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Behind the return in 2007 of Daniel Ortega to the presidency of Nicaragua – after the defeat at the polls of the ruling Sandinista party in 1990 – there was a key figure: his brother and fellow fighter, Humberto Ortega.
This is stated in a collection titled “Ten facts to understand the Alemán-Ortega pact”written in 2019 by Fabián Medina for Magazine, a Nicaraguan magazine based on narrative journalism on historical topics that have impacted the Central American nation.
Humberto Ortega, 77 years old, along with his brother Daniel, 78 years old, was one of the leaders of the insurrection that overthrew the government of the Somoza family (1937-1979). After the triumph of Sandinismo, Humberto was the Chief of the Army and continued in office for five more years during the government of Violeta Chamorro, until his retirement in 1995.
Research Magazine documents that it was Humberto Ortega who managed to establish the bridge that allowed a pact between the government of then president Arnoldo Alemán and the Sandinistas so that a president could be elected with only 35% of the votes.
Until then, in Nicaragua, at least 45% of the votes were required to be able to win in the first electoral round, a high hurdle for Ortega, whose image and popularity were low due to the civil war that brought him to power in 1979 and the failures which many Nicaraguans attributed to his first term that ended in 1990.
How did Humberto Ortega manage to attract the attention of the liberals in power?
Research Magazine It was revealed that it was Humberto Ortega, already a retired general, who at the beginning of 1998 coincided on a flight to Mexico with Jaime Morales Carazo, a liberal very close to the then president Arnoldo Alemán.
In accordance with Magazine, The liberals had valued the possibility of advancing “an understanding with the Sandinistas that would allow them to govern without that incendiary opposition that was the Sandinista Front.” But it was Humberto who promoted the possibility.
“Why not seek an understanding to avoid all these frictions and all these things, where neither of the two parties beat each other,” Humberto Ortega proposed to Morales Carazo in the informal conversation during the flight to Mexico.
Thus, upon his return to Managua, Morales Carazo proposed to the then President Alemán that he approach the Sandinistas led by Daniel Ortega. This was not the only time that Humberto Ortega contacted the liberals. Some time later he met again with Morales Carazo in a suite at the Camino Real hotel in Mexico, and then they met at a lawyer’s house in Managua.
The meeting of Daniel Ortega and Arnoldo Alemán
After the meetings between Humberto Ortega and the liberals close to President Arnoldo Alemán, what Humberto Ortega called “a cap” was agreed upon, in reference to what became a meeting between Daniel Ortega and Alemán, at his residence in Casa Colorada.
Later the meetings between both politicians continued but Humberto did not appear in any of them, nor did he later participate in the negotiating team.
– “What happened?” Morales Carazo later said that he asked Alemán about Humberto’s disappearance in the meetings.
– “We didn’t even ask and it was left like that. I guess since Daniel was already in the game, Humberto got out,” Alemán says he replied.
Without Humberto Ortega, on August 28, 1998, the so-called “Political Dialogue” was established, where delegations from nine of the twelve parties with parliamentary representation at that time met, with the purpose of discussing and agreeing on the laws and reforms that the country for its development, according to research by Magazine.
With this, three consecutive electoral defeats of the Sandinismo led by Daniel Ortega were left behind: those of 1990, 1996 and 2001, in which Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Arnoldo Alemán and Enrique Bolaños won, respectively.
In 2007 Daniel Ortega won the elections and has remained at the head of the country since then. His brother Humberto Ortega never again had prominence or public office. Since 2007, his running mates were ex-combatants and his wife, current vice president Rosario Murillo.
What we know: what happened to Humberto Ortega?
Although Humberto Ortega accompanied his brother Daniel in all the battles during the guerrilla war that ended Anastasio Somoza’s power in the late 1970s, his fortunes have been changing since then.
The most radical change was known on May 20, when The Nicaraguan police admitted that they had him under protection in his housearguing that the surveillance was related to his health problems.
