Nicaraguan journalism in exile. Global Journalism Seminar with Carlos F. Chamorro, journalist and editor: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

Nicaraguan journalism in exile. Global Journalism Seminar with Carlos F. Chamorro, journalist and editor

Reuters Institute1h 1min

Eduardo Suárez

00:38

Hello, and welcome to the global journalism Seminar Series. I'm Eduardo Suarez, the head of editorial of the Reuters Institute with a name for our Meera Selva, who is now on her way to cop 26 Our speaker today is Nicaraguan journalist ScanLister mother Chamorro. Who will be speaking about the many ways in which journalism is under pressure in his home country and their the authoritarian role of president Daniel Ortega. A few details about Carlos before we start, he is an award winning investigative journalist. He is the editor of site confidential and the host of very popular TV shows in Nicaragua. And he's joining us from Costa Rica where he's been living in exile since June 2021. When his house was raided and his siblings were arrested by government forces. It is important to stress that Carlos is not alone on this, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, around 100 Nicaraguan journalists had gone into exile since 2018. And around 140 have faced prosecution in the past two months. So very tough situation for journalism in Nicaragua and we are super happy to be today with Carlos. Hello, cameras. Thank you for joining us.

Carlos F. Chamorro

02:03

Thank you, Eduardo. And I'm very glad to have this opportunity to share the floor with you and with all our colleagues at the Reuters Institute at Oxford and everybody else who's joining us this morning this afternoon for you. Yes,

Eduardo Suárez

02:19

yeah, of course. Well, I think you know, we should have started with a basic because obviously Nicaragua is such a small country and maybe not so known for our global audience. So you've worked as a journalist for 14 years now, Carlos and you know, there's been harassment and arrest and abuse against journalists. Before in Nicaragua. But so what it feels that this time is different, and I would like you to explain, you know, if you know in which way you feel that this is different. And if you think that it is the worst time right now to be an independent journalist in Nicaragua,

Carlos F. Chamorro

02:59

well, I found that confidential 25 years ago in 1996. This was like the spring of freedom of the press in Nicaragua, at the end of the government of Violeta Chamorro. My mother, who, who had a debt, trap, the political transition in our country, and it created certain conditions for political pluralism and freedom of the press. And we really thought at that time that this was kind of a permanent result of the political transition. I don't think anybody would have imagine 25 years ago, where it would be right now. And the relationship between the press and the the the other governments, including my mother's governments, and the governments of our nobody, man, or Enrico Bolanos, let's say center right center governments was a traditional conflictive relationship we try to oversee power, power will try to put up it their own agenda and there will be tension, permanent tension. The distinction when Daniel Ortega came to power in 2007, is that this is a government that declare the press as the enemy and the enemy is not a question of competition about how to establish the agenda. The enemy has to be combat had to be eliminated in a fight. And it was very tough from the very beginning. We came out putting a test to the Ortega government early in 2007 when we broke his story about corruption about corruption in the cannot say the presidential palace but in the party office. The Party Office, which is also Ortega's residents were depressed DNC is the three things together in the same place. And that's where the corruption links and influence trafficking was taking place. We put up a story with with with sources very strongly reported.

