Marcos Alberto Acuña Avilés has been one of Daniel Ortega’s trusted men since the 1990s. He was appointed 17 years ago as head of the Sandinista leader’s bodyguard. He could always be seen to the right of the president at public and private events. He was a close witness and participant in the installation of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship. However, all of that did not matter when he fell into disgrace.
Acuña, who was promoted to the rank of ‘general commissioner’ in 2014, saw 25 years of effort in his position disappear due to an argument with the vice-dictator Murillo, who immediately ordered his imprisonment on July 24, according to unofficial information; and the reasons for said argument are not known; however, the news was made public on August 6 in an official police statement.
The commissioner is publicly accused of flagrantly disobeying superior orders. He was given a “dishonorable discharge and will be tried for the crime of failure to fulfill duties, disobedience and insubordination,” the police said in the note, without further details. The latest information is that Acuña is hospitalized in the National Police Hospital, Roberto Huembes, and remains incommunicado from his family and former colleagues.
Related news: The purge of General Commissioner Marcos Acuña reveals the “control and power of Rosario Murillo”
Apparently, Ortega did not defend his loyal servant when questioned by the vice-dictator, who after the argument chased him away and the anger of the general commissioner caused his blood pressure to rise and he was taken to the Roberto Huembes hospital where he was stabilized; however, he was detained there.
“Acuña’s decision seems to be Murillo’s exclusive decision, because Acuña has been working for Ortega for almost 30 years, and that shows Murillo’s power, which is practically total, and Daniel Ortega only ratifying the decisions that Murillo makes, which shows the process of decomposition of the regime that no longer trusts anyone,” says former commander Dora María Tellez.
According to the lawyer and director of the Blue and White National Unity, Juan Diego Barberena, the dismissal of Commissioner Acuña cannot be seen in any other way than as the internal distrust of the dictatorship and that desire for totalitarian and paranoid control, which evidently affects all the institutions of the State, mainly those who are closest to the family in power.
For Téllez, the Acuña case is a continuation of the purge that is taking place within the National Police, which, despite having become an unconditional instrument of the regime, is never satisfied. Téllez recalls that Murillo has been carrying out this silent purge since 2022. “The purge is advancing to the Sandinista party, several political secretaries and important personalities alongside the Ortega Murillos,” he says.
Related news: Dishonorable discharge and trial for Commissioner Marcos Acuña for “insubordination and disobeying superior orders”
«This has an effect in the sense of erosion and internal decomposition of the bases that support them, politically speaking, it is also part of Rosario Murillo’s desire to advance in the political control of the party and in all spaces, taking down whoever she has to take down. It also reflects that Ortega has no greater margin of action than to endorse Murillo’s decisions, and that he is framed in the debate on the succession of the dictatorship, which maintains an internal crisis,» says Barberena.
Acuña is not the only one exiled and imprisoned by the vice president. Another case that made headlines was that of Humberto Ortega Saavedra, the dictator’s brother, whom the first lady ordered to be imprisoned in June of this year. The reason? Statements in an interview with the media Infobae, in which the dictator’s brother ruled out the vice president and wife of the Sandinista leader as the successor in the chain of command of power.
