For a long time, student Elthon Rivera refused to have to leave Nicaragua, but this Saturday he did.
The 27-year-old college student had stayed twice within a year of graduating from college. First, as a fifth-year medical student at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), being one of the 150 students expelled from their careers for having participated in the protests against the government of the president Daniel Ortega.
And now, as a final year student of Political Science at the Paulo Freire University, since the Nicaraguan parliament, at the request of the government, canceled the legal status of that private university and others in what opponents see as the latest attack of Ortega against the critics.
“The opportunity to be a professional was taken away from me again. Twice. It is a feeling of helplessness, so close to achieving the goal. I thought that this year I was going to graduate and this is equivalent to having nothing,” Rivera lamented in dialogue with BBC Mundo before leaving the country.
The Nicaraguan National Assembly (Parliament), dominated by the Sandinista ruling party, approved on Wednesday, February 2, the cancellation of the legal status of five universities: Polytechnic University (Upoli), Catholic University of the Dry Tropics (Ucaste), Nicaraguan University of Humanitarian Studies (UNEH), Paulo Freire University and Popular University (Uponic).
The request for cancellation, made by the Ministry of the Interior, argues that the institutions have not reported their financial statements nor to their boards of directors and therefore have violated the law against money laundering and terrorism, the same law that the ruling party has used against of imprisoned opponents, and the law on non-profit legal entities.
“There are many associations and foundations that shelter under the acronym non-profit, but what they do in practice is profit,” said Sandinista deputy Filiberto Rodríguez, who warned that the cancellation of legal status is a “process that will continue.” and that “nobody should be scared”.
The authorities of the different universities have said they are surprised by the measure and affirm that their documentation is in order and that they had delivered what was required to the Ministry of the Interior.
This Monday, February 7, the National Assembly approved laws to change the name of the universities and confirm that they become state centers.
“Silence critical voices”
Critical students and academics agree that this is yet another measure by the government to silence dissenting voices in Nicaragua. Since May 2021, the government has imprisoned opponents, closed NGOs, prevented journalists and opponents from entering and leaving the country, and closed and confiscated independent media outlets. Now it is the private universities that are in the spotlight.
“The only explanation is political revenge because some of those universities and their students played an important role in the 2018 protests,” academic and opposition leader Ernesto Medina tells BBC Mundo.
One of the canceled universities, Upoli, was a student stronghold in the 2018 protests. The students, who remained entrenched for almost two months and demanded Ortega’s removal from power, received multiple attacks from paramilitaries and the police.
“The fact that Upoli has been one of the centers of protest, Ortega did not forget, he did not forgive,” says Medina, who also considers that it is a warning from the government, which he calls a “dictatorship”, rest of universities in the country: “It is better to behave well, shut up, not criticize”.
Ortega was re-elected for a new term as president in November last year after elections in which the main opposition leaders, who are in detention, were unable to participate.
Trials against leading dissident figures were also held last week.
The former Sandinista guerrilla Dora Maria Tellez was found guilty of the crime of conspiracy to undermine the national integrity of Nicaragua.
They also convicted the student leader Lesther Alemán, who became famous in 2018 for his vigorous protest against Ortega, guilty of the same crime.
The prosecution requested between 15 and 20 years in prison for each and disqualification from holding public office.
“We are looking at options outside the country”
In the student community, meanwhile, there is a lot of uncertainty and fear.
“I was super confused and desperate, really, I wanted to run to the university to ask for my transcript,” a 20-year-old student from Upoli tells BBC Mundo, who prefers not to give her name for security reasons.
The authorities, he says, have told them that everything “is normal”, but they have not given clear explanations. “My fear is not being able to continue studying for free,” she confesses. She is a scholarship holder of the Comprehensive Communication Design career.
“I’ll see what happens, I’ll enroll, right now I can’t run to enroll in another university. If we see that the situation worsens, my mother and I are already looking at options outside the country,” she says.
After the ban, the National Center for Universities (CNU), the governing body of higher education in Nicaragua and also under the control of the Sandinista ruling party, issued a statement in which it ensures that it will guarantee “academic continuity and pending educational responsibilities.”
The director of the CNU, Ramona Rodríguez, told an official media that the students will receive classes in the same campuses and promised a reduction in fees.
“It is a covert form of academic intervention,” affirms the opposition Medina.
A repeated situation
Elthon Rivera had already been in a similar situation.
It was part of a special program at the Paulo Freire University that welcomed students expelled in 2018 for having participated in the protests against Ortega and who had been left in “academic limbo” because their academic record was eliminated.
That year, Rivera became involved in the student protests, he was in his last year of Medicine and was left with nothing. In 2019, Paulo Freire gave him the opportunity to continue his studies, but in another career, Political Science. He took exams, they validated classes, he advanced others and he was already one year away from graduating.
“The CNU calls for calm, but that does not include us,” he told BBC Mundo before leaving the country on Saturday. When he showed up, he assures, they would identify him as one of the expelled students and he feared ending up behind bars like several of his classmates.
This is not the first time that the government has canceled the legal status of a university. Last December, that of the Hispanic American University (Uhispam) was canceled under the same arguments.
Nor has it been the only measure against higher education centers. At the beginning of this year, the government reduced for the fourth consecutive year the state budget that the Central American University (UCA) receives by law, which since 2018 has maintained a critical position towards the Ortega government.
This measure, the UCA told the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, has led them to rethink the scholarship program for low-income students.
The cancellation of the universities occurred in the same week that the trials against opponents who had been detained since May 2021 and whom Ortega calls “criminals” and “terrorists” were reactivated.
So far, at least six opponents have been convicted of “undermining national integrity” and “conspiracy,” including former guerrilla commander Téllez and student leader Lesther Alemán.
Academic Ernesto Medina assures that Ortega sees universities as “problematic spaces where protest is latent.”
In Nicaragua, the government has banned demonstrations since 2018 and threatened to prosecute those who did.
Student Elthon Rivera feels that he has run out of spaces. “I have no career, I have no chance to speak, to express myself, I can’t say anything because everything I say can be used against me. I already felt that here I have no chance but to run away or hide.”
This Saturday he announced his departure from Nicaragua on social networks.
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
