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SCIENCE science.org 29 APRIL 2022 • VOL 376 ISSUE 6592 445R
epression of academia in Nicaragua
has escalated over the past 3 months.
President Daniel Ortega’s government
has closed eight private universities
and confiscated their assets, effec-
tively ended university autonomy, and
erected barriers to foreign research collabo-
rations. “They are killing the universities,”
says chemist Ernesto Medina, former dean
of American University, a private institution
in Managua that remains open. “All these
measures serve to silence the critical voices
in academia and suffocate critical thinking.”
Ortega has been president for 15 years, hav-
ing won reelections condemned internation-
ally as farcical. In April 2018, students took to
the streets in antigovernment protests. The
government responded with unprecedented
repression (Science, 21 December 2018,
p. 1338). Police and paramilitary groups
killed more than 300 people and arrested
more than 1000, according to Amnesty Inter-
national. After writing two open letters ask-
ing Ortega to stop the “irrational violence,”
Medina was forced out of his university posi-
tion. He fled to Germany in July 2020, becom-
ing one of more than 200,000 Nicaraguans in
exile. “It is not safe to be there,” he says.
Since then, conditions for Nicaragua’s
small scientific community have worsened.
After the 2018 protests, international re-
search conferences were canceled and fund-
ing for scientific institutions, such as theNicaraguan Academy of Sciences, was cut.
Researchers say they must be particularly
cautious about any work that could be inter-
preted as political. Research on democracy,
gender, and human rights has been especially
hard hit. A social scientist says his group can
no longer conduct surveys and now pub-
lishes under pseudonyms if mentioning gov-
ernment abuses. (Several researchers who
commented for this article requested ano-
nymity, fearing retaliation.) Research about
COVID-19 in Nicaragua also faces obstacles,
as the government has understated case
numbers and fired doctors and public health
experts who express concern about the crisis.
International collaborations, which had
helped sustain science in Nicaragua, are
withering. In February, the government can-
celed the permits of foreign institutions run-
ning educational and research programs,
such as Florida International University and
Michigan State University. A law passed in
September 2020 requires any Nicaraguan
working with international organizations to
self-identify as a “foreign agent.” But foreign
agents are considered traitors, researchers
say. “It practically destroyed any possibility of
international collaboration,” a biologist says.
U.S. researchers who collaborate with Nica-
raguans declined to comment for this article,
fearing reprisal against their colleagues.
The government claims the eight private
universities shut down since February had
failed to disclose financial details. Sources at
one closed institution, the Polytechnic Uni-versity of Nicaragua, believe the real reason
was punishment for students’ involvement in
the 2018 protests.
The National Council of Universities
(CNU), a government body that coordinates
national policy on higher education, an-
nounced in February that three new public
universities would replace the closed ones, of-
fering enrollment to 20,000 former students.
But sources say many students have given up
on academics, fearing persecution. The new
institutions “reflect the reality of Nicaraguan
education, submitted to a totalitarian regime
that has no interest besides keeping the stu-
dents under control,” Medina says.
Recent law changes also increased the
power of CNU, which is now responsible for
reviewing academic programs, approving ac-
ademic hires, and selecting deans in all pub-
lic universities. “It is the end of universities’
autonomy,” a former CNU member says.
Some of the 40 or so private universities
that remain open face economic strangula-
tion. One particular target is the Central
American University (UCA), which officially
opposed the government’s violence toward
protesters. This month, Ortega’s govern-
ment canceled a state fund for UCA that
provided scholarships for 4000 low-income
students. A scientist who is a professor
there says the university “is a place of resis-
tance,” and faculty will keep teaching until
it is forced to close.
“We are in a stage of consolidation of to-
talitarianism in education,” says former UCA
law professor María Asunción Moreno, who
is now in exile. “It is no exaggeration to say
there is no university in Nicaragua anymore.”
In 2019, Moreno led law students and lawyers
who collaborated with the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights to document
government abuses. In July 2020, she escaped
Nicaragua after 12 days hiding from arrest.
Medina estimates more than 2000 Nicara-
guan students and young professionals, in-
cluding many scientists, have fled, mainly to
Costa Rica and Mexico. He hopes universities
in other countries will create scholarships for
exiled students. “We have to train people so
they can think about the changes we’ll want
when we have democracy again,” he says.
Molecular biologist Helena Nader, co-chair
of the Inter-American Network of Academies
of Sciences, says Nicaragua is an example of
the growing threats to science and democ-
racy in Latin America, including in Venezu-
ela and El Salvador. “What is happening in
Nicaragua is very serious, and the world is
silent,” she says. jSofi a Moutinho is a journalist based in Rio de Janeiro.Nicaragua’s universities stagger
under government pressure
Attacks on higher education autonomy put research—
and researchers—at risk
SCIENCE AND POLITICSAt the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua in 2018,
a memorial honors students killed in protests.By Sofia Moutinho