Nicaraguan Freedom Day: Remembering Nicaragua's Popular Uprising Six Years Later

 Remembering the student led protests in Nicaragua 

Nicaragua is in mourning. Protests and repression mark one year of resistance.

Six years ago in Nicaragua on April 18, 2018 long standing frustrations with the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega erupted across Managua in response to a "reform" of the pension system that reduced them for current recipients while raising the amount taken from salaries of current workers. At 5:00pm "Sandinista youth" and national police attack protesters, destroyed commercial establishments and took over the Central American University. The following day classes were canceled across the country and the government continued to call on the police and the Sandinista youth to counter-protest.

On Saturday, April 21, 2018 journalist Ángel Gahona was shot in the head while conducting a live broadcast of the protests in Bluefields, Nicaragua.

 Ángel Eduardo Gahona, killed while reporting protests

On Sunday, April 22, 2018 with over 25 confirmed dead Ortega rescinds the "reform." This would have ended the protests on April 18, 2018, but after the thuggish behavior of the regime combined with the wholesale violation of freedom of the press, freedom of expression and association the citizenry was aroused. 

Tens of thousands protested against Ortega regime on April 28

 On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States issued a statement in which they condemned "the deaths of at least 25 people in a context of repression of protests against plans to reform the social security system in Nicaragua." The IACHR also made known that "four TV channels that were reporting on the protests were taken off the air following government orders."

Photos of seven of the youth killed in Nicaragua during anti-government protests

The death toll would continue to mount over the upcoming days and weeks.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018 was Mother's Day in Nicaragua, and it is a day traditionally of great celebrations across the country. Nicaraguan mothers marched on this day to remember the children, who were among the 80 killed since the start of the protests at that time. Pro-government para-police called "shock forces" and armed third parties fired on the non-violent demonstrators. Official reports are that 15 people were killed and 199 were injured in Managua, Estelí and Masaya.

Moms in Nicaragua peacefully protested for children killed by government.

By July 14, 2018 the Sandinista regime's campaign of extrajudicial killings and political terror to hang on to power had reached new lows. 350 Nicaraguans had been reported killed, 169 disappeared and 3,000 have been wounded by police agents since the protests began reported Nicaraguan student leader Victor Cuardas. At least 20 people were killed on July 8, the Economist reported, and reports of new killings flooded social media every day. 

However one aspect that is not being widely reported is that Nicaraguan torture victims have disclosed hearing Venezuelan and Cuban accents in the regime's secret prisons. The Miami Herald quoted Nicaraguan student leader Victor Cuadras on July 13, 2018:

“Castro copied his recipe for repression and harassment in Venezuela, and now they are doing it in Nicaragua. There are many people who, while being tortured, heard the accents of Venezuela and Cuba in the clandestine prisons.”

Two day later the São Paulo Forum gathered in Havana, Cuba and backed Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista regime despite their slaughter of civilians. 

Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela

Agence France Press reported on July 27, 2018 that more than a dozen doctors, nurses, and technical staff in a public hospital in Nicaragua were fired because they treated wounded anti-government protesters. The Associated Press reported that eight public hospital doctors in Nicaragua said Friday that they have been fired after violating alleged orders not to treat wounded protesters opposing President Daniel Ortega’s government.

Despite all of this the protests continued and students continued to put their lives on the lines. There are more than 600 identified political prisoners. On September 10, 2018 Amaya Coppens, a fifth year medicine student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de León in Nicaragua was arrested and accused of "terrorism." She was arbitrarily detained along with Sergio Alberto Midence Delgadillo by hooded police that used violence to detain them, and taken away in a van. Amaya was finally freed on December 31, 2019. She had suffered ill treatment during her arbitrary detention, but refused to remain silenced, continued her activism, and called for an international probe into the abuses of the Ortega government.

Amnesty International estimated that 322 Nicaraguans had been killed "as of September 18, 2018, most of them caused by gunshots to the head, neck, and torso."

Six years  later, and we remember this day of freedom, the repression that followed, and the struggle that continues for freedom in Nicaragua.

Today, as we commemorate Nicaraguan Freedom Day, we are reminded of the bonds that unite us across different backgrounds and experiences. Miami-Dade County's declaration today is more than a symbolic gesture—it is a reaffirmation of our shared commitment to the principles of… pic.twitter.com/fQAeIHXFBu

— Félix Maradiaga (@maradiaga) April 18, 2024

Human Rights Foundation also observed this important  date in Nicaraguan history.

