"The pride of US politicians has been hurt by what Nicaragua has been able to do being a small country"

Interview by Ken Yale with Harold Urbina, March 15th 2025

Ken Yale: Okay, so here we are on the 15th of March, 2025. Can you tell us your name and your role, or a title that you would like to use for identification in this interview?

Harold Urbina: I think that for this interview, I will identify myself as Harold Urbina. I am part of the team of Jubilee House Community and Casa Benjamin Linder, which is the project for art, education, and solidarity of Jubilee House Community.

Ken Yale: Okay. And tell us where are we right now when we're recording this interview.

Harold Urbina: Now, we are here at Laguna de Apoyo. We are, in fact, in one of the resorts in Laguna de Apoyo, which is in Catarina municipality. It's one of the top tourist attractions here in the southern part of Nicaragua.

Ken Yale: Okay, and tell us about your own family, your educational background, and some of the people who influenced you as a young person in Nicaragua.

Harold Urbina: Okay, first I'm going to talk to you about my parents. My father, Rafael Urbina Brizuela, was a radio announcer. He worked in a radio station for his whole life. He passed away last year. And my mother, Martha Cruz, has always been a housewife. She's been only working at home. When it comes to my political background, I have to say that my parents didn't have a direct influence with my political life, because they were just ordinary citizens. But they were never against my involvement in the Sandinista Front since I was a child. On the contrary, they were always supporting me to do whatever I was doing.

And I grew up in a popular neighborhood in Managua, in the district number two of Managua. It's a neighborhood close to Monseñor Lezcano neighborhood. And I was attending a public school for my primary education, and then I also went to a public school for my high school or secondary education. And when I was in primary school, when I was 10 years old, I decided to become a member of what was called at that time, the Sandinista Children Association, Asociación de Niños Sandinistas. The abbreviation was ANS, and the name of the association was Luis Alfonso Velasquez, who was a child, a boy who was killed by the National Guard of Somoza back in the 70's. So this boy, Luis Alfonso, he became a national hero, and also like the child symbol of the Sandinista Revolution. And I was proud to be a member of the ANS, of this association. And I was an active member when I was in fifth and sixth grade of primary education in 1983 and 1984.

And I also have to say that another big influence for becoming a member of the Sandinista Front since I was a child was the fact that I was able to witness the impact of the Nicaraguan society that the National Literacy Crusade had. And I could meet some of my neighbors and friends who were older, of course, because by the time that we had the triumph of the revolution, I was only six years old, and by the time that the National Literacy Crusade took place, I was only seven. But I could see my friends returning from the mountains saying, "Oh, it's a whole new world that we have just discovered. We just realized how the rural areas and the cities were separated by the dictatorship. So now we know how they produce for us. Now we know how the gallo pinto that we eat every day at home is produced. Now we know how every time we are drinking a cup of coffee, how hard it is for them to produce coffee in the mountains." So I was understanding things that I wasn't able to realize before, and that impacted me as well.

So I decided to join the political party. Not a party, because at that time, the Sandinista Front was in the process to make its transition from a guerilla movement into a political party. But anyway, I understood that the Sandinista leadership, the one that was leading the revolution in the National Literacy Crusade, was also connected to another huge, huge improvement in the life of the Nicaraguan people, which was the Agrarian Reform. I never saw a lot of small farmers being for the first time in their life, being allowed to have a piece of land. And you can imagine how it was a huge change in the life of people having a piece of land and being allowed to learn how to read and write. So obviously, for any nation in the world, it is a big change. So the very start of the revolution was something that was having an impact, an impact on people's life, because it was like coming from having nothing into another situation in which you were allowed to have the rights you never were allowed to have. And so I was really happy to support that process, and that's why I became a member of the Sandinista Children's Association.

But I also have to mention things at school. I started to learn about Nicaraguan history. I was also inspired by the ideas of Sandino and the ideas of Carlos Fonseca, the founder of the Sandinista Front. I didn't have that information available before, so I was like discovering a new world, and I was happy to be part of that.

Ken Yale: Let me go back for a minute just to place this in history. So roughly what year was the Literacy Campaign and roughly what year was the Agricultural Reform?

Harold Urbina: Okay, both the Agrarian Reform and the Literacy Campaign, they both took place in 1980. In the year before, in 1979 we had the triumph of the revolution. And I have to tell you this. I was only six years old, but I still remember today, as if it was yesterday, that I was sent by my mother to the corner in my neighborhood to buy tortillas. And when I was right there buying the tortillas for my house, I saw a man who came into the house wearing a red and black bandana covering his face, and he said, "We won, the march to victory will never end." Él dijo: "Ganamos, la marcha hacia la victoria no se detiene."

So I wasn't able to understand the political background of that moment, but I could see the happiness on the faces of the people, and I could see how each person inside that house came to this man and they were all giving him hugs and celebrating. So I knew it was something very big, important. So I went back to my place, and when I was walking back home, I stopped on the corner to see the parade of guerilla fighters. They were all coming from, I assume from Leon, because my house is located in the western part of Managua in district number two. So I saw the parade coming down the western part of Nicaragua, and I could see hundreds of youngsters on top of tanks and pick up trucks in different kinds of vehicles. And they were all screaming, celebrating, and people were standing in both sides of the street, just like welcoming them.

Then after stopping to see the parade, I went into my house, and I saw all of my family members. They were all together around a small 12 inch black and white television, and I was able to see the first speech of the revolution on that day. So I wasn't able to understand the content of the speech at that time, but I could see again, the happiness on the face of my family, so I knew it was something powerful. And I think it's that moment I became engaged with the revolution. Obviously, later I was able to learn a lot. But I think that specific moment marked my life in a way. And again, then the next year, in 1980 we have the Agrarian Reform and the Literacy Campaign, both processes were together. So I think that was a good strategy that we used because it impacted the life of people, both processes at the same time.

Ken Yale: So just to be clear, when you say the revolution won in 1979, just very briefly explain what that means. Who was it that won, and who was it that was defeated?

Harold Urbina: Okay, I have to mention that America is not the US. America is a continent, and it was first invaded by the Spanish Empire in 1492. And right after we had our independence in this region, in Central America and Mexico, we had an independence from Spain in 1821. But to be honest, it was a false independence. Because what happened was that the first Europeans who came to colonize, they went back home, but they kept people they trusted. In fact, their descendants, European descendants, became the new rulers of the Americas.

So in the case of Central America and Mexico, it was the same process. White people became the rulers of Central America and Mexico, and we didn't have a real reason to celebrate because indigenous people were still oppressed by the white people. But there was something even worse for the Central American people and the Latin American people in general, because our independence was in 1821, but right a couple of years later, in 1823, the US came up with the Monroe Doctrine. And they started to find ways to control and oppress the people here in this hemisphere. They were using the justification that they were chosen by God to take care and to protect this part of the world, and that the US wasn't going to allow any European superpower to put its hands in Latin America, and we were the new target of the US interest.

And even before the first US intervention as a government, we had a man from the US who came to Nicaragua, whose name was William Walker. He came in 1855. He was sponsored by a man in the US, a rich man in the US called Cornelius Vanderbilt. And he sponsored a trip of this man because they wanted to find a way to build a canal here in Nicaragua to unite the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea in order to compete, of course, with the Panama Canal.