Carlos F. Chamorro

05:18

And I thought well, this is an opportunity for the President to to show that he is against corruption that under this time, there will not be censorship to the press, and I ended up being harassed. I was lynched by the official press. They accused me of drug trafficking. They accused me of several crimes. My sources were also persecuted for me. That was a sign that this was a major change. And this was the the permanent situation for decades. But we were allowed to do journalism. Our our investigations have no consequences because this is an authoritarian government that in the next in the first years in power, assume total control of all the intense instances of the state. I'm talking about the judicial system, about the district attorney, about Congress about the police about the army. About everything, not not leaving out any window of autonomy. So even though jordanelle ism was allowed to investigate corruption or to present findings and results, nothing would happen. Nothing would happen because the state was not react was not take any investigation. So people would say well, but there are there's some tolerance in Nicaragua and they allow you to do journalism in a way that was true, but I believe it was mostly because the government felt so strong and they have no opposition because the either political parties have been out low or corrupted or they have been divided. And they had built up an alliance. This is an authoritarian government that claims to be on the left but they built an alliance with with big corporate business for a decade that gave Nicaragua an image of certain economic stability, but at the cost of democracy and transparency. But people would say, well, things are not good, but the economy is more or less going, okay. They are allowing us to make investment, this will have an impact on certain social issues. So it doesn't matter if they're breaking the law. It doesn't matter if the President is breaking the constitution. We were probably a very few group of journalists, civil society groups, overseen power and all this accumulation of authoritarian rule. Everything changed unexpectedly in October and April 18 2018. A group of people came out to protest against a pension reform. It was a normal protest no more than 6070 people. They were repressed brutally, like many other times in the past, but this time something happened differently. Probably the images of repression had a tremendous impact in the country. So did they after April 19, April 20, April 21. Jewel had that repression accelerated and massive national movement of protest. We call it a civic insurrection because it wasn't an arm movement. It was a an an explosion of protest, political protests that very rapidly focused on demanding elections. People said, well, either either the president resign or we got we have an electoral reform to have anticipated elections. And the repression was so strong that in the first week, we had more than 50 people assassinated. Okay, when the government lost control of politics, the press became again, the focus of the enemy. And in the first week, a journalist was assassinated and Helga Hona he was reporting Facebook live in blue fields of the protests and he was assassinated. They destroy radio that EU I'm talking about the paramilitary groups, different reporters were assaulted. They impose censorship, censorship, on cable TV and on television. And we discover the power of social media. I know social media is very controversial about about the impact that it has in public debate. But in moments when the government's tried to control how do you distribute information, well, we we we we transfer all our work and social media then then they reestablish cable and a national television, but that was in and out.

Eduardo Suárez

10:17

About that, wait a minute, I was gonna ask about that, about the power of social media. And I was wondering, you know, what was the role of social media in that civic insurrection that you were talking about now? And we're describing how important it was that you were actually or you could actually go to Twitter or to Facebook or to YouTube and actually spread the word in there.

Carlos F. Chamorro

10:41

You know, before these civilian insurrection, people will say there are two Nicaragua's. There's one real Nicaragua does the other one, the Facebook Nicaragua, but that's not the real one. Okay, when the people took the street by themselves, well, they use social media to expand their networks and there are you know, how do you say their convocation etc. And they use their cell phones to document what was going on in reality. We are a very small newsroom. We have never had had the capacity to cover a national explosion without the amount of images and information that people put on the web. I'm talking about reports on repression and reports on resistance. And our role as professional journalists was to was to, to to pass all this information to the filter of professional journalism. Trying to separate fake news with with real facts. And he was very important, I would say it we we we lived in a kind of non conservative alliance between citizens and journalists. For the first time, there was this marriage between freedom of the press and freedom of expression. This was what happened between April and July 2018. If I go one moment to the present, I will say now both freedom of expression and freedom of the press have been suppressed by brutality and repression. But in those moments, well, the press became a focus of attacks. And then there was a brutal repression. I'm talking about a situation in which these mass movement took the street with massive demonstration, barricades, taking control of a university campus and barrios and then the government lounge, a massive police and paramilitary operation of repression. So by the by the month of July, the whole movement have been either many people killed in prison, probably more than 1000 and more than 100,000 in exile. I didn't go to exile immediately in that moment, because we we still have the capacity to report and then they impose what we call a police state. A police state is a is a is a system in which not because the state they declare an emergency situation, and they cancel certain constitutional rights, that just the de facto they just said you cannot go out to the street because you are a promoter of a coup d'etat and your journalists are promoting terrorism or hate or whatever, therefore they threat the threat you and that's the way in which it worked de facto no through any law. Now in 2021. They have established laws to repress but this was the situation in the year 2018. I guess to finish with this initial presentation. In the end in the month of December 2018. There was a new wave of repression, the government decided to organize a crackdown against civil society. They eliminated at least eight or nine non governmental organizations, including the most important human rights organizations in need, and all others and they are assaulted to media outlets, my news room confidential and cm percenter Noticias a cable channel when they assaulted confidentiality. It happened at midnight. Nobody was there. They they took control of the security guards. And the day after they had they had robbed everything. I thought that was over and they were just for one day, but the day after they came back the police and they occupy our newsroom permanently. So we consider ourselves to be in danger, but more in danger when the next week they assaulted cm por ciento noticias, and they took to prison, Miguel Mora and Lucia Pina. Wow, they stayed in prison. Six months accused of promoting terrorism that was the peak of repression, and I had to leave to for exile, myself and another group of my fellow reporters in confidential not everyone, but we we left either in December 2018 or early to 2019 to Costa Rica. So we I reestablish our production of coffee in Seattle and esta semana they impose censorship they put us out from television, so we start reorganizing everything distributing our content, either on the internet fully or through YouTube, Facebook, another, another media platform. And at the end of that year, 2019, I decided to come back to Nicaragua, and I said, Okay, I'm coming back. I had no negotiation with anyone. I had no guarantee of anything, but I'm here to exercise my right to recover my right. And I challenged the state and I said, Well, you are occupying confidential news room, you have to you have to leave. You have to give it out. I had judicial resources but those judicial resources were never taken into account by the Supreme Court of Justice. They just said, Well, we will decide some time. And this was 2019 and now in 2021, which is a different kind of repression because this is on the verge of the Nov seven election. I had to leave to exile again in early June because they assaulted for the second time confy NCR newsroom. Now they're also occupying La Prensa. The the oldest media outlet in Nicaragua more than 90 years. But But both La Prensa convenient, Seattle, cm percenter Noticias and many other media outlets that have been either reorganized or reinvented or working in exile. On port from other different ways in through digital platforms.

