Nicaragua makes its Mirada 2018 debut in this year’s edition, with the show La Ciudad Vacía (The Empty City), by the Teatro Justo Rufino Garay company. Its lead character, a Mexican woman named Sofia, was expelled from the country in 1979 during the Sandinista Revolution, which overthrew the Somoza Family dynasty, and now returns in search of her own memories of the revolution.
One of the leaders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front – which staged the revolution – was Daniel Ortega, who served a first term as president of Nicaragua from 1985-1990. He took office again in 2007, and remains in power to this date, after being reelected twice. Mr. Ortega currently faces a delicate situation, as a violent uprising has left approximately 350 people dead since April, when he announced a social security reform.
Ponto Digital had the idea of establishing a dialogue between the play, which will be shown on September 9-10 at Teatro Guarany, and the current situation in Nicaragua. In that vein, the following story was told by seasoned American journalist, war correspondent and writer Jon Lee Anderson during a seminar entitled Jornalismo: As Novas Configurações do Quarto Poder (Journalism: The New Configurations of the Fourth Estate), held last month at Sesc Vila Mariana, and organized by Sesc São Paulo and Cult magazine. The idea is to provide complementary information not only to the show’s potential audience, but also to anyone interested in the complex issues facing the Central American country.
“When I was between 17 and 20 years old, I was very susceptible to what was happening around the world. I almost went to fight in two different countries: Nicaragua and Zimbabwe. A girl and my brother convinced me not to go. In Nicaragua, I would have fought alongside Daniel Ortega. And in Zimbabwe, imagine, alongside Robert Mugabe. But deep down, they were secondary, because it was about fighting evil. The white racist regime in Zimbabwe was an evil that needed to be fought, and I wanted to do it. Just like Somoza, in Nicaragua, was a demon I wanted to eliminate.
Over time, after they seized power, Mugabe and Ortega became monstrous people. When Ortega is at the UN or any other international body, he adopts an anti-imperialist discourse, along the lines of Cuba, Venezuela, and so on. But inside his country, he has a pact with the private sector and with the more conservative wings of the Catholic Church. His family owns several businesses and his wife is the vice-president. She resembles a cartoon character. She wears 34 rings on her fingers and five-colored outfits, because it’s supposed to attract good energy. All public buildings are painted in these five colors.
She had 11 children, seven of whom by Ortega. All have radio and television stations, public relations, advertising firms, and the like. They control approximately 70% of the media in the country. One of the sons, who controls a foreign investment company, is also an opera tenor. He once oversaw a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ in Managua. He brought over an Italian director, more than 100 Italian actors, and a Romanian tenor. His sister, Camila Ortega, was hired to supply the costumes. This is Daniel Ortega 2.0, whose official government motto is ‘Christian, Socialist and Caring’.
They live in a bunker, in a house he seized from a businessman years ago. I believe all his children and grandchildren live there, because everybody hates them. When they leave home, it’s in a silver Mercedes-Benz SUV, which Ortega likes to drive himself, with bodyguards in the front and in the back.
All authoritarian leaders make a big mistake, which is to start believing in their own power. Ortega had a pact with the conservatives, which was good for business. He was cool with the IMF and even with the Americans, because of foreign investments, so they left him alone. It was no longer a strategic country. He also didn’t allow drug cartels to infiltrate the country. So, his situation was relatively stable.
Meanwhile, he received $500 million a year in subsidized oil from Venezuela. Now, with Venezuela falling apart, that cash is no longer available. So, in April, he raised the taxes that people have to pay towards social security. Big mistake. People got mad, they took to the street, and what did he do? Instead of going after them with water hoses, he used real bullets. When you kill people, when you shed blood, you create resistance.
When I arrived, he was trying to knock down the barricades put up by students and other demonstrators with masked and armed men. I saw them. He calls them self-defense. So, the new normal in Nicaragua is to have masked men just come in, armed, and sort of do whatever they want. They can take you away, and they do. People are arrested, they face legal charges... This is happening on a small scale, but it’s still problematic. And nothing comes of it because the political climate is polarized. People on the left say: ‘I can’t criticize him because he’s on our team’. To the right, he goes unnoticed, because Nicaragua is no longer a strategic country. It’s sad.”
The spectacle La Ciudad Vacía, by Nicaragua’s Teatro Justo Rufino Garay, will be shown September 9-10, 7 p.m., at Teatro Guarany. Mexican-born but a long-time resident of Nicaragua, Lucero Millán is a theater director, actress, teacher and cultural promoter, and will participate in the panel A Memória Presentificada: encontro de vozes e urgências (Memory in the Present: a Meeting of Voices and Urgencies), also on September 10, at 11 a.m.
Julio Adamor is a journalist and the coordinator for Ponto Digital Mirada 2018
