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Thousands of Nicaraguan peasants (“campesinas”, “campesinos”) have gone into exile, entire families were forced to seek safety in Costa Rica, and their capacity to mobilise and lead social processes in Nicaragua has signified a loss of territorial identity.

The lives of Nicaraguan peasants are closely tied to working and caring for the land, its minerals and its resources. Before 2013, their lives were different, their activities revolved around growing and harvesting crops. However, that year marked a starting point in the creation of the peasant movement to oppose Law 840, or “Canal Law”, which sought to undermine peasant’s autonomy and integrity. From that moment on, there were several years of repression and persecution. In 2018, the civil uprising of the Nicaraguan citizens began, leading thousands of people, including peasants, to take to the streets and travel across the country to the major cities to join the protests against the social security reforms and the escalation of violence against students and youth.

The peasant movement organised civil demonstrations in Nueva Segovia and the surrounding area, and thousands of peasants arrived in Managua to join the demonstrations and support the youth. Nicaragua then entered a spiral of violence that continues to this day.

Resistance alternatives

Like other sectors, the exiled peasants have faced countless challenges in exile, above all the separation from their land has taken away their livelihood and they have had to find alternatives to continue defending their land rights, their territory, and the rights of the Nicaraguan people.

Within the different initiatives is Francisca Ramírez Torres, known as “Chica”, a Nicaraguan peasant leader from the municipality of La Fonseca, department of Nueva Guinea. On 25 September 2018, she, along with many others, was forced into exile in Costa Rica, fleeing the Nicaraguan government’s repression. She was criminalised for her work as a defender of peasant rights and for her leadership within the peasant movement.

“Deciding to become a human rights defender is often unplanned, but when you become socially aware, with so many inequalities and injustices around you, it awakens a commitment that drives you to raise your voice to make visible the reality that affects your people” (Francisca Ramírez).

Francisca recalls: “I never imagined that we were going to be displaced when we had been fighting for five years not to be forcibly displaced. It was very sad to take the decision to go into exile when we hadn’t planned to. Fortunately, I received a lot of solidarity from human rights organisations who were looking out for my safety and welcomed me when I managed to cross the border”.

On arriving in Costa Rica, the peasant movement intended to stay for three months, while they developed their plans, and then return to Nicaragua to continue demanding justice, democracy and freedom by taking to the streets through civil demonstrations. However, the possibility of a prompt and safe return became ever more distant.

Faced with this context, in mid-2019, with the support of social organisations, they managed to set up a camp in Upala, in northern Costa Rica. It is an autonomous space with time to work the land, to guarantee food security, and to continue generating collective advocacy actions that can contribute to the struggle for democracy, justice and Nicaraguan freedom, led by “Doña Chica”.

This intergenerational coexistence initiative, which brings together over 30 families, has its own rules that range from respecting opinions, identities, nonviolence within the family, the sharing of cleaning tasks for collective spaces, childcare, a protocol in the event of a COVID-19emergency, and participation in training spaces that contribute to human rights empowerment and collective action based on their civic commitment with Nicaragua.

We also find other leaders such as Nemesio Mejía who, together with sectoral representatives in exile, have joined forces to generate spaces for cohesion, discussion and reflection on the current needs of peasants, but also the projections they consider relevant for a new Nicaragua. Organisational efforts have allowed them to strengthen networks with local and international organisations, helping them to share concerns about what is currently happening in Nicaragua and the impact of the violence for those in exile.

The different sectoral representatives have been able to identify concerns and respond to the most basic needs through the coordination of networks, especially those that have arisen as a result of COVID-19; illness or loss of employment due to health restrictions. However, despite the difficulties, they have found sufficient strength to remain united, to acquire tools to strengthen critical thinking, context analysis, risk identification, and physical and digital security strategies, as well as to improve communication regarding the challenges inherent in coming together and advancing collective actions.

Many have also acquired new tools to work the land and have been able to generate economic resources for their sustainability and to continue working in coordination as a grassroots social movement.

The struggle continues!

Advocacy actions are being carried out by the different representatives in exile to provide updates on their context analysis, as well as training and knowledge exchanges, and continuing the call for justice in Nicaragua.

The peasant movement’s activism is ongoing and these voices will not be silenced. Regardless of where they are, Nicaraguan peasants will raise their voices and maintain their commitment to do so, as they have been doing since 2013.