Eduardo Suárez

17:29

I was gonna ask about that. Carlos. You mentioned that you had to re establish basically all the production schedule and the production of your you know, your programs or your new site. To adapt to digital and to spread the word through through the website through different digital platforms. How easy was that for you guys? And is it possible to actually, you know, keep the site up? Alive in Nicaragua. In this kind of environment that you're describing, that is so tough. Is the government able to censorship in some way through these digital platforms?

Carlos F. Chamorro

18:10

It has been possible until now we benefited from an extraordinary solidarity from some Costa Rican media in particular, CHANNEL SEVEN tele tikka, who open their house and their arms to support us, all our colleagues find all the ways and at some point, they impose censorship through YouTube, because they Well, I didn't mention an important part of the story, and is that there is also an official or an official media and the official media in Nicaragua is not controlled by the party. Or by the state. It's controlled by the precedence of family as a private business. All the songs and siblings of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murray yo, they are the owners of Channel Four, channel eight channel 13 and several radio stations, which is a kind of a media empire that has been built as a result of corruption because this has been financed with the state cooperation money from Venezuela that came to Nicaragua officially to support let's say, social programs or infrastructure or to fight poverty but they ended up financing private business of the president's family. They don't have much credibility, but they have all the resources in order to spread their sort of propaganda campaign, etc. So these channels, they complain to YouTube, arguing that there was a conflict there was a commercial conflict, because we were using the images of the political trials against political prisoners that they are the only ones who are allowed to do the to broadcast those images because the independent press has not been allowed to do that. So we have we spend a lot of time explaining YouTube which is very complicated because first you have to talk through a computer and we ended up talking to real person saying this is not a commercial conflict. This is a censorship problem. And therefore they reestablish our YouTube channel. I have to say that the Nicaraguan government has not been as, let's say, strong or probably they don't have the instruments, like the Cuban state at the Venezuelan state about intervening internet and having control of the internet. I think there there is more competition in the sort of Nicaraguan economy and that has been has had allow that we do have an important space to distribute our content. Actually, two days ago, Facebook announced announced for the first time the dismantling of what they call a troll farm of stablished by the Nicaraguan government and the FSLN party, using the different false accounts and using several government offices in order to to intervene and to distort public debate. They They argue that it is that there is a censorship problem for political reasons. And Facebook said, Well, they're violating our norms about creating false content, etc, etc, that that's one of the issues but but I would say the there are several challenges about about this way of working, and I like to talk about what we have done about, say about fighting against censorship, okay. One of them is what I mentioned before about using social media. But there's another one very important and is that this is what I would say collaborative journalism. There is no room for for breaking news just for myself. In this context, when everybody is under threat. Reporters, both print or photographers, they have to work together in the street, they cannot go one by one because, you know, if you're if you're alone, you're lost. They have to protect themselves. And in order to distribute our content. Well, we created networks of collaboration, both in Nicaragua and outside Nicaragua to distribute our content. There are several ways and then also collaborative investigations, which is something that well, you're joining forces in order to put together all our resources. That has been a very important point.

Eduardo Suárez

23:10

And has it been easy to collaborate with your own competitors, I guess I mean, it's always difficult, right? You say that it is environment is the only way and I'm sure it is but you know, how difficult has it been and you know what are the obstacles that you found especially with Nicaraguan newspapers or or other news outlets?