1/ Today marks the 5th anniversary of the 2018 anti-government protests in Nicaragua. Citizens took to the streets opposing social security reforms and demanding President Daniel Ortega’s resignation. pic.twitter.com/AqYdd7tQHl

— Human Rights Foundation (@HRF) April 18, 2024

#MiamiProtests Why was a Sandinista Flag on display at a protest for George Floyd?

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea." - Martin Luther King Jr. , Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

Mothers mourn their murdered children in Nicaragua. Victims of the Sandinistas

I have no doubt that white supremacists and Neo-Nazis are exploiting the civil unrest in the United States, targeting the police who they hate, and making a bad situation worse, but they are not the only ones. Antifa and other hard Left elements are also doing the same introducing symbols and rhetoric that take away from the cause of justice for George Floyd.

In the Miami Protest on May 30, 2020 demanding justice for George Floyd a picture was taken of two individuals holding up the black and red flag of the "National Sandinista Liberation Front" (FSLN) in the midst of the protest, and it was posted on Twitter by a self-described militant of the Sandinista cause.

If we believe, as Reverend King did, that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" then these individuals need to be called out for carrying a banner, representing Daniel Ortega, a dictator who uses his security forces to murder, torture and rape opponents in Nicaragua to maintain power. Ortega has a lot more in common with Derek Chauvin, and has been placing his knee on the necks of Nicaraguans collectively for years jailing and killing many.

Mother demands justice for her murdered son on May 30, 2018 in Nicaragua

Nicaraguan mothers have been killed by Daniel Ortega's repressive forces for demanding justice for their murdered children. How can people of good will associate and promote such a regime? Two years ago on Mother's Day in Nicaragua, that was celebrated on May 30, 2018, a peaceful protest march was carried out in solidarity and mourning with mothers whose children had been killed in previous weeks by the Sandinistas. The mothers carried photos of their murdered children. During the march Ortega's henchman killed 16 more Nicaraguans and nearly another 200 were injured.

Young man shot by Ortega's repressors taken to hospital. 5/30/18. (AP /Esteban Felix)

According to a 2018 United Nations report, many of those arrested "were subjected to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, rape with rifles, and torture with Taser guns, barbed wire, tubes and attempted strangulation." Death squads are operating in Nicaragua today.

Why would advocates for justice for George Floyd associate with people carrying such a loathsome symbol?

Should they not show solidarity for the victims of Daniel Ortega and not march together with his supporters? 

What would George Floyd do?

Paula Hernandez, mother of Michael Gonzalez (age 24) shot to death by FSLN on May 30, 2018

Political Prisoners in Nicaragua: the revolving door

Cuban style regime tactics in Nicaragua

Nicaraguan youth protesting for release of political prisoners

 On March 15, 2019 the Ortega regime said that it had "freed" 50 opposition leaders from prison and placed them under house arrest. The failure to release all political prisoners in Nicaragua had led to the dialogue between the government and the opposition becoming stalled.

Peaceful opposition march for the release of political prisoners was violently broken up by the government on Saturday.

Peaceful protester being taken away by security forces.

Euronews reported today that more than fifty anti-government protesters were arrested on Saturday, March 16, 2019. The protesters were demanding the release of all political prisoners in Nicaragua.
However Ryota Jonen of the World Movement for Democracy reported over twitter last night that the number was more than 80.

Today more than 80 people were arrested in Nicaragua. A member of the WMD's Steering Committee, Sofia Montenegro, is one of them. Stay tuned as we follow the developments in Nicaragua. @AnaGomesMEP @Montesof #SetThemFree https://t.co/n1e82k3RO5

— Ryota Jonen (@ryotajonen) March 17, 2019

Euronews also reported that "[s]ince November, police have enforced a ban on streets protests that first erupted in April 2018 when the government of President Daniel Ortega moved to reduce welfare benefits. They've since escalated into a broader opposition movement."



Fifty released from prison to house arrest while another eighty or more are jailed for demanding the release of what was estimated to be 288 political prisoners in Nicaragua.

This is not progress on human rights in Nicaragua, but a revolving door with an increasing number of political prisoners.

Nicaragua at the crossroads: OAS examines Central American nation's slide into dictatorship under the Ortega regime

The end of democracy in Nicaragua examined by the Organization of American States.

