Feminists Sofía Montenegro and Azahálea Solís fled Nicaragua 17 days ago. The swamp and the paths they embarked upon preceded their arrival in exile in Costa Rica after the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo stripped them of their Nicaraguan nationality and confiscated their property, including the apartment they lived in Managua lived. They were left with nothing, literally what they wore. The house is occupied by police officers who gradually loot their belongings; many of them of great sentimental value: hundreds of books, family furniture, mermaids from different countries and this thick collection of vinyl records, headed by Joan Manuel Serrat and his Pueblo Blanco, Janice Joplin, María Jiménez, Elton Jhon, Maria Dolores Pradera, Pablo Milanés and other leading artists of these two women who are living their first International Women’s Day in exile, already detached “from the matter”, but with a shared smile that this March 8th can no longer hold back.
“Well, I’m very excited because we had years, like five years, when we couldn’t go out on the streets to demonstrate in Nicaragua,” says Montenegro, a journalist by trade. Before 2018, the year of the social protests that shook this Central American country, the Ortega y Murillo regime had boycotted all activities promoted by feminists. Police and Sandinista mobs first drove the women off the streets and then forced them to commemorate in private rooms until persecution crossed that threshold and several were arrested, forced into hiding and exiled.
“I have great expectations of hugging a multitude of friends who will surely be there. let’s go free The feeling of freedom is priceless; as Ho Chi Minh would say: “There is nothing more valuable than independence and freedom”. We had years when we couldn’t leave our home in Managua. It’s an unspeakable emotion,” affirmed Montenegro.
Montenegro joins the 170 Nicaraguan feminists who have been forcibly displaced since 2018. According to the organization IM-Defensoras, 60 of them were exiled; although there is under-reporting because many have not publicly denounced it.
Mural in San José (Costa Rica) honoring the stories of three political prisoners and ex-convicts: Mailene Noguera (Cuba), Emirlendris Benítez (Venezuela) and Samantha Jirón (Nicaragua). Carlo Herrera
“The truth is that we were in exile in Nicaragua. We had not celebrated March 8th for many years. Let’s remember that the gender approach in the dictatorship should put us in riot gear to quell the marches since Ortega came to power,” says Azahálea Solís. The constitutional scholar agrees with other feminists interviewed for this article: The Ortega-Murillo regime is cruel to women, especially organized ones.
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“We saw the situation of exiled political prisoners: they endured long periods of isolation and torture in El Chipote prison. It really is a misogynist government, it’s a government that attacks women. And indeed I think deep down or on the surface they are afraid of the power of women,” says Solís.
an old grudge
María Teresa Blandón is another feminist intellectual living her first March 8th in exile. The Sandinista immigration authorities did not allow her to enter her country in July 2022, when she returned from a work trip. Since then he has lived in San José, one of the capitals of the Nicaraguan exile. “This is probably the worst moment that the feminist movement in Nicaragua is going through,” she says confidently. “More than 200 feminist and women’s organizations have been shut down by the regime.”
“Almost all organizations that had houses and other types of assets were confiscated in an absolutely illegal way. Now it is no longer possible to carry out any activities inside the country because there is a permanent surveillance system against feminists and human rights defenders. And, of course, those of us outside had to devote all our energies to being spokesmen of solidarity for women, but also for men who suffer from this level of institutionalized violence inside Nicaragua. But we are also in the process of readjustment in exile, with all the difficulties and tensions that entails,” he explains.
Montenegro, Solís and Blandón have one point in common: Ortega and Murillo have an old grudge against feminists for being one of the movements that has consistently denounced authoritarianism since the Sandinista revolution. But the wickedness is particularly acute against organized women for supporting Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo’s 1997 rape complaint against her stepfather. “We were the first to call Daniel Ortega a rapist and a dictator,” they all state.
Blandón asserts that all Sandinista governments have never been interested in women. “The Sandinista Front in general has had an old sexist, misogynistic, authoritarian and utilitarian brand[of women]from the 1980s to now,” she claims, dismissing government propaganda insisting it achieve gender equality in Nicaragua have.
“They have increased the number of women in elected positions, but there is a brutal system of cooptation. We feminists have never said that we want to be in power to exercise dominance, control and violence against citizens,” says Blandón, director of the NGO called Programa Feminista La Corriente, whose legal status was annulled and whose headquarters in Managua were confiscated . “Having more women in positions of authoritarian power has never been part of the feminist demand. There are nominally more women in power, but they have no autonomy and, more importantly, it is women who in no way defend the rights of Nicaraguan women.”
Never before have so many feminists been exiled and banned. For now, Montenegro and Solís have been the last renowned feminists to speak out in the context of the totalitarian entrenchment of the Ortega-Murillos, which includes doggedly pursuing all critical voices. They have indicted the Catholic Church, journalists, civil society, social leaders, opponents and, on March 6, the Supreme Council of Private Enterprises (Cosep), the main employers’ association in Nicaragua.
María Terensa Blandón, feminist activist from Nicaragua Carlos Herrera
“We have always said that the worst thing that could happen to Nicaragua would be if Daniel Ortega won. I have to say that, unfortunately, we were right, even though we didn’t dimension it to such a level,” asserts feminist Solís. While Montenegro adds: “It is nonsense to have taken away our nationality. They confiscated all our assets, our homeland, they exiled us and also took away our pensions… And on top of that they ravage Cosep, they ravage the church, everyone. I don’t know what they’re really playing. It seems they hired a consultant to do stupid things.”
On the morning of March 8th, in downtown San Jose, next to the Plaza de la Democracia, feminists inaugurated a mural calling for the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua and Latin America. It was a pre-march gathering where these women met again, hugged each other, complained and expressed longings in exile. “Rosario Murillo is misogynistic, as is her husband. And there is hatred against women because women, especially feminists, represent what Rosario Murillo could never be in her life,” says Montenegro. “I will march with my flag. I will march on behalf of my fellow feminists who are still in Nicaragua and unable to march. I will march with the certainty that Nicaraguan feminists will have better times for the recognition of women’s rights,” promises Blandón. And Solís will do it for “the girls” because “they should never experience what we experienced. You have to develop in a country with democracy and freedom. That will be our reason.”
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