Retired General Humberto Ortega, brother and critic of President Daniel Ortega, died this Monday, one day after announcing a “sudden deterioration” of his health, according to a statement issued by a local hospital in Nicaragua.
Ortega went into cardio-respiratory arrest at 1:55 a.m. on Monday and after being treated without success, he was declared dead at 2:30 a.m. at the Dr. Alejandro Dávila Bolaños Military Hospital, in Managua.
The death of Humberto Ortega comes four months after he was arrested by the National Police, after critical statements against the government of his brother, the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, to the Argentine media Infobae.
Humberto Ortega then said that his brother Daniel has no successors, so his death will create “a power vacuum” and a “situation of chaos” that will force the Army to intervene and call for a transition process with free elections.
A relevant role during the Sandinista Revolution
Humberto Ortega was a guerrilla member of the Sandinista Front to overthrow the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua for 11 years. He led the Sandinista Popular Army during the civil war in the 1980s, which pitted it against the Nicaraguan Resistance, a broad anti-Sandinista coalition.
The Ortega government recognized these contributions in a press release from the presidency, despite the friction with the current Sandinista president.
“The Government of Reconciliation and National Unity, the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Nicaraguan people, we value their contribution to the stages of clandestine, guerrilla, insurrectional struggle, and in the initial formation and direction of the Nicaraguan Army,” he says. part of the government statement.
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