This June 17 marks four years of impunity in the murders of Darwin Ramón Potosme and Erick Antonio Jiménez López, both originally from Masaya and victims of the repression perpetrated by the Daniel Ortega administration in 2018.
The Mothers of April Association (AMA), in a publicationdetailed that Potosme, who worked as a shoe maker in Monimbó, was killed “by paramilitaries and police of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship with a shot to the eye.”
The artisan died at the age of 34, at the hands of a sniper in the Central Park of Masaya, a few meters from the Police station in the area. His friends and family affectionately called him “Fafo”.
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«On June 17 at five in the morning the bells of the San Sebastián church rang, warning that there was an attack by police and paramilitaries against the barricades. Darwin’s sister went out to look for him at the roadblock near the house. Her classmates told her that she was not there and that she was not answering her cell phone either. Around six someone called to tell them that they had killed him. A sniper fired an accurate shot at his head,” AMA said.
María Andrea José, mother of Darwin Postome, remembers him as «an affectionate, loving, happy son; he was the one who made the noise in the house and he liked to make jokes. He had many friends because he was sociable and attentive to the neighbors. Like all monimboseños, he was also a good craftsman and liked to paint pictures, which he sold in the handicrafts market».
The agency highlighted that the victim of the dictatorship “had studied computing and then entered the Police Academy, where he graduated, but he asked to be discharged in 2012 because he did not like being taken to operations outside his jurisdiction. He went back home to work on leather, which is used to make sandals. He dreamed of having his own business ».
«Fafo» loved the traditional festivals of Masaya, such as the Torovenado, and once he even dressed as a woman and went out at the Black Dance with other friends from the neighborhood. From a young age his passion was soccer and when he grew up he became a coach at the Salesiano Don Bosco school. He trained the youngsters and organized children’s leagues that competed in championships. Edwin Monge, his brother, says that at football matches Darwin always encouraged them to give their best: “You have to give everything, without fear,” he told them,” Meylin Potosme, the artisan’s sister, told the association.
Four years of impunity in the case of Erick Antonio Jiménez
On June 17, 2018, Erick Antonio Jiménez López, who worked as a laborer, was also murdered. He died of a shot to the chest, carried out by paramilitaries of the Ortega-Murillo regime in the community of Monimbó, Masaya when they carried out the “cleaning operation.”
The young man “was a few meters from a barricade, when he was wounded by a firearm in the central part of the chest. All the entrenched were surrounded by the paramilitaries, who fired relentlessly on the civilian population, “explained AMA.
Nelly Grisselda López García, the victim’s aunt, told AMA that her nephew was outside the house that day watching how everything was going. His relatives asked Erick Jiménez to enter the house, but he replied that he was not going to stay. there just watching, and joined to defend his people.
Minutes later, “I go outside and I see Erick there, on the ground. I threw myself on top of his body, grabbed him, hugged him. I felt that the bullets passed over me. She was all wet from the blood that came out of her chest, where she hit him with the bullet. I stayed like that, hugging his body to prevent them from taking him away. My husband told me to get in, but I wanted to bring Erick’s body into the house,” said the young man’s aunt.
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The relatives of Erick Jiménez, four years after his death, demand justice to “identify the people who hurt them and repair them to alleviate a little the pain they have caused us. This heroic and unequal struggle was of a people who rebelled against this dictator.
«On July 17, 2018, the government of Daniel Ortega executed the so-called Operation Clean-up in Monimbó, Masaya. The self-summoned responded to the onslaught of the paramilitaries with mortars and stones, in an unequal fight in view of the heavy weapons used during the attack on the neighborhood,” AMA said.
