Tortilla con Sal, May 28th 2020
Interview with Carlos Alfaro, sports journalist with Tu Nueva Radio Ya
23 April 2020
Tortilla con Sal : What was your personal experience of the attacks on Tu Nueva Radio Ya during the failed coup d'état in 2018 and especially the assault that burned down the radio on May 28th 2018?
Carlos Alfaro : The first attack against the radio happened on April 21st. From that first attack until May 28th, the situation was very difficult for us. There was quite a lot of pressure. Day by day there was a worry about what would happen to us inside the radio and if there was a positive experience in the midst of the negative ones, it was that after April 21st when we were first attacked, all the radio personnel came together more, became more united. We saw the radio as a family so that all of us should feel more together.
On May 28th in the morning as always we were under siege. There was the usual tension, mortar bombs, Molotov cocktails, but it was around 11.30 in the morning that the strong attack on Tu Nueva Radio Ya really began.
We agreed to lock up, the lights were put out in the radio lobby, all the lights were out. Only the cabin lights were on so we could do our job and broadcast what was happening.
They came at us throwing the Molotov cocktails, firing a lot of mortar rounds. They attacked us from the front and from the east side of the radio, and it was an incredible shock. Among the radio workers quite a few women workers were crying, and I remember that during the time of the attack it was difficult to move or even to be able to breathe because there was a fire inside the radio offices.
Some of the women began making a prayer circle asking God to help us, to protect us from the difficult moment we were going through. It was a moment hard to forget. The family of each one of us was calling on the phone at that moment to find out what the situation was, what we were experiencing inside the radio station. I personally received a call from my wife, from some friends, even family members who live in the United States were communicating with me to know what the situation was, whether we were really in danger.
In order to prevent us from upsetting our relatives, we told them that we were fine. But in reality we were in a bad way. We were being attacked. We were the victims of a murder attempt by the coup plotters who mercilessly went so far as to wreak havoc on a radio station that for years, for decades really, had taken on the task of helping every single person among all Nicaragua's families.