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Nicaragua tightens grip on universities to stifle dissent

Published:Saturday | April 23, 2022 | 12:07 AM
Demonstrators protest outside the Jesuit-run Universidad Centroamericana, UCA, demanding the university’s allocation of its share of six per cent of the national budget in Managua, Nicaragua in 2018. The sign reads in Spanish ‘Daniel and Somoza are the
AP
Demonstrators protest outside the Jesuit-run Universidad Centroamericana, UCA, demanding the university’s allocation of its share of six per cent of the national budget in Managua, Nicaragua in 2018. The sign reads in Spanish ‘Daniel and Somoza are the same thing!’ referring to dictator Anastasio Somoza and current President Daniel Ortega.

MEXICO CITY (AP):

Four years after university students led protests against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, his government is minimising chances of a recurrence by seizing a dozen private universities and closing them or shifting control to the state.

A generation of students who participated in the April 2018 protests saw their education interrupted. Many were forced into hiding, jailed or exiled when Ortega’s police cracked down. Now, others who managed to resume their studies worry they won’t be able to finish or have finished but can’t find work because the now state-run schools haven’t given them diplomas.

The seizure of the private universities in recent months and the passage of education reforms that increase state control are the latest examples of Ortega’s relentless pursuit of those he believes conspired to try to overthrow his government.

“In April 2018, the regime took the repression to limits never seen in recent years,” said Ernesto Medina, who led American University in Managua for 11 years until the end of 2018 and who is in exile in Germany. “That’s when we realised that Ortega would not stop until he punished the universities and the students.”

A request for comment to First Lady and Vice-President Rosario Murillo, who is also the government’s spokeswoman, was not answered.

Earlier this year, dozens of leading opposition figures were tried, convicted and sentenced for allegedly trying to destabilise Ortega’s government. Non-governmental organisations that worked on a range of issues were closed – including 25 more on Wednesday – along with independent media outlets.

The Sandinista-controlled congress in late March passed reforms to two education laws that reduce university autonomy and increase government control, experts say. The changes also cut government funding to the Jesuit-led Central American University in Managua, another centre of protest in April 2018. Those government funds had been used to offer scholarships to low-income students.

Ortega has sought “revenge” against the schools, Medina said. “Ortega’s objective is to consolidate the government’s and the Sandinista Front’s political control over universities.”

Ortega recognises how university campuses can generate social upheaval. Many of the Sandinista guerrillas who fought beside him to overthrow dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 came from the universities as leaders of similar movements in Latin America and around the world have.

Nicaraguan universities lost their autonomy temporarily after the revolution as well when the junta that governed the transition chose university administrators.

“We were responsible for that abuse and now we are paying for it,” said Medina, who at that time supported the Sandinistas.