Carlos F. Chamorro

23:29

Well, it is not easy. It is not easy and well, you know, at first everything spontaneous, then you have to establish rules because there are so media who are doing most of the work and there are others broadly, who are just distributing the content. But But I would say in general, there is a feeling of solidarity and understanding that there are no there are no differences between a journalist from one media or the order. We are all in a situation of survival. We are we can all be in prison, or we can all be either free in order to continue reporting. There is another challenge and this is the challenge of how to keep our credibility, how to keep our information, strong and confirm when we don't have access to government sources. Not Not right now. But since a decade ago, we have never had access to public information. So we built a platform of Independent Sources. But now all our independent sources are silence because they're suppressing freedom of expression. There are more than 150 people who are in prison. Some of them have been accused of terrorism, but some of them have been accused of nothing simply for saying, long leave Nicaragua or for giving opinions on on the internet on the website, or for or for making comments making political comments, that government will say, well, that's conspiracy, who decides what is conspiracy? Who decides what is fake news? Well, the government will take you to prison will take both. You'll stay there 90 days, and then they will open a criminal case against you. So how to preserve the balance of journalism without public sources and in a polarized situation. And when our independent sources have been silenced, I would say that that is a new challenge that we didn't have that challenge in 2018.

Eduardo Suárez

25:41

Yeah, I guess that it must be really, really difficult. I would like to delve a bit, you know, into your personal history cabinet, because obviously it's so intertwined with the history of the country, right. You started your career as a pantser. You know, a newspaper you mentioned that was owned by your family and anything by your father, working tomorrow. And he was shot and killed with impunity in 1978 in the last day of the day to support some of the previous dictators in Nicaragua, and I wonder what kind of impact that had on you as a young journalist as a young graduate at the time, what kind of impression didn't have on you at the time?

Carlos F. Chamorro

26:30

It changed my life completely. Well, it's not a question it's not only the fact or or let's start from the fact that they killed my father who was was a was a very loved and influential person in my life, and I still feel his absence these days, no matter how old I am and missing my father's presence, but he also changed my life plans. I was in a journalist. I had just finished my bachelor's and economist and I was planning to actually want to go to England to study development economics at Sussex. And I decided to become a journalist because I thought that that was important. Well to report and I had the opportunity to work at La Prensa, but also but I also got involved in politics and I got involved in, let's say, radical politics, because after the assassination of my father, Nicaragua exploded, it was something in a way similar to what happened in April. But the different is that in 1978 79, we were facing a long dictatorship, a long established dictatorship. It was the Somoza dictatorship. This was another time in the 70s in Latin America, and there have been a long fight in Nicaragua, both peacefully through elections were that were completely for force force powers. But there was also a guerrilla movement led by the Sandinista front fighting the de Somoza dictatorship. So I supported the national movement that was part of promoting the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship through a national insurrection, but this was a different thing than that. What we are living these days, so I became a journalist, and I also became part of the Sandinista front to fight against the Somoza dictatorship. And I had this double life as a journalist and also someone who was involved in let's say, underground political activities. I participated in the final insurrection against Somoza, and when that all ended, I didn't go back to work at Leprince I went back to work, I started working with the FSLN in the creation of a new newspaper that was called baraka and I was the director of Baraka since some time between 1980 until 1994 Baraka was a political party newspaper for for the first long period until 1990 When it became more like a professional paper always relate it with the with the Sandinista frog, but more autonomous than what it was in the 80s. So that that that's part of the consequences of having involved in politics and journalism at the same time. It is a complicated and difficult marriage. Well, it's not a question and saying, Well, I would have never done that. I did it. I did it. That's part of my life. I will never do it again. In 1995, I left party politics and I got focus totally for the rest of my life in independent journalism. I learned lessons, most of them bad, some of them good for having been part of a national process that tried to change Nicaragua in terms of democracy and social justice, but it failed. It failed in the process, but I I assume my responsibilities for the bad journalism that we did, and I tried to, to keep with my own principles Well, trying to try to attend to the truth since I of

Eduardo Suárez

30:33

course, of course. Of course that was an eye precisely because of that. I would like to ask a bit about Ortega at the time, because obviously the guy has changed. Oh, and it is very easy for everyone to forget how was how are they or was viewed at the time you know, like a left wing in surgeon, a revolutionary and a hero for many people in the left in Latin America. So you know, can you explain a bit, you know, your thinking at the time and also the thinking of other people at the time like Sir, you're I mean, like other people were involved with every team at the Sandinista regime. On the atheists have now are actually in opposition and are persecuted by Ortega himself. So that kind of, you know, change is super fascinating for anyone who has followed the Nicaraguan politics in the last let's say 30 years.

