Laureano Ortega has arrived at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN-Managua) to deliver the inaugural lecture of the 2023 academic year impeccably dressed: he is wearing a wrinkle-free gray suit, a burgundy tie over a white shirt, his closed beard neatly outlined and few academic credentials to back this up. Son of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo and advisor to the President for the promotion of investments, it is enough for him to climb the podium of the most important public institution of higher education in this Central American country. The title of his lesson is “Challenges and Opportunities of Higher Education in the Multipolar World to Achieve a Good Life”.
Far from being a professorial dissertation, Laureano points to the lesson – after saluting the university authorities under the dictates of his parents – to complain about the international sanctions imposed on him and his family circle.
“In recent years we have seen the so-called sanctions of the United States and its servile Europeans and Canadians applied with a greater degree of madness, futility and unreason, which are nothing but illegal acts of aggression against the peoples of the world” , says Laureano, who studied political science and sociology at private universities in Managua and then audiovisual production in Costa Rica, “They throw these sanctions left and right, but with less and less effect because the reality is changing, the correlations of power and balance are very different from 40 years ago.”
The geopolitical context, which Laureano glossed over on April 26, is a nod to the “People’s Republic of China, Russian Federation, India, Iran and the Arab countries” powers that her parents’ government has turned to in recent years to alleviate the deeps international isolation they suffer from as a result of human rights violations committed since 2018. A panorama of ongoing brutality that a group of United Nations experts classifies as crimes against humanity, of which Ortega and Murillo are the intellectual authors.
Laureano Ortega Murillo receives a diploma from the Rector of UNAN Ramona Rodríguez Pérez César Pérez (Presidency of Nicaragua)
Laureano reiterates that China, Russia, Iran and India “are now the ones researching and developing the technologies of the future, opening the doors to mutually beneficial cooperation based on respect and non-interference in each state’s internal affairs.” And the son of the presidential couple immediately prophesied the end of “the world dictatorship of the dollar”, although the USA is still Nicaragua’s most important trading partner.
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“The Arab countries and China are major global financial centers with the ability and willingness to develop financial cooperation mechanisms through loans, investments and blended projects and programs. We cannot help but mention that transactions and exchanges are already taking place without using the US dollar, that is, the world dictatorship of the dollar is over. Nicaragua cannot and should not be left out of this new and much-needed form of labor and financial cooperation,” Laureano said. According to La Prensa newspaper, the inaugural speaker at UNAN-Managua failed the economic theory course while he was a student at Central American University (UCA), the Jesuit alma mater the Sandinista government paid for in retaliation for its support smothered the youth protesting en masse in 2018.
Relations with the powers that the President’s Advisor on Investment Promotion alludes to have been barren for the Nicaraguan economy, as have the investments that Laureano has encouraged, such as the Chinese Entelequia of the Interoceanic Canal or the direct Managua-Rome flight with of the Italian airline Blue Panorama, an operation that lasted only three months.
“We have forged the alliances of the future, in the New World that is forming and that nothing and no one can stop. We are at the dawn of the multipolar world where the historical hegemonism of the United States and its subservient Europeans and Canadians ceases to exist and its pressure and political and economic blackmail are losing vigor and belligerence, thank God,” said Laureano to the applause the capacity.
Camila and the creative industries
Before her brother, Camila Ortega Murillo gave an inaugural lecture at the end of March for the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast (Uraccan). She is his mother’s personal assistant, Vice President Murillo. She runs one of the presidential family’s television channels and is so passionate about fashion that she has her own luxe catwalk called Nicaragua Diseña. The event, like his brother Laureano’s opera festival, is one of the main activities of his parents’ government. Both initiatives receive millions of Córdobas from the presidency to fund themselves, as well as sponsorship from state institutions, ruling family companies and Sandinista businessmen.
In 2019 her parents created a position for Camilia: Coordinator of the National Commission for Creative Industries in Nicaragua, consisting of various state institutions and the “Platform Nicaragua Diseña”. The government has insisted that the “creative economy” generates “jobs, income, local economic development and revenue from exports and intellectual property”. However, its impact has not been visible, not even in the reports of the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN), which show a recovery in macroeconomic issues but not in the economy of the Nicaraguan, fed up with the lack of jobs, has wandered in recent years Thousands to the United States and other countries. Almost 7% of a population of six and a half million people have moved to escape the socio-political and economic crisis.
Camila Ortega Murillo gives a lesson via video call to César Pérez (Presidency of Nicaragua)
Camila is a Political Science graduate and her opening lesson was held virtually. He did not travel to the Nicaraguan Caribbean, where there have been two massacres of tribal peoples by land invaders operating under the protection of Sandinista authorities in recent months. Camila didn’t talk about it in her presentation, but she did thank her parents. “We are grateful to share with you what we have developed with the guidance and mission entrusted by our President, Commander Daniel, and our Vice President, Colleague Rosario, to stimulate, encourage and grow this creative economy model ever more to project where the main engine is the leading role of the majorities, these MSMEs, these entrepreneurial youth, the leading youth at all levels of our country”.
Laureano and Camila are the children who occupy the most visible positions in the apparatus of the parental regime. Despite the fact that her hobbies are opera and modelling, Sandinista sources consulted by EL PAÍS agree that both perform roles assigned to them by the presidential couple. Teaching inaugural lectures is a new job, regardless of whether it is an academic qualification. For a public university professor on condition of anonymity, these inaugural lectures reflect the decline of higher education in Nicaragua, marked by the closure and confiscation of universities.
“A few days ago the government closed three more universities, this year there are already five. Then the government takes over the universities, and what they impose on them is not science, criticism, and knowledge, but submission and praise. It is the imposition of mediocrity, and sending her children to master classes is proof of this: the merit is in servility. It is the final stab at the autonomy of the universities that this country’s students have fought so hard for since the Somoza days,” said a liberal arts professor at a public university.
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