PBI Nicaragua en Costa Rica

[Fotografía: Fransk Martínez]

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The 2018 social uprising in Nicaragua brought the civilian population together to demonstrate in the streets. Despite the great difficulties and inequalities faced by LGBTIQ+ people in Nicaragua, they were visible among the thousands of protesters who attended each march, a milestone within a milestone.

However, outside their participation in countless struggles for human rights, discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people is visible in all spheres: “[B]eing a gay, trans, or lesbian person became an ordeal […] in the public life of the country.”

Amid adversity, organisations that work to defend the rights of the diverse community have managed to reveal the persecution and stereotype-based violence suffered by LGBTIQ+ people. They have shown that most acts of violence against LGBTIQ+ people are perpetrated by state institutions, such as the Ministry of Health and the National Police which, rather than ensuring a protection of all citizens’ well-being, they stigmatise them on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and dissident bodies.

Potential indicators or alarms of violence towards the diverse community in the context of a sociopolitical crisis becomes even more evident in acts fuelled by hate, contempt, and discrimination over non-compliance with the traditional system’s norms, and above all for raising voices of dissidence against the Nicaraguan government’s arbitrary actions.

In 2019, the Mesa Nacional LGBTIQ+ Nicaragüense (National Nicaraguan LGBTIQ+ Coalition) presented the “Informe de Afectaciones a las Personas LGBTIQ+ en el Marco de las Protestas en Nicaragua” (Report on Impacts to LGBTIQ+ People in the Context of Protests in Nicaragua) in Costa Rica, compiling the anonymous testimony of more than 200 LGBTIQ+ people who were attacked by people close to the Nicaraguan government.

The same report reveals more than 18 impacts ranging from remote access to social media accounts to rape or murder, all accompanied by hate speech regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. It also reveals the cases of three transgender women who were imprisoned in male prisons, a violation of the integrity of their gender identity by state authorities.

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In this context, many people from the LGBTIQ+ community were forced into exile; if before the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua their human rights, such as the right to a life free of violence and discrimination, could not be guaranteed, this is even less so in times of sociopolitical crisis.

Resisting from exile

In 2019, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) presented a “Preliminary Study of Nicaraguan Mixed Migratory Flows between April 2018 and June 2019”. Of a sample of 491 people, 4% identified themselves as part of the LGBTIQ+ community. Although 86% of these people said they felt safe in Costa Rica, housing conditions had worsened for 57% of them. Access to sources of income through decent and stable work to meet the needs of housing, food, healthcare, and education has been one of the main challenges faced by the Nicaraguan population in exile. Added to this situation is the current context of global pandemic that has highlighted inequality rates, worsening their living conditions.

In Costa Rica, exiled LGBTIQ+ people continue to resist, each one as they are able, and, at the same time, to organise emotional support for one another as they seek aid from humanitarian and human rights empowerment frameworks and respect for their identities and integrity based on their immigration status as refugee claimants.

Among the Nicaraguan groups that have sprung up in exile we have Mesa de Articulación LGBTIQ+ Nicaragüense en el Exilio (Coordinating Committee of Nicaraguan LGBTIQ+ in Exile- MESART) a coordination and communication space for people of diverse sexualities and non-binary genders that aims to serve and strengthen the LGBTIQ+ community in exile in order to identify and respond to its humanitarian, labour, and legal needs.

The community of diverse Nicaraguans exiled in Costa Rica stands firmly behind the defence of human rights, participating actively and autonomously for a Nicaragua with justice, democracy, and freedom. Some of the actions that MESART has promoted have to do with resource management: financial support for housing payments, giving out food, hygiene, and COVID-19 protection kits, psycho-emotional accompaniment, referring cases to allied organisations, know your rights empowerment spaces, activism, and digital, social network campaigns on awareness about discrimination, gender inequality, a culture of respect, and of course the situation of human rights violations in Nicaragua.