Carlos F. Chamorro

31:30

Well, the Sandinista Revolution attained power through with arms with an insurrection and left power after losing an election in 1990. Although its major objective was not democracy, but rather social justice. At the end, it ended up supporting the foundations of democracy in Nicaragua in 1990. And some of us, accepted the results and accepted also the errors of the revolution that were aggravated by the foreign aggression of the United States, but not exclusively, the revolution created its own contradictions. And we had we suffer a civil war that was also a foreign aggression war, the worst of the two worlds, which is something that I don't think anyone in Nicaragua would like that to happen again, and when the FSLN lost power in 1990 Well, they there was a process of of reconsideration and evaluation about the past and about the future and about whether if the if the left in Nicaragua had any future well, it was able to have to accept human rights as a universal principles you will have to accept democracy as a universal principle, even though you may have, let's say, a more pro social justice policies on this issues and others, but there were some people that will never accept that and I think one of them was Daniel Ortega was there from the very moment he accepted that he has lost election the day after said well, but I am going to keep our from below and I will continue governing from below. Well, I said well, we have to if I am going to survive as a journalist, I cannot have a double standard. I cannot say well, we we are we were we're going to renounce to political violence, but we will preserve the use of violence for certain moments and certain situations. That was the kind of a double standard and ambiguity that Ortega represented from from the first moment. So the process, the FSLN went through a crisis in early in the early 90s. one sector of the party tried to create a new party that will be something more like a social democratic party, or a center left Democratic Party that would ended up creating the movimiento renewable or Sandinista from the moment that group was created. I myself separated from party politics and I said, Well, now I'm going to focus exclusively on journalism but not related to a political party and what they ended up for the years, let's say, assuming a total monopoly of of the old FSLN transforming it more into a political machinery under his own individual control and the control of his wife and of his of his family. So today, this man who fought against Somoza tends to resemble Somoza in the way in which has full control of power, but not only that, but in the way it was exercised power with brutality Somoza phase and insurgents and armed insurgents or Taylor had never faced an armed insurgents. He said massive protests, but civilians pass peaceful protests and he repress them with their worst or the same kind of brutality. So I think I think at the end it's it's a question of, of basic values. And, and, and an either

Carlos F. Chamorro

35:46

really well, this individual has is in power and and I don't think he will leave power unless he's forced to leave power as a result of a major national and international pressure and he will do a lot of harm, a lot of harm, a lot of pain, he will impose a lot of pain to the Nicaraguan people there is also fanaticism. There is also some kind of an ideological blindness that he claims that he is defending a revolution what revolution the revolution and that in 1990, Nicaragua started the process of democratic transition. His own policies are not revolutionary or not socially, they're just basical neoliberal policies. But this course the political discourse is that he is defending revolution.

Eduardo Suárez

36:38

So is there anything in Ortega that you recognize, you know, from the man that you campaigned for from the night you knew in the in the 80s? Or has he changed completely? Or is there anything that you still recognize about his politics? Or his his way of holding power?

Carlos F. Chamorro

36:55

Thought I thought when Ortega phase the the 2018 challenge she will have because of his own political experience, an instinct of understanding that he had imposed a profound wound profound pain in Nicaragua by massacring massacre the university students, and when he when he came out on his first let's say, national television appearance Well I thought, not because I believe in him but because of his political instinct that he will recognize reality but but he didn't. He just, he just came out with this with this very hate, ideological, brutal speech, blaming the enemy the enemy will be the conspirators the enemy will be those who are us support by the US or whatever, and it's completely away from from reality.

Eduardo Suárez

38:01

In a minute, I'm going to introduce some of the questions of our fellows and of the audience. And I invite everyone to leave their own questions on the on the chat here in some, but they would like to ask before Congress about COVID and how important the pandemic has been in these political situation because they read obviously about the Nicaraguan government hiding some of the events and some of the, you know, exposure of the population to the pandemic. How important has the pandemic been as a factor in this political situation before the election on Sunday?

