Nicaraguan Americans commemorate day they left their country
MIAMI - South Florida is known as the destination of exiled immigrants escaping persecution in their homelands.
On Sunday, dozens of Nicaraguan Americans gathered and marched in Sweetwater to not only commemorate the date on which they left their country five years ago but to express their gratitude for being able to live in a free nation.
"They (the Nicaraguan government) wanted to change the flag," said Ramino Lopez, referring to what happened five years ago in the Central American Nation.
The Nicaraguan national flag is what thousands carried when they marched against the government of President Daniel Ortega. He said those who displayed their national flag were treated as traitors and many as criminals.
On April 18th, 2018, Ortega's administration reduced social security funds for elderly people. He announced the institution in charge of providing retirement payments had run out of funds. However, in 2007, when his administration took over the Nicaraguan social security system had a surplus.
Elderly people went in front of the entity's building and protested, and Ortega's police responded with force. Young people confronted the officers and started yelling "Abuse of power... abuse of power." The government then sent armed military men and labeled the protesters as "terrorists."
Leaders of the opposition, which are now all exiled, were arrested especially the ones who announced they would run for the presidency.
"It's a country with no freedom, Nicaragua has become a dictatorship," said Felix Meradiaga, one of seven political prisoners locked up in jail for challenging Ortega in elections. Maradiaga was in jail for over two years. During that time his wife and daughter were not allowed to visit him. All now live in South Florida and attended the march in Sweetwater.
"According to the United Nations, all these arrests were arbitrary detentions," said Maradiaga who was also stripped from his citizenship when the Ortega government released him last February. He and more than 220 political prisoners were freed under the condition they had to leave Nicaragua.
Maradiaga said Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo control all three branches of government. Without a public trial, the government branded dissidents as traitors and put them in jail including independent journalists, like Berta Valle who is Maradiaga's wife.
"In 2018 one of our colleagues was killed because he was covering what was happening," said Valle who regularly speaks on behalf of the wives and mothers of political prisoners in Nicaragua.
According to the United Nations, more than 350 Nicaraguans were murdered by the Ortega government in 2018.
"Really those 350 are a sampling of a couple of months because the UN was expelled just a few months into 2018, so we expect that number to be significantly higher, unfortunately," said Jonathan Duarte, a Nicaraguan activist who heads an organization called Fundacion por la Libertad (Foundation for Freedom).
He was one of the organizers of a number of activities over the weekend which included a two-day town hall and a march through Sweetwater, a city where many Nicaraguans settled.
Duarte said the marches and activities are not only to commemorate what happened five years ago but to also raise awareness among U.S. elected officials.
"We want to encourage federal officials in the Senate and House of Representatives to continue to pressure the Ortega regime so the country can transition into a democracy and we can stop this mass migration coming from Nicaragua," he said.