We Nicaraguans invested a great deal of effort, work and blood to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship and, evidently, the democratization processes were insufficient because another dictatorship was installed again. A dictatorship forged in the propagandistic matrix of the Sandinista revolution. I say the propaganda matrix because what is happening has nothing to do with Sandinismo. It has to do with a monstrosity called Ortegaism, a machinery of political power that has been occupied by the Sandinista Front, a party that could never settle as a formation with a democratic vocation.
― Dora María Tellez
Dora María Téllez (born November 21, 1955) is a Nicaraguan historian most famous as an icon of the Sandinista Revolution which deposed the Somoza regime in 1979. As a young medical student in the late 1970s, Téllez became a comandante in the popular revolt to oust the Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle.
As "Commander Two", at age 22, she was third in command in a daring operation that occupied the Nicaraguan National Palace in Managua (home to the Nicaraguan National Assembly, in full session) and taking the entire congress hostage on August 22, 1978 and ultimately gained the release of a number of key Sandinista political prisoners and a million dollars ransom money. Dora Maria, during the three days of the siege personally managed the negotiations humilliating the dictator.
This feat represented the first blow to precipitate the fall of the 50 years old Somoza's dynasty of Dictators, for it demonstrated to the entire Country of Nicaragua,(and the world), that the US backed Somoza's bloody regime was vulnerable and that it could be defeated. The successful operative had devastating consequences to the Somoza regime. While eliminating skepticism, it won international cooperation from latinamerican governments, united different factions of the opposition to the regime, and prompted them into action.
After her exemplary act of bravery, probably without precedents in modern world history, thousands of youths and women joined the Sandinista ranks, unleashing a popular insurrection that culminated with the fall of the Somoza regime in July 19, 1979, less than year later.
In 1995, after leaving her position as Minister of Health, she founded and directed the Sandinista Renovating Movement (MRS) that officially came into force on May 18, 1995,4 a political movement made up of Sergio Ramírez, Henry Ruiz, Hugo Torres, Mónica Baltodano and Victor Hugo Tinoco. With the purpose of creating a new political force that "claims the authentic values of Sandinismo, democracy and social justice" because he considered at that time that "Nicaragua is a family dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, family and friends." Daniel Ortega has continued his repressive line and in 2007 decided to outlaw the Sandinista Renovating Movement, the party of his former guerrilla comrades. In June 2008, Dora decided to start a hunger strike at the Metrocentro roundabout, in the heart of the city of Managua, next to the Cathedral, to claim the legality of her group as well as to show her "solidarity with thousands of Nicaraguans who They suffer from hunger, who live in settlements in subhuman conditions, who are unemployed...”
In June 2021 she was arrested by the Ortega government during a wave of arrests of 4 opposition candidates for president in the 2021 elections as well as other opposition leaders.5 She was sentenced in February 2022, in an express hearing, the Prosecutor's Office requested 15 years in prison, plus disqualification from holding public office