Thursday 16 October 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
President Ortega vs. the
Feminists
By Tim Rogers, Time.com
President Daniel Ortega,
Nicaragua's macho and
mustachioed Sandinista
commandante of the 1970s
and '80s, may claim the
mantle of revolutionary
"new man," but Latin
America's feminists
insist Ortega is a dirty
old man.
Throughout the
continent, Ortega is
being hounded by
feminist groups over his
alleged sexual abuse of
stepdaughter Zoilamerica
Narvaez during the
1980s.
The allegation first
surfaced in 1998, but
was eventually dismissed
by a Sandinista judge
without investigation or
trial — despite an
investigation by the
InterAmerican Commission
on Human Rights, which
determined that the case
had merit. In most
democracies, the furor
would have been enough
to sink any political
career. But not in
Nicaragua, where Ortega
— protected by legal
immunity and a judicial
system stacked with
Sandinista judges — has
not only survived but
thrived, returning to
the presidency in 2007
and amassing more power
than ever before.
But now that Ortega is
trying to reclaim his
place in the
international pantheon
of revolutionary heroes,
the feminists are crying
foul. Unable to pursue
him through Nicaragua's
legal system, they are
instead subjecting the
Sandinista leader to the
tribunal of public
opinion.
Ortega's accusers are
not limited to
Nicaragua's small
feminist organizations.
The minister of women's
affairs in Paraguay's
new left-wing
government, Gloria
Rubin, whipped up a
media storm in August by
calling Ortega a
"rapist" and protesting
his invitation to
President Fernando
Lugo's inauguration — an
event Ortega eventually
skipped to avoid the
heat. A week later in
Honduras, Selma Estrada,
minister of the National
Institute of Women,
resigned her government
post in protest over the
official invitation of
Ortega to Tegucigalpa.
And in El Salvador,
feminist leaders are
asking their government
to declare Ortega
persona non grata before
he's scheduled to attend
a presidential summit
there at the end of the
month.
Throughout Latin
America, the feminist
movement has become
Ortega's nemesis,
challenging his efforts
to restore his image as
a progressive and
revolutionary leader.
Although Narvaez last
month wrote to the
Interamerican Commission
on Human Rights asking
it to close the books on
her case — she did not
retract the accusation
that Ortega had sexually
abused her, but simply
said she'd made a
decision to "find a
solution" and asked for
others to respect her
privacy — the
president's problem with
the women of Latin
America continues to
grow. Last week in
Honduras, Ortega had to
sneak in through the
back door of a Central
American presidential
summit to avoid
feminists who were
waiting for him out
front holding pictures
of his stepdaughter.
"This is Ortega's main
vulnerability, which is
making it very difficult
for him to recapture the
image of the great Latin
American revolutionary
leader like Fidel
Castro," said Maria
Teresa Blandon, an
activist with
Nicaragua's Feminist
Movement.
Ortega and his wife
Rosario Murillo, who has
long been accused by
feminists of being a
silent accomplice in her
daughter's alleged
abuse, are fighting back
with a Sandinista
inquisition. Ortega has
used all his tentacles —
Sandinista media
outlets, government
ministries and fanatical
party structures — to
investigate, slander and
harass Nicaragua's
feminist movement, which
is being informally
accused of everything
from money laundering
and conspiring with the
CIA, to "illegally"
promoting abortion,
pornography and
"assassinating
children".
Murillo has even tried
to reinvent the feminist
movement in her own
image by penning an
Orwellian essay called
"Feminism and Low
Intensity War."
Murillo's feminist
manifesto is intended to
change the way
Nicaraguan women look at
feminism, but her views
will hardly be deemed
transformative — she
lauds the traditional
role of a woman as wife
and mother, and rails
against other feminists
as
"counterrevolutionaries"
who "dress in the
clothing of women, but
have never known the
sensibility of a woman's
heart."
Murillo tried to give
life to her new feminist
vision through the
unveiling of a new
women's movement, "The
Blanca Arauz Movement
for the Dignity of
Women's Rights," named
after the wife of
Sandinista namesake
Augusto Sandino. The
movement, which
materialized overnight,
is made up of Sandinista
activists who profess
their solidarity with
"our sister, Rosario
Murillo" and denounce
other feminist groups
critical of Ortega. The
"Blanca Arauz" movement
recently tried to
legitimize itself by
requesting a meeting
with other feminist
organizations in El
Salvador, but there
wasn't interest in
networking with
Murillo's group.
Now the Sandinista
inquisition is
escalating from threats
to actions. Last Friday,
state prosecutors and
police raided the
central office of the
Autonomous Women's
Movement (MAM) and
another local NGO that
has helped finance the
feminist movement and
removed all the files,
computers and
bookkeeping from their
offices, in what Public
Prosecutor Armando
Juarez called a raid to
"find evidence" to mount
a case against them. The
local opposition press
denounced the raid as a
"Gestapo" tactic, and
women's rights activists
from across Latin
America released a joint
statement from Guatemala
denouncing the Ortega
government's
"institutionalized
misogynism" and
"campaign to criminalize
feminists."
Nicaraguan journalist
and feminist leader
Sofia Montenegro, a
central target in the
government's crackdown,
predicts Ortega's
"psychologically vulgar
and manipulative
campaign" will
eventually boomerang on
him. Montenegro says the
personal nature of the
attacks against her have
been so crass that even
the machista element of
Nicaraguan society is
rejecting what many view
as a cowardly
persecution of women.
"Men think: that could
be my sister, or my
wife," she said.
The attacks have only
served to "throw more
wood on the fire" and
reinforce Ortega's
misogynistic image
abroad, Montenegro said.
Even now that Narvaez
has withdrawn her abuse
case, the protests will
continue to grow because
the movement is now "out
of her hands,"
Montenegro says.
"The case of Nicaragua
has become super
emblematic in Latin
America because there
was a revolution here
and it was supposed to
bring social change,"
she said. "If this was
Pinochet's Chile, no one
would expect
differently, but with
Ortega, it's doubly
hard."
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