However, the surveillance operation occurred a day after an interview exclusive with the media Infobae, on May 19, in which Humberto Ortega said that Daniel has no successors to take over when he dies, and that elections will have to be called with the support of the Army to avoid “a power vacuum” and “chaos” in the country.
Also read- Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega accuses his brother Humberto of “treason”.
– “Daniel Ortega is 78 years old. Could his death create a power vacuum in Nicaragua or do you see the dynastic succession being activated?” the journalist from Infobae.
– “When there is an authoritarian, dictatorial type of power like the current one, which depends greatly on the figure of a leader who exercises the Presidency, in the absence of this, it is very difficult for there to be continuity of the immediate power group. I do not want mention no one in particular. Without Daniel there is no one,” Humberto Ortega responded.
Humberto even said that not even the last of the Somozas could establish his son as his successor.
At the end of last May, Daniel Ortega called his brother Humberto a “traitor” – after he was placed under “medical surveillance” in his home, for having decorated the United States military attaché in Managua in 1992.
“He sold his soul to the devil,” Ortega said at an event at the end of last Maybefore dozens of soldiers and police, in the first public reference to his brother since the controversy began that same month with the interview that Humberto gave to Infobae.
Daniel did not mention his name at the event but said that “the then head of the Army” awarded the United States military attaché, Dennis Quinn, with the Camilo Ortega medal in January 1992, which he described as a “shame” and a “ betrayal of the people and the country.”
Camilo Ortega was the youngest of the three brothers and also a guerrilla, who died in combat during the final Sandinista insurrection against Somoza in 1978. The Sandinista army, led by Humberto, created the medal in his honor after Somoza’s fall one year later.
The 1990 elections, the first moment of break
Sociologist Óscar René Vargas, founder of the Sandinista Front and today a critic of Daniel Ortega, told the Voice of America that the “fissure” between the brothers began “after the 1990 elections.”
“Each one began to run parallel, different paths. That’s where the first differences between them began,” Vargas assured the VOA.
After his retirement in 1995, Humberto left the government but not from the public spotlight. From that moment on he served as an analyst on world and national conflicts and the disagreements between the brothers did not cease.
The death of his mother Lidia Saavedra, in May 2005, was even a cause of conflict. Humberto wanted to bury his mother in a private cemetery, something that Daniel did not agree to, who determined that their mother be buried in the General Cemetery of Managua, a public site.
Rafael Solís, former guerrilla of the Sandinista Front and former magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice of Nicaragua, assured the VOA that the rift between the Ortega brothers was aggravated by the influence of Daniel’s wife and vice president Rosario Murillo. Solís considers that Murillo is emerging as the “heir to power.”
According to Solís, Murillo fears that Daniel will emulate the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who left his brother Raúl Castro as his replacement when he fell ill in 2006.
“[Rosario] “Murillo sees herself as the heir, and not anyone else (…) She believes she has the right to have a share of power,” said Solís.
Humberto was critical of his brother’s government during the protests of the year 2018 that left more than 300 dead and human rights organizations have documented acts of repression against protesters.
The Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli, who knew the Ortegas closely, told the VOA that Humberto’s statements and the reaction of his brother Daniel Ortega showed “great weakness and fear of criticism.”
“What is in question is whether Rosario Murillo will be Daniel Ortega’s successor, and because of the reaction they had when Humberto Ortega did not mention her as a successor at Infobae, it seems to me to be a great symptom of weakness,” Belli said.
The VOA He requested comments from Humberto Ortega, but did not receive a response until the time of this publication.
In this context, Dora María Téllez, a former Nicaraguan guerrilla and Sandinista dissident, believes that the future of the former head of the Army is in danger.
“I think the Ortega Murillos have known well that when they subject elderly people, like Humberto, 77, to prison conditions of stress and siege, the results can be catastrophic. Humberto’s life is in danger,” Téllez warned.
Currently Humberto Ortega remains under police guard at his residence in Managua and disconnected from all types of communication, according to local media reports.
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