In September 2021, María de Jesús Guzmán Gutiérrez was promoted as deputy commissioner of the Nicaraguan National Police. The ceremony took place in a coliseum in the Matagalpa region, in the center of the country.
(Read here: Ambassador in Nicaragua was summoned to Bogotá to give explanations for participating in the march)
Several flags and a platform for official acts were arranged there. Along with her, another 100 uniformed officers were also promoted. They all wore sky blue shirts, dark pants, a cap with the police shield and they swore in the compound to continue serving “the Nicaraguan people.”
(See also Nicaraguan Parliament approves norm with which Ortega seeks to control the Police)
Nearly two years after that event, Guzmán Gutiérrez set aside his promise and fled to the United States. Apparently, he left the ranks of the security body after internal pressure, corruption and bad directives from the high commanddepending on the medium The confidential.
The story was disclosed at the end of June on social networks by Yader Morazan, a former judicial official from Nicaragua who is in exile. She is one of the faces that in that country lead the desertions that today are experienced in the bowels of the Nicaraguan police.
These escapes would be accelerating the reforms promoted by the Ortega government and its allies to continue consolidating the control they have in the country and avoid fissures within the institution.
Last week, in fact, andhe Parliament of the country approved a law that contemplates prison sentences for deserting and disobedient police officersand ordered a restructuring of the Constitution so that the entity becomes controlled by the Executive and stop being a body of “civilian nature”.
Deputy Commissioner (r) María de Jesús Guzmán Gutiérrez: Welcome to the aggressor Empire of the “robo-illusion” that she defended from the police until the last day of her stay in said institution, to the point of being promoted in September 2021 during the 42nd anniversary events: pic.twitter.com/12U0UAbKaU
— Yader Morazán ⚖️ 🇳🇮 (@YaderMorazan) June 28, 2023
The measure was approved last Wednesday, but must still be ratified in the second legislature next year. However, analysts take it for granted that it will be approved.
All this is part of the authoritarian drift that has intensified in Nicaragua since April 2018, when the ruling party repressed with fist and iron the demonstrations that left 309 dead and some 1,300 political prisoners.
President Daniel Ortega has been in power since 2007, and has launched against his opponents. Those who opposed him in the 2021 elections were jailed, exiled or forced into exile.
And its most useful tool to achieve this has been the military and police apparatuses to monitor and control the population.
“The Government of Nicaragua, headed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo (his vice president and wife), is a government that implements a systematic policy of pressure. And in order to carry out this policy, it needs to control the various security forces and, in this sense, the police are one of the main bodies executing the repression and control that they have tried to exercise very fiercely over the citizens all these years ”, Carolina Jiménez, president of the Washington Office for Latin American Affairs (Wola), explains to this newspaper.
Stories of the repression in Nicaragua
“Your bosses pound you morning, noon and night. You always have to be there to serve the ‘good government’ (Ortega’s) (…). Obviously, as far as I was, within the Police there were many officers who did not want to repress and all that, but they fear being jailed, that they will be caught against their family”.
With these words Julio César Espinoza narrates to The confidential how the orders operate within the high command in Nicaragua.
Espinoza was a riot police officer and went into exile in Europe in 2018 after refusing to follow the orders of the high command who asked him to repress the population during the demonstrations.
(It may interest you: OAS asks the Nicaraguan government to cease all violations of human rights)
Regarding the defections that exist in the institution, he acknowledges that many want to leave the ranks, but that they fear reprisals.
The ex-uniformed man also explains in that Nicaraguan media that when there is some type of abandonment or flight, morale within the institution is affected, for which reason avoiding fissures is essential in Ortegaism.
“It is known that there are different members of the security forces who have ended up being removed or detained due to disagreements with the political leadership, and for actions contrary to the repressive plan that Daniel Ortega has.”, says Jiménez.
The Government of Nicaragua, headed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo (his vice president and wife), is a government that implements a systematic policy of pressure
Although there is no official number of defections, some local media say that the figure may be around 150.
The legislators seek to avoid it with the aforementioned norm that they approved last week.
The reformed law establishes that “police personnel who leave the service, which is considered desertion, incurring serious damage to citizen security, will be punished with a sentence of two to three years in prison.”
Regarding breach of duties, it is established that “Police personnel who, without just cause, disobey the orders of their superiors, to the detriment of citizen security, will be punished with a sentence of six months to two years in prison.”
But perhaps the most striking thing is the constitutional amendment establishes that the National Police will depend “of the authority exercised by the President of the Republic, in his capacity as Supreme Chief and in strict adherence to the Political Constitution to which he will maintain respect and obedience”, something that in practice already happened but that would be ratified in the magna carta.
“With this, the police would be a body subordinate to Ortega and Murillo, without a civilian character. This raises alarms about the role that the police will now have in the repression of the government. The Executive would not only have military control but also police control, something particularly worrying in a scenario of protests or a popular uprising. Despite the fact that we have not seen these dynamics since 2018, in a similar scenario the role of the police would be more accentuated”, says Valeria Vásquez, senior analyst for Central America at Control Risks.
jail or exile
Jail, exile or fleeing the country seem to be the only options for those who oppose these measures.
Of the more than 1,000 prisoners, the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners of Nicaragua assures that today some 63 remain, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who refused to be exiled last March when 222 detainees were sent by plane to the United States and stripped of their nationality.
Álvarez has become a symbol in Nicaragua and the region. Apparently, the ruling party puts his exile as a condition to get out of jail.
However, he refuses to leave the country. Monsignor was sentenced to 26 years for “treason” and since then the international community (the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Vatican included) have tried to mediate.
Last week there was a rumor that he was going to be released, but later the Nicaraguan Church denied it.
“There are various readings on the case of a possible release of the bishop. In the first place, there is no doubt that there is great international pressure in favor of the release of Monsignor (…). He is a symbol of resistance to the crude and cruel power of Daniel Ortega, who does not allow dissent, differences, criticism and calls for democracy, something that should be allowed in a country with the rule of law, which unfortunately is not the case in Nicaragua.” Jiménez notes.
He is a symbol of resistance to the crude and cruel power of Daniel Ortega, who does not allow dissent, differences, criticism and calls for democracy.
Added to the figures of prisoners and exiles, to date there are more than 3,200 civil society organizations closed and with their headquarters confiscated, including cultural and religious institutions, business associations, among others.
In addition to 51 closed media outlets and at least 174 journalists in exile since 2018.
This repression has, in turn, caused a massive exodus of people.
The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights speaks of at least 328,443 Nicaraguans who left the country in 2022 alone, while the UNHCR documents more than 260,000 refugee applicants in nations such as Costa Rica or the United States.
Both high numbers if one takes into account that it is a country of 6.8 million people.
CARLOS JOSE REYES GARCIA
INTERNATIONAL SUB-EDITOR
TIME
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