The campus of the Polytechnic University, Upoli, in Managua was in mid-April 2018 a school of students in resistance. Some 150 of them had barricaded themselves in their protest against President Daniel Ortega. The study center was the bastion of student discontent in the midst of the demonstrations that demanded the end of the mandate of the former Sandinista guerrilla. An action that Ortega would never forgive them. So much so that this Wednesday the National Assembly, at the service of the president, has approved an initiative that makes five university centers illegal, including Upoli, in a new repressive measure by the regime against critical voices. The Government has also reduced the state subsidy received by the Jesuit Central American University, UCA, the most prestigious in the country, where its students have maintained a critical position against what they describe as a “dictatorship.” This is a hard blow for hundreds of low-income students who depend on a scholarship to finish their studies at that private university.
Gone are those images of the rebellious students entrenched in the universities. Ortega extinguished the protests with fire and blood, with a harsh repression that left more than 360 dead, most of them young university students. Reports from the media and human rights organizations give an account of boys killed by sniper shots, with bullets in the head, neck and chest. According to a report by the IACHR, these are crimes against humanity. But the bleeding was not enough for the Nicaraguan president, who has decided to put a lock on the centers that allowed the cry of youth freedom. In an orgy of outlawing civil society organizations, the Nicaraguan deputies canceled the legal status not only of the five study centers, but also of eleven onegés, many of them linked to the Catholic Church, which has been critical of the regime.
One of the arguments for outlawing these organizations is based on the controversial Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Law, which has also been used to arrest and prosecute 40 critics, including seven opposition presidential hopefuls, as well as journalists and businessmen. The trials against him began on Tuesday and are considered spurious by relatives and human rights defenders. “There are organizations that cover themselves under the acronym non-profit, but what they do in practice is profit. This is a process [la cancelación de organismos] that it will continue and no one should be scared,” deputy Filiberto Rodríguez, of the ruling Sandinista Front, warned this Wednesday.
This decision comes two weeks after the authorities of the UCA denounced the budget cut that the Government grants to that study center according to the funds allocated to the universities and established by law. The Jesuit university will only receive $28,000 this year, a tiny amount to cover the scholarships it grants to low-income students, which include not only tuition, but also housing and food. The cut “affects the possibilities of the University to continue granting full and partial scholarships to students who, due to their socioeconomic condition, are prevented from facing the costs of their university education,” the authorities explained in a statement.
The students of this center are nervous and fear for their academic future. Some of them expressed their fear of the digital medium divergent. “It is too brutal a measure. It feels like (the regime) says: if we want to close it (the university) we close it, if we want to screw them, we are going to continue screwing them. It is a clear message”, explained a 21-year-old student. “I am afraid, because I am one step away from graduating. I feel that having a title in the middle of this is also like telling the regime that we continue to resist in Nicaragua. I could, I did. Now, studying is resisting”, said another UCA student. Ortega, in his repressive maelstrom, is now trying to cut short his future.
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