Special Meeting of the OAS Permanent Council to “Consider the situation in Nicaragua”

 On Friday, January 11, 2019 the Organization of American States began the Inter-American Democratic Charter process regarding Nicaragua.  Representatives from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and the usual suspects howled in protest, but events in the Central American country under the regime of Daniel Ortega indicate that something must be done.

#OAS Permanent Council begins Inter-American Democratic Charter process regarding #Nicaragua pic.twitter.com/NN8YeXWGvg

— OAS (@OAS_official) January 11, 2019

The Nicaraguan magazine Confidencial reported that the "Mothers of April Association of Nicaragua, formed by women who have lost their children or relatives in the demonstrations against President Ortega, demanded on Thursday ( January 10, 2019) to the OAS member countries to apply the Democratic Charter to the Government of Nicaragua."

Articles 20 and 21, of the the Inter-American Democratic Charter provides the procedures against a member State that is no longer a democracy and suspending its participation in the programs of the organization.

There is ample reason to suspend Nicaragua from the Organization of American States.

On April 18, 2018 long standing frustrations with the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega erupted across Managua in response to a "reform" of the pension system that reduced them for current recipients while raising the amount taken from salaries of current workers. At 5:00pm "Sandinista youth" and national police attacked protesters, destroyed commercial establishments and took over the Central American University.This is how crackdown on the remnants of Nicaraguan democracy began and have continued over the past eight months.

Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans took to the streets demanding an end to the repression. Peaceful protesters and journalists were shot and killed by government forces. The São Paulo Forum, a network of communists, radical leftists, and terrorists groups met in Havana to back Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas' actions in Nicaragua.

Reporter Ángel Eduardo Gahona, shot and killed while reporting protests

 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) reported "325 deaths and over 2000 injuries, 550 arrests and prosecutions, the dismissal of 300 health professionals, and the expulsion of at least 144 students from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)." Furthermore that the Ortega regime has created a climate of impunity "with the de facto implementation of a state of exception that is characterized by the abusive use of public forces to repress dissidents, raids, the closure and censorship of media outlets, the imprisonment or exile of journalists and social leaders, and interference by the office of the president in other branches of government."  

Nicaraguan torture victims have reported hearing Venezuelan and Cuban accents in the regime's secret prisons. The Miami Herald quoted Nicaraguan student leader Victor Cuadras on July 13, 2018:

“Castro copied his recipe for repression and harassment in Venezuela, and now they are doing it in Nicaragua. There are many people who, while being tortured, heard the accents of Venezuela and Cuba in the clandestine prisons.”

Victor is right to cite Venezuela. Beginning in February of 2014 the high profile torture and killing of Venezuelan student opposition activists were carried out to terrorize the student pro-democracy movement. Reports in the media at the time described individuals with Cuban accents involved in the brutality. Protests erupted in Venezuela with Cuban flags being burned while denouncing the Castro regime’s role in the repression. The pattern is being repeated today in Nicaragua.

Medical student Amaya Coppens arbitrarily detained in Nicaragua

In Nicaragua, student activists are facing prison sentences in excess of 30 years, torture, and rape. Amaya Coppens, reported on in this blog back in September of 2018, remains in prison and faces a political show trial with a Sandinista judge in February of 2019. She was just 23 years old at the time of her arrest. Human Rights organizations report that there are currently 576 political prisoners in Nicaragua.

CPJ, more than 200 international journalists express deep concern over deteriorating press freedom climate in #Nicaragua, call for release of detained reporters Miguel Mora and Lucía Pineda Ubau https://t.co/DrRQPE06U3

— CPJ Américas (@CPJAmericas) January 7, 2019

Journalists have been the targets of extrajudicial killings and arbitrary detentions in Nicaragua over the past eight months. The Committee to Protect Journalists issued an open letter that highlighted some of the more egregious incidents during the Ortega crackdown.

We strongly condemn the December raids on the offices of two major independent news outlets, and the detention of Miguel Mora and Lucía Pineda Ubau, journalists from independent cable and digital channel 100% Noticias, on multiple anti-state charges. These latest anti-press actions occurred shortly before the Christmas holiday, when many in the international community might typically be distracted; however, they did not go unnoticed.

