On Sunday, December 31, Nicaraguan sociologist and researcher Jose Luis Rocha, 57, passed away in Guatemala City. His death leaves a huge vacuum for his family and friends. However, he also left behind a vast body of critical thinking that’s essential for understanding and transforming Nicaragua and Central America.

The Nicaraguan scholar served as the director of Jesuit Services for Migrants in Nicaragua; collaborated with the magazine Envio; was associate researcher for the Jesuit-run “Jose Simeon Cañas” University of El Salvador and the “Rafael Landivar” University in Guatemala. He authored a dozen books on migration, youth cultures, globalization, drug trafficking and the political economy of Nicaragua and Central America.

Between 2016 and 2021, Jose Luis Rocha published dozens of opinion pieces and essays in Confidencial’s Opinion section, regarding Nicaragua, Central America, and the 2018 April Rebellion.

In his memory, we’ve selected 14 of his best articles and also posted a complete list of his works for our readers.

Click here to read some of Jose Luis Rocha’s articles in English.

The following 14 titles are the English translation and links to the articles in Spanish.

The exodus of those wanting the “good life:” asylum policies and the paradox of emigration (2021)

Spurred on by hunger and fear, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have left. They’ve changed countries because they lost hope of changing their own.

What’s feeding the tyranny? (2021)

It’s living off your fear and mine. Of the favor you asked for, which now weighs on you like a mortgage.

Praise for the FSLN, three years after April 2018 (2021)

The country filled with barricades, and every repressive action produced a reaction of mass defiance.

US sanctions: the NICA act and the Inter-American Development Bank’s loans to Ortega (2020)

Behind the roars of the NICA Act, a toothless lion appeared. For mysterious reasons, the IDB has continued approving and disbursing loans.

The trial of the Jesuits’ killers: Justice takes time, but arrives (2020)

Ignacio Ellacuria, rector of the Central American University, was the massacre’s chief objective.

The autumn of the patriarch (2020)

Ortega is an agrarian patriarch. He may be the last cacique of that specimen. Reflections from a Central America that is ever less agrarian.

Nicaragua in black and white (2019)

A friend told me: “Ortega doesn’t have a chance. He’s an old man and he’s confronting the youth.” He’s not only an old man – he’s sustained by a legion of old men.

There are hopes that kill (2019)

Ortega looks clever, because the traditional opposition has been blind to the clear signals he’s sending them.

The FSLN against the FSLN (2019)

At this stage, the FSLN party is neutralizing the critical voices that spring up from the FSLN movement.

Two massacres: Mexico 1968, Nicaragua 2018

Tlatelolco is the great trauma that marked a parting of the waters in Mexican political history. What does the April 2018 rebellion represent in Nicaragua?

Past and present student protest in Nicaragua (2018)

Nicaragua’s modern-day university students are larger in number, but face a greater challenge than their predecessors: they are facing a bloodier dictatorship.

Ortega: from theocracy to anticlericalism (2018)

Farewell to ideology: the attack on the bishops, the Catholics and anti-Sandinistas and the rupture of the Ortega camp.

The Nicaraguan tiger and the anti-government sentiment (2018)

Someone or something let a tiger loose in Nicaragua. Or else, the tiger sprang because they touched his balls. How did they touch them?

Grand Canal, grand swindle (2016)

The rural movement against the land expropriations is channeling the national discontent about the canal ruse.

This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.