Nicaragua: Cruelty at the Drop of a Hat

Any definition of the substantive cruelty that you know, will lead you inevitably to think about the behavior and feelings of the dictatorial couple Ortega-Murillo, and to imagine how, during the last bloody seven months, they have enjoyed ordering the repression first, and contemplate the suffering of others afterwards.

When talking about the dictatorship with surnames, it is only about quickening the wording, because it is understood that if the couple has centralized all power, they also have centralized the will and conscience of their subordinates as executors of the repression, a dependency that does not subtract anything from their quota of responsibility, because they integrate the same dictatorial structure.

And what is repression, if not the combination of sentences and cruel punishment against people of all ages, who are punished for exercising their human and constitutional rights in freedom?

If, as the kidnapped and tortured have denounced, the thugs of the dictatorship film them while they go “con todo” (with everything) against their humanity, it cannot be precisely determined in what kind of evil plot these videos will be used, but we can deduce that they could serve as proof before their masters that they have fulfilled their orders to repress.

And who would not imagine that these videos could also serve as enjoyment to the dictators in their private and family sessions to amuse themselves contemplating the suffering of others? It is easy to imagine, because sadism is a component of cruelty and since, in their prisons, sexual violence is also practiced.

For seven months they have kidnapped day and night, accounting for more than 500 murders, a higher number of kidnapped, causing thousands of wounded (including young people who lost one eye or were left paraplegic), plus the disappearance of countless people. The dictators have been procuring for them an unimaginable quantity of visual documents to enjoy seeing the pain of others.

This is the only way to explain this unstoppable repression, even though during the period between October 14 and the present, there have been no massive public demonstrations, such as those seen starting April 18^th. And not for lack of interest of the people, but because of the repressive refinement of the dictatorship.

This world of repression and deaths is seen abroad only as a demonstration of a dictatorial policy, but it has served as proof to international human rights organizations to condemn the Ortega regime.

Hidden are the cruelties provoked by the repression to the humanity and the psyche of those kidnapped, beaten and their mothers, relatives, friends and neighbors; all this in plain view of the whole country, although not always personally, but through videos, but it has been enough to cause a national mourning.

Attesting to that cruelty, the majority of society has also built in their conscience the moral and ethical strength with which to confront daily the dictatorship.

The Ortega-Murillo duo began showing their unshakable inhuman will to continue with the repression, when a sharpshooter shot Alvarito Conrado in the neck, and who was later denied medical assistance in a public hospital by order of the Minister of Health, leaving him to bleed to death. “It hurts to breathe,” were the last words of the 15-year-old boy that impressed the world and will forever condemn those responsible.

Likewise, the conscience of people around the world that saw and condemned the fire that the minions of the regime provoked in the house where they incinerated six members of the family of pastor Manuel Velasquez Pavon, in Carlos Marx neighborhood of Managua, on June 16.

How after knowing the anguish and pain of two children, their parents and grandparents incinerated, can we not condemn this act of inhuman cruelty?

Those of us who are sure that with this barbarity they felt content were the perpetrators: the police and paramilitaries that, in addition to causing the fire, prevented with bullets the attempt by the neighbors to save the victims.

And what was the reaction of the intellectual authors of the fire, who ordered it because the family refused to lend them the roof of their house so that, from there, they could shoot the opposition demonstrators of the neighborhood?

It’s impossible to know, what was the reaction of the dictators when they learned that their thugs gone “con todo” (with everything) against that family. However the world was able to see their representatives when they attended the (National) Dialogue, and how they were able to lie three times, unfazed: they faked sorrow, because according to them the family was “Sandinista”, they blamed the “terrorists from the right for the killings” and they promised to do “justice”…

Since several months later they are still in debt to justice and continue to lie, it is valid to assume that this act of cruelty caused them satisfaction, because they never presented or investigated any member of the police patrol that caused the tragedy, which was seen by surviving relatives and the neighbors who wanted to save the family, but were threatened with death.

The Nicaraguan people mobilized against the dictatorship and knows so many testimonies of the cruelty of the regime, as they have seen people killed or kidnapped by policemen and the “voluntary” henchmen of Ortega’s illegal “hooded third army.”

Their criminal adventures are public, but these henchmen have the “virtue” of being “invisibles” to the leadership of the Nicaraguan Army (by legal mandate) under Ortega by their failure to protect the people and the youth, pretending neutrality.

After the murder of the child Conrado and the burning of the family, any human being could think that that would have satiated the cruelty of the rulers…but if they had the minimum of humanism and, at least, stop the repression and seek political solutions.

But, “our” dictators not only lack civic responsibility and humanism, but by now having caused “so many deaths and damages,” they appear to be pleased and “victorious” with the continuity of the repression.

It is impossible to refer to all the cases of unhidden cruelty, presented by the evidence provided by doctors dismissed for not complying with orders not to assist the wounded, and those who had to flee the country to save their lives.

When the cruelty showcase seemed to be exhausted, the citizenry was witness to an inhuman event, unique until today: when young Misael Escorcia Rocha, kidnapped in a prison…was denied permission to attend his mother’s funeral!

Mrs. Martha Rocha, had already been humiliated, like all the mothers of the kidnap victims, since the police had prevented her from seeing her son in prison and the courtroom, where the lackey judges gain “merits” before the dictators, crookedly applying the laws, already sentencing 93 youngsters…with sentences ranging from one to 90 years in prison!

These mothers have been forced to spend days under the sun, rain and police mistreatment, sometimes without eating, at the entrance to prisons, demanding to know something or to see their children. That caused the stroke and death to the mother of Misael, a woman of just 51 years of age.

I have recalled only three of the cases of cruelty of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship in just seven months, and it is horrifying to think with how many more crimes they will commit before the end of their cruel journey. However, I am convinced that sooner than later Nicaraguans will force them to end it.