But when William Walker came here, he identified one of the weaknesses of the politicians at that time. Because I forgot to mention that when we had this independence in 1821, what happened, in fact, was that the sense of democracy that was promoted at the time was that the white people, the European descendants, they had two political parties, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. But the liberal was not liberal. In fact, was just another conservative party. But they were just shifting terms in power. I often compare this situation with what people in the US are facing today, that I don't see any difference between Republicans and Democrats, but that's another story. But the point is that here we were not having real elections or real democracy.

So when Walker came, he realized that, that the politicians were just interested in their own benefit. So by identifying that weakness, he said, "Oh, I'm going to make myself the president of Nicaragua." And he did that. He became the president of Nicaragua. We were even having English as the official language of Nicaragua for almost one year. But the interest or the ambitions of William Walker was beyond that. Because he said, "Well, I know that in the in the US, in the northern states, slavery has been already abolished. But what I also know is that in the southern states, they still keep slavery. So I can take indigenous people from Nicaragua and from Costa Rica and Honduras and export them to the US as slaves." And that's what he was planning to do.

And that's why, for the first time, Honduras and Costa Rica were supporting the resistance movement here in Nicaragua, in order to defeat William Walker. And we did. And there's a famous battle that took place in San Jacinto, a farm close to Managua. And when we defeated the first filibusters that were brought here by Walker, we consider that date the first, not just the first defeat of the US, but also, we consider the 14th of September as our Independence Day. So we have two independence celebrations in Nicaragua. First the 14th of September, because on the 14th of September 1856 we defeated William Walker, and then we have the 15 of September, which is the date to remember the independence of Central America in 1821.

So that's basically what happened. So keeping in the timeline, I have to say that the first real US military intervention in Nicaragua took place in 1910. Because, again, the politicians in Nicaragua were fighting each other for their own interest, and they were shifting turns in power. So under that framework, it was a point when Nicaragua was having as a nation, many, many, many civil wars. Perhaps we can count more than 12 times in our history when we were having civil wars. But they were wars between liberals and conservatives. The same story for many years. So I think that, in fact, what happened before the US intervention in 1910 was that the Conservatives were calling for the support of US forces to come and intervene in our domestic or political issues.

And they came. The Marines came in 1910. Instead of facilitating a peace process here, they just took control of the whole Nicaraguan nation. And I remember that there were just a few people fighting against this intervention. And one of them was a general, a liberal General, whose name was Benjamin Zeledón. He was fighting against this intervention, but he was defeated. And when the US Marines killed General Benjamin Zeledón, the body of Benjamin Celegon was tied up to horses. It was shown on the streets for people to see what was going to happen to anyone daring to fight against the US Army. And one of the boys on the streets that saw Benjamin Zeledón's body was Sandino.

So Sandino was inspired by the sacrifice of Benjamin Zeledón, and he said, "I have to do something. How come I will accept passively that we have a foreign intervention in our country?" And Sandino was not a military person, he was not an academic, so he was just learning on his own how to do something against the US intervention. So Augusto Sandino, who is our national hero, he was traveling. He went to Central America, he went to Mexico. And he learned about the struggle of other nations, and he was inspired by the trade union movements from Spain and from other parts of Europe. And he learned that when they were organizing strikes and demonstrations, they were using one red flag and one black flag in order to represent their struggle. So Sandino said, "Oh, if I ever have an army, I will combine these two flags." And that's how we have now the red and black flag. And the red means the blood of the people that have been dying, giving their lives for the struggle. And the black represents the dead, the sadness of the people that have been killed in the struggle.

Anyway, the point is that Sandino was trying to find a way to resist. And he organized an army of small farmers and indigenous people to fight against the US. Intervention. And Sandino founded his army in 1927, 1927 is the year when Sandino founded his army. And his army was, in fact, founded on the second of September, 1927. And we currently in Nicaragua celebrate the foundation of the Nicaraguan army on the second of September every year because of Sandino's army.

And Sandino was defeated many times. But by the lessons he learned, because he was not a military person, he was able to develop something called guerrilla warfare strategy. And when he was implementing this strategy, he was able to easily defeat the US Army, because they were only used to conventional wars. They didn't know how to fight in the mountains. So it was easy for Sandino to prepare his actions in the mountains. And you know, the US Marines were not used to this kind of weather in the mountains, tropical weather. So Sandino started to defeat more and more the US forces, until the point that between 1927 to 1931 the US forces were defeated.

So in the next few years, in 1932 and 1933, the US Marines after they were defeated by Sandino, the US troops stated that they were going to withdraw from Nicaraguan territory because they were tired, they were not going anywhere. So they said, "we're going, we're going to go back home." Sandino was really committed to peace and really committed to the benefit of the Nicaraguan people. So he said, "if the US troops are going to withdraw from Nicaraguan territory, if we are going to be just dealing with the problems of the Nicaraguan people, I don't see any reason for me to keep arm in the mountains. So I'm open to have a peace process."

The president of Nicaragua at that time, who was Sacasa, Juan Bautista Sacasa, he said, "Sandino, okay, you can come to the capital, to Managua, and we can start some peace talks to find a way to solve this." And Sandino came and he made an agreement with Sacasa to give the weapons of his army, and they were unarmed. The army of Sandino was unarmed, and they were open to have peace. And Sandino was even invited many times to come to Managua between 1933 and 1934.

And last time he was invited here to Managua in 1934 in February, one year after the peace talks started, Sandino was having a dinner with the chief of the National Guard at the time, who was Anastasio Somoza García. But let me tell you that the National Guard is an armed force that was created by the US military occupation. In Nicaragua we didn't, have an army, and for the years that we were under the rule of liberal and conservative parties, they didn't have any Nicaraguan army. In fact, when the US Marines came and Nicaragua was occupied by them, they created the National Guard. And because the National Guard was only protecting the US interest, they gave an assignment, a task, to the chief of the National Guard, who was Anastasio Somoza García. And that task was to kill Sandino.

As I told you before, Sandino was really committed to peace. He was really smart, because he was talking about sovereignty, he was talking about self-determination, dignity of the Nicaraguan and the Indigenous people. He was even talking about some of the human rights that were not recognized at the time. Because we're talking about the 1930's, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is from 1948. So the point is that Sandino was really advanced, but at the same time he was really naive, because he came to Managua to have a dinner with Somoza, and he brought all of the top people of his army. And when they came to Managua, they were all killed the same night.

And there was only one of the generals of Sandino's army, who was the youngest general, who was able to escape that night. His name was Santos López. And years later, Santos López became the link between Sandino and the Sandinista Front. Because Santos López met Carlos Fonseca, who was later the founder of the Sandinista Front. And before I forget, when Somoza assassinated Sandino, Somoza became the president of Nicaragua because he was awarded this power position by the US government at that time, because he completed the task they gave him. And that's why there's a famous quote by President Roosevelt saying, "Somoza is a son of a bitch, but he's ours." Because as soon as Somoza became the new president, after being just the chief of the National Guard, he became a dictator and he was oppressing and repressing the Nicaraguan people. And he had the open and total support of the US government at that time, and he knew it. And that's why he felt empowered to do whatever he wanted.

Ken Yale: So basically, the Somoza dictatorship takes over after the formation of the National Guard and the assassination of Sandino. How long does the Somoza family rule Nicaragua?

Harold Urbina: Yeah, the Somoza family was ruling Nicaragua for almost 50 years, because they were in power from 1934 until 1979, when we had the triumph of the revolution. And when I'm talking about the triumph of the revolution, I mean that the Sandinista Front was a guerrilla movement that was founded in 1961 under the framework of the national liberation movements in the world, as in Asia, Africa, in some other parts of the world, where people were still living as colonies from Europe. The same here in Nicaragua. We were talking about the national liberation of Nicaragua. FSLN, in Spanish, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, in English is National Liberation Sandinista Front, is the name of the guerrilla movement that we founded, inspired by Sandino's ideas.

