Mothers of slain Nicaraguan students unite to seek justice

In this Jan. 8, 2019 photo, 28-year-old lawyer Francys Valdivia Machado, president of the Madres de Abril Association, holds a picture of her 24-year-old brother Franco who was killed during an April 2018 protest against social security cuts in Esteli, Nicaragua, during an interview with Associated Press journalists in an undisclosed location in Mexico where she is in hiding. She believes he was both shot by a sniper firing from City Hall. Fifteen minutes before Valdivia was shot, he had denounced authorities' use of force against peaceful protesters on a video on Facebook holding what appeared to be a rubber bullet in his hand. (AP Photo)
In this Jan. 8, 2019 photo, 28-year-old lawyer Francys Valdivia Machado, president of the Madres de Abril Association, holds a picture of her 24-year-old brother Franco who was killed during an April 2018 protest against social security cuts in Esteli, Nicaragua, during an interview with Associated Press journalists in an undisclosed location in Mexico where she is in hiding. She believes he was both shot by a sniper firing from City Hall. Fifteen minutes before Valdivia was shot, he had denounced authorities' use of force against peaceful protesters on a video on Facebook holding what appeared to be a rubber bullet in his hand. (AP Photo)

MEXICO CITY (AP) - The two mothers walked shoulder-to-shoulder ahead of a casket in the northern Nicaraguan city of Esteli, wailing in shared grief at the killings of their sons during a wave of anti-government protests.

Francisca Machado was accompanying the casket holding her 24-year-old son Franco Valdivia Machado's body to the cemetery on that April day. Socorro Corrales had just buried her own son, 23-year-old Orlando Perez Corrales, the day before.

From that image of solidarity was born a movement that became the Mothers of April, formed by relatives of many of the 325 people killed in the government suppression of the student-led protests. Its members are demanding justice from President Daniel Ortega, who has tightened his grip on power and targeted voices of dissent, arresting hundreds and closing media outlets and human rights groups in the aftermath of the protests.

The group is preparing for a long struggle for accountability for the killers of their children from a government that has labeled the protesters criminals and coup-plotters. Three of its nine leaders have fled Nicaragua, fearing for their own safety.

"We don't want to think about many years passing, but part of our responsibility is to prepare for that scenario," said Francys Valdivia Machado, whose younger brother was buried on April 22.

Nicaragua's mothers are drawing on the experiences of the best-known such group, Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and the more recently organized Mothers of Ayotzinapa in Mexico. About 150 families are involved in the Nicaraguan movement.

Valdivia and Perez were university students, the former a third-year law student with a 5-year-old daughter, the latter about to complete his engineering degree. Valdivia composed socially conscious rap music under the name "Renfan" and loved baseball; Perez was active in his church's outreach, especially with the elderly.

They did not know each other but were standing near one another on the evening of April 20 during a protest against social security cuts in an Esteli park. Perez fell first. Valdivia started to move toward him when he was shot in the head.

Their families believe they were both shot by a sniper firing from City Hall. Fifteen minutes before Valdivia was shot, he had denounced authorities' use of force against peaceful protesters on a Facebook video holding what appeared to be a rubber bullet in his hand.

The nationwide protests began April 18, initially drawing mostly senior citizens who were the most directly impacted by the announced social security cuts. When the elderly protesters were met with violence from pro-government Sandinista Youth thugs, students turned out in large numbers to defend them.

Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, maintained the use of force was justified to fend off an attempted coup. Domestic and international human rights groups strongly disagreed.

A group of independent international experts sent by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate violations wrote in its December report the killings were carried out by police and pro-government gangs unleashed against the protesters. The experts were expelled from the country before they could publicly release their report.