We publish here a statement by the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI) on the recent state repression carried out by President Daniel Ortega. Our solidarity with the victims of his brutal regime and those fighting in the streets demanding his resignation.-SC
Throughout Nicaragua, a popular rebellion has started against the repressive regime led by Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, current vice-president. the trigger which sparked off the protests has been the announcement of a pension reform, in line with what IMF claims. This reform reduces by 5 percent the pensions and increases the employer’s contributions, which is a clear attack on the social security of the Nicaraguan working class.
Thousands took to the streets to protest in all the country. In Managua, Leon, EstelÃ, on the Atlantic Coast workers, college students and pensioners protest.
The answer of the “Sandinista†government of Daniel Ortega was to launch a brutal and criminal repression against the protesters. With the army and the police using live ammunition. 30 people dead, 67 injured, 43 missing and tens of people detained by police during the four day-protest, so far. According to a report, there are over twenty dead in Managua and in two neighbouring municipalities. Three dead in Masaya, two in Leon, two in Esteli and one in Sebaco. Local television reported the death of Angel Eduardo Gahona, a journalist, while he was covering the protests in Bluefields city on the Atlantic coast.
On Saturday 21, Daniel Ortega spoke on national television surrounded by the military and members of his Cabinet. Cynically, he said that there was “the right to protest” in Nicaragua but if this is “violent, then it does not have God’s forgiveness”. He said so after sending the military and the police to fire against protesters. The only violence there, is his dictatorial regime that starves the people and rules in agreement with the IMF and the bosses.
He denounced, without giving names, that the protests are encouraged by politicians critical of his Government, who receive funding from “extremist sectors†in the States. They would do so to “sow terror, insecurity and destroy the image of Nicaragua after 11 years of peace”. With that, he repeats the same lies of the fake “progressive†governments like Nicolás Maduro, from Venezuela, who has been denouncing an alleged “economic war” and “coup” plans of imperialism, while he has been starving the people and agreeing with oil multinationals.
The Government of the Sandinista Daniel Ortega is also a Government of doublespeak. He maintains the acronym FSLN (Sandinista Front of National Liberation) of the anti-Somoza 1979 revolution, which he eventually betrayed, but to rule for the upper classes. It is, in fact, a dictatorship that maintains the Government with fraudulent elections. Daniel Ortega favours his relationship with the businessmen from the Private Business Upper Council (COSEP) and the financial oligarchy. He imposes on the people the same policies that right-wing liberal pro-Yank governments like Macri in Argentina or Santos in Colombia do.
That is the reason why the Nicaraguan people hate the Ortegas’ government. They took to the streets and pulled down “the trees of life†(metal structures that cost a fortune) that Rosario Murillo built to embellish Managua and other parts of the country. A situation that resembles the moment where the people pull down the tyrant’s statutes.
Now, a startled Ortega speaks of “rounds of talks†but with the employers. The only way out is to follow the popular mobilization to end pension reform and, in this way, to defeat the repression and win the release of the detainees. In the way to succeed in Nicaraguan workers, peasants and youth’s central struggle, i.e., to end this repressive Daniel Ortega’s government of the bosses and to impose a government of the workers and the people.
A new government that breaks with the IMF, the bosses and the financial oligarchy and launches an emergency economic plan for popular sectors.
From the IWU-FI, we call for the international solidarity of the peoples of the world to support the fight of Nicaraguan people to stop the criminal repression of Ortega. We call political, union and student organisations to speak in that sense. In particular to those organisations of the left and anti-imperialist.
Stop the criminal repression of Ortega’s government!Down with the pensions reform! Stop the austerity plans against the people! We support the struggle of the Nicaraguan people!
INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ UNITY-FOURTH INTERNATIONAL (IWU-FI) |22 April 2018
___