And as I was saying before, Santos Lopez, who was a general of Sandino's army, he met Carlos Fonseca, and he was able to transfer all of the political and ideological legacy of Sandino to Carlos Fonseca. And the Sandinista Front was not only inspired in Sandino's legacy, it was also Inspired by Marxism and all of the socialist ideas of the revolution in the Soviet Union. In fact, Carlos Fonseca went to Moscow in the 60's, at the end of the 50s, and he was able to witness what the Soviet revolution was. And he returned to Nicaragua inspired. Carlos Fonseca was also visiting Cuba many times. Many of the leaders of the Sandinista Revolution were trained in Cuba.

So there was a political influence by Marxism, as I was saying. But also the Sandinista Revolution was not only inspired by Marxism, it was also inspired by liberation theology. Many Christians became supporters of the Sandinista Front. And that's how, since the 60's, we were already working in the direction of thinking about educating people, and we were using the different tools of popular education to transfer knowledge to people. Because the principle of popular education is that as long as you have a community or a population that is educated, they can transform, they can understand, reflect on the life they have, and transform reality. So we understood since the very beginning that education is power, and that a population that is well informed is able to make better decisions. And this combination of Marxism with the positive values of Christianity, and all of the person-to-person support, based on the Christian values of solidarity, all of these combined, I think were key factors that contributed to the growing and development of the Sandinista Front in the 60's and 70's.

And I can also mention that in ‘78 there was an important action of the Sandinista Front, because the members of the Parliament at that time were all taken as hostages by a special group or cell of the Sandinista Front. And after this action, many of the leaders of the Sandinista Front who were in prison were released. And it was a good way for the Sandinista Front to recover from many different actions in the previous years when the Sandinista guerrillas were massacred by the National Guard.

So I think that between August ‘78 until July ‘79 was the period in which, after accumulating forces or power, the Sandinista Front returned to fight with more energy and with more strategies that were successful for defeating the National Guard.

So I have to mention that the assault of the National Parliament was a very key action for the Sandinista Front, not only for releasing the prisoners that were in in the prisons of the National Guard, but also, because the Sandinista Front was known worldwide for this action. I can recommend you read a book written by the Colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez, about this action. The book is called The Assault, El Asalto is the name in Spanish. It was like a tribute that Gabriel Garcia Márquez made to the Nicaraguan Revolution. Because I think that book was written in ‘82 or ‘83.

So the point is that the Sandinistas were successful in many of the military actions they were doing back in the 70's. But before the 70's, I have to mention something really, really important. I forgot to mention when I was talking about my influences in the past. I told you about Sandino and Carlos Fonseca, but there's a national hero whose name was Julio Buitrago.

Julio Buitrago was a 20-year-old person. He was the best student of the School of Law at that time here in Managua. And he was a leader of the urban resistance of the Sandinista Front, and he was organizing the resistance in the neighborhoods of Managua. But he was detected by the National Guard when he was hiding in a safe house. So he was so committed with the struggle that he was asking the comrades that were with him operating in this specific group, that they should go, that they should escape.

And he stayed in the place. It was a house with a second floor. So what he did was that he was having a machine gun, and he was already aware that the National Guards were outside the house. But what he didn't know was that the National Guard thought it was a big group of Sandinistas inside the house. So then they called on full support, and there were many Jeeps or National Guard vehicles outside the house. They even brought a tank and they were even using a plane to bomb the house. And Somoza made a mistake, because he was inviting journalists from local and international media to come and give coverage live, to broadcast live what was an action of the National Guard in order to protect the Nicaraguan population from a terrorist group, because that's the way they were calling the Sandinista Front back in the 70's, and in the 60's in this case.

So then a lot of journalists came to cover the action. And when they were finally able to complete the action, the house was destroyed totally, they entered the house, and they only found Julio Buitrago, who was this 20-year-old boy. He was basically massacred alone. And outside there were more than 200 National Guards. So it was hundreds of guards. There was this tank and the airplane, all of this movement for attacking only one person. So the result for the Somoza dictatorship was the opposite. People knew the high level of repression because in the body of Julio, they found a lot of documentation, a lot of documents, of papers talking about Somoza and how he was oppressing and repressing the people.

So instead of being a benefit, it was something that affected the dictatorship. And for most kids in Nicaragua, Julio Buitrago became like a real hero, because it was in the news, and we were just thinking, "Oh, one boy against hundreds of National Guards, one person." So, yeah, it had a high influence on most people. And if you go to the museum of Julio Buitrago, which is located in the western part of Managua, the same district I live, district number two, you will see that on one of the walls, there's a poster with a quote from President Daniel Ortega saying, "I still remember when Managua kids were playing on the street and some of them were always having a role play. And one of the characters they were using for the role play was Julio Buitrago." They were saying, "Oh, I want to play Julio Buitrago," because they knew what happened.

So I think in my own case, he's one of my heroes. So we didn't care about Spider Man, Superman, Batman, or all of these cartoon characters when we already had Julio Buitrago, a real hero. And I think that inspired me. And politically, as I said, if we have a list of top actions representing the Sandinista Front, we can think of the 15 of July, 1969 when Julio Buitrago was killed, and then the 22nd of August, 1978 when the Parliament was taken by the Sandinista Front.

By describing this, now I have to come to another point that I think was key for getting the triumph. And it was also in ‘78 when a big journalist was assassinated. He was Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. He was the owner of La Prensa, the largest newspaper in Nicaragua at that time, and he was publicly talking about how Somoza was repressing people. And he was really critical of Somoza. I think perhaps not because he was supporting the Sandinista Front, but because the same oligarchy, the same rich people in Nicaragua, were feeling affected by Somoza at that time, to the point that they themselves were against Somoza. And Somoza just sent someone to kill him.

So I think it was a strong message for ordinary people, because they were saying, "You see, if Somoza is killing rich families in Nicaragua and he doesn't care, what is he going to do against you, who are just a teacher, a worker?" And I think that that action influenced people to the point that they were reflecting on the real face of Somoza. Because the day that Pedro Joaquin Chamorro was buried in Managua, there were 1000's of people walking on the street, going to the cemetery. And the Sandinista Front took advantage of that situation, because they were distributing leaflets and information about the Sandinista Front the same day of the funeral. So it was something that I think had an impact.

And the other situation was that just a few months before the triumph of the revolution, there was a journalist in Nicaragua, and I don't know if he was from ABC or NBC, but he was working for one of these big TV companies, news companies in the US. And he was covering the insurrection in one of the neighborhoods in Managua. And when he was doing his work, one of the National Guards was so upset the journalists were showing what was happening in Nicaragua that he just killed him. And when they killed this journalist, whose name was Bill Stewart, Bill Stewart is the name of the journalist, he was killed, and also his translator, because he was with a translator in order to have the interviews.

But what the National Guard didn't know was that just a few blocks from the place this was happening, there was a camera person who was recording. So that same night, when people knew that there was a journalist that was killed in Managua, Somoza was giving a press conference saying, "We want to take this opportunity to let the world know that a terrorist group of the Sandinista Front, they have killed a journalist in one of the neighborhoods in Managua." And what he didn't know, what was in the in the same press conference, there was another journalist, and he said, "You're lying. You're a liar, because here we have this video where you can see how the National Guard is killing our colleague."

