On February 9, 2023, a US plane flew from Managua to Washington. Inside were 222 malnourished Nicaraguans who valued their freedom after years of captivity. A few hours earlier, the political prisoners had been taken out of their cells without a word. Many thought they would die at the hands of the prison guards of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, after so long incommunicado, torture and inhumane treatment. To their surprise, they landed safely in the capital of the North American country. There were reunions with loved ones, hugs and tears for those left behind. A strange feeling of unreality.
The Nicaraguan regime’s brutal repression in prisons, documented ad nauseam by the Nicaraguan exile press and human rights organizations, attacked women with particular viciousness. Now a testimony is coming to light that sheds some light into the cracks of Ortega’s prisons: Freedom Behind Bars, a book that collects the stories of 11 of these 222 political prisoners; a stark story of resilience, hope in the face of dehumanization, and a call for freedom against the cruelest living dictatorship on the continent.
Ortega, cornered by international pressure, loosened his grip with the mass release of political prisoners. But true to the mantra of the old dictators, the ones with iron fists and kid gloves, they had reserved one last twist. He revoked the citizenship of 222 and another 94 political exiles, including former comrades-in-arms, major figures in the arts, politics and journalism in Nicaragua.
The siblings Cristina and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, together with the manager of La Prensa de Nicaragua, Juan Lorenzo Holman, on the flight on February 9th.Juan Lorenzo Holman
Freedom Behind Bars is a project of the Be Human Campaign, an NGO of Nicaraguan exiles, edited by Juan Marieli and Wilfredo Miranda Aburto, staff members of EL PAÍS. The hands that sign each story are among the most respected in Latin American journalism and literature: Alma Guillermoprieto, Jon Lee Anderson, Gioconda Belli, Sergio Ramírez, Laura Restrepo and Pedro Saboulard, Martín Caparrós, Claudia Piñeiro, Sabrina Duque, Julián Navarrete . Lorena Arroyo and Marieli and Miranda Aburto themselves. All work was voluntary.
The Be Human campaign launched in 2021 with the aim of raising awareness of the serious situation in the country. “We sent strong messages about the hunger, the state of the cells, the lack of visits, and in the end there was the expatriation, the deprivation of nationality of 222 prisoners, and we thought it made sense to leave concrete evidence that would last are; “Contribute to historical memory and highlight the resilience of people who have been incarcerated,” explains one of the members of the project presented this Monday in San José.
Looking for a publisher
“Freedom Behind Bars” has not been released in physical form because it is a volunteer work and there is no publisher yet. “We are looking for a publisher because we want this book to be distributed beyond our limited printing and distribution capabilities. We have always worked with few resources and a lot of will. We do not need and want to generate financial income, but political income in order to make the stories of these courageous women as widely known as possible, also written with extraordinary pens. In the end we have a sample of women who have suffered torture, oppression and isolation. From 23-year-olds like Samantha to older people like Violeta, who is already 71 years old,” says the same member.
Samantha, the youngest, is Samantha Jirón. During the repression unleashed by Ortega and Murillo as part of Operation Cleanup in 2018, he was only 18 years old and, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), was still participating in the resistance against the regime that murdered at least 355 people. . Lorena Arroyo, journalist of this newspaper and director of América Futura, writes in Libertad Behind Bars: “Five years later, on July 8, 2023, the same young woman finds herself in a Latin American beauty salon in San Leandro, on the outskirts of San Francisco, California, to dye her hair blue. It’s a process that takes several hours: first you have to bleach your medium-length brunette hair to a Lady Gaga-style blonde so that it can then take on the chosen color, a metallic blue that is much more than an aesthetic choice. For a 23-year-old woman who has spent a year and three months in a Nicaraguan prison, who is in exile for the second time and who has been rendered stateless because of her opposition to Ortega and Murillo, dyeing her hair is a way to express her freedom to exercise. . And an attempt to combat his own traumas. From now on and until she decides to change her appearance again, every day Samantha will see in the mirror the color of the prisoner’s uniform that she wore for 15 months and which she vowed not to wear again after her release from prison to wear. .
Violeta, the eldest, is Violeta Granera Padilla, candidate of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) for the 2016 elections. The Nicaraguan author Gioconda Belli, also exiled and denationalized by Ortega, begins her story like this: “Violeta remembers a day , on which they woke them up at two in the morning and told them to shower and get ready. Maybe because of her trauma, she tells me, because of the murder of her father, because she had times when she dreamed about the guerrillas coming in and taking her away or killing her children, and she was sure they were going to shoot her .”
Perhaps the most important political prisoner in the book is Dora María Tellez, 68 years old, Commander Two. In 1978, aged just 22, as part of a battalion of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, he raided the National Palace of Managua, the seat of power of dictator Anastasio Somoza, in one of the worst strategic blows the regime had suffered. The feat was immortalized by Gabriel García Márquez in his chronicle Asalto al Palacio, which began with the masterful first line: “The plan seemed too simple, madness.”
Samantha Jirón among other exiles on the February 9 flight. Miguel Andres
Violeta Granera (right) with activist Tamara Dávila, in an archive photo. Jorge Torres (EFE)
Dora María Téllez, on February 10 in the USA.miguel andrés
In Freedom Behind Bars, it is the Mexican Alma Guillermoprieto, one of the legendary correspondents who covered the Sandinista Revolution from the beginning, who is responsible for giving it a voice. He writes: “Many years ago, Dora María told me that during the long year she spent in the mountains in the dense tropical jungle of what was then northwest Nicaragua, she was not only plagued by hunger, but also by being constantly surrounded by lush greenery was the vegetation. “When you are in the city you say: How sweet, how green!” And when you are in the mountains you want to see yellow, red, white, blue! So, this green-green wears you out, and the hardship (of the situation) wears you out too.” But then there were companions around him and there was hope. Not in prison. The prisoner found her imprisonment to be another battle to be fought, but it was not always possible to maintain this defiant attitude in the midst of absolute loneliness. Then, in the afternoon, she says, she felt like she was dead.”
Like those of Samantha, Violeta or Commander Two, all stories are different, unique and at the same time form a common mosaic of horror in Ortega’s prisons. Also the collective muscle that forms the resistance against the dictator. The Be Human Campaign member puts it succinctly: “I want to highlight the courage and resilience of these women: they never lost hope or laughter.” When you read their statements, you realize that even in the worst scenario have never lost the ability to dream and the hope that their contribution to the freedom of Nicaragua makes sense.”
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