“I can’t envision the FSLN’s future”
2020 Junio Nicaragua
I ’ve never been a theoretician of anything; I’m not an intellectual. What I am is a practical man; an operator, a “shoemaker,” as they once called...
40 years later: How women from both sides experienced the revolution
2019 Julio Nicaragua
Was there a female way of experiencing the revolution? The answer is affirmative. Yes, there was and it was very different if we’re talking about the...
The Ortega–Murillo partnership’s perverse repression and betrayal
2019 Julio Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s history is piled high with battles in defense of its identity. Like the rest of Latin America, the country fought for its political, cultural...
“I’m certain we’ll bring down this dictatorship”
2018 Julio Nicaragua
I’ve known Daniel since we were both young. I was president of the Ramírez Goyena Institute’s student center and leader of the Maestro Gabriel High...
The FSLN’s relationship with religion has always been contradictory
2018 Febrero Nicaragua
On November 29, 2017, President Ortega introduced a fast-track bill in the National Assembly to declare the festivities honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary’s...
A brief history of our chameleon Army
2017 Septiembre Nicaragua
The Nicaraguan Army, the youngest military body in the hemisphere, celebrates its founding every yearon September 2 even though it isn’t the date the...
Four keys to the volatile success of the Ortega-Murillo project
2016 Noviembre Nicaragua
The regime built by the late President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela is breaking up over a stormy sea of oil, Honduran President Mel Zelaya was deposed in...
The task right now is to avoid the consolidation of a family dictatorship
2016 Septiembre Nicaragua
How did we get to where we are today? And I’m not talking about how the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) got us here… because it no longer...
Deceit, disappointment and anger are again accumulating in rural Nicaragua
2014 Mayo Nicaragua
The history of the Nicaraguan peasantry is one of continuous processes of expropriation and usurpation of its resources. In recent history, the multiethnic...
What mutations have turned the FSLN into what it is today?
2014 Enero Nicaragua
What are the essential, most distinctive features of Daniel Ortega’s regime? What ruptures, involutions or mutations can we see in these features and...
34 years of blameful forgetfulness, 23 of interested memory (part 2)
2013 Agosto Nicaragua
In an insightful paper delivered to circumspect lawyers, German historian Reinhart Koselleck took a look at various historiographical tendencies, distinguishing...
34 years of blameful forgetfulness, 23 of interested memory
2013 Julio Nicaragua
In crossing out February 25, 1990, the day the FSLN lost its first elections, with a red pen, viewing it as a historic watershed, those with Sandinista...
The FSLN is now one family’s political machinery
2013 Enero Nicaragua
I’m often asked how Daniel Ortega got where he is, and how the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ended up as it has. It’s not a question with...
Memories of a generation of internationalists
2012 Septiembre Nicaragua
After Salvador Allende’s socialist government won in Chile in 1970, then was overthrown by Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973, the Sandinista Popular...
Rhetoric, slogans and metaphors of the revolutionary years
2012 Julio Nicaragua
No memoirs of the Sandinista revolution record any sudden attack led by Tomás Borge in the guerrilla campaign that brought down Somoza. And although...
Memories of the betrayed generation
2011 Septiembre Nicaragua
An extensive group of Nicaraguan adults survived the ten-year civil war that pitted members of the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS), including guys just...
Another five years with more of the same?
2011 Agosto Nicaragua
It was assumed that at this year’s costly and colorful July 19 celebration President Ortega would announce some important aspects of the government...
The FSLN Will Surely Win the Presidency But Also Wants a Qualified Majority in Parliament
2011 Marzo Nicaragua
During the Sandinista National Liberation Front’s four years in power, it has primarily concerned itself with reconstructing the country’s economic and...
A Pre-electoral Reflection from the Liberal Window and the Emancipator Window
2010 Diciembre Nicaragua
Digging into all the political analyses of the Central American region, two paradigms can be identified that crystallize into two visions—the Liberal...
The Contradictory Legacy of the Sandinista Agrarian Reform
2010 Julio Nicaragua
Nicaragua embarked on an agrarian reform adventure during the 1980s, inspired by a revolutionary government longing to lead great transformations. The...
Chilling Similarities Between Ortega and the Somozas
2010 Enero Nicaragua
In the old days, all armies in Nicaragua bore the seal of the caudillo or party that formed them. That explains why our history is saturated with civil...
Thirty Years Seen Through the Time Tunnel
2009 Julio Nicaragua
Managua became a continental political epicenter again on June 29. In three successive summits—the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the...