And that short film was broadcast the same day in the US, and it had an impact on the US public opinion. Because then President James Carter, at that time, the next step he did was to cut the military aid from the US to Somoza. And just a few months later, Somoza fell down. He was defeated by the Sandinista Front. So I think it was a combination of many different factors, but I can remember those specifically. And after that, the Sandinista Front defeated the US.-backed dictatorship in Nicaragua.

Ken Yale: So you've really given us a great historical context. So now I'm thinking back to where we started. Here you are, you're watching all of this celebration in the street. So now we understand why everybody is out celebrating. The many, many years of US intervention, the human rights violations of the Somoza dictatorship, these heroic actions. And then here you are, and now you are interested as a youth in becoming more involved in the Sandinista movement. So what was the process of joining the FSLN as a young person at that time?

Harold Urbina: First, when I was in primary school, when I was 10, I joined the Sandinista Children Association, and I was there in my two last years of primary school, in ‘83 and ‘84. Then in 1985 when I became a high school student, I was assigned a task to gain the right to become a member of the Sandinista Youth. And I was for more than one year, the chief of one Brigade of Nicaraguan Explorers, which was like the Nicaraguan version of the Scouts in the US and some other parts of the world, and I was doing that work. And after finishing that task, I was granted with the affiliation to the Sandinista Youth. I was not an active member yet, just an affiliated person.

Then the next year, the second task I was assigned was to be part of the Secondary Student Federation, and I was the vice president of my classroom for one year. And at the end of that year, I went to pick up coffee in the southern part of Nicaragua. And over there, I was a member of what we called at that time Production Student Brigade, which was a format we were using to involve high school students with people in the countryside, to make a connection between urban areas and rural areas. So we understood how coffee was produced by being right there in the farm picking coffee in the fields.

So when I returned from that experience at the beginning of 1987, which was my third year in high school, they said, "Now we have another task for you. You were already the chief of the Brigade Explorers. You were already the vice president of this classroom. Now we are going to move to another level. We want you to be a candidate and to be the president of the afternoon session." Because in my high school, the name of my high school was Ramirez Goyena. So in the Ramirez Goyena High School, we did have a morning session and an afternoon session. So in the afternoon session, we were about 500 students. So my task was to be in charge of the organization of the students in a population of 500 people. So you can imagine, for a person who was at that time just 14 years old, the level of responsibility that it was to be in charge of all of the student life and activities in that specific school. And I did it.

So by ‘87 I won my recognition to become a militant of the Sandinista Youth. And then the next year I was asking again to be part of the Secondary Student Federation, and that was like my responsibility. And in fact, I was working as an active member of the secondary Student Federation between 1987 until 1989. And in 1989 I was the president of my whole high school. I'm talking about a population of almost 2000 students, and I was already 16 years old. So by that time, I was really, really involved in in the Sandinista Youth, plus my work in the Secondary Students Federation. And I was getting ready for going to war, because in the 80’s, we did have a special law of the military service. So all of the kids between 17 years old to 25 years old, they needed to have two years of mandatory military service, and I was happy to enroll in the Nicaraguan army, the Sandinista Army at that time in order to go to the mountains and defend our revolution.

But in 1990 we lost the elections and we were really disappointed and frustrated. I still remember that in December 1989 the US army invaded Panama. And we were ready to have an invasion here, because I remember that the president at that time, George Bush, the father, he was saying, "Oh, in Nicaragua, there will be an election next year. So if the Sandinistas keep in power, we're going to invade Nicaragua as we just did in Panama." And many people here in Nicaragua were just tired of war. And I think that many Sandinista families, they voted against the Sandinista Front just because they didn't want to keep in war more years.

And after that situation, many of the Sandinista people were frustrated and disappointed, and it was a really hard time because most of the benefits and achievements of the revolution were lost when we started having a neoliberal government. And even when we were protesting on the streets or doing things in order to keep our rights that we conquered through the revolution, that was not enough, because they didn't have any political will to support the people. And those were really hard years for the Nicaraguan people, especially for the ones related to the Sandinista Front.

But something that I was forgetting to mention that was for me, really important back in the 80's is that in the middle of that decade, we were often trying to use international law to defend the revolution. And we went to the International Court of Justice, and we were reporting, denouncing all of the war crimes that were committed by the contra forces, and the contras were supported financially by the US, but they were always denying that involvement. So we took the case to the International Court of Justice.

And I still remember that in the border line between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, three youngsters that were within the military service, they hit a plane, the plane crashed, and inside the plane there was a mercenary. Now we could call him a private contractor. I think that that's the term they use right now. But at that time, it was a mercenary that was working for the CIA, and he was carrying hundreds of military supplies, weapons for the contras. And for us it was the evidence that the US was involved in war, and we took that evidence to the International Court of Justice, and we were supposed to be compensated with $17 billion.

But when the Sandinistas lost the election in 1990, the new president Violeta Chamorro, she said, "Oh no, now we are friends with the US again, so let's forget about it. We don't need any compensation from you." But we knew in advance that the US was never going to pay back anything to the Nicaraguan people. They were not going to compensate anything. But it was more in terms of a moral compensation, but they never did anything. That's something important that happened in the 1980's, we are the only small country in the world that... no, no, we are not the only, we are one of the few small countries in the world that have defeated the powerful US Army. And we are, I think, in that case, we are the only small country that has taken the US to the International Court of Justice, and we won a case against the US.

So I think that the pride of the US politicians has been hurt by what Nicaragua has been able to do being a small country. And whenever people are asking me how proud you feel to be a Nicaraguan, I said, "I feel proud to be a Nicaraguan because we don't have any military base of the US in our territory." And I think that is something that really makes me feel proud. And that was also part of the important things that I think pushed me in the direction of becoming a member of the Sandinista Front, because this sense of sovereignty, self-determination, dignity has always been part of the Sandinista struggle since the beginning, and I have felt connected with those principles.

Finally, I received my official ID Card as a Militant of the Sandinista Front in the 1990s when I was 20 years old and my task was to have the political position of Coordinator of the Sandinista Youth July 19 (JS19J) in the Cuba neighborhood of District 2 of Managua.

Ken Yale: So I want to see if there's anything more you want to say about how the FSLN viewed international human rights at the time the revolution succeeded in ‘79, and now? You describe that Nicaragua actually was one of the few countries that filed a case, won the case, but then at the same time, you knew they weren't going to pay. So did that change the FSLN's understanding about international human rights, or what would be possible within the international courts? Or does the FSLN still see international law as something that could be useful against US Intervention?

Harold Urbina: First, I think that the Sandinista Front has always had a commitment with the promotion of human rights, because that is part of the principles and values in the historical program of the Sandinista Front since the 60's. Then after the triumph of the revolution, all of these principles and values, all of the main achievements in terms of human rights that were stated in the historical program of the Sandinista Front became part of the content of the Nicaraguan constitution in 1987. We in fact, incorporated the whole content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the content of our Constitution since 1987, which means that it was a real commitment from our government to do what was necessary to do to improve the life conditions of people by recognizing the rights they have. And even I remember that in ‘88 the United Nations came with the Convention of the Rights of the Child, but the Sandinista government was already working in that direction.

So I think that since the time of Sandino, we were considering some rights that were not available for the rest of people in any instrument at that time, because Sandino was talking about freedom, about sovereignty, self-determination, right to have a clean environment and things that came years later. But he was thinking about them before. But besides the historical program of the Sandinista Front, I think that the whole experience of having the support of millions of people, because they were all having appreciation of the different life they were living in the revolution compared to the one they were living the years before the revolution, was something that kept the Sandinistas walking in the same direction, in the right direction.