Mora and Pineda, arrested during a December 21 police raid on the 100% Noticias offices in Managua and rushed through court appearances with no access to legal representation, stand accused of crimes including "inciting violence and hate" and "promoting terrorism." The government has not presented any evidence to date to support the charges against these journalists, who took a lead role in their channel's critical reporting over the last eight months. More than two weeks after their arrest, both journalists remain in pre-trial detention, and their channel is still banned from broadcasting.

Just a week before the raid on 100% Noticias, riot police ransacked the Managua offices of independent news website Confidencial and two affiliated television programs, all led by renowned journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and confiscated equipment and documents.

These are just the latest hostile acts capping off a year that saw dozens of attacks on the media, including the April 20 arson attack on Radio Darío in León and the April 21 death of reporter Ángel Eduardo Gahona, who was shot and killed on camera while reporting on protests in Bluefields.

The failure of the international community to call out the Ortega regime for its decade long assault on democratic institutions led to the conditions that made the April 2018 crackdown possible. According to a defecting Sandinista Supreme Court justice the possibility of civil war  and economic chaos in Nicaragua is closer now than every before.

Ortega's hooded police wielding AK-47s arrest, hold incomunicado Amaya Coppens, a human rights defender and medical student in Nicaragua.

Family fears for her life.

Medical student Amaya Coppens arbitrarily detained in Nicaragua

Daniel Ortega's Sandinista regime in Nicaragua is murdering hundreds and is backed by the dictatorship of Cuba and Venezuela.  Torture is widespread, and a high ranking perpetrator is being promoted and given new responsibilities. The numbers are overwhelming and numbing. This is why it is necessary to focus on individuals such as Amaya Coppens.

Amaya Coppens, a fifth year medicine student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de León in Nicaragua has been arrested and accused of "terrorism."

Amaya stands accused of having set fire to the university facilities known as the CUUN, which occurred on April 20. They also hold her responsible for attacking National Police officers with firearms, as well as for the burning and destruction of the Germán Pomares Ordoñez complex, a building in León where a delegation of the Attorney General's Office operated, the intendancy of the property and a winery of the Fotestal Agricultural Ministry. She was detained on Monday night, September 10, along with Sergio Alberto Midence Delgadillo by hooded police that used violence to detain them, and take them away in a van.

This is a fabrication.

Her real "crime" is being outspoken against the violence visited on peaceful protesters and belonging to the University Coalition for Democracy along with the Justice (CUDJ) and the Civic Alliance and Social Movements Network. She is the eighth member of the CUDJ to be arbitrarily detained in what is a campaign of harassment and repression against a dozen university organizations working together at the national level for a free Nicaragua.

The charges against Amaya are a smoke screen to cover up the serious crimes against humanity committed by the Ortega regime against scores of Nicaraguans.   

Amaya Evans Coppens is a human rights defender who is both Nicaraguan and Belgian.  Friends and family are concerned because her whereabouts are unknown. A slogan in Spanish reads: "Viva se la llevaron, via la queremos!" - Alive you took her, alive we want her back!  Sadly, since April 18, 2018 hundreds of Nicaraguans have been extrajudicially executed by Daniel Ortega's Sandinista regime, and thousands more mistreated and tortured.

This is another sign of the Cubanization of Nicaragua. The imprisonment of a medical student for her human rights activism is reminiscent of the case of medical doctor and family man, Eduardo Cardet jailed in a Cuban prison since November 30, 2016 for his support of a nonviolent democratic transition in Cuba and outspoken criticism of the legacy of Fidel Castro in that island nation. Dr. Cardet is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.  Amnesty International should look into the plight of Amaya Evans Coppens and past the smoke screen erected by the Ortega regime.

Defeating Sandinista oppression in Nicaragua: A Call to Action and Solidarity

Neutralizing the Ortega regime's repression strategy.

Non-violent protesters are identified with the blue and white colors of the national flag.

The consolidation of Nicaragua's Ortega regime into a totalitarian regime continues. A new "anti-terrorism" law has been passed that targets students and demonstrators who take part in street protests. College students in Nicaragua are being treated like terrorists, complete with waterboarding.

Marco Noel Novo, a 26-year-old student and an active participant in Nicaragua’s protests who helped occupy a university, was captured by pro-government paramilitaries subjected to regular beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, waterboarding and being sodomized with a metal mortar tube over the course of seven days. The Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights reports that some 600 people have been captured by armed groups and disappeared. Hundreds have been killed.