Ten Photos that Shook the Eighties
2009 Julio Nicaragua
Could any other historic event have divided Nicaraguan public opinion as much as the Sandinista revolution? The ideological and biographical bifurcations—which...
I Know the FSLN’s History Well, But I Can’t Envision Its Future
2008 Septiembre Nicaragua
I’ve never been a theoretician of anything; I’m not an intellectual. What I am is a practical man; an operator, a “shoemaker,” as they once called me....
Rescuing and Renovating Sandinismo: A Critique of Nicaraguan Heroic Culture
2008 Julio Nicaragua
While it presents itself as a leftist option, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) Alliance hasn’t succeeded in putting together a body of thought...
Reflections on the Daily Violation Of the Secular State
2008 Mayo Nicaragua
Secularism is one of the main conquests in the fight for freedom of conscience, human rights, tolerance and democracy. Anywhere religious fundamentalism...
CPCs Around the Country Are Waiting For ‘Guidance’ from Higher Up
2008 Marzo Nicaragua
The Local Democracy and Development Network is a collection of civil society organizations and individuals that works on three main themes: civic participation,...
How Many Conflicts Will the New “Direct Democracy” Trigger?
2007 Diciembre Nicaragua
President Daniel Ortega had begun to talk of setting up “direct democracy” in Nicaragua even before winning the elections and continued to insist on...
You Can’t Organize People and Raise Consciousness by Decree
2007 Septiembre Nicaragua
The first question we need to clear up if we’re going to analyze this Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government is whether or not we’re...
From Citizen-as-Ward to Citizen-as-Client With No Solutions in Sight
2007 Julio Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s four governments in the last 27 years have applied two openly contrasting economic models: one based loosely on a planned economy and the...
The Ortega-Murillo Project: Personal, Family, National or International?
2007 Julio Nicaragua
The leitmotifs of the preparations for the 28th anniversary of the revolution are established in a series of gigantic billboards that appeared all over...
Navigating the Contradiction Between democracy and Social Justice
2007 Abril Nicaragua
I’ve observed that in the last 16 years of neoliberal ad-ministrations, the Nicaraguan state has used a government plus transnational corporations formula....
Who’s Who in the New Cabinet
2007 Febrero Nicaragua
Following the FSLN’s electoral victory, the greatest speculation revolved around the makeup of the new government Cabinet. Despite the best efforts...
“We’re Independent Leftists”
2006 Mayo Nicaragua
Are you a leftist and is your alliance a leftist movement? The alliance we’re building is a modern Left, where we want things to function...
Why We Joined the Movement to Rescue Sandinismo
2006 Abril Nicaragua
Our Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was that of Carlos Fonseca and we first knew about it through the mysterious paintings that appeared...
“The Alliance Around Herty Lewites Is a Unique Opportunity We Mustn’t Waste”
2005 Diciembre Nicaragua
Nicaragua is going through extremely serious times right now, and the worst thing that could happen would be for things to remain exactly the same after...
The Left Nicaragua Needs
2005 Octubre Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s political parties have always been short on philosophical and doctrinal underpinnings. The pragmatic-resigned political thinking of Nicaraguan...
Why So Little Social Mobilization?
2005 Julio Nicaragua
The Sandinista Revolution provided one of the greatest examples of grassroots participation, organization and decision making in the history of Latin...
“This Crisis Began in the FSLN, With an Unethical Pact”
2005 Julio Nicaragua
Nicaragua continues to suffer from an ongoing, chronic crisis, a crisis of poverty and backward-ness, of government incapacity, and of the incapacity...
Twenty-six Years On: Memories of Solidarity
2005 Julio Nicaragua
At noon on a day in December 1986, I was driving slowly down Managua’s Bolívar Avenue in my modest Suzuki, heading toward the old cathedral. I was just...
Herty Lewites’ Movement Has a Sandinista Heart
2005 Abril Nicaragua
I bout five years ago now, I explained to envío why I withdrew from the FSLN, or more exactly, why I became inactive. I recall some of the things...
Lessons from the Teachers …and the Former Mayor
2005 Marzo Nicaragua
The new school semester opened late this year. Nicaragua’s pathetically underpaid public school teachers, tired of asking for justifiable raises without...
Breaking Free of Fear To Defend Ideas and Rights
2005 Marzo Nicaragua
Herty Lewites’ rebellion has put Daniel Ortega in check, leading him to display the worst side of his personality. In just one week, Ortega’s measures...
Daniel Ortega's Fear Of the Winds He Sowed
2005 Febrero Nicaragua
Used to giving orders and having them carried out, FSLN general secretary Daniel Ortega is facing the biggest challenge to his absolute power in the...