And for instance, when it comes to the right of citizen participation, I can tell you that the first free elections that took place in Nicaragua were held in November 1984. I was just 11 at the time, but I remember that the first president of Nicaragua that was really freely elected was Daniel Ortega, and that's another, how to say this in English, it's a milestone. It's something that didn't happen before. So we have things like, we don't have any military base of the US, we have the first freely elected president in Nicaragua after 50 years, because this is something curious. Sandino was killed in 1934 and the US, and the Somoza dictator, they both thought, "Oh, we have already eliminated Sandino." And 50 years later, in ‘84, we have the first free elections, and we have Daniel as the president. It's like if Daniel and the Sandinista government is the plant that was growing, and the death of Sandino was the seed that planted this process.

And sadly, we lost the elections in 1990. But between 1990 and 2006 I think we were able to realize that we were making the right decision in history. And we perhaps were feeling as if we were lost or alone because the Soviet Union collapsed and we didn't have any support from them in the 90's. Then only Cuba and Nicaragua were struggling in Latin America. But suddenly, with years, we were happy to know that in Venezuela, a new process was going on. And I think that in many other places of the world, there was like a flame that was still light, burning. Because in the 90’s, we were just receiving negative messages saying, "No, you are alone. Socialism is no longer present in any part of the world," and things like that. But we never gave up. We were just like being patient and waiting for the new steps to be done or the new measures to be taken. But it was a complex process.

Ken Yale: Okay, so I want to go back a little bit. We'll come back to the 1990's and 2000's, but just before we go on, I want to ask you about how you personally became involved in human rights work.

Harold Urbina: Okay, when I went to college I was studying sociology, and I was always researching on the background of things. And as we realized that the historical program of the Sandinista Front was in line with our constitution, and we knew that most of the of the planning of the government during the Sandinista Revolution was like the institutional framework for the rights that were recognized in the constitution, we always thought that working on human rights was a good approach for finding people to be engaged in the struggle. Because basically what happened in 1990 and the years after was that most of the benefits during the time of the revolution, such as education and health, were privatized, because everything was privatized. We knew that we did have these rights, because people during the 80’s, they knew about the Constitution. So we were already trying to adapt some of the tools on popular education to teach human rights to people. Because, as I was saying before, a population that is well informed, that has the knowledge and some topics they can analyze, reflect on their reality, can try to transform this reality.

And that's what I was basically doing with some of my friends who were former members of the Sandinista Youth and who were adults at that time in the 90's. We felt the commitment to go to the neighborhoods, and we went door to door, asking people to join the movement of human rights. I don't know the experience in other places, but I know in Nicaragua there was like a myth. People all of the time were thinking that when you are fighting or struggling for human rights, you need to be a lawyer, you need to be a person that knows about law. And we were trying to deconstruct that myth and saying, "No, any ordinary citizen has the right to fight or struggle for their own rights. We don't need to have a lawyer. However, if we have one, this person can help a lot to make us understand this legal language and transform it into ordinary language."

And that's basically what we did. We elaborated some materials, educational materials. We were organizing talks for one hour, two hours. We were even having a complete workshop of one day, from 8am to 5pm, to teach people about the rights they have. Then we were using a lot of group dynamics and using a lot of educational strategies based on popular education in order to engage people, to let them know that... we used to use a motto at the time that was, "a right that is not defended is a right that will be lost."

But we worked a lot with a human rights center located in Managua. It was called the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH). Sadly, this center is currently in a different political position towards the government. But back in the 90’s, the center was really important for educating people. And I'm going to tell you a personal opinion on this point. Many important people or centers or organizations that were supportive of the Sandinista revolution and then supporters of the Sandinista Front in the opposition years, many of them now are against the revolution. But in my own opinion, that's something different. I will not avoid to recognize the contribution they had at that time, because it was another period. That's why I'm saying that we acknowledge the contribution of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center, even when now they have another political position.

Because we were trained as youngsters, and we were moving around most of the neighborhoods in district number two of Managua, and we were organizing a network of human rights promoters in the neighborhoods of district number two, and I think we were able to mobilize people on the streets to make a difference. Because when you were demonstrating on the streets, and at the time the police were really repressive towards the people, we could come and say, "No, even you, as police officers, you have a limit in your access."

And we were talking to them about what the law says, and they were a little scared of beating a person who before is saying, "This is the right I have." So it was a really, very important moment for social mobilization and that's how I became involved. And I was a volunteer for many years organizing neighborhoods in district number two.

I was also an active member of the Nicaraguan Community Movement (MCN)-known as Movimiento Comunal-one of the largest organizations at grassroot level. I was part of the Coordination Team of the Educational Program on Human Rights in District 2 of Managua.

The neoliberal government of Nicaragua was forced by international donors to create a human rights institution because many of the countries in Latin America already had one. In Spanish, we call it, "Procuraduría de Derechos Humanos." In English, it will be something like "Ombudsman, Human Rights institution," because I think they do have a human rights institution in Canada. In fact, in Canada, it's called “Ombudsperson.” And we all have this institution in Central America. And the neoliberal government at the end of the 90's, decided that, as it was a condition to get some funding from international donors, they created this institution.

For the first years, they didn't even have a clue about what to do. But after the first five years, they were hiring people with some experience in human rights, and that's how I became a member of the Human Rights Institution. I first started working in the Child Rights section. I was working with the Special Ombudsman for Child Rights, and I was specifically in a section where we were making social legal research on the Rights of the Child. So we were able to document in many different investigations we held at the time how children were out of school because of the lack of recognition of education as a human right. We were able to report on how the majority of the population in Nicaragua was not able to afford paying for private health services and things like that. So we were, in fact, working on what we call Social, Economic and Cultural rights, which is another approach of Human Rights.

That's something I was forgetting to mention, that the approach of Nicaragua towards Human Rights is focused on collective rights, rather than in individual rights. In the West or in the US, people are always talking about freedom, and freedom just at the individual level. And I'm always using the example of Michael Jackson, because I said back in the neoliberal years in Nicaragua, if Michael Jackson, when he was obviously rich, if he would have come to Nicaragua and said, "Oh, I love this big island in the middle of the Nicaraguan lake. I want to buy it" then the Nicaraguan government at that time would have said, "Oh, it's for sale. If you want it, you can take it." And then if we Nicaraguans would have been protesting on the street against selling the island, the Ometepe Island in the middle of the lake, then the government would have come and said, "We cannot violate the freedom of Michael Jackson, because he has the freedom to buy that island if he wants. We are not allowed to violate the free market, because free market is the is the golden rule for everything, Everything, every problem in the world is going to be solved by the rules of free market."

That was the idea. That was the justification for everything back in those years and we were struggling on the streets, demonstrating on the streets, saying, "No, the rise of the people is beyond private interest or free market." And it was a big discussion back in those days, because obviously the government of Nicaragua was promoting foreign investors to come and do whatever they want to destroy our country or to take our country.

And I have to mention that back in those years, we did have a high level of child sexual exploitation because tourism was attracted by the idea of coming to a tropical country and having sex with young women or even with children. And the government knew that, and they were not taking any action. So it was really a hard time for the Nicaraguan people, but we were always concerned on human rights, we were seeing all of these human rights topics based on the approach of social rights, of collective rights, rather than individual rights. And we were always saying, "No, democracy cannot be reduced to the right to vote. Democracy means that all of the stakeholders will have a part in any decision-making process, and everyone has a voice. We cannot leave anyone behind." And that was really hard because we were like fighting against government, fighting against even big corporations that were already here in Nicaragua taking control of the country.

