source: NACLA
July 19, 1979 is a date etched in the memory of anyone of a certain age who has struggled for and supported greater economic, political, and social justice in Latin America. That was the day the “muchachos”, as the young rebels were often called, ousted a brutal 43-year dictatorship in Nicaragua led by the Somoza family. They immediately installed a revolutionary government under the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.
Dora Maria Téllez was one of those rebels. As a 22-year-old, she led the negotiations after the daring 1978 Sandinista seizure of the National Palace. She then led Sandinista units in the capture of Léon, the first major city to surrender. “I am proud of my past: I’m here because I was there. To be a rebel at 22 is marvelous, to still be one is another kind of marvel. After all, without rebellion, there is no progress,” she says.
Forty-seven years on, for many Nicaraguans and solidarity activists, including Téllez, the optimism and hope that Nicaragua’s experiment in social change represented has long disappeared. During 30 of those 47 years, her former comrade, Daniel Ortega, the FSLN’s first coordinator, has been in power, accused along with his wife and co-President Rosario Murillo of running the country much like the Somozas did.
Forty-seven years on, for many Nicaraguans and solidarity activists, including Téllez, the optimism and hope that Nicaragua’s experiment in social change represented has long disappeared.
On this year’s anniversary of the revolution, the Ortega-Murillo government is drawing on the Sandinista legacy to promote a month-long cultural festival, “Julio Eterno, Victorioso, Siempre Más Allá,” in downtown Managua. Murillo introduced the celebration on July 1, describing Nicaraguans as a “Christian, Socialist and Solidarity-oriented People, awakening full of Light, Life and the Real Truths.”
These words were spoken six weeks after 73-year-old Miskitu Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera died in custody after three years in prison. Since the 1980s, Rivera had devoted his life to defending Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, at times as an adversary and, occasionally, as an ally of the Ortega governments. After denouncing Ortega in 2014, the government twice stripped him of his National Assembly seat, banished him from the country, and finally imprisoned him. The European parliament and human rights organizations worldwide have demanded an immediate investigation into his death.
Rivera’s imprisonment was no anomaly. Since a major student-led uprising in 2018, almost 1,500 political prisoners—including seven presidential candidates in the 2021 elections—have languished for some period in Nicaragua’s prisons. Téllez was among them. Picked up in 2021 along with three other women—including her partner Ana Margarita Vijil Gurdián— she spent 606 days in solitary confinement, with no books, magazines, pen or paper, reduced food, light deprivation, and limited visits. Despite her living conditions, she launched a 23-day hunger strike in 2022 alongside other political prisoners.
Suddenly, in February 2023, the Ortega/Murillo regime released Téllez and Vijil Gurdián along with 220 others. They were bundled onto planes, stripped of their citizenship, and flown to the United States, where the Biden administration provided them a two-year humanitarian parole.
“I was pulled up by my roots,” says 70-year-old Téllez, who had lived in Nicaragua her entire life. “To deal with the emotional and psychological cost of dislocation, I focus on what I can learn from the new societies that I unwillingly have found myself in.”
“I am free today thanks to international solidarity, thanks to everyone who demanded my release,” she continues. “But there are still political prisoners in Nicaragua, some of them elderly and frail, which makes international solidarity critical. Speaking as a former prisoner, knowing that people are demanding your freedom, helps you get through the darkest and most difficult days and nights.”
Cracking Down on Civil Society
In February 2026, the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN) issued a report that details the Nicaraguan government’s tightening grip on civil society over the past eight years. From 2018 to 2020, the regime unleashed a violent crackdown on widespread protests, followed in 2021 by more targeted repression to ensure Ortega’s reelection. By 2022, according to the report, the emphasis
shifted to eliminating all remaining political opposition; since 2023, the goal has been to purge any dissent within the state apparatus, the FSLN, and Nicaraguans abroad. “Hundreds of victims have seen their lives dismantled, with legal identities erased, livelihoods harmed, and access to asylum and mobility imperiled,” the report notes.
“What we have in Nicaragua is a military and political dictatorship,” Téllez states flatly. “Absolutely every civil society organization, from political parties to the media to non-governmental organizations to the Catholic Church, has been destroyed, leaving Nicaraguans no space to exercise their basic civil rights.”
The regime has forced an estimated 5,000 civil society organizations to close since 2018. And in a country where 45 percent of the population identifies as Roman Catholic, the government has arrested 261 religious leaders, most recently 80-year-old retired bishop Abelardo Mata, who disappeared on June 29 after a police interrogation.
Despite the intensifying despotism, the government has garnered support within Nicaragua by demonstrating success in goals associated with Sandinista priorities since the 1970s: reductions in poverty and public investment in health and education.
At the same time, “they are going after those still in their inner circle, even some of their most vociferous supporters are in prison now,” says Téllez. One of these is legendary Sandinista commander Bayardo Arce—key economic advisor to Ortega since 2007— who was detained in July 2025. Arce’s arrest reportedly led some in Ortega-Murillo’s circle to sleep in a different bed every night to forestall arrest. In January 2026, the 76-year-old Arce was sentenced to imprisonment for corruption for an unspecified period.