Marco Noel Novo, age 26, torture victim

Nicaraguan democrats need to up their game in this deadly struggle for the future of their country. There has been a predominantly non-violent resistance to the Ortega regime that has been a spontaneous reaction to the violence of the regime.

#SOSNicaragua: Ortega regime brands doctors as "terrorists" for treating injured student protesters. “The government said the wounded should not get treatment because they were delinquents,” declared Dr. Carlos Duarte, who was forced to flee the country. https://t.co/UT0LBhA28o

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) August 3, 2018

Now is the time to double down, develop a non-violent strategy and plan the exit of the Sandinista regime from Nicaragua's political life. There are numerous resources out there but one that would be a useful starting point is A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle by the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an organization made up of members of the Serbian nonviolent student movement, who successfully overthrew Slobodan Milošević.

The level of repression and mass killings necessitates a strategic focus on how to counter repression and CANVAS has a publication, Making Repression Backfire, that is a good starting point for developing a plan to neutralize the Ortega regime's repression strategy.

Make no mistake the violence taking place in Nicaragua is a strategic effort to counter the mass mobilization of the population with terror to generate fear and bring an end to the mass protests that began on April 18, 2018.

The extreme violence does not only want to plant terror and fear but also hatred in order to get the resistance movement to abandon its nonviolent stand thus making it easier to crush.

University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.

This is why it is important for activists to understand the nature of repression and the reaction sought by the regime. CANVAS compares repression in the midst of a struggle as the equivalent of rain. Something that maybe unavoidable in a struggle for political change but that can be prepared against.

CANVAS calls on activists to learn as much as they can about the regime's repression strategy and develop an opposition strategy with the goal of winning over oppression and capacitating your "troops" to confront repression. Victory is defined as oppression negatively impacting the oppressors and not the opposition movement.

This is accomplished by responding with speed, making accounts of repression public, surrounding the police station or detention center were activists are held, and backing activists during judicial proceedings.  The operative rule is that no one be left behind.

This necessitates constructing a message and a narrative. Reporting repression to the whole world, and identifying martyrs making their stories known everywhere. Finally, naming and shaming the oppressors.

There is much more in the guide and it necessitates group strategizing with a focus on the Nicaraguan context, but now is the time to do it.

It also necessitates friends of freedom around the world being in solidarity with free Nicaraguans and not their oppressors.

Tens of thousands in Nicaragua demand an end to Sandinista rule on 11th day of protests

As the death toll climbs, outrage continues to build in Nicaragua, and tens of thousands continue to protest.

Tens of thousands protested against Ortega regime on Saturday

Thousands of Nicaraguans congregated outside of Managua's Cathedral during a massive march called by the Catholic Church as a day of prayer, in Nicaragua, Saturday, April 28, 2018. This gathering was called following the largest protests Nicaragua has seen in 40 years.

                                                                                     (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga)

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article210061224.html#storylink=cpy

The sounds and images of resistance to the Sandinista regime were seen across social media and a selection of these images can be seen below.

So this has mostly been a vigil for those killed, with very few calls for Ortega to step down, or that he’s Somoza, etc. Except for when this guy gets going and I’m kind of here for it pic.twitter.com/4qGXN4AlOb

— Sarah Kinosian (@skinosian) April 28, 2018

They are risking everything to honor those killed by Ortega, to demand an end to the killings and for Daniel Ortega to resign.

And a video of the action for good measure: #SOSNicaragua pic.twitter.com/tP5DAjklUJ

— Sarah Kinosian (@skinosian) April 28, 2018

Death toll in Nicaragua has risen to 43 dead confirmed with other reports placing the number of dead at 58. Video evidence shows that Ortega's police were killing non-violent protesters. The Washington Post published a series of videos provided by the family of Maroni Lopez, a 22-year-old student who was killed by the police on April 20. Video includes the final moments before Maroni was killed.

#Nicaragua
"Supe de tres jóvenes... les arrancaron las uñas de las manos. Las historias son terribles y nuestra juventud no merece eso”, expresó llorando el religioso. https://t.co/48r0UQQ0qa

— 100%NOTICIAS (@100noticiasni) April 27, 2018

Daniel Ortega's regime shut down independent media and violently crushed non-violent protests in Nicaragua beginning on April 18, 2018 murdering dozens, torturing and arbitrarily detaining many more but failed to silence Nicaraguans, who have continued to protest against the Sandinista dictatorship. In the tweet above Father Silvio Báez  with tears welling up in his eyes said: "I learned of three young people ... they ripped off their fingernails, the stories are terrible and our youth do not deserve that." Tens of thousands took to the streets of Nicaragua on April 23rd denouncing Daniel Ortega as a murderer and demanding his resignation.

