{"id":117657,"date":"2018-09-03T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=117657"},"modified":"2018-09-10T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T11:14:00","slug":"nicaraguas-media-uprising-challenges-president-ortega","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/09\/nicaraguas-media-uprising-challenges-president-ortega\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicaragua\u2019s Media Uprising Challenges President Ortega"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Ortega\u2019s repression grows increasingly brutal, the local media has become more collaborative and independent.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Getty<\/p><\/div>\n

27 Aug 2018 – <\/em>Arriving in Diriamba, Nicaragua, cameraman Ricardo Salgado was greeted by menacing scenes following the brutal government crackdown of a local uprising.<\/p>\n

\u201cParamilitaries and hooded police were already there,\u201d Salgado recalled. \u201cEven the police were covering their faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Leopoldo Jos\u00e9 Brenes Sol\u00f3rzano and two bishops were leading a delegation seeking safe passage for protestors opposed to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.<\/p>\n

The protestors had taken refuge in the San Sebastian church after they were assaulted by state security forces and government supporters \u2014 in the midst of nationwide clashes that resulted in the deaths of 31 protesters, four police officers and three government supporters.<\/p>\n

Salgado was there to capture the moment for Confidencial<\/a>, a leading Nicaraguan news program headed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists member Carlos Fernando Chamorro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very terrible situation\u2026 I was in the mouth of the wolf.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
\n— Ricardo Salgado<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Salgado\u2019s camera rolled, the paramilitaries forced their way into the church alongside the rescue delegation. Some were armed with machetes and shouted insults at the churchmen, calling them \u201ckillers\u201d and \u201csons of whores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, Ortega\u2019s fighters set upon the clergymen as they tried to leave the sanctuary. They rained blows on priest Edwin Rom\u00e1n and slashed bishop Silvio Baez, leaving him with cuts across his arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me there is not even a name for that,\u201d Salgado said. \u201cIt is a direct war against the Catholic church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realizing the events were being recorded, the fighters turned violently on Salgado and the other journalists. They punched Salgado in the face twice and stole his video camera. Fearing that Ortega\u2019s men would start shooting, he fled nearby on foot.<\/p>\n

The cameraman hid for two hours in the home of a local man who offered him refuge, as paramilitaries roamed the streets surrounding the church in Toyota Hiluxes, searching for protestors and journalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very terrible situation,\u201d Salgado said. \u00a0\u201cI was in the mouth of the wolf, as we say in Nicaragua.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following day, July 10, Confidencial released\u00a0a video<\/a> with dramatic footage of the confrontation at the church \u2013 compiled in large part from numerous other Nicaraguan outlets whose equipment was not seized.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FJbkuburPNA<\/p>\n

Foreign media, including the BBC<\/a> and Associated Press<\/a>, also covered the assault on the clergy. Their equipment was returned to them after the attacks, according to Salgado.<\/p>\n

The incident reflects a remarkable pattern that Salgado\u2019s boss Chamorro says is unfolding in Nicaragua: as the regime\u2019s repression grows increasingly brutal, the media has become more and more independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media independence that exists now in Nicaragua was not a gift,\u201d Chamorro said. \u201cIt was won by journalists and the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since this spring, Nicaragua has been in a state of upheaval. Massive protests in April against a government plan to reduce social security benefits sparked a wave of violent repression by the Ortega regime.<\/p>\n

Human rights groups say that nearly 450 people have been killed<\/a>, mostly by state security forces and government-allied paramilitaries, and a military crackdown in July cemented Ortega\u2019s control of the country.<\/p>\n

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007. He first came to power in 1979 as leader of the leftist Sandinistas but, in his second stint in power, has suppressed civil liberties, abolished presidential term limits, cut social services and won support from the business community.<\/p>\n

One result of the current wave of state violence is that reporters are now working together with greater solidarity across media outlets, Chamorro said. As a security measure, his reporters now travel in groups of at least three that include journalists from other outlets.<\/p>\n

Foreign journalists provide an additional measure of protection. In the community of Monimb\u00f3, an indigenous neighborhood in the city of Masaya, locals barricaded the streets until they were violently driven out by police and paramilitaries.<\/p>\n

Confidencial editor Carlos Salinas Maldonado gained access shortly after the crackdown together with The New Yorker\u2019s Jon Lee Anderson. Salinas wrote a lyrical dispatch<\/a> about how the occupied city had quietly \u201cclosed its doors and resisted,\u201d including burying the protesters killed by the military after a somber procession through the empty streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a war between two armed groups,\u201d Chamorro said. \u201cIt\u2019s a massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n

The regime\u2019s brutality has reduced its popular support and prompted more media outlets to cover its abuses, Chamorro said. He said the country\u2019s most widely watched network, Canal 10, was largely uncritical of the Ortega regime prior to the recent upheaval. But the severity of the government\u2019s violence and the insistence of Canal 10 reporters on covering the reality has brought about a major shift in its coverage.<\/p>\n

Mauricio Madrigal, the news director for Canal 10, said his station had significantly increased its political coverage and was determined to hold the government accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a social commitment to inform the people at this historic moment for our country,\u201d Madrigal said.<\/p>\n

Chamorro said Confidencial\u2019s coverage during what he described as a gradual eleven-year shift from democracy toward authoritarianism during Ortega\u2019s rule had earned the outlet additional authority for its reporting of the current crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now reaping the credibility we have sowed for 11 years,\u201d Chamorro said.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sasha Chavkin<\/em> is a reporter for <\/em>ICIJ. He was <\/em>ICIJ‘s lead reporter for the\u00a0Evicted & Abandoned investigation<\/a>, which revealed massive forced displacement caused by projects funded by the World Bank. He was also the lead reporter for <\/em>ICIJ and<\/em> Center for Public Integrity’s<\/em> award-winning\u00a0Island of the Widows<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Mystery in the Fields<\/a>\u00a0projects, which examined a mysterious form of kidney disease that is killing agricultural workers across continents. He has previously written for<\/em> ProPublica, Columbia Journalism Review, and the<\/em>\u00a0New York World<\/a>, an investigative website covering New York. Sasha has reported from countries including Ethiopia, South Sudan, Honduras and Sri Lanka, and his\u00a0work has been recognized by the\u00a0Society of Professional Journalists<\/a>, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Sidney Hillman Foundation. He holds masters degrees from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and School of International and Public Affairs.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 icij.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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