The GHREN report highlights the gendered nature of state repression. Long before the 2018 uprising, women’s capacity for mobilization had already transformed feminists into frequent targets. “The women’s movement has been one of Nicaragua’s most vigorous social movements,” contends Téllez. “As Sandinistas, we focused on equal rights, but with little consideration of concerns such as domestic violence or how to move women into leadership. The feminist movement pushed these issues and asserted independence from the Sandinista party much earlier than other social movements.” Many feminists have been arbitrarily arrested since 2018 and have suffered sexual and gender-based violence in captivity.
After government efforts to co-opt the LGBTIQ+ movement and separate it from feminist movements backfired, “this growing movement was completely destroyed,” says Téllez. “There hasn’t been a gay pride march in Managua since 2018.” Arrested activists have undergone humiliation and abuse related to their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.
Repression beyond Nicaragua’s borders has accelerated since February 2025, led, according to the GHREN, by Murillo and a small group of senior officials. In June of last year, Nicaraguan dissident Roberto Samcam was assassinated in Costa Rica, at least the sixth shooting, abduction, or murder of an exile since 2018. As Costa Rica has long been a refuge for Nicaraguan dissidents, Samcam’s murder confirms that the country can no longer be considered a safe haven.
Yet despite the intensifying despotism, the government has garnered support within Nicaragua by demonstrating success in goals associated with Sandinista priorities since the 1970s: reductions in poverty and public investment in health and education. While data since 2007 is limited, poverty dropped by more than half between 2005 and 2016, while inequality also decreased slightly. According to the World Bank, Nicaragua has seen stable economic growth since the end of the Covid pandemic-, financed by remittances, construction, a growing tourism sector, and mining. It has also been spared the worst ravages of gang and drug violence that have plagued other parts of Central America.
The Struggle to Democratize the Party
In an interview from exile, Téllez detailed the challenges she sees in reestablishing a democratic, social justice-oriented government in Nicaragua, something she fought tirelessly for after serving as Minister of Health during the Sandinista government in the 1980s, and then as a Sandinista national deputy until 1995.
“The turning point within the Sandinista movement was in 1990 after we lost the national elections,” Téllez argues. “Many of us saw this vote as one of our greatest successes as Sandinistas—we managed to hold two fair elections in a country that had not had anything even close to that in at least 50 years.”
But that interpretation was not shared by others, particularly those around Ortega. “They used a simplistic analysis to blame the 1990 electoral loss on the United States. This permitted them to ignore the internal contradictions within the Sandinista party itself.”
In an interview from exile, Téllez detailed the challenges she sees in reestablishing a democratic, social justice-oriented government in Nicaragua.
“In contrast to Daniel and his faction, our group wanted to learn from our mistakes and democratize the party and the popular organizations we had set up,” she says. “These popular organizations were completely top down. So the lack of democracy within the party wasn’t just an internal problem, but it affected all of its relationships.”
By 1995, she and other dissidents had created a new party, now known as Unamos. “During the 1970s and 80s, we emphasized the struggle for social and economic justice over the need to strengthen citizen participation and democracy,” Téllez explains. “But those of us in Unamos realized that you need to do both. I don’t want to sacrifice freedom and democracy for social justice. And I don’t want to sacrifice social justice for freedom and democracy. And not just electoral democracy, but a profound participatory democracy.”
“When the FSLN resisted hearing what it didn’t want to hear and we failed to democratize it, the party began to collapse,” she adds. “Now it is nothing more than an appendage of Ortega and Murillo: no one knows who leads it, when and if it meets, and so on.”
“The Sandinista Front was a great party, but an authoritarian one,” Téllez explains. “These two elements shape what we are suffering with today. After all, we went from a military structure and vanguardist political orientation to running a government overnight, and the party never really developed an independent participatory structure. A vanguardist party was not necessarily compatible with the political pluralism we had committed to. Instead of being a viable party that took over the state in order to govern, the party merged with the state apparatus. As a result, it was never independent of the state.”
Fighting for Democracy
The concentration of power in Nicaragua continues unabated, propped up, Téllez contends, by China and Russia. China has recently become a major player in the country’s mining sector and the Nicaraguan government has also signed a “mutual protection pact” with Russia that could help Ortega and Murillo avoid sanctions from the International Criminal Court upon leaving office.
“Nicaragua is no longer a country, it’s a prison,” says Téllez. “To end that, as a small country, we need strong backing from the international community. During the repressive wave unleashed during the 2018 protests, the meager international condemnation cost Ortega-Murillo almost nothing.”
As the Trump administration continues accelerating its attacks on the sovereignty of its hemispheric neighbors, it is unclear whether sustained international pressure on the Ortega-Murillo government will materialize. Nevertheless, Téllez remains hopeful.
“I’m convinced that I will go back to my country, to my house, and that Nicaragua will have another chance to build a peaceful, just, and democratic country,” Téllez insists. “The only way to achieve the social justice we fought so hard for during the revolution now is through fighting for democracy.”
