Sandinista comptroller Marisol Castillo Bellido, one of the FSLN’s most loyal senior officials in the oversight body, resigned from her position on November 15 in a letter sent to the National Assembly. She held the position since April 2014.
“At this point, I need to dedicate more time to my family and to postponed tasks, feeling the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty,” argued the former official in the letter sent to the First Secretary of Parliament.
A sociologist by profession, graduated from Georgetown University in the 1980s, Castillo Bellido was part of the Army and served as head of the Directorate of Cadres. She subsequently rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army before his retirement.
She is the wife of retired colonel Lenín Cerna Juárez, former head of the General Directorate of State Security.whom the United States sanctioned on October 24 for his closeness to Daniel Ortegaof whom he has been an operator for decades, despite having been separated from the FSLN Secretariat due to a confrontation with Vice President Rosario Murillo.
The former comptroller was part of an institution in its last stage that was questioned for avoiding any type of control, while the media have spent years documenting the enrichment of the presidential family and their relatives and the diversion of the million-dollar cooperation from Venezuela.
She was also a magistrate of the Electoral Power between 2000 and 2014, where she arrived as part of the party quota that Ortega achieved in his distribution of State powers with former President Arnoldo Alemán (1997-2002), in a key period for his return to power. of the Sandinista caudillo and later for the establishment of a new dictatorship that has been going on for 15 years.
In those days, he teamed up with other officials remembered for their partiality to Ortega, such as the late former CSE president, Roberto Rivas Reyes, José Luis Villavicencio, and Emiliano Enríquez, among others. While on the side close to the former German president were René Herrera, Luis Benavides, Julio Osuna, among others, that is, political files that without shame complied with the guidelines of their leaders.
Others like Rivas and Osuna came to light because they were involved in corruption scandals, or drug trafficking trials, respectively.
“Nicaragua has evolved institutionally”
However, despite the institutional degradation of the CSE, the CGR and all the institutions, in his resignation letter Castillo Bellido describes a Nicaragua that “has evolved institutionally.” “This service, which has been a substantial part of my life, has allowed me to strengthen myself academically and in life itself. Our country, despite all the difficulties, has evolved institutionally and I feel proud to have participated in that process. There will be many problems ahead, but the new generations are already replacing us, ”he added.
In the same communication, the former comptroller thanks her grandparents and her parents, whom she said were fundamental in the woman she is today, “from a liberal and Sandinista family, that is our history.”
Castillo refers to the fact that he descends from José María Castillo, the former Somocista minister assassinated when his house was attacked by the command “Juan José Quezada” on December 27, 1974.
Through this operation, which was one of the most spectacular carried out by the FSLN before the fall of the Somoza dictatorship, 13 political prisoners were released, among them Ortega, Lenín Cerna and Manuel Alí Rivas Vallecillo.
One of the protagonists of the Command was Hugo Torresthe retired general who died as a political prisoner by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.
