Nicaragua

Prologue

Envío team

April 2018 will be engraved forever on the national consciousness.

The regime’s disproportionately repressive response to the first civic protests made the volcano erupt.

No one saw it coming, but innumerable reasons existed for it to occur.
A decade of ever more unlimited authoritarianism converted the eruption into an insurrection of the national consciousness.

The university youth started it, but they were followed by increasing numbers of people until the last massive march was estimated at half a million people. In a population of six million, that’s an irrefutable vote of no-confidence.

Rural and Caribbean Nicaragua had lived with deaths and terror for years, but Managua, León, Masaya and the other cities of the Pacific had seemed asleep.

When they awoke, the entire country joined them.

How was this possible? It wasn’t an outside conspiracy because its efforts to arouse a sleeping population would have left some telltale sign. Volcanos, however, don’t forewarn.

This issue is a summary of what we’ve written this year about the lead-up to the eruption, the unforgettable civic resistance and grassroots rebellion, the equally unforgettable government response and the international community’s reaction.

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