Carlos F. Chamorro

38:38

Because we very important as a because because there have been an unusual humanitarian tragedy that have that have not been revealed by the government, only by the independent press and by independent medical doctors and have been important also for journalism and it has a political impact. On the weakening of the support of the government. I mentioned that I came back to Nicaragua that November 2019. So early in 2020, we faced the COVID pandemic. Well, the government made fun of COVID-19 and said well, this is just like, like Cygnus for the Reach for the white people and the reach and they and they converted to an astronaut parade. That was called something love in the age of COVID-19 Promoting contagious and they denial Faris, they deny the impact, and then they promote contagious. Officially, according to the Nicaraguan Minister of Health, only 220 individuals have died because of COVID-19 in Nicaragua, that will be a world miracle. But those those statistics are not accepted by the World Health Organization because because they're not trustable and they have been taking into account the investigations of both independent medical doctors and independent media. The projections that we have worked together will give you a figure of more than 13,000 people that have died, which is the highest number in Central America, and it had a tremendous humanitarian impact. More than 200 health workers have died. And and we and that's the kind of a situation actually we've done a lot of reporting we, we we got up. We gain a lot of training, working remote because of COVID-19. Now to survive under these kinds of under these political persecution, but we did a lot of reporting on that. And there has been recognition by the international press and by by several international organizations about the kind of truth reporting that the Nicaraguan press have done on COVID-19.

Eduardo Suárez

41:12

Okay, let's start with a question from one of our fellows is actually our journalists fellow from from Central America, Claudia. She's from Guatemala, Claudia Cruz, as he's asking do you think or de is involving other Political figures in the region and she mentioned the stress the stress Lee boo Kelly and Gemma pay of course, both, you know, politicians that are bullying the press. Do you think that you know what Ortega is? Doing in Nicaragua is embolden them in some way?

Carlos F. Chamorro

41:45

Well, I think every country has its own political balance about whether you will tolerate the emergence of a dictatorship or you won't see the let's say the signers that said, you have to stop this process. What I could say is that nothing was inevitable. Indica wasn't inevitable the failure of political transition, and he wasn't inevitable for Ortega to become a dictator. There were different factors, different failures in an era. My own understanding is that there is a shared fate failures. There was a failure of the political elites and the economic elites and there was a failure also, let's say of the Democratic Left, that were incapable of, of putting limits to the power that Ortega ended up having. And that's and I think this is the kind of lessons that all the countries in Central America should have to follow but according to their own countries. I can't say I would say Ortega is an is an extreme case of dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. None of the other presidents in Central America including bokeelia and Janmaat. They are so close to that sort of extreme but you should see do to see yourself in the mirror of Ortega. And in the mirror of the failures of the Nicaraguan society is not just that Ortega is an evil man. And he he was that we were determined to have him for 14 years in power. There is a combination of many failures of the of, of the Nicaraguan Political, institutional and an economic system. But yes, it is a sign of preoccupation. And I think that's that's one reason that's one reason why we expect the Central American societies the press to civil societies and the government to support Nicaraguan people isolating Ortega Ortega, as example is bad for the whole region.

Eduardo Suárez

44:04

Is great finally, nothing is inevitable. I think that's that's important to stress. We have a question from Emily with a phenol Joyce fellow with us here and he is from Hong Kong. And she says Kim, do you have a plan for what to do when or if the government shuts down social media so what's your plan B if tomorrow suddenly, you know, you can actually operate on Facebook or on YouTube or, or any in this, any of those channels. Is this something that you consider or discuss with your team?

Carlos F. Chamorro

44:38

Yes, it's something that we consider I would prefer not to talk about that. On the Record it you know, we do have to have different plans for different situations. And we just want we just hope to be able to, to to have more protection where we are and how we are how we are working on trying to strengthen the alliance of the press, with with readers and audiences at the end there is no other protection that maintaining the seat of your credibility with our audiences and we are investing a lot of what we can to strengthen this kind of relationship at the end. Well, there is social media there. There might be all the platforms, there might be other ways of distributing content, but the most important thing is to preserve credibility with our audiences.

Eduardo Suárez

45:35

Yeah, well said. Question from Monica Cole. She's a journalist fellow with us. She's from the US. And she's actually a stunning feminism in Latin American newsrooms. And she's asking a bit about that. So what role, she said has gender dynamics played since repression started in 2018. So how important you know women's fights basically, were for that kind of civic insurrection that you were describing, and also how where the majority is targeted if they were

