Story by Cynara Medina. Photos by Anita Baca. Originally published in Nica News 14 (June 1998)

	Zoilamerica at the courts filing suit. The media mob her, trying to get more of the sordid details of the case. Sex-scandal politics have officially arrived in Nicaragua.

When Zoilamerica Narvaez accused Sandinista party boss Daniel Ortega of child molestation and harassment, the country was taken aback. Ortega's political career was anything but promising, and many expected it to end soon. The expectations proved to be naive, because even though Zoilagate is an unprecedented scandal, it is now clear that it will take more to bring down the FSLN leader. It's a dirty game, and the Sandinistas have proved themselves very impressive at playing it.

Timing is everything, as it is political support and proper advice. Zoilamerica failed the test on all counts. Waiting until after the FSLN Congress gave the Ortega camp enough time to regroup and launch a massive counteroffensive. The scandal also gave the Sandinistas a perfect pretext to weed out unwanted opposition to Daniel Ortega. Inside the party, he's now stronger than when the scandal started.

Maybe we missed the point pursued by Zoilamerica Narvaez. At first, she even forgave Ortega, expressing no desire to prosecute him. Then, she did want to prosecute him but didn't want to do it before the Congress in order to avoid allegations about her having possible political motives. By this time, initial momentum had been lost. The Sandinistas had recovered from the shock.

Daniel Ortega and the FSLN could give lessons on damage control to other Nicaraguan politicians, even to Bill Clinton what with his propensity for falling into the morass of sexual scandal.

When Clinton was faced with the Monica Lewinsky affair, it was enough for him to go on television and swear he had nothing to do with "that woman." Daniel Ortega's camp dealt with their leader's troubles in another fashion: Daniel went on television... and said nothing. Rosario Murillo, Zoilamerica's brother Rafael, and other supporters did all the talking for him.

During this first stage of Zoilagate, Daniel was more vulnerable and his silence spoke volumes. His most outspoken supporter was his wife, Rosario Murillo, not a particularly sympathetic character. After the final curtain call on Zoilagate, Rosario Murillo will be considered even less so by everyone who believes Zoilamerica's allegations, viewing Rosario as just another unfit mother, incapable of supporting her child or protecting her from harm.

Damage control turned Nicaragua's worst sex scandal into an X-rated soap opera, the gory details contained in Zoilamerica's written testimony. The interesting part, though, is not the testimony itself but the response from the Sandinistas.

Zoilamerica was made to look like a nut case, with help from her mother, her brother, and the family photo album. The icing on the cake came with the fantastic allegations about her affair with Henry Petrie, a former leader of the Sandinista Youth, who apparently believes he is an alien from the planet Congenesis. This approach was a smashing success, casting enough of a cloud over Zoilamerica's credibility. She still has the support of the feminist community and most of the anti-Sandinista segments of society who are willing to believe anything sordid about Ortega, but her life will never be the same. Nor will Ortega's.

Zoilamerica's case brought out the worst in Nicaragua's legal and political establishment. The workings behind the National Assambly's swift refusal to withdraw Ortega's parliamentary immunity in order to have him go to trial will never be known. The official version is that Zoilamerica waited too long, and -by the way- she can't prove any of it.

The Assembly's decision may have a legal foundation, but it also raises the eternal issue of politicians acting in their own best interests. It is much more profitable to keep the Sandinista bench in the Assembly happy than to support a woman with a complaint of abuse and harassment willing to go public with it.

The outcome of this case is a major setback for rape and child abuse victims in Nicaragua. It sends a negative message about the legal system: there is no support for the victim if the offender happens to belong to the nomenclature. The fact is, there are legal ways to keep charges of sexual assault out of the courts, simply because they can't be proved with ease. So, any 11-year old girl who was molested or raped should not waste her time resorting to the legal system once she is old enough to do so, because sex-related offenses have an expiry date, just like medicines.