This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

One of Nicaragua’s best-loved musicians – a former Sandinista troubadour who became one of president Daniel Ortega’s fiercest critics – has fled the crisis-stricken Central American nation claiming he feared being killed.

“I had to leave Nicaragua because my life was in danger,” the veteran singer-songwriter Carlos Mejía Godoy told the opposition newspaper La Prensa. “I was told to get out as soon as I could.”

'If I go back they'll kill me': Nicaraguan dissenters flee south to survive Read more

During the 70s and 80s, Mejía was Sandinismo’s pre-eminent bard, with stirring pro-revolution anthems such as Nicaragua Nicaragüita, Las mujeres del Cuá and the Sandinista hymn La Consigna.



But the singer-songwriter, who is now 75, changed his tune after Ortega’s 2006 re-election, like many disillusioned Sandinistas who sensed their movement had lost its way.



In 2008 Mejía accused Ortega of building a “family dictatorship” that was a “sordid replica” of Somoza’s tyranny and demanded the Sandinista Front stop using his songs.



A decade on – and with Nicaragua in the midst of an anti-Ortega insurrection that has claimed hundreds of lives – Mejía has again been speaking, and singing, out. “We live in a country where life is worth nothing but the people must carry on struggling in the streets,” he told El País last month, denouncing Ortega as “the apocalypse”.



In an open letter to Nicaragua’s embattled president, Mejía wrote: “Daniel, stop this genocide now … stop this barbarity … stop the killing!!!”

The former Sandinista balladeer has also been penning new songs in support of the protesters, among them Monimbó siempre con vos, a tribute to one Nicaraguan neighbourhood that rose up against Ortega.



Mejía is now in neighbouring Costa Rica, where he joins a growing exodus from Nicaragua – until recently considered one of Central America’s most stable nations.



Last week the United Nations said 23,000 Nicaraguans were seeking asylum in Costa Rica as a result of the “mounting political tensions, violence and serious human rights violations” back home. Others have fled to Panama, Mexico and the United States.



During a recent fundraising event for Nicaraguan refugees at a jazz club in Costa Rica’s capital, San José, student leaders vowed to continue their fight for democracy, in or outside of the country.



“I know it will be a long, hard and painful process,” Zayda Hernández told the audience. “But one day we will be able to go back and celebrate inside our country – with our families and with all of our compañeros – and say: ‘We did it!’”

“It is our responsibility to put an end to this dictatorship,” she added. “Nicaragua has said: ‘No more!’ And that’s the way it’s going to be.”