The former Sandinista guerrilla commander and now an opponent of Daniel Ortega Mónica Baltodano recently said in Uruguay that she cannot completely compare the entire Somoza dictatorship with the two periods of Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship, however, she acknowledges that her former comrade in arms is a crueler dictator than the dictator whom they defeated with bullets in 1979.
In an interview granted on April 25 to the program “Café Informal” on Canal Tele12In Montevideo, Uruguay, Baltodano was asked by the presenters of the program if the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega was the same as that of Somoza in the 1970s, to which the ex-guerrilla responded by making similarities divided by periods.
«You were a commander of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, you fought against Somoza. Is this a dictatorship like Somoza’s? Can it be compared?, one of the hosts of the program asked Baltodano.
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The ex-guerrilla recalled that she was clandestine in those years of fighting against Somoza and that they chose the armed path because the democratic ones were not possible.
Immediately afterwards, the now opponent of the Nicaraguan regime stated that “Ortega has become a dictator, but in some behaviors, he has been more radical and cruel than Somoza.”
Then he added: “I compare Daniel (Ortega) with Somoza, but in a similar period of time, that is, I cannot compare him with Somoza after 40 years of dictatorship.”
He explained that he makes that comparison that way because in 1978 and 1979, the people insurrected with arms in their hands and Somoza ordered the cities to be bombed and “committed genocide” because he murdered the civilian population and children, “people who had no nothing to do with the conflict. “Bombs don’t know,” she said.
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He justified that he cannot compare Ortega with the Somoza of 1978 and 1979 because currently “there have been no insurrections or armed struggle in Nicaragua.”
Baltodano did not refer to the civic insurrection that the people of Nicaragua led in April 2018, which was put down with bullets by the Ortega-Murillo regime. The repression unleashed by the dictators caused, according to data from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), at least 355 murdered, several thousand injured and tens of thousands exiled.
He added that there are differences between the dictators Somoza and Ortega and mentioned as examples that currently Ortega does not allow student organizations in universities, university autonomy, or religious celebrations “and at that time, Somoza did.”
According to Baltodano, the two dictators must be compared in their specific contexts and in this sense “Ortega has turned out to be tougher, more cruel than Somoza himself.” In addition, the ex-guerrilla and historian Baltodano pointed out that her former military and political chief has not been on the left for a long time and has become “an opportunist and a liar.”