And I have also to add the influence of the World Bank and IMF making decisions on behalf of the Nicaraguan people. It was really a hard time for us to work in a topic that was really controversial, human rights, and that's my experience. Then, after being in the Child Rights section, I became a member of the team within the Education and Promotion section of the Human Rights Ombudsman. So I was able to elaborate some educational material on Human Rights. For many years, I was working also doing workshops on human rights at the national level with different institutions and communities as well. Then I became a member of the Special Ombudsman for Citizen Participation, and we started working a lot on teaching people that participation is also a right. But the right of participation cannot be reduced only to voting every five years. We were saying, "No, every day, you have a responsibility as a citizen to be part of the decision-making process within your community, within your family, within your country." And that was my experience in human rights, Child Rights, Education, and Citizen Participation.

Ken Yale: It sounds like one very important piece of this is where people in the US think about human rights as an individual thing, and often the right to do what you want, or do what you want with your money or your wealth, that you have a very family and community-oriented conception of human rights here. Is there anything else you want to say about that family-community approach?

Harold Urbina: Yeah, I can say that we have a very strong family-community structure for everything. And even during those years when the Sandinista Front was in opposition, we were working a lot on promoting citizen participation at the different levels, and we understand solidarity as a very strong value. Selfishness is not something that Nicaraguan people like much because we live in community, we live in family, and whatever we are planning to do, it's always thought as a collective action. And we also promote a lot of exchange of experiences between one community and the other.

And as I said at the very beginning, we understand solidarity as a value. And there's a lot of support that we received since the revolution time from foreigners, individuals, or even organizations that came to Nicaragua, and they were always close to the people. For instance, I personally had some foreigners that I met in the 90's who were supportive of the Sandinista Revolution, and they stayed living here in Nicaragua. For instance, Sister Margarita Navarro, who was working in Batahola neighborhood; Sister Maggie Fisher, who was also working in Batahola neighborhood; Father Dennis Hebert from Canada, he was working in another neighborhood called Edgar Lang; Father Grant Gallup, from Chicago, he was kind of my mentor for many years. He was the one who was having English classes every morning, and I was coming to these classes because I was...

...I have to confess something. I didn't like people from the US at all. At the beginning, I wanted to go to the Soviet Union and learn how to speak Russian instead of learning English. But then I met many people from the US back in 1997 at Casa Ava Maria, which was a community center led by Father Grant Gallup, and he was teaching me a lot, not only to learn English, but also to understand the US culture. And he introduced me to a man when I was trying to improve my English. And this man who came to visit Nicaragua for a few days, he came to me, and was asking me, "Tell me the truth. Is it true that Nicaragua was a military base of the Soviet Union, and you and the Cubans wanted to invade the US?" And by the question he made, I realized there was a huge misinformation campaign going on in the US, and perhaps that's why many people in the US were supporting the Contra war, because they were just following the information received. They were just following the manipulation that was held at that time by the US government. And then I realized there was a difference between the US people and the US government, and I started to be open to people from the US. And I am currently working with a lot of solidarity groups and volunteers who come from the US and Canada and even from the UK to support the Nicaraguan people.

But I think that, as I said before, that Christians who were more following the principles of liberation theology, were really supportive of the Sandinista revolution in the 80's and then of the social movement against the neoliberal government in the 90's,. And perhaps what we need to work together between the US and Nicaragua is what I would call a Learning Agenda. If we are able to have a way of exchanging experiences and allowing people from the US to come and visit Nicaragua and see how our revolution is going on, perhaps they can change their opinion. Because media is manipulating people all of the time, especially in the recent years. And it is important for people from the US to go out from the US, because many of the people in the US didn't have a chance to travel. They didn't even have, I think, enough income to travel around the US. So it's really hard to expect that they will come to another country. But if possible, they are always welcome to come to Nicaragua, and we can learn together as equals, because that's another point, that during the neoliberal years, we were taught that the US was a model of democracy, and we knew that we were able to have our own pathway to democracy, to development.

And perhaps that's another reason why the US is scared of what Nicaragua is doing here. Because we are the model, we are the ones that can teach others how things can work. The democracy in the US, I think, in my own opinion, has never been functional. It's just something that is in some laws, in some instruments, legal instruments, but it has never been implemented. And the struggle of the US people has been oppressed all of the time by the big corporations, by the system itself. And I think that having the example of the success of the Nicaraguan people could be a threat. It is a threat for the US, government or system. And that's what I think, that the US and the Nicaraguan people can work together in order to promote peace and all of the other Human Rights by having a permanent Learning Agenda, a space where we can learn with each other as equals, instead of being one on top of the other.

Ken Yale: Can I just add a comment? There was a very large solidarity movement, as you say, in the 80's and at the beginning of the neoliberal period in the 90's. I think perhaps that with the long period of neoliberal rule, in combination with the attack on 9/11 and the whole "War on Terror," that large sections of even the US solidarity movement got distracted from Nicaragua, and the focus became the "War on Terror," the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan. And because the Sandinistas were not in power during that period, I think people in the US are much more familiar with the early period of the Sandinista Revolution. And I think since the Sandinistas have come back into power in 2007, a lot of people, even in the left or in the human rights community, have not been following closely, and are more susceptible to US propaganda. They're no longer coming here in big numbers, it's not in the news so much, so I think they're just more susceptible to US government propaganda. That's just my personal opinion.

Harold Urbina: Yeah, I think perhaps that is something that has happened, in fact. But in addition to that, I think that what happened in 2001 with the attack to the Twin Towers affected the Sandinista Front right here. Because I think we were going to win the election in 2001. But the fact that the Sandinista Front was included again in the list of terrorist groups, and the fact that Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, came to Nicaragua in 2001 to publicly express his support to the candidate of the right wing. All of this context was negative for the Sandinista Front because some Nicaraguan people were saying, "Yeah, I trust the Sandinista Front. I am Sandinista, but I'm afraid that we will have a blockade again. I'm afraid that the US government is going to attack the revolution."

And that's why I was telling you the other day that I know that when the Sandinistas won the election in November, 2006, James Carter was here with a group of observers. And he was having a private conversation with Comandante Daniel in a hotel here in Managua. And he was saying, "I know the Sandinistas won the election. But before anything, before you give any public statement, I want to make a phone call." And James Carter was calling Condoleezza Rice, and he was saying, "I'm sitting here next to Commandant Daniel. I know they won the election. I want to know what the reaction of the US government is going to be with these results. Will the US government not do anything against the Sandinista Front this time?" And she said, "I will call you back." Then she called Jimmy Carter back later, and she said, "Okay, you can tell Commandant Daniel that he can give a speech saying that he won the elections, and we will respect the government this time."