Murdered on Ortega's orders in April 2018

La Prensa has provided sketches of 34 of the victims and photos of 24 of them. They were murdered for peacefully protesting against the Sandinista regime. Jonathan Valerio, a twenty year old was shot twice in the neck and killed for saying "I do not agree with this regime." Michael Humberto Cruz, age 29, was a graduate student at the Universidad Politécnica de Nicaragua (Upoli). He was shot in the chest by an AK-47 wielded by Ortega's thugs. Journalists in Nicaragua continue to fear for their lives and continue to work through the fear. Sandinistas tried to burn a radio station to the ground with 12 persons inside.

It is time for Ortega to go. It is time for Nicaragua to be free of the Sandinista dictatorship.

Crackdown in Nicaragua: Ortega's regime shuts down independent media and violently crushes non-violent protests

 Nicaragua's Ortega has returned to his dictatorial roots.

"Curse the soldier who turns the guns on his people! We do not want more dead. Long live the students!"

On April 18, 2018 long standing frustrations with the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega erupt across Managua in response to a "reform" of the pension system that reduces them for current recipients while raising the amount taken from salaries of current workers. At 5:00pm "Sandinista youth" and national police attack protesters, destroyed commercial establishments and took over the Central American University. The following day classes were canceled across the country and the government continued to call on the police and the Sandinista youth to counter-protest.

Nicaraguan journalist shot dead while filming confrontation between demonstrators and police, amid wave of protests against the government which have left 11 people dead https://t.co/w9VIGK0IEE #Nicaragua #Bluefields

— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 22, 2018

Committee to Protect Journalists reported that "[i]ndependent news channels 15, 12, 14, 23, and 51, which were covering the protests, went off air after the government ordered cable television providers to cut their signals, reports stated. In a Facebook post, Channel 15 director Miguel Mora called the action a "clear violation of freedom of the press."On April 21, 2018 Miguel Angel Gahona, a journalist, was shot and killed by a regime sniper while filming a confrontation between protesters and the police.

Police began to gather around Central American University before taking it over

 Communist fellow travelers are already echoing on social media Ortega's conspiracy theories to justify the violent crackdown and silencing of the press. Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, stepdaughter of Daniel Ortega, and daughter of Rosario Murillo addressed what was going on in Nicaragua to La Nación:

“The president comes out to invent that there is a conspiracy because he does not have the lucidity nor the audacity to admit that the people are claiming autonomy, without external political leadership. For his inability to accept mistakes, for that fundamentalism in the exercise of power, he believes that there must always be an external conspiracy, ignoring the intelligence that the people have to know how to face the moments of history that have touched us.”

Rumors are rampant but the timeline of what sparked the protests was posted on social media by CARivas on  April 22, 2018 and is reproduced below.

Ortega's rise, fall, and rise
Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in July of 1979 with the help of Cuban strategy, aide and arms. They ruled Nicaragua from 1979 through 1990 and were driven out following a prolonged guerilla struggle, carried out by the Contra, a negotiated peace and free elections in 1990. Ortega spent the next sixteen years running for re-election and finally succeeded returning to power via the ballot box in 2006 with a minority of the vote, but with a splintered and divided opposition.

Recycled Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

In 2009 President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Daniel Ortega and embraced him. In 2011 Ortega "reformed" the constitution under dubious circumstances to be able to run for a third term. In 2015 Nicaragua was behaving aggressively on Costa Rica's border violating the country's frontier. Luckily it was resolved in an international court.

¡JINOTEPE NO QUIERE DICTADURA! ¡A LA VERGA DANIELISMO! pic.twitter.com/sqtLXf1hLo

— #SOSNICARAGUA (@nikaraguense) April 19, 2018

Despite normal relations and this high level outreach early in the Obama Administration the Ortega regime pursued closer relations with Russia and China. In April 2016 Nicaragua purchased 50 Russian battle tanks at a cost of $80 million. Vladimir Putin signed a new security agreement with Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega in 2016.  In August of 2016 Daniel Ortega names his wife candidate for vice president and won re-election in a dubious process in November of 2016. Tim Rogers, a past sympathizer with the Sandinista revolutionaries described the situation in Nicaragua in a July 30, 2016 Fusion essay that remains relevant today:

Since returning to office nearly a decade ago, Ortega has methodically and completely dismantled Nicaragua’s fragile institutional democracy from within and reshaped the laws in a way that support his personal aspirations to create a one-party system that he can govern unopposed till death do they part. By hook and crook, Ortega and his lackeys have taken control of all four branches of government, implemented a repressive zero-tolerance policy for street protests, and rewritten the constitution to eliminate checks and balances.

