In news that will shock precisely nobody with a functioning moral compass, Nicaragua’s government has managed to achieve the impossible: making the Sandinista revolution look even more like a tragic Punch and Judy show. A prominent indigenous martyr, name of Túpac Somebody-or-other (the details get lost in translation when blood is being spilled), has met his maker in a cramped cell, presumably after being denied even the common courtesy of a decent last meal or a phone call to his mum. The Ortega regime, ever the connoisseurs of political theatre, have responded with their customary silence, broken only by the faint sound of cash being laundered through dubious hotel chains.
Meanwhile, His Majesty’s Government, still smarting from the national embarrassment of having to eat actual food in Parliament, has issued a sternly worded condemnation. Foreign Secretary Sir Foggy-Bottom-Pockets (not his real name, but it might as well be) stepped before the camera, face the colour of a man who has just discovered his wife is sleeping with the gardener and the gardener is his son, and declared: “We are appalled. Deeply, profoundly, vigorously appalled. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, and we stand in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Nicaragua. Also, we’re thinking of cancelling the order for commemorative Ortega coffee mugs.”
The whole affair is a perfect microcosm of modern diplomacy: one side commits atrocities like a child hoarding sweets, the other side shouts into the void while simultaneously trading in the very arms that make the atrocities possible. Britain’s foreign policy is less a coherent strategy and more a series of increasingly desperate gestures, like a man trying to flag down a bus while drowning in a puddle. The Ortega regime, for its part, has the survival instincts of a cockroach and the moral scruples of a tax accountant. They will, no doubt, respond with a statement about “imperialist meddling” and then go back to the serious business of staying in power until the bitter, bitter end.
But let us not forget the real victim here: the gin industry. When dictators die, their favourite tipple often becomes a collector’s item. Who will drink to the memory of this indigenous martyr? Certainly not the Ortega clan, who likely prefer something a little more... still. The rest of us, huddled in our damp British Isles, will raise a glass of warm, economy-brand gin to the fallen, because that’s all we have left: the ability to commiserate with booze and self-righteous indignation. Nicaragua’s indigenous peoples have been fighting for their land and their lives for centuries. They’ve been shot, poisoned, and now, apparently, died of sheer political inconvenience. But at least they have the novelty of a British government condemning the whole affair.
So here’s to you, Túpac Whoever-you-are. You have achieved the dream of every activist: a press release from a major world power, a brief mention on the BBC, and then the slow, grinding crawl back to obscurity as the news cycle moves on to the next atrocity. The Ortega regime will survive this, as it has survived everything else, and Britain will go back to not having a proper foreign policy. The only question left is: will anyone in Nicaragua’s prisons get a decent last request? In my experience, the answer is a resounding “no”, but then again, I’m a journalist, so I’m constitutionally incapable of optimism.
Goodnight, Nicaragua. Sorry about everything. We’ll try to condemn you more loudly next time.
