Youth are the key to change in Nicaragua

Although the rebellion of the youth in Nicaragua was the spark that ignited the anti-government rebellion of April 2018, they still consider that there are other variants for the democratization of Nicaragua, which is why they believe that it is important to generate spaces for debates, where they can express themselves and become aware. of the main challenges and difficulties faced as a nation.

This was one of the objectives of the virtual forum: “The commitment of young people in politics” that brought together the activists Gloria Chamorro and Jonathan López, former politician.

In this forum, the journalist Jennifer Ortiz, who acted as moderator, made her contributions by commenting that “it is sought that young people can somehow participate in these processes in which justice, reparation and non-repetition are sought, that lead us to also to the development of a better country, to a reconstruction”.

He also stressed that without a doubt it is the youth who will take on the challenges, who have the main challenges, “the challenges of leading the country towards reconstruction and above all of applying the lessons learned from these difficult, traumatic processes.” that we have lived as a society,” said Ortiz.

He also stressed that from the year 2018 what the people saw was a rebirth of that spirit of Nicaraguan youth.

Human Rights Collective denounces 158 cases of torture in Nicaragua

“At some point the youth were accused of being passive, of being indifferent to the problems we were facing, but curiously it was the youth who took the initiative, who took the lead in these processes of rebellion, of these protest processes and it was also the youth who mostly paid the consequences of all this, through this process of state repression unprecedented in the history of the country”, he stated. And he asked himself, does it have to be the youth that bears these costs? What can we reflect on all that has happened?

young people ponder

On this issue, Chamorro pointed out that young people have always been present, but they have never been taken with the seriousness that “the position of Nicaraguan youth” deserves.

He added that it is important to look at the past, since the past is a way of learning to transform our present and therefore to build the future.

“It is important that we realize that young people are playing a totally different role in which we have been trained, the one that has taught us, Nicaragua is a violent country, where there is no diversity, where there is no inclusion of diversity and there is no there is no promotion of plurality, nor of human rights,” Chamorro shared.

He stressed that Nicaraguan youth have learned during this process to cultivate empathy and begin to work from NO violence.

“Young people have learned to listen to each other, to listen to the differences, the similarities, those voices, our voices and listen to the public, we have promoted transparency, something that they have not taught us, the issue of accountability Account, there are so many things that we are doing, for example, the issue of inequality, diversity, the issue of dialogue instead of confrontation, ”adds Chamorro.

The opponent stressed that the role of young people is something crucial that we must all pay attention to, and “we have to have eyes and hatred to see what is being done, raise our voices as much as possible, avoid corruption, avoid impunity at all levels of government”.

Regarding the people who say “we are taking time because we are not resorting to arms”, former politician and activist Jonathan López does not consider that the solution to the crisis or getting out of Ortega or the dictatorship are weapons.

“We as young people do not want more deaths, an enormous cost has already been paid and I am not only talking about 2018 here, the history of Nicaragua is stained with blood and we do not want to promote that, we know that it is a whole process that will last a lot, but it really is necessary that there be changes, that there be a process of transitional justice, that there be reparation, that there be a process of dialogue…”, he stated.

Chamorro agrees with López on the importance of dialogue.

Nicaragua experiences a trauma

When asking Chamorro, a mental health specialist and specialized in leadership for a culture of peace, what should this new generation that is facing this new conflict learn to put it into practice in a process of national reconstruction?

“I think that one of the most important lines to reach justice in Nicaragua is the issue of reparation and in this sense I speak of reparation for the victims through a process of empowerment of the mental health line, why ? because all of Nicaragua lives in a trauma,” she said.

Likewise, he mentioned that you cannot live from a transformative, positive, constructive and inclusive leadership, “if there is no healing, if there is no reparation, if there is no justice and for justice to be found there must be reparation first; and I believe that promoting it from empowerment, from leadership with a culture of peace, can be something decisive, something that can help us reach that line of justice faster.”

Situation affects emotionally

López, for his part, referred to young people who consider that, since the conflicts have not ended, they prefer to stop participating in politics, “these are five years in which many of us have faced arrests, expulsions, torture, persecution, exile, to countless events that have really affected us and it is understandable,” he said.

He also revealed that he withdrew from political and social spaces for a few months due to an emotional situation.
“I understand stress, many times it can be disappointments, I understand it because I have experienced it personally, I have experienced it firsthand, 2018 I was at the national dialogue table, I was at the university takeover, they expelled me and see that five years later It is difficult for us to be able to dialogue, there is like a conflict between the Nicaraguan opposition that cannot be completely overcome…”, says López, who agrees with Ortiz and Chamorro that the country has to go through a reparation process.

Finally, the young man said that the change “is in us, we do not give people the opportunity to make changes because many times there will be people who will want to be in decision-making spaces, in incident spaces that perhaps will not be capable of representing our demands, we as young people».