 1,500 recently canceled civil society organizations, at least 10 served or sheltered the elderly.

According to a medical professional, many of those being helped by these agencies had no family support and were essentially abandoned. Where will they now obtain medicines and health care? There are no guarantees they will. Sociologist María Teresa Blandón commented, “It’s scandalous that the government would close organizations that in general don’t receive state funding and which are supported by the contributions of communities and churches.”

Since 2018, the Ortega-Murillo regime has waged a war against those who do not submit to state control, shuttering over 5,000 NGOs and other civil society organizations.

It has also aggressively closed down Catholic and Protestant church operations. While one might understand the motives of a paranoid authoritarian leader attacking independent media and political activists, why punish the most helpless members of society?

Murillo probably contends that her National Special Care Program will step up to provide services to the most marginalized.

The catch? All Nicaragua government services are prioritized for Ortega-Murillo’s Sandinista Party members. It is a litmus test – party members are served; others go to the back of the line. The regime strategy fits the model of Ortega’s ally, Cuba, where independent civil society is prohibited, and is replaced by proxy organizations run by the state.

It is not just civil society closings that are impacting Nicaragua social services.

My organization, Outreach Aid to the Americas, has heard from our persecuted Catholic and Protestant contacts that they can no longer support nursing homes because the national police, mayors’ offices and neighborhood Sandinista activists demand control over all social services. They say regime agents surveil their community activities to gather information on faith-based service providers.

Funded from donations, those activities are also undermined by government confiscation of church assets after the service organization is forcibly closed. The Pro Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, also operating in exile, says expropriations have reached at least $250 million. The loss is immense. The now depleted voluntary services network had been the “most important social capital constructed by Nicaraguan society.”

Why would Ortega-Murillo cancel non-governmental actors that voluntarily serve the most disadvantaged?

Their motive is fear — civil society provides a counterbalance against authoritarianism. This was shown in 1979 when Nicaraguan civil society helped oust dictator Anastasio Somoza through collaboration of student and business unions, newspapers, sympathetic Catholic priests, and the Sandino campesino revolt that became Ortega’s Sandinista party.

Now wearing dictators’ shoes, Ortega and Murillo are desperate to avoid a repeat of a civil society-supported uprising.

The authoritarian Somoza family ruled for 40 years but oversaw a period of sustained economic and social growth.

No wonder Nicaraguans are desperate for democratic change but also retain some nostalgia for the past.

Nicaragua needs our help. I urge you to encourage U.S. and international policymakers to monitor the Ortega-Murillo regime more closely and to put in place more rigorous sanctions that hold accountable its leaders and officials that practice human rights abuse.

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Teo A. Babun is the president and CEO of Outreach Aid to the Americas (OAA), a nonprofit religious organization dedicated to serving vulnerable communities in the American continent through humanitarian aid, development and the defense of human rights. OAA recently provided testimony on Nicaragua at the 57th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

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