María Oviedo makes absence an active wait.
For almost six months the former prosecutor of the Public Ministry and member of the Nicaraguan Permanent Commission on Human Rights has been trying to reunite with her two children in the United States, a country to which she was expelled in February along with 221 other opponents of President Daniel Ortega.
In the same way that he once did from prison, when he had to wait 11 months to receive the first visit from his 18-year-old daughter and more than a year to reunite with the 11-year-old minor, now he hopes that Nicaragua will allow him to their children to leave the country and for the United States to facilitate their reunification.
The case of Oviedo, 40, is not an exception but a rule that is repeated among the dozens of politicians, activists and intellectuals expelled from the country, many of whom arrived in Washington without money, work or family networks.
The chain of obstacles they must face to be reunited with their relatives becomes a double sentence that is added to that made up of exile, the difficulty of reintegrating into a country that is not their own, and the loss of nationality of the opponents.
This is the story that María Oviedo shared with BBC Mundo in the first person.
The first time I was arrested for defending political prisoners, in July 2019, my children found out through social networks.
They were at school when they saw me in a video that went viral of two police officers beating me. They took me by the neck and dragged me away.
My children knew what I was doing, the passion I have for my career, but at the same time they were aware of the risk I was running. I prepared them for it. I told them not to worry, whatever happened would be fine, because I am a strong woman.
I was trying to get them mentally prepared for that scenario.
I spent three days in the new El Chipote jail. They suffered a lot because of how abrupt everything turned out. But that helped them prepare for what would come next.
The second time, on July 29, 2021, I was coming home from the hospital after undergoing surgery. I lay down on the bed to rest, when five minutes later I had about 25 police officers at the door of the house.
They took me right away. My children saw everything. That time, in person.
They were worried because they did not know if they were going to give me the necessary care. It was horrible. They did not know what had happened to me, to my recovery, to my injury. They didn’t hear from me for several weeks.
If we had had the corresponding weekly visits, they would have been able to cope better. Don’t suffer so much. The damage they have done to my family is great.
From a very young age, my children became familiar with the repression. Somehow all Nicaraguans naturalize it. It sounds horrible, but that is the reality that we Nicaraguans live today.
We lived with the anxiety that they could watch us, walk behind us, we had to check the vehicles well, we had to be aware of which cars were parked in front of the house. It was permanent stress.
On February 22, 2022, Oviedo was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the crimes of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity” and “propagation of false news.”
The months in prison
I spent 11 months in detention until I was able to see my daughter for the first time, who was a minor at the time.
The afternoon before I was to see her, they told me. The person in charge of the detainees came to my cell and told me: “I’m letting you know that she’s going to see her daughter, so that she behaves. I need you to see how she handles the situation because if she doesn’t, the visit will be suspended.” .
That night I spent crying. I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t think she was going to see her because during the interrogations they always told me that she was not going to see my children again until she was released from prison.
I had to assimilate the news. Also because I didn’t want my daughter to see me as unstable as she was.
In prison I was completely decompensated. I have a hypothyroidism problem that directly attacks my hormonal system. So, at the moment he would go into a crying crisis, at the moment he would cross over into aggressiveness.
I was taking a lot of medication to control anxiety. She was not receiving the treatment that she needed.
Somehow, it helped me that they gave me a day’s notice because in that state I could have scared my daughter or, from the impression, something could have happened to me.
We thought a lot with my mother and the father of my children about their visits to the jail because we knew how invasive the searches for admission can be, even more so in these conditions and in that environment.
But in the end, we respect my daughter’s decision to visit me. It is not enough for a child that another adult tells him that his mother is fine. The children needed to see it with their own eyes. Also, they needed to hug their mother.
How cruel it all was.
At the time of the meeting, she cried a lot. Me too. She told me that she was fine, that she was behaving well, that she was studying hard, that she didn’t want to cause trouble, that she wanted to be a source of pride for me.
And my children are, they are a source of pride for me because they showed me their strength.
My daughter told me: “I want you to feel good, to know that we are all fine, that we love you and that we never stop thinking about you. We do not blame you for anything that is happening to us. Do not feel guilty, you do not have the fault,” he told me.
To see my youngest son, 9 years old at the time, I had to wait another three months.
I spent more than a month incommunicado in my second detention. My family did not know what had happened to me. Other detainees spent up to three months incommunicado.
The emotional burden my family had was terrible. Not knowing where you are or how you are is one of the cruelest tortures that the relative of a detainee can go through.
I dare to think that the relatives suffered the same or more than us while in prison. Many of us suffer from not knowing what was happening outside.
It was a horrible environment, full of pain, because we saw the misfortune of the other detainees, ours and that of our parents and children out there.
My children always asked if something had happened to me, if I was dead. That was the fear they had.
In the 18 months that I was detained I was only able to see them about six times.
The difficulties in Nicaragua
Since I got out of prison and they took me to the United States, I have not seen my children again.
They shouldn’t be going through this. Everything that has happened makes me angry because they destroyed families, they destroyed people. I have not recovered since they arrested me.
I continue to experience the psychological and physical consequences, even after six months of leaving.
The day we were released [febrero de 2023]on the way from the prison to the airport from where the plane took off to Washington, a police officer approached me and handed me a piece of paper stating that I authorized travel to the United States, something that I did not expect.
I was surprised, scared.
Before signing I asked if I could say goodbye to my children. That person told me that he was going to see my family, he told me minutes before boarding the plane, something that never happened.
My children would have been able to come to the United States with me from the beginning. But like many of the 222, we have had many difficulties in processing their travel documents and exit permits in Nicaragua, especially in the cases of minor children.
At some point, there was resistance to processing requests of this nature. Any procedure that was carried out before any State institution carried out by a relative of a detainee had to be consulted.
Now it seems that we are in a new moment. I’m not clear why.
The departure of relatives by air from Managua was always a risk. For this reason, many opponents decided to go by land, through the so-called “blind spots.”
But I never wanted my children to go out on land. That would imply that they would have to move through unauthorized points to reach Costa Rica, which would expose them too much because the borders are guarded by the military, by the army, which is themselves.
The reunion odyssey
I hope my children come to the United States so that I can live with them here. I want to take care of them, hug them, be with them. I want them to know that their mom loves them.
The situation is very difficult because they arrive in a country very different from ours. They will have to meet new people, deal with a language that is not their own, with a different culture.
I think all the time if I can give them here the life they had there.
For me, life here is very difficult. I feel alone. I had to start from scratch. I don’t speak English, although I’m learning. I don’t have credit in the bank to rent an apartment or buy a car without help from others.
My idea was never to leave my country. For this reason, this is a different situation from that of those who decide to leave, who know what they are facing. This is not what I was looking for. Not for them, not for me.
For many of the opponents expelled from Nicaragua, the main complication is being able to meet the sponsor requirement, a person who lives in the United States, who has financial solvency and who agrees to be responsible for you in this country.
For this reason, many of these reunification processes have not even started. This is not my case, but it is the problem of several.
I came to the United States and stayed at a friend’s house, which is where I live now, but I need my space to start rebuilding my life, to wait for my children and stop clouding my friend’s peace of mind. She can’t be dealing with all my problems.
There are times when I don’t want to talk, when I don’t want to leave the room. It’s hard. I feel suffocated. It’s something physical. At times, I am short of breath.
I need to make up for lost time with my children.
I am going to get ahead in this country because I am a strong woman and my children are my greatest drive and engine to keep going.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: IMPORTING DATE: 2023-08-16 14:00:11
2023-08-17 05:09:31
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