Nicaraguan NGOs

This morning in our Spanish conversation class, my group somehow got on the subject of the government and I saw it as a perfect opportunity to gauge our professor´s opinion of the political history of Nicaragua and the current debates they are having. He mentioned the Somoza dictatorship, what a victory the revolution was and how Daniel Ortega (the current president) played such an integral role. He then went on to lament the fraud that occurred during Aleman´s presidency and the current deception in the second presidency of Ortega. I don´t understand how someone like Ortega who played such an important role in ending the Somoza´s ruling can be so dedicated to the people during one presidency and then be so greedy and fraudulent several years later. He wants to do the same thing he called out the Somozas for doing, extend his presidency for more years than is constitutionally permitted in order to keep himself in power and keep the benefits coming his way.

All of this leads me to the project that I am currently beginning. As president, Ortega has called out several non-governmental organizations for being money launderers and fraudulent. In Nicaragua, there are NGO´s that support the citizens here such as schools and clinics, and there are also NGO´s that demand the rights gauranteed to Nicaraguans in the constitution, such as womens´rights movements. The organizations that Ortega has accused are the latter, saying that they are trying to destabilize the current government. He says they are commiting ¨tercerizacion¨ in which funds coming from outside the country are being used to destablize the Nicaraguan government. He believes they are money laundering and bringing in money illegaly to commit this crime. However, three months after raiding several organizations, the government still does not have any proof of their claims whatsoever.

This is a very bold accusation to make, especially without having any evidence. In addition ot ridiculas accusations, Ortega enacted new laws and deadlines that all NGO´s had to comply with in order to continue working within the country. This left the organizations scrambling to meet deadlines, which was understandably frustrating when they are only trying to help. In his hopes of discouraging these specific NGO´s that challenge his authority, he is also going to discourage the NGO´s that are relinquishing the government of their responsabilities. The NGO´s that provide schooling and healthcare are going to get fed up with his demands and decide that Nicaragua is too difficult to work with, creating more work for the government, and leaving the citizens even worse off than they are currently.

I don´t understand how Ortega can make these accusations. The organizations he is calling out are not radical at all, they are simply trying to give Nicaraguans their constitutional rights. The government wants to allow organizations to finance the citizens well-being, so that it is not their responsability, but not any activity that would challenge the government´s present agenda. The government says it is against the destabalizing of the government, but isn´t challenging the government a constitutional right? These organizations have been very clear about the origins of their funds. They in turn are claiming that the government is trying to suppress the country´s journalists so that the government´s own corruption and lack of transparancy is not evident to the rest of the country.

After doing all this research and reading countless articles from Nicaraguan newspapers, I have come to the conclusion that the government is making these accusations and restrictions as a way to silence their opposition, intimidate them and formce them into self-censurship. They want to monopolize the political floor by making sure they are the only ones that have a voice. To achieve this, the new laws allow them to decide where money goes, so they can direct it to NGO´s the support citizens´ health and education instead of their civil rights movements. The government seems to want to create not a civil democratic soceity, but rather a government that is more totalitarian in nature. To accomplish this goal, the government needed to justifythe restrictions and therefore made the accusations against these specific NGO´s.