And I think that for the first years when the Sandinista Front returned to power, the US was keeping a distance, because they were not openly attacking the Sandinista Revolution. But I think that they were planning what they were going to do years later, and we didn't know. And I think that perhaps the left-wing people are just trying to keep a comfortable position. They were not so committed as they were in the 90's or in the 80's, and it is easier for them just to follow the narrative of the US government. That's why it is important for us to choose our sources of information, to try to have contact with ordinary people and listen to their opinions and make a reflection before giving an opinion. And I think that that's basically what has happened during the last 20 years, that there's not enough information available in the US about what is going on here in Nicaragua. It seems the people that were interested in the past to come here are not coming in the same frequency they were visiting Nicaragua in the past. It makes it harder for us to find ways to share information. And also we need a generational replacement of the solidarity movement, because many of the really strong and committed people of the solidarity are taking care of their own health condition, because they are not as young as they were in the 80’s. We know that we need to transfer these values of solidarity to the new generations, so we can find a new network of solidarity towards Nicaragua. It is complicated, but I think that step by step, we are trying to build something.

In addition to that, I can say that after the attempted coup d'etat in 2018 and then after the COVID pandemic, it has been more difficult for us to bring people from Europe and from the US to visit Nicaragua. But I think that step by step, we will get it. And I have to tell you that perhaps in many documents that you can find on the internet, you can read that between 2010 and 2012 there is a global movement to promote right wing ideas. It is not just happening now. It's been happening during the last 15 years or more. That's why you can find many right-wing governments all over the globe, because that's the moment they are living right now.

But I think that Latin America can make a difference, because this region of the world is different. And with the exception of the violent context in Colombia, and the violent context in Mexico, in the rest of Latin America, we have like a peace zone. We have countries that are facing their own social conflicts, but without going to the point that we are in war. And that's why most of the presidents of Latin America are really committed to peace, because they don't want to have war in their own countries.

And that's why in the first administration of Trump, when he was expressing threats towards Venezuela saying, "I can invade Venezuela anytime I want," immediately, there was response of the rest of presidents in Latin America, even the right-wing presidents, because they know the price of war. So they were saying, "No, no, think about anything except war. We don't want war in Latin America." And that's something that we can take advantage of to promote dialogue, to promote a way of understanding among the Latin American nations. And obviously, as the US is in the neighborhood, we also need to involve the US in this dialogue, which is complicated now because Trump is not like a conventional president. So I don't know what strategies will be used to get any approach to him, or if we will need to wait until Trump is publicly expressing what is his official policy towards Latin America. That's another point.

Ken Yale: Okay, let's go to this question about the term, "de-judicialization." What does that mean? And why is that important?

Harold Urbina: When I was in the Human Rights Ombudsman office, we were always having this discussion that human rights topics need to have a comprehensive approach. Human rights have to be seen from a multi-disciplinary approach instead of having a legal approach. Because laws are written, perhaps by lawyers or lawmakers, but rights and laws are just the result of the struggle of the people.

And in Nicaragua, that's the concept we use. Human rights are a construction that is the result of the struggle of the people. And when it comes to the struggle of the people, it means the whole society. So the lawmakers or the lawyers who are dealing with the specific nature of legal instruments are just part of the process. They are not the ones that make the decisions. It's the people. So we were working on a strategy, we call that a strategy to deliver human rights to the people. Which meant that we were going door by door saying to the people, "It doesn't matter if you don't know the law, it doesn't matter if you're not a lawyer. What matters is that you have the commitment to go out to the streets whenever you are asked to do it in order to defend your rights." And that was the meaning of erasing the idea that laws are on top of justice, because we were always working to reach social justice. We were not fighting to have a law or a document. So it's something more comprehensive, and that's what we were working on back in the 90's, and between 2000 and 2006 saying to people.

It's like when it comes to the rights of people with disabilities in Nicaragua, we first had a medical approach. People were thinking of people with disabilities as sick people, that they needed to have a cure, that they were not sane. But then we were saying, "No, it's not about a cure. It's not about finding ways to give them medicine to become sane. It's about how we integrate these people into society and they can develop." And first we were talking about community-based rehabilitation as a different approach. But we currently talk about inclusive development based on community that's specifically for people with disabilities. And we're saying, "No, doctors don't have anything to do with people with disabilities. They can give a contribution to the health condition of people with disabilities. They can even offer advice to the rehabilitation process, and we can have some physicians that are working specifically in this rehabilitation. But it's the society at large that has the responsibility to integrate, to involve, to accept all of the people with disabilities in everything."

And that's the same approach with Human Rights. We say "No, no, lawyers are welcome, but they are not the ones who will make laws for us. We will tell them what we want, and we will discuss all together how to do it." And it is like a tradition in Nicaragua to have community assemblies to discuss any topic, and we involve most people in the community. And that's what we did. We said, "Lawyers, you are important in this work, but it's not your decision." That's more or less the explanation of how to break this approach that lawyers or legal things are on top of the social struggle for human rights.

Ken Yale: What are the important things you learned from your activism within the movement? I mean, that's a gigantic question, but is there any aspect you haven't already discussed?

Harold Urbina: Yeah, I think that the most relevant thing that I would like to share is that after the revolution, the political culture of the Nicaraguan people changed. And in some other countries, when you visit neighborhoods and say, "we're going to have a community assembly, we are going to elect a committee for water or for any other social topic," then people say, "No, I don't have time. No, it's not my interest." But here in Nicaragua, there's a political culture that everyone wants to take part in. And here it is the opposite. You need to limit the participation, because if you say, "Okay, who wants to be the candidate, to be the coordinator of the movement?", all of the people in the room will say that they want to be the coordinator. So we need to say, "No, no, no, we are not allowed to have so many coordinators. We need to choose one." Or I know some cases where people say, "Okay, instead of having a coordinator, we can have a Coordination Committee," and they choose five or six people who share the leadership.

So that's the main learning during the movement, that all of us have a very important role, and all of us can give a contribution. And it doesn't matter if, at the end, we are not the leaders, because we, by being part, will be supporting the movement. And that's something very strong here in Nicaragua because wherever you go, you will find that people are really concerned and participating in giving a contribution. There's a lot of volunteers, like in the clinic in Nueva Vida they have 25 years working as volunteers, supporting the different strategies in order to achieve health access for the community, for the neighbors. And it's really huge.

Ken Yale: I'm wondering about what you learned when you lost the election, and in particular, this concept of reconciliation and unity, and then how that showed up afterwards in the practice of the FSLN?

Harold Urbina: Yeah, it is important to mention that when we lost the elections in 1990 and we started to work again from the grassroot level, we understood how important it was to recognize that your neighbor is your brother, your sister. And since we were coming from a period of war when the Nicaraguan society was polarized a lot, and we were able to see the division among family members, we thought, "No, if you want to return to power, we need to establish partnerships and alliances with former enemies." And we were researching, we were reviewing the lessons from Sandino. And Sandino was the one who was saying, "No, no in Nicaragua, we don't care about conservatives or liberals. We care about the whole Nicaraguan population." He was saying, "We are all equal. It doesn't matter if they are from different political parties. It doesn't matter if they are from the rural area or from the city." So he was giving us this lesson since the past, and we were thinking, "Oh, Sandino is right."

And the right-wing people realized that they were not getting anything from the neoliberal government. They were saying, "Yes, we have been always attacking the Sandinista Front, but at the end of the day, they are right. They are just trying to promote rights of the people. So I think that we should give the Sandinistas a second opportunity to return to power." And for instance, we were having a very important health project called Miracle Mission in the Sandinista municipalities back in 2000, or even before 2000. We were in an alliance with the Cubans and with the Venezuelan government. We were sending people from Nicaragua, especially from remote areas, to have surgery because they were having some eye problems, like cataracts, and I forget the name of the other disease. And the Sandinistas were sending first the former enemies. They were saying, "I will come to prove that I don't have any reason to take revenge. We have this program and as I can see that you are sick, we will send you in our group." And they were also offering the opportunity to learn how to read and write to the former contras and former people against the Sandinista Front.

