A Brief History of Violence in Nicaragua

Abstract

Many may wonder how the current Nicaraguan government with its revolutionary roots has become an authoritarian state, similar in many ways to the Somoza dynasty it overthrew in 1979. In this chapter, Quesada presents the historical and political context of state and paramilitary violence and how these forces affect Nicaragua today. Using the historical record, Quesada argues that a history of weak governance and paramilitary violence simultaneously facilitates state and paramilitary repression against protestors and other institutions. This chapter focuses on the uses of violent means to secure power beginning with Spanish colonialism, and from there, the immediate postcolonial independence period that saw the intense rivalry between the caudillo leaders of Liberal and Conservative forces that impeded consolidation into a nation-state, leading to U.S. intervention that ironically led to the nation-state finally becoming unified. This is the legacy that the Ortega-Murillo regime—even as they claim Christian values and Socialist policies—uses today to stay in power. Disrupting the single story that state violence in Nicaragua ended with the overthrow of the Somoza dynasty in 1979, Quesada presents a more nuanced history that describes how caudillista or strong-arm violence has been used to advance political and economic interests which in turn has had particularly deadly consequences for university autonomy from the twentieth century forward and made universities pivotal sites of contestation in Nicaragua.