RECONCILIATION, ORTEGA STYLE: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT ORTEGA’S “RECONCILIATION POLICY.”

A draft of the regime’s “Reconciliation Policy” is out. Local Nicaraguan media in Nicaragua have it. Here’s what we know so far, as reported in La Prensa:

1. The draft is about 26-pages long.
2. The Orteguista Police (OP) will be one of the institutions charged with “implementing” the new policy, which includes provisions regarding “community work” in the realm citizen security, which will be led by the OP.
3. The policy will be presented to the Orteguista base, probably for consultation, before its official unveiling in December.
4. A Law of National Reconciliation will be based on the policy. This Law will undoubtedly be approved by the Orteguista Assembly.
5. The policy includes language on provisions to prevent “the culture of violence” in homes and communities.
6. No specific steps are listed as to how to achieve the “culture of peace”, but there’s a time table!
7. All political secretaries of the regime have copies of the document.
8. Through the policy, the regime expresses its desire to “influence the prevention of all forms of disunity among people, families and communities” in Nicaragua.

Here are my preliminary observations on the policy, based on what I knew when I originally wrote this post.

1. You can’t force people to “reconcile” by law. Even the General Amnesty and Reconciliation Law of 1990, enacted after ten years of war in order to comply with the Esquipulas Peace Agreement didn’t force people to reconcile. Yes, that law included the word reconciliation as well, but it was a straightforward amnesty law that enabled Nicaraguans to start rebuilding, without telling them how to reconcile with each other. Projects like the Peace Commissions, supported by the OAS, supported reconciliation among former combatants, and even with those projects, the process took years.

2. You shouldn’t be proposing a “community security program” after declaring that paramilitaries were nothing but “voluntary police.” Furthermore, you can’t put the police in charge of said community security program. The police is part of the problem, and it has completely lost the trust of a wide sector of the Nicaraguan society. Are people supposed to just sit down and sing kumbaya with officers who failed in their duty to protect and serve the population, and chose instead to repress, abduct, torture, and kill civilians?

3. Nicaragua has serious problems of domestic violence that pre-date this crisis. In 2017, Confidencial reported that “sexual abuse against girls [was] the daily reality in Nicaragua”. In fact, official data for the 2007-2017 period revealed that over 16 thousand girls under the age of 14 gave birth in public hospitals in Nicaragua (https://goo.gl/vHuAnQ). That is over 16 thousand cases of statutory rape that we know of, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Clearly, domestic violence is serious. It is part of the “culture of violence”, but how is this regime equipped to handle it, considering all the reports of sexual violence coming out of the orteguista jails?

4. Preventing “all forms of disunity” is only a desirable national goal for dictators, and this regime has demonstrated time and again that dissent will not be tolerated. Dissent, in functioning democracies, can be channeled into political action for the public good. In dictatorships, it is seen as a threat and criminalized.

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the journalist and son of former President Violeta Chamorro, expressed his dismay in a tweet. After reading the policy, he stated: “The official demagoguery can be translated in two words: “Peace” = killing 325 citizens. “Reconciliation” = 500 political prisoners y 40,000 exiled to Costa Rica”

TRADUCCION Después de leer las 10 páginas de la política de "reconciliación" impuesta por la policía y los paramilitares, la demagogia oficial se traduce en dos palabras: "Paz" = matanza de 325 ciudadanos. "Reconciliación" = 500 presos políticos y 40,000 exiliados en Costa Rica.

— Carlos F Chamorro (@cefeche) November 7, 2018

I think most Nicaraguans would agree that we need a reconciliation process. However, you cannot impose reconciliation. You cannot legislate it.

You have to build it, and from what I have seen, the regime doesn’t want to engage in the actual work of reconciliation. They seem to think that it will happen magically, just by uttering words.