To provide support to diverse communities in exile, MESART has woven networks to help it provide support to LGTBIQ+ people. Valuable actions have been organised with organisations such as Cenderos - Centro de Derechos sociales de las personas migrantes (Center for the Social Rights of Migrants), Colectivo Colmena de las Brujas, Red de Mujeres Migrantes (Migrant Women Network), TCU-Migraciones (from the University of Costa Rica), Fundación Acceso (Access Foundation, and Voces Fieras (Fierce Voices); as well as with international organisations such as RET, UNHCR, and HIVOS Latin America. These are some of the alliances that have allowed us to provide greater support by bringing together and positioning diverse voices.

MESART is committed to human rights and to the people who ask for its support. Its local credibility is born of and for Nicaraguan LGBTIQ+ people in exile.

“The best way to build the future is by uniting a diversity of forces.” This is a belief for which the entire Nicaraguan community has fought and that breeds hope for a common good.

Mesa de Articulación LGBTIQ+ en el Exilio

[Photos: Víctor Manuel Pérez, Fransk Martínez]

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Latin America and the Caribbean is a region where there have been and continue to be large migratory flows originating from economic factors such as inequality and poverty, unemployment, a lack of opportunities for integral human development, as well as social factors resulting from the insecurity generated by the violence of organized criminal gangs and drug cartels.

Factors such as the repression and terror of military dictatorships are also influential, as is forced displacement as a result of war, such as those in Colombia and Central America in the 1980s, and more recently, the political violence produced by police states such as Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Although the largest migratory flow has historically been in a South-North direction, mainly from Mexico and the Northern Triangle to the United States, there is also record South-South migration between countries in the region. For example, in the Caribbean, from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, and in Central America, from El Salvador and Nicaragua to Costa Rica and Panama.

In South America these waves have been registered from Bolivia and Peru to Chile, from Paraguay and Uruguay to Argentina, and from Venezuela to several countries in the region, in what is the largest South-South exile on record in the last two decades.

This brief article will lay out what Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica has been and is like. It will begin with a specific account of the main benchmarks that have marked this migration, a few characteristics that differentiate some migrations from others will be described and, finally, we will briefly recount this latest political migration and the challenges migrants face in integrating in the country.

A historical relationship

Migration from Nicaragua to Costa Rica has a long history. Sociologist Catalina Benavides addresses this in her article entitled “Costa Rica: retos de integración de la inmigración política nicaragüense de 2018” where she explains that this migration can be analysed from five main conjunctures:

• The Somoza dictatorship (1937-1979)
• The Sandinista revolution and the revolutionary government (1979-1990)
• The period of transition to liberal democracy that began with the 1990 elections
• The democratic involution (2006-2018), and
• The current context, which began with a cycle of protests in April 2018.

Contexts of spikes in greater migration have also been registered, such as the 1972 earthquake and the uprising against the Somoza dictatorship at the end of the same decade.

Or, for example, in 2018, following the “clean-up operation” in which the Ortega and Murillo administration used paramilitary groups armed with weapons of war to remove the roadblocks that had been installed to pressure their departure from government.

And, more recently, with the imprisonment of the main contenders disputing the government’s power, and the definitive closure and cancellation of free and transparent elections to achieve democratic change.

Economic migration

Before speaking of these situations, it should not be noted  that this migration has mainly been a response to the forty-year promotion of an economic model in which, on the one hand, Costa Rican economic sectors require low-skilled Nicaraguan labor to cover a human resources deficit in sectors such as agriculture, construction, and services and, on the other hand, in which this is an alternative to the bad social, economic, and political conditions of Nicaragua.

Although the motivations behind migration may spring from a variety of reasons, it cannot be ignored that these decades have been principally marked by a relationship of transnational labor migration.

Later we will return to this point. First, we will focus on political migrations.

Political migration

The Somoza dictatorship

Costa Rica’s political stability is one of the reasons why dozens of Nicaraguans, forced to leave Nicaragua during the Somoza dictatorship, preferred to settle there instead of going to Honduras or El Salvador.

One of the standout characteristics at that time was the presence of important Nicaraguan figures: writers, musicians, poets, theologians, academics, and emblematic figures of Nicaraguan politics.

In addition, during this first chapter in Costa Rica, groups of internationalist struggle emerged in solidarity with the Nicaraguan people, the product of an international discourse framed within the Cold War and in the ardour of political positions.

The Sandinista revolution

The book “Los amigos venían del sur” by writer José Picado Lagos, stated that some 350 Costa Ricans actively participated with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) forces in the 1970s, in the Southern Front, and as part of the Carlos Luis Fallas Brigade and the Mora y Cañas Brigade. Later, others faced off against the counter-revolutionaries supported by the United States government in the eighties. Many of those ties remain active to this day.

