The Sandinista Police has two new general commissioners. It is about Luis Octavio Saavedra Mercado and Abel Antonio Herrera Castillo, who join the list of almost 70 senior officers with that rank within an institution whose director, the first commissioner Francisco Díaz, father-in-law of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, has remained in office since August 2018, and of which it does not seem that have a departure date.
Saavedra Mercado and Herrera Castillo receive their new cockades, but neither Ortega nor the police headquarters detailed in which areas of the institution they will place these two characters, taking into consideration that the pool of general commissioners grows wider every day, because it has not been known who have retired others.
«We congratulate our colleagues who are moving to higher grades, even if they do not have positions, because it is impossible for all of them to have positions. You cannot make that division that in order to move to a higher level, the number of years of staying awake is not enough. But it must also have a charge. No. When the established time of service arrives, the companion has to move to the next higher grade, more than deserved,” justified the red-and-black tyrant who manipulates the Police as his personal guard.
Ortega authorized the promotions during the central event for the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Police and the Ministry of the Interior, flanked by several squads of police officers, firefighters, prison guard agents and police doctors.
During the event, which Ortega always uses as a trench to twist history and attack other governments, this time it was also used as a platform to appear servile to China and Russia, the new international allies in the face of the growing international isolation he faces.
Ortega and his general commissioners: “by dozens they are cheaper”
In September 2023, Ortega approved the promotion of 19 senior commissioners to the rank of general commissioners with the justification that those promoted would go on to “strengthen the institutional command of the National Police in national specialties.” He named the new police officers “co-chiefs” in different police units, but now he has made it clear that the new ones will have the “rank”, but not necessarily any position or “co-leadership.”
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Also last year, for the celebration of the 44th anniversary of the establishment of the Police, in the same month of September, Ortega promoted 33 new general commissioners in a single batch. This time the justification was that the new senior officers were intended to strengthen the commands of the country’s departments and municipalities.
In the second half of 2023 alone, dictator Ortega awarded 65 general commissioners with promotions. Before Ortega came to power in 2007, in the police institution, which was struggling to achieve professionalization, there were only 3 general commissioners in service; currently there are at least more than 70 active general commissioners.