“The dictatorship has 90% of the media in Nicaragua and 10% credibility. Contrary to that, we are 10% of the media abroad but we have 90% credibility and appreciation from our audience” . This is how the journalist draws the situation of the Nicaraguan press Sergio Marin Cornavaca (61 years old), director of the portal Roundtablereferring to data from the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy.
Marín is one more of the Nicaraguan informants who today carry out their work from forced exile. In his case, from neighboring Costa Rica, where he decided to flee two years ago in the face of increasing accusations from the government of Daniel Ortega. “My conviction was: I’m not going to be in jail, I’m more useful out of jail, reporting,” explains the journalist when he looks back and remembers how he organized the march in his native country.
Marín consulted his immigration sources to find out if he had any unknown legal impediment to leaving, made the pertinent steps to go to Costa Rica and waited for the right moment to cross. It was June 20, 2021. It was Sunday and they held him longer than usual. “I had to play it”, he points out in a telephone conversation. “It was not an easy decision, I was leaving my family, with my son exiled due to direct threats in Panama and I was forced to cross the border,” says Marín, who took everything he needed to continue reporting from his platform. “There are colleagues who work with me, practically clandestinely in Nicaragua, they use pseudonyms because they cannot openly practice journalism, however they pass the information on to us, which we process and publish. The same as the Cubans do, the same as the Venezuelans did at some point“.
Starting with the marches against the Ortega government in April 2018, the flight of journalists from Nicaragua grew. Marín belongs to what he defines as “the second wave” of informers who left for fear of threats – in which Carlos Fernández Chamorro also escaped – and who still today continue to arrive mainly in Costa Rica. “There are communities, entire towns that no longer have journalists. I can cite the case of the South Caribbean Coast, where there is no independent journalism, practically everyone has gone into exile, what is left are the official media,” he underlines.
April 2018 was a great challenge for the Nicaraguan population towards Sandinismo, which quickly launched the repressive machinery. From that moment on, journalists were singled out, highlights the director of Roundtable. “All of us without exception were marked and suffered attacks in the marches,” he continues. Marín himself was attacked while he was performing live through his networks. “I was next to my vehicle and it was practically a mob of several armed motorists, they arrived, they beat me, they broke the main window of my truck, they took my cell phone (mobile phone), but the people intervened.”