Ortega put the final nail in the coffin of Nicaragua’s democratic pluralism on Friday, when his sycophants in the Supreme Electoral Council ordered the ouster of 28 opposition lawmakers and substitute lawmakers from the National Assembly. Now Ortega doesn’t face any political opposition, symbolic or otherwise, and can run unopposed for another re-election in November. The Sandinistas argue that the death blow to the opposition was legal, and they should know since they wrote the laws. So congratulations, comandante, you’ve finally got your dream of turning Nicaragua into your family farm.

  The consequences today are measured in lives lost and a country plunged in chaos. Rosa María Payá Acevedo, who leads a Latin American youth network, on April 21, 2018 tweeted: "[t]here are 12 youth who this Thursday had a future, love and a dream for their country. Today there are 12 families traversed by pain because of two dictators' pride Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, students of Castroism repudiated by their people." Attached to the tweet was a list of 12 young Nicaraguans murdered in the protests over the previous 48 hours and reproduced below.

On the evening of April 22, 2018 reports indicated that the number of dead had increased to 25. The nationwide protests and failure to silence them with political terror led Daniel Ortega on Sunday to announce that the "pension reform" had been scrapped.  NPR international correspondent Carrie Khan tweeted at 11:49pm on April 22nd tweeted the photo of a protester weeping as the names of the dead were read out.

Protester weeping as hundreds gather peacefully on Managua street singing national anthem, reading the names of killed protesters and calling for Ortega’s removal. pic.twitter.com/ZRtapNnlgh

— Carrie Kahn (@ckahn) April 23, 2018

The hubris of the Ortega regime after 12 years in power has generated this crisis. Time will tell how it well end. However, of one thing we can be sure there has been an awakening in Nicaragua.

“Me ha enviado a sanar a los quebrantados de corazón;
A pregonar libertad a los cautivos,...
A poner en libertad a los oprimidos”Lc.4:18
La Iglesia Nicaragüense junto a los jóvenes y a un pueblo que se levanta contra la opresión.
Gracias Monseñor Báez, obispo auxiliar de Managua. pic.twitter.com/YLtgY9peeK

— Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) April 23, 2018

President Obama's retread of Jimmy Carter's 1970s U.S. Cuba Policy.

Obama's Cuba policy is copying Jimmy Carter not Ronald Reagan and ignores President Carter's historic act of ending the isolation of the Castro regime.

 
Frank Mora the director for the Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) at Florida International University and a former Pentagon official gave a presentation yesterday at the Heritage Freedom Forum in which he sought to portray the current Obama U.S. policy on Cuba as inspired by Ronald Reagan and the F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman school of thought as betting on freedom. However his argument was rebutted by panelists both to his left and right ideologically.

The LACC director repeated the claim, first made by President Obama, that the previous U.S. policy on Cuba had been unchanged for 50 years and that this new policy is the most far reaching engagement by any other administration. When challenged that both the Carter and Clinton administrations had carried out engagement policies, he minimized them.

President Obama's policy on Cuba and even his strategy for handling its implementation domestically is ripped out of President Carter's playbook into what amounts to a political act of plagiarism. Although not to the literal level taken under non-Cuba related circumstances by Vice President Joe Biden and a little more timid.  

On April 27, 1977 representatives of the Carter Administration and the Castro regime sat down and personally negotiated an international fishery agreement. This was the first time since 1958 that any officials of the United States government sat down with representatives of the Castro regime to formally negotiate an agreement. 

Former President Carter in an interview with Robert Fulghum on December 19, 1996 quoted on page 310 of the book Conversations with Carter said: "When I had only been in office two months in 1977, I opened up all travel for American citizens to go to Cuba and vice versa. And we opened up an entry section, which is just one step short of a full embassy in both Havana and Washington. And those offices, by the way, are still open."