Carlos F. Chamorro

46:09

well, I think we should look first at the youth movement at the university student movement that exploded in 2018. Before that, people would say in Nicaragua that the youth generation was more this kind of a so called Facebook culture. And they were more thinking about all the things rather than with the problems of the country, and we had an uprising in the let's say, state universities that were controlled by the government in the past, and many women were part of that leadership. Many women are still part of that leadership, and many women are now in exile as part of that leadership. And we see women in all the different, let's say, components of civil society in the human rights movement in journalism. Well, in my newsroom, we have probably an equal balance of women and men, and that is not something that we did. Let's say that we do have a policy but it's not something that we did because of a result of counting is just the result of, of the presence of professional women, professional journalists in woman or women professional journalist. And I would say in different aspects of, of our society, and you see it again in the political prisoners. We have your length Violetta Grenada is is a is a woman who might be in her 70s and he had been a political activist. All her life, she's in prison. You have also daughter Maria, as as a former Sandinista guerrilla fighter against Somoza and but you also have people from a younger generation like Tamara Villa or Suzanne Barona, or Anna Margarita Hill, who are in prison because because they have been, let's say, very important political activists and what I can say is that the that's so that Ortega I almost said Somoza Ortega has had this kind of drive to punish and try to break this this young woman in prison they are in solitary confinement. This is the case of Anna Margarita Hill and Dora Maria Tay is and unka maravilla and on Oh, there's and there is a there's a human rights defender Maria VL a lawyer is she's in prison and and others well my own sister Christiana, he's under house arrest. He was a he was an aspiring presidential candidate. So there has been, I would say any any important process of presence of women, although in our country, we have a so called co president, as Ortega said that his his wife, Rosario Maria, who shares power with him, but her policies you know, the only if you if you analyze Nicaragua according to some un indicators, the government claims that we are at the level of Finland and the Nordic countries in terms of gender participation in public life and in politics. But these women have no power have no real power have no autonomy at all. They're simply there because because they are creating this fuckhead of women participation the real participation of women have been on the other side. And I think people feel very, very conscious that this is part of the political change that is Nicaragua needs.

Eduardo Suárez

49:56

And we are nearing the end of the of the conversation, Carlos and we have several questions of people actually asking what they can do to help. You know, as journalists, what can boring journalists actually do to help you and your team and all the Nicaraguan journalists try to do their jobs right now? But also normal people? I mean, people who may be worried about human rights in Central America, what would be your advice or your ask? I mean, it's your moment.

Carlos F. Chamorro

50:27

Well, my first goal for colleagues will be try to cover Nicaragua, try to gain more attention to what is going on. Let's not accept the normalization of violence. We're going to have electoral force on November the seventh, everybody is asking questions about that people are coming late to the story. They don't know that all the political candidates of the opposition are in prison and that we are going to have a one party election. Alright, but what what will happen the day after that they will forget about the story because there are no barricades. There are no massive demonstrations. We live under a police state. And it's a much more complex and more complicated for a society and for journalists also to cover this complex process of how to change a dictatorship through peaceful means. So my first call will be tried to cover Nicaragua, okay, they don't let you in into the country. But there are many other ways about how to how to give the story and also support the Nicaraguan media. There are different ways well, first, let's try to find out where we are, who we are, and how we are covering the story we have had, I would say and I would like to thank the the OAS representative for freedom of the press, also the united nations and organizations like the Inter American Press Association, the Committee to Protect Journalists report tyrosine fronteiras, and many others, and many others, but we need more stories on Nicaragua not only about November the seventh, but about the long process that will start the day after when when we will have the reelection of a government that fortunately, I would expect international community would no longer call a hybrid government. But what really is a dictatorship or a non democratic government, but not the combination or a mixture of every anything. So therefore, it will have to, it would have to follow all the political and economic standards about how do you how do you deal with a dictatorship, how do you isolate it? And also the press, I hope will be part of this story.

Eduardo Suárez

52:46

You mentioned briefly before how Facebook just announced that he has removed a troll farm run by the Nicaraguan government. And I was curious, I mean, if this is something that is impacting, in some way, your work and the work of your colleagues, I mean, we I mean, we've seen these documented in places like the Philippines with Maria Reza, and in other places, so I wonder if you can share with with us how this kind of, you know, very, very difficult online environment is impacting on your work people in something do or harassing you online or one of your colleagues?

Carlos F. Chamorro

53:29

Yes, yes. And people are very aware about harassing and jordanelle is to tell you the truth. I think there are other other threads that I consider to be much more dangerous and those are the threats are the real threats of police vigilance and pressure and accusations and, and more direct repression. I think I think there are ways to fight fake news and these trolls machineries, etc. And again, I concentrate on our credibility and try to do our to, to respond with more journalism and best journalism. That's the only way now we do have to protect our integrity, our safety, that's why I'm here in Costa Rica and some of my of my colleagues, the impact that these will have on the, let's say, the state machinery, we still don't know it's very new. Actually. We're going to debate about that in our show tonight, with some with some experts about what is what is the impact? Yes.