And all of this movement happening at grassroots level was changing the minds of people towards the idea they had of the Sandinista Front. Because another point is that back in the 80's, many of the Sandinistas were criticized because they were following the ideas of Marxism. And they were saying, "You are all against church. You are all against the people that believe in God, because you're Marxist." But then the Sandinistas were saying, "No, no, we are not against Christianity. We are not against church." And they started a dialog with all of the sectors of society. It was an open dialog for many, many years, until the point that when we were organizing our strategy for the elections in 2006 we came with a change. And when the Sandinista Front was going to register in the electoral council to be part of the election, we came and said, "No, no, this time, instead of writing ‘Sandinista Front for the National Liberation’ now you are going to register this." And the name was “Alliance: Nicaragua United Triumphs," "Allianza: Unida Nicaragua Triunfa." That was the title of the Sandinista Front within the ballot of the 2006 election, which meant that you didn't find the name Sandinista Front in the name of the alliance. The name was an alliance to succeed based on national unity.

And that's why, when the Sandinista government returned to power, then we said, "This is the Government of National Unity and Reconciliation," like following the previous idea of the alliance that Nicaragua United was going to succeed. It was a really complex process, because even myself, I was against the idea of shaking hands with contras. And it wasn't until I saw Daniel Ortega talking to former enemies, even saying, "Please forgive me," when you when you see a leader doing something like that, you understand the real meaning of reconciliation. And then we started to replicate the same action at the local level. It was complicated, but I think that for that reason, many contras and many right-wing leaders, they became supporters of the Sandinista Front. And it was something really complicated. Perhaps I'm forgetting some examples right now, but I can come back to this question later.

Ken Yale: It seems that part of what made that reconciliation possible was the accomplishments of the FSLN. Because obviously, if you weren't meeting the needs of the people, this reconciliation wouldn't have happened. So what are some of the things that you're most proud of that the FSLN has accomplished that helps even people who may not be supporters of the FSLN see that you're acting in the interests of the people?

Harold Urbina: I think that since the time when the Sandinista Front returned to power, they have been working on what we call the process of Restitution of Rights. They came and said, "since this moment, we are going to have education and health services free of charge." With that single action, people were able to see that we are really changing. And in addition to that, many of the social sectors that were excluded in the past started to have a voice again and to participate. And the Sandinista Front was not excluding, as I told you, anyone. Even former enemies were included in the whole social policies that the government was implementing.

But I also want to mention something else that is not perhaps related to people receiving a material benefit for being part of a such a project or program, and that was the commitment of the Sandinista Front with Peace. The Sandinista Front came back to power saying we will do as much as possible to keep this nation in Peace. Because the Sandinistas said, "We were not able to develop Nicaragua enough back in the 80's because we were in war. But we are sure that now that there is no more war in Nicaragua, people will see how our country can develop." And obviously economic growing started because we're not in war. Then, since we were working in reconciliation, we didn't have any violence problem in the streets or any polarization. So we were growing. We were developing. And even the Catholic Church and the private companies, they were not supporting the government, but not attacking, which was a big change.

And in a few years, we were able to recover many of the rights we lost in the neoliberal years. And people were really happy. Because it doesn't matter if you are not a Sandinista member, but if you see how your children can go to school free of charge, in primary, high school, and even go to university without paying any money, there's no way that you will not acknowledge that improvement. And you see that the roads that go to remote areas are in good condition, and that small farmers can take their production out of the community because of the Sandinista government, it's building new roads everywhere. So people say, "Oh, I'm satisfied with this, and I'm not a Sandinista, but I need to acknowledge what they are doing." And the Sandinistas never said, "Oh, we will do this to convince our opponents to become Sandinistas." They have never said that. It has been the opposite. It has been, "No, we feel okay to live with the rest of our community. It doesn't matter what they think, what they believe in."

And I think the local people, have been able to acknowledge not just the development in the communities, but the environment of peace and safety. Citizen security in Nicaragua is a big thing, because Nicaragua is in fact, the safest country in Central America. And that's because the National Police and The National Army and every institution in Nicaragua is doing its work based on this Family-Community Model. So when it comes to citizen security, your own neighbors are protecting you. It is not that they are informers for the police. It's that they just can come to the police and say, "we care about our neighborhood, and we have noticed that we have some strangers living in our neighborhood. They don't talk like Nicaraguan people. What about if you just take a look at them, just to make sure that they are not any threat." Things like that. And that's why we don't have this penetration of the gangs that come from Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras, because the community itself, plus the National Police, are really making sure that Nicaragua is a safe country.

And just to give you an example, since Nicaragua is in the middle of Central America, and we have the Pan-American highway coming from the north, going to south and vice versa, I have heard the testimony of big trucks drivers. When they cross the border in the north from Honduras and they enter Nicaragua, they say, "Oh, see there is a patrol of the Nicaraguan Police is right there." So they say, "Oh, we feel safe," because they say that when they are driving in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, they feel threat, not by the gangsters, but they feel threat by the police, and they see our police and our army as an entity that will give protection to anyone inside our territory. Because it doesn't matter if you're not Nicaraguan, once you are here the Nicaraguan police and army, they will protect anyone. That's something different. Because I myself, when I go to Honduras and El Salvador, I feel a little scared of the police and the army over there.

Ken Yale: And what can you say about the lessons learned and accomplishments of the FSLN in terms of the role of women, and how that has helped to build support for the revolution?

Harold Urbina: Yeah, I think that the Nicaraguan revolution has been led by youngsters and by women. And since the very beginning, Sandino's wife was an active member of the Army for the Defense of National Sovereignty. So since that moment, we have always been able to see the important role of women in the struggle. In our revolution, the role of women is not for decoration. It's not an ornamental role. They do have an active role and they have gained that space, not just because we have these guerrilla members before the triumph of the revolution, but because when the Sandinista revolution was in place, many, many women became active, participating in everything at the different levels, at the same level as men. That's not something new.

What the Sandinista Front has done recently, since 2007 until 2025, is that we have legalized all of these rights that women have. Because they won these rights by their own struggle, but now the government is offering them the law that correspond to the rights they have. And that's how we have many women in top positions in the different ministries. We also have women in top positions in the police and in the army. At the community level, we have community leaders, the majority of them are women. And when it comes to the presidency of Nicaragua, Daniel is the Co-President, but Rosario Murillo is also the Co-President. So we have a system of 50 and 50 for everything. And there are some spaces where women are more than 50%, they are 60 or 65% in the participation process.

So I think that's something that makes Nicaragua different from the rest of the countries in Central America, because women are not passive. Women are not submissive. They fight, they fight for their rights. And education is important because we have been able to talk about the rights of women at a family level, at a community level. We have it in the school programs. We have this topic in the university study programs, so it's something comprehensive.

And I'm not saying that we don't have problems, because we do have problems. There is a permanent struggle against violence, violence against women and children. But that is something that is happening everywhere in the world. But here we are trying to do the more we can. And perhaps the difference can be also seen in the way we call it. Because in the US, I know they call it "domestic violence." When you say "domestic," it means something that is happening inside your house. It's like a private problem. But here in Nicaragua, it's a social problem. It's something that you can even find in the work of different institutions. Because I think that for the last 25 years, we identified violence against women as a social problem, as a health problem, a difference from other places where it's a private thing. Here, everyone has a commitment to do something when they know that there is a case of domestic violence.