Within the Carter administration there were from the beginning low expectations on the limits of what normalizing relations would achieve. The Secretary of the Treasury, W. Micheal Blumenthal, in a August 12, 1977 memorandum to the president titled "Subject: Next Steps on Normalization of U.S. Cuba Relations" addressed Castro regime priorities and the tendency to "overestimate" US leverage:

"I do not believe that our lifting the trade embargo completely, let alone relaxing it partially, would be sufficient to deflect Cuba from pursuits which it considers central to its own national interests, presumably including its involvement in Africa."

Also on August 12, 1977, U.S. Senator Frank Church sent a memorandum to President Carter detailing the conversation he had with Fidel Castro and resulting U.S. policy recommendations for Cuba which included: relaxing restrictions on financial transactions with Cuba in order to make it easier for a tourist to pay a hotel bill. Meeting with Fidel Castro during the United Nations General Assembly later that fall (Clinton would shake hands with Fidel Castro there in 2000). Look for ways to cooperate on controlling the international drug traffic. Explore ways to ease the embargo on trade.

Robert A. Pastor, of The Carter Center in July 1992 in the report "The Carter Administration and Latin America: A Test of Principle" summed the outcome of the Carter policy on Cuba:

In November 1977 there were 400 Cuban military advisers in Ethiopia; by April 1978 there were 17,000 Cuban troops there serving under a Soviet general. The line had been crossed. Carter's hopes for a major improvement in relations with Cuba were dashed, and he said so publicly: "There is no possibility that we would see any substantial improvement in our relationship with Cuba as long as he's [Castro] committed to this military intrusion policy in the internal affairs of African people.

However, according to Pastor in the same article the Castro regime sought to sweeten the pot using political prisoners as political leverage. Unlike  the small, and debated, number of political prisoners released in the recent negotiations with the Castro by the Obama's administration the Carter administration achieved the release of thousands:

"Rhetoric aside, Castro might have thought he could change Carter's mind on normalization if he changed his policy on political prisoners. In the summer of 1978, Castro informed U.S. officials that he was prepared to release as many as 3,900 political prisoners to the United States. (He released about 3,600; 1,000 immigrated to the United States.) During the next year he also released all U.S. prisoners - both political and criminal - and people with dual citizenship. This represented a reversal from a position he had taken in an interview with Barbara Walters one year before. Castro also tried to do the impossible: to transform the Cuban-American community from his enemy to his lobbyist. He invited a group to Havana in November 1978 and left them believing they had persuaded him to release the prisoners." 

Concretely in addition to opening up the interests sections in Havana and Washington D.C. and ending the travel ban the negotiations between the Carter administration and the Castro regime, according to Pastor achieved some additional concrete agreements:

"The U.S. Coast Guard and its Cuban counterpart coordinated their search-and-rescue and anti-drug efforts, and Cuba lifted its 17-year ban on the use of Cuban water and air space by the U.S. Coast Guard. 46 But Cuba's military cooperation with the U.S.S.R. in Africa was an insurmountable obstacle to normalization, and as it expanded, it also began to affect American relations with the Soviet Union."

At the same time as this process was underway the Castro regime also played a crucial role in the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua while the Carter Administration imposed sanctions on the Somoza regime when it refused to pursue democratic reforms. According to Robert Pastor:

Somoza pretended the sanctions had no effect on him. He doubled the size of the National Guard and evidently believed he was secure. However, by May 1979, with Cuban President Fidel Castro's help, the three Sandinista factions had united and established a secure and ample arms flow from Cuba through Panama and Costa Rica. The United States tried to end all arms transfers to both sides. It urged Torrijos and Costa Rican President Rodrigo Carazo to cooperate; both pretended not to be involved. Public opinion in both countries viewed Somoza as the threat to their nations' security and the Sandinistas as the solution to the crisis. The United States did not know the magnitude of the arms flows nor did it have conclusive evidence of the involvement of Costa Rica, Panama, or Cuba. 

Towards the end of the Carter Administration the discovery of a Soviet ground forces brigade operating on Cuban territory and the ineptness in handling the Mariel boatlift crisis spelled not only the end of the policy but was also a contributing factor to the defeat of President Carter during his 1980 re-election bid. On March 1, 1982 the Castro regime was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government. 

The Cuba policy set out by President Carter in the 1970s was proven a disaster at the time. Repeating it again now does not bode well for the future. Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 and re-imposed the travel ban, toughened economic sanctions and in 1982 placed the Castro regime on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.