He died branded by his own brother as a “traitor”, but he called himself a “political prisoner” and history will record him as a criminal who was not brought to justice but did taste his own poison. That is Humberto Ortega, the dictator’s younger brother. He died this Monday, September 30, 2024, at the age of 77.
In the eighties, Humberto was a guerrilla and together with his brother they took the leadership of the Sandinismo that had defeated Anastasio Somoza. Until then, both had already stained their hands with blood, but there was still more to go. In 1984, the Ortegas occupied the most important positions in Nicaragua.
Humberto Ortega’s mistake in Costa Rica
Carlos Fonseca Amador was arrested by the Costa Rican Police in 1969, accused of being the intellectual author of a bank robbery. In December of that same year, Humberto Ortega Saavedra, an inexperienced 22-year-old Sandinista guerrilla, set out to free Fonseca, which ended in disaster.
Humberto devised a plan to forcibly release Fonseca, who had already been detained for four months; However, the plan did not go as he wanted, in the middle of the assault on the prison, Humberto Ortega was wounded by a gunshot, he almost bled to death and lost mobility in one of his hands, Fonseca escaped with him and hours later they were captured.
The incident in which a Costa Rican officer died caused outrage in Costa Rica.
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Red Christmas
After the defeat of Somoza, Humberto Ortega takes leadership of the Sandinista Army. In 1982, under the excuse of “a separatist plan” Humberto carried out the “Red Christmas” operation that devastated 71 Miskito indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua and left hundreds dead.
Humberto and his army enter like “pests” destroying everything in their path in the Northern Caribbean, burning villages and communities, in addition to the death and exile of hundreds of Miskitos, who were demanding and protesting against a recent Sandinista agrarian reform that tried to control their lands.
The Miskitos claimed more than 45 thousand square kilometers of the Caribbean Coast, 38 percent of the national territory, the Sandinistas, for their part, argued that this area could become a base for the nascent Contra, supported by the then president of the United States. , Ronald Reagan, so it was a priority for Humberto to subject that entire area under his power.
By December 22, the Sandinista invasion managed to capture 80 Miskitos in Lemus (in RACN) who were trying to reach their original communities to spend Christmas with their families; However, most of them were murdered, which marks one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of Humberto Ortega, as head of the Army.
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Humberto and Mandatory Military Service
Perhaps when the name of Humberto Ortega is mentioned among Nicaraguans, the first thing that comes to mind and that brings to mind the pain caused by Sandinismo, is the imposition of Patriotic Military Service (SMP), also called “compulsory military service.”
Ortega ordered that all men between the ages of 18 and 40 be taken to the ranks of the army to enlist in the war. Thousands of young people were murdered, and thousands more are fleeing the country with their families, trying to avoid the new wave of violence that Nicaragua was experiencing, under the Sandinista boot. Humberto begins to live opulently while the town submits to misery.
The decision to force every Nicaraguan man to suffer the horrors of war was the only option that the Sandinistas had to remain in power in the face of the opposition of the United States, otherwise, the story would be different, as confirmed by Humberto Ortega. in an interview given to the newspaper La Prensa.
Jean Paul Genie did not obtain justice due to Humberto’s silence
Jean Paul Genie Lacayo, 16, was shot dead in his car on October 28, 1990, while trying to overtake what was apparently a military escort on the Managua-Mansaya highway. There was evidence indicating that the military escort was that of General Humberto Ortega, Commander in Chief of the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS).
Sandinismo had fallen. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was in power; However, under the spotlight, Humberto Ortega continued as army chief, now with a new face. The case of the teenager Genie, full of irregularities, brings Humberto to prominence again.
Chamorro orders a special commission of the National Assembly to ask the Venezuelan judicial police to review the case, which ends up pointing out the leader’s bodyguards as the perpetrators of the teenager’s death, for which a judge from the seventh crime district of Managua ends up blaming the general’s eight workers for the crime and Humberto for trying to cover up Genie’s murder.
The case was transferred to military jurisdiction and on June 27, 1994, the Military Court of First Instance of the Military Audit, headed by the chancellor of the Nicaraguan dictatorship until a month ago, Denis Moncada Colindres, dismissed the charges against the nine accused because there was not enough admissible evidence against them. Humberto is freed from the case.
That same year, Humberto was declared a retired General. From there, Ortega Saavedra’s life moved away from the public spotlight and it was not until after 2018 that she began to give statements about her brother’s repressive dictatorship and her tense relationship with her sister-in-law, the “co-president” Rosario Murillo.
The opposition organization Platform of Unity for Democracy, through a statement on social networks, affirms that Humberto died without paying for his crimes and lived under impunity protected by Sandinismo.
His statements led him to become an enemy of the Ortega-Murillo regime and live his last days of life, locked in his house under police custody and slowly dying from heart disease.