Eduardo Suárez

54:38

Almost a final question from John Paul Moto, who is a columnist for as well in Belgium. He asks, If you think there are any pressure points that the international community will use to actually bring a democratic transition to Nicaragua. And it's a question that I'm sure that some some people in our audience are also you know, asking themselves, what can let's say the European Union or the US or any other Western democracies do about what's happening over there?

Carlos F. Chamorro

55:14

Well, that's a question for another panel. I and I and I hope the international community well in a couple of hours in the in the United States Congress, they will they will approve, they will approve the Renaissance law. This is a law that will impose more constraints to international multilateral organizations like the IMF, the World Bank and others in the way in which they have been financing the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega. That's an important step. We expect the United the European Union's to do something similar, and we expect the Latin American nations under the Organization of American States on November 9 or the 10 when the foreign minister will get together to make a statement about whether they will recognize or not the results of the Nicaraguan elections. I think there is that necessity, first of our political statement about the result of this electoral force farce and secondly, about several actions that could take place, but at the end, or the end, the solution is in Managua is not in Washington, in Brussels or in London. So whatever the international community will do, I just hope that we will have an impact on weakening the police state in Nicaragua. Nicaraguan people need to recover the right for freedom of reunion, freedom of realization, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and later on an electoral reform to have recovered the right to elect and to have elections. But all these international pressures have that focus what how to impact on the police state that has to be suspended. Is that possible with Daniel Ortega and Rosario Maria Probably not. Probably we will need extraordinary pressure proportional pressure to the kind of state control die they do have in Nicaragua in order to have an impact. That's why I will say a new game I hope will start on November the eighth the day after the electoral force. We already know the results, but there will be reelected with 70% of the vote and we will have a record turnout. In reality, we will have a massive, massive abstention and people will stay in home at home protesting but those will be the official results. I am certain that the international community as a whole is really basically saying these are not real elections. This is something different. Therefore, we have to we have to deal with the police with the results in a different way.

Eduardo Suárez

58:06

Well, final question, Carlos because I know that you have another event later on. And it's by Bianca Jaeger, who is following the seminar and she's asking, you know, something, again that many of us may be asking, and you touched a bit on this in your previous answer, but you know, what's going to happen after the election we have this mock election where as you say, you know, you know, it's just Ortega and a few others on development. Many opposition leaders are in jail or under house arrest, or even in exile. So what should be the way forward? I mean, because, you know, Bianca says in her question, you know, I'm sure that Danielle Ortega is going to offer a dialogue of some sort after the parser. But what's going to happen afterwards, what should be the way forward for the opposition and also for the free press in Nicaragua?

Carlos F. Chamorro

58:58

Thank you, Bianca. i This is something that we will we will be talking in the next days. I couldn't see I would only say that what will happen is that we will have an aggravation of the crisis in the in which which forms will it take? I don't know. It's difficult to predict. Again today is the Renaissance law will be approved. Probably we will have a retaliation by Ortega tomorrow. Or maybe we could have more people in prison. I don't know. I don't know what he's going to do. But we will have a process of escalation. I don't I don't really foresee that. They will be some kind of a national dialogue. Probably he will try to find individual support from different groups in the business community. But I don't think there are conditions in Nicaragua for this government to call for a national dialogue that will have any kind of credibility, so I would expect more national and international pressure to recover the political initiative and not let Ortega basically managing the situation as nothing has happened. imposing this normality of violence and the state of anti police state.

Eduardo Suárez

01:00:13

Thank you so much, Carlos. It's been a pleasure to share you know, what's happening in Nicaragua with you, and we wish you luck. We wish you the best for for the next few months. And we wish the best for independent journalism in Nicaragua in the future and hopefully we'll be better next time we talk.

Carlos F. Chamorro

01:00:34

Thank you. Very much to everybody had has been following us just remember we are@konferencja.com.ni. And I thank you very much and I'll see you around.

Eduardo Suárez

01:00:47

Well, and to the rest of you. Just reminder, that next week we will be back at our usual time at 1pm. UK time and the speaker with the likeable channel Jackson, our former fellow. She is the founder of the Pacific environment weekly and obviously as we are now at COP 26. We will be talking about reporting climate change, in this case about reporting climate change from the Pacific Islands. It's been a pleasure to be with you today. Meera Selva will be back with us all next week. And thank you for joining us. See you next week.

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