These Elections Will Test the Convergence’s Validity and Future
2004 Octubre Nicaragua
The National Convergence is an alliance of political parties, groups and individual personalities.
The parties include the FSLN and the MRS, both...
25 Years After July 19: What Has Happened to the FSLN?
2004 Julio Nicaragua
In Nicaragua, the collapse of socialism in the Soviet bloc did more than shake up the world of ideas, leading to what some have called the end of ideology....
Passionate Memories From Times of Solidarity
2004 Julio Nicaragua
Much has been written about the heroic feats of the young Nicaraguans who brought down the Somoza dictatorship, but relatively little has been said...
The FMLN and the FSLN Are Brothers, Not Twins
2004 Mayo El Salvador
New hope begins to blossom every five years in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The public squares in different Salvadoran towns and cities fill with the...
The Killing of Carlos Guadamuz: Who Stands to Benefit?
2004 Marzo Nicaragua
It has been many years since Nicaraguan society experienced political terror. But those years are a relatively short amount of time in the national...
The FACS: A Microcosm of National Ills
2003 Diciembre Nicaragua
On November 28, the Nicaraguan public was just recovering from the shock of Arnoldo Alemán being transferred from his jail cell to a novel form of “house”...
The Legacy of a Life Intensely Lived
2003 Octubre América Latina
It has been very hard for me to write this, as my memory has been filled with contradictory experiences and recollections, a profound sense of joy and...
Three Celebrations and a Host of Scenarios
2003 Agosto Nicaragua
July’s three political anniversary celebrations—by the pro-Alemán
Liberals on July 11, the pro-Bolaños Liberals on July 13 and the FSLN on July 19—offered...
Our Weak Civil Society Has Been Weakened Further
2002 Mayo Nicaragua
To understand the present, as we all know, it is necessary to understand the past, especially the recent past. Unless we are clear about what has happened...
A Project Offering a Future to the Nation and Sandinisimo
2001 Noviembre Nicaragua
The National Convergence emerged during an electoral campaign period, in alliance with the FSLN, but the idea from the start was to create and consolidate...
"These Elections Are Devoid of Ideology"
2001 Agosto Nicaragua
What is the fundamental problem with November’s elections? That most voters are negatively motivated. The Liberal Party is encouraging a ‘vote of fear,’...
Henry Ruiz: The FSLN Has Lost the Strong Ethical Basis that Motivated Us
2000 Mayo Nicaragua
Politics without ethics is neither valid nor right. When politics is ethical, it can reach many people’s hearts. But when politics becomes a process...
William Grigsby: "Refounding" the Sandinista movement
2000 Abril Nicaragua
In Nicaragua, Sandinismo is a formidable universe that we can be proud of and that must be taken into account. Six hundred thousand Nicaraguans think...
Dora María Téllez: A New Option for the Left
2000 Marzo Nicaragua
One of Arnoldo Alemán’s major objectives in the pact with the FSLN was to buy off the organized opposition. He correctly calculated that only the FSLN...
Rethinking Power from a Feminist Vision
2000 Enero Nicaragua
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a renewed feminist consciousness began to smolder among activists and academicians alike. Quickly it exploded—first...
"The FSLN Leadership’s Disintegration Goes Way Back"
2000 Enero Nicaragua
The struggle we waged from the Sandinista Front to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship and bring about a revolution was also a struggle for human rights....
The Pact’s Roots Go Deep And its Fruits are Rotten
1999 Julio Nicaragua
July 19: twenty years have passed since the Somoza dictatorship was over-thrown and a revolution triumphed that would change Nicaraguan and Central American...
A Test in Ethics For a Society in Crisis
1998 Marzo Nicaragua
AFTER A VERY LONG DRY SPELL, NICARAGUA, A COUNTRY IN A MULTI-FACETED CRISIS, made the world news several times in February. First was the extended strike...
Some Reflections On the Piñata
1996 Julio Nicaragua
Nicaragua, it cannot be repeated too often, always pays for corruption. Given the chamorro government's extensive official corruption, however, it is...
Crisis in the FSLN: Class Conflict
1994 Septiembre Nicaragua
After losing the 1990 elections to a heterogenous grouping of parties glued together only by their hostility to Sandinismo, the FSLN, now in the opposition,...
The New Sandinista Utopia
1994 Julio Nicaragua
Since the FSLN's electoral defeat in 1990, Nicaragua has been subjected to a liberal offensive wrapped in the banners of representative democracy and...
The FSLN Congress: What's at Stake
1994 Junio Nicaragua
Looking at the factors that are holding FSLN unity in check, two questions stand out. Is it possible to recover revolutionary identity while accepting...
