A group of Nicaraguan intellectuals and activists living in Brazil sent a letter to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and PT president Gleisi Hoffmann expressing “surprise, frustration and indignation” regarding a note from the party that celebrated the the victory of dictator Daniel Ortega in front-line elections in the Central American country.
In the open letter, they state that the party is colluding with Ortega’s repression of the population, which has left more than 300 dead, thousands wounded and at least 140,000 exiles.
“With this stance, the PT turns a blind eye to numerous complaints from democratic bodies and networks of human rights organizations, which on several occasions have already questioned and denounced Ortega’s authoritarian escalation and the illegitimacy of the recently ended voting process,” he says. the text.
Last Sunday (7), Ortega disputed the command of the country against five other candidates — all part of the front election theater, as they are allies of the government. Over the past six months, the regime has arrested another seven opposition postulants, accused of money laundering and treason. The election also did not have international observers, vetoed by the dictator.
On Monday (8), the PT released a statement classifying the election as “a great popular and democratic demonstration” and saying that the result confirms “the population’s support for a political project whose main objective is to build a country socially fair and egalitarian”.
This Wednesday (10), Gleisi published a tweet in which he claims that the note was not submitted to the party leadership. She, however, does not condemn what is written in the published text, stating only that the position of the legend in relation to any country is the “defence of the self-determination of peoples, against external interference and respect for democracy, by the government and opposition” and that the priority is to debate Brazil.
The group that wrote the letter signs itself as Coletivo de Nicaraguenses in Brazil and is formed by around 15 immigrants, who act as university professors, researchers and “militants in the Latin American progressive field”, in their own definition. They say they chose not to sign their names for fears that family members who remain in Nicaragua will face retaliation — something that has already happened to some of them.
The collective says that for over three years it has been trying to dialogue with the PT’s management, without success.
“Not only has the party closed itself to dialogue with Nicaraguan activists, social movement leaders and intellectuals in Brazil, but, in an unprecedented action, it decided to remain silent to a letter that organizations of mothers of political prisoners sent to former president Lula in September 2021, appealing to their sensitivity, history of struggle and democratic vocation”, says the text.
“The wave of repression in our country questions the Brazilian left about the existence of practical limits in the defense of human rights in the context of authoritarian practices, but it questions mainly whether everything is allowed when these practices are carried out in the name of a supposedly anti-imperialist camp” , says the letter.
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