The revolutionary government

On the other hand, in the thesis entitled “Refugiados centroamericanos en Costa Rica: El aporte del Gobierno durante el Proceso de Paz 1980 – 1995” by Inés Guerrero Sirker, it is explained that since the beginning of the armed conflicts of the eighties in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, more than 250,000 Central Americans have left their countries of residence and received timely protection and assistance as refugees in neighbouring countries, with the participation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

These were very difficult years for Nicaraguans because there was a great deal of repression from the revolutionary government of the Sandinista front, which controlled the entire country and persecuted opponents. At the beginning of this decade, 35,000 Nicaraguans were recognised and served as refugees. In the 1984 Costa Rican census, more than 84,000 foreign-born people were registered, of whom almost 46,000 were of Nicaraguan origin.

This influx of Nicaraguans into Costa Rica was caused by political repression, but also by the economic crisis. Not a lot of information is available on the characteristics of this political migration, but the migration of the 1980s after the triumph of the Sandinista revolution symbolised the breakdown of the Nicaraguan social fabric as a result of the civil war.

Transition to liberal democracy

In the 1990s, the story was a bit different. According to an IDB report, from 1990 on, the flow of Nicaraguan migrants to Costa Rica increased, mainly motivated by family reunification and the search for employment and better socioeconomic conditions.

Most of this migrant population arrived in Costa Rica in the 1990s, and especially after 2000. The results of the 2011 census show that, in the case of the Nicaraguan population, 34% arrived in the 1990-99 period and 37% after 2000.

Sociopolitical crisis of 2018

What were initially peaceful protests quickly escalated to violent scenarios that led to the forced migration of thousands of Nicaraguans who were forced to seek refuge in Costa Rica.

After May 2018, there was an increase in refugee applications from Nicaraguans, from 4 applications in January to 3,344 in June. This increasing trend continued in 2019. In total, according to data provided by the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería (DGME - General Directorate of Migration and Alien Affairs), between 2018 and March 2020, 62,992 refugee applications were received from Nicaraguans.

This political migration has been diverse. Some people entered through official crossing points, others through the mountains and blind spots, some individually, and some in groups, among them youth, students, farmers, and professionals.

But this diversity is also expressed in characteristics that do not fit into the Costa Rican image  of the Nicaraguan “other,” which was built over decades following the economic migration of the 1990s, and which has come to be challenged by this new heterogeneous migration where students and professionals stand out.

On this matter, we wish to explain further.

Challenges for the Integration of “Blue and White” Asylees

Beyond the organising work and diversity of political proposals that characterise the “blue and white” asylees—that is, the last generation of Nicaraguan asylees—there is a more everyday issue that directly influences the social and cultural integration of this population in Costa Rican society.

To begin, we will return to what we mentioned about the forty-year economic model promoted in Costa Rica. This is a factor that has completely influenced labour supply. In this regard, surveys conducted by the University of Costa Rica show that 71% of Nicaraguan immigrants are employed in the following sectors: agriculture (26%), construction (16%), commerce (15%), and manufacturing (14%).

These percentages demonstrate a profile of migrants whose labour is absorbed in low-skill occupations. This corresponds to their level of schooling since most have an educational level between primary and secondary school.

This means that the Costa Rican labour market is not prepared to absorb migrants with a profile of higher education levels, since many people are professionals or university students. Furthermore, the possibilities of obtaining a job commensurate with the needs and expectations of these migrants is complex and very difficult because the job options offered by this market have lower qualifications, based on historical economic relations.

Furthermore, many refugee applicants perceive exclusionary narratives from Costa Ricans, since they do have Nicaraguan characteristics, such as their accent and physical appearance, and they are confused with Venezuelans or Colombians.

Another issue that may influence the integration of this population lies in the desire to return. Unlike economic immigrants who envision a life project in Costa Rica, refugee applicants yearn to return to what they feel was taken from them.

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Denis Cáceres

[Photo: Fransk Martínez]

“World Refugee Day is an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees and displaced persons around the world. It is commemorated on 20th June each year to celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their homes to escape conflict or persecution.