Peasant and Worker Struggles at a Crossroads: 1. Omens of a Rural Blow-Up
1992 Julio Nicaragua
For the umpteenth time in the past two years, the country's stability and the government's capacity to exercise control over society without using repression...
The Views of René Núñez
1992 Julio Nicaragua
For years, Rene Núñez was considered the unofficial tenth member of the FSLN's nine-man National Directorate. Brother of Carlos Núñez, who died in...
Peasant and Worker Struggles at a Crossroads: 2. Talking with a Recompa
1992 Julio Nicaragua
Leonel Martínez (nom de guerre "William") shares the typical timidity and simplicity of Nicaragua's peasants. These qualities, combined with his young...
Behind the Birth of the Recontras
1991 Octubre Nicaragua
"It's not true that [the FSLN] lost the peasants; we never had them."
—Daniel Ortega Saavedra to FSLN Departmental Congress, June 13, 1991,...
The Revolution Is Not Lost
1991 Septiembre Nicaragua
In elections for FSLN departmental leadership in Managua last year, Dora María Téllez won an overwhelming majority of the vote. That confidence and...
The Last Word
1991 Septiembre Nicaragua
We reprint below the "last words" from the FSLN National Congress, that is, condensed extracts of the closing speeches by General Humberto Ortega, head...
Women in Nicaragua: The Revolution on Hold
1991 Junio Nicaragua
"It's a question of training woman to woman; understanding our bodies, knowing the laws that benefit us, understanding women's health... a whole number...
Daniel Ortega: "Everything Depends on Our Ability to Fight Back"
1991 Junio Nicaragua
envío: During the early months of 1991, there seemed to be great confusion among the Sandinista rank and file and a lack of guidance from the...
FSLN Discussion Papers
1990 Agosto Nicaragua
Resolutions of the FSLN Assembly at El Crucero, June 16-17, 1990
In mid-June, the FSLN held a national assembly in the town of El Crucero...
Governing From Below
1990 Marzo Nicaragua
Speech by President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, February 27,1990
Nonaligned Plaza, Managua*
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*Original...
“Strengthening the Revolutionary Process”
1990 Marzo Nicaragua
Concession Statement by President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, February 26, 1990*
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*Original English...
CDS: Revolution in the Barrio
1989 Septiembre Nicaragua
"If we want a Community Center on this lot, we have to cut down the weeds first. Who'll join me on Sunday at 7:00 am? I'll bring the pinol drink,...
Nora Astorga In Her Own Words
1988 Abril Nicaragua
Nora Astorga died in Managua on February 14, a victim of cancer. Of middle-class extraction, a Somocista Liberal Party family and Christian upbringing,...
Sandinista Unions Take Stock
1988 Enero Nicaragua
The fifth National Assembly of Unions was convoked in Managua December 12-13 by the Sandinista Workers Federation (CST), made up of the largest unions...
FSLN Statement on the Peace Process
1987 Noviembre Nicaragua
The following message of the FSLN National Directorate, delivered by the vice coordinator of the National Directorate’s executive commission, Comandante...
Dole-Ortega Exchange: A Lesson in Sovereignty
1987 Septiembre Nicaragua
On the way to Costa Rica from Honduras, a delegation of five Republican senators stopped in Nicaragua for the afternoon of August 31. They arrived at...
“De Cara al Pueblo”: Fourteen Questions for the Sandinistas
1987 Septiembre Nicaragua
"De Cara al Pueblo" (Face the People) has become one of the traditions of the Nicaraguan revolution. Every week since the very beginning of the...
The Contras: Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold
1987 Febrero Nicaragua
"The US strategy proposed the overthrow of the revolutionary government in a relatively short period via a military front with the mercenary forces....
U.S. Military Exercises Threaten Central American Peace
1983 Agosto Nicaragua
The fourth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution was celebrated amid great joy and extreme tenseness. While the slogan for the day was “To the people…...
Political Parties In Nicaragua Today In Relation To Proposed Legislation
1981 Diciembre Nicaragua
I- INTRODUCTION:The introduction by the Frente Sandinista of a bill concerning political parties has created a new political situation in Nicaragua....
Principles and definitions of the JGRN and FSLN Regarding the coast
1981 Septiembre Nicaragua
On August 12, Comandante Daniel Ortega, on behalf of the Frente Sandinista of National Liberation (FSLN)and the Junta of the National Reconstruction...
The Second Anniversary Of The Nicaraguan Revolution
1981 Agosto Nicaragua
IntroductionWe intend to present an outline of the measures announced on July 19 during the speech by the Coordinator of the Government Junta,...