Thursday, May 16, 2019, dawned bright, hot, so much so that the heat felt suffocating very early in gallery 16 M, of the Modelo Prison, in Tipitapa. No one suspected that the hot calm that morning was the harbinger of what was to come. A murderous shot from the gun of one of the jailers of the Daniel Ortega dictatorship would take the life of Eddy Montes Praslin that day, a murder that, like the 355 committed by police and paramilitaries under the orders of the Ortega-Murillo, four years afterwards, he goes unpunished.
It is the fourth anniversary of that murder and so far, the prison authorities have not said a word about the crime, despite the fact that Montes was shot inside the security perimeter of the prison, which was also surrounded by dozens of guards.
On the day of his murder, Don Eddy, as his fellow prisoners affectionately called him, began his daily routine talking with his fellow prisoners, all political prisoners of the dictatorship. “He was talkative, very affable and above all he knew how to listen to others,” recalls the former politician Nahiroby Olivas, one of those who knew him closely in prison. Montes enjoyed sympathy and respect in the group of conscientious prisoners.
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That Thursday, Olivas recalls, everyone was doing their own activities, some talking, others playing, and some more, walking down the corridor or through the sunny area of the jail, when at about 11 in the morning, they noticed that prison troops Riot police, along with guards, began to surround the gallery, they were armed with AK-M rifles, some with attachments to fire tear gas, others with rubber bullet shotguns. The guard was ready to repress.
A group of some 95 political prisoners, most of them boys, imprisoned by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo after the social protests of 2018, prepared to defend themselves against what they knew would be a certain beating. However, Eddy Montes, with the maturity and serenity that characterized him, together with another group of leaders, decided to try mediation to avoid a violent confrontation between political prisoners and jailers. It was in vain. The guard was determined to distribute violence.
Between 11:00 in the morning and 2:00 in the afternoon, approximately, Nahiroby recalls, there was a coming and going of Eddy Montés, trying to make the Ortega guard desist from the attack against the inmates. He didn’t make it. At that time the offensive of the henchmen and the resistance of the political prisoners began.
“We resisted with what we had at hand, stones, iron rods and a cry of long live Nicaragua, while the guards fired tear gas, fired rubber bullets and combat bullets (lead),” recalls the young conscience-stricken man, now from exile.
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At about three in the afternoon, more or less, after the sound of a shot, Eddy Montes fell. He was immediately rescued by his companions, but when they picked him up they noticed that he was flowing a lot of blood. The shot had been fatal.
They evacuated him to another place and at that moment, the Ortega guards intensified the attack and managed to enter the area that the political prisoners were defending. What followed next was horrifying, as Olivas remembers it. Hits, offensive shouts, kicks, rifle butts… «The guard reduced us with the greatest violence. They threw us all to the ground and beat us anyway, “says the young man now in the United States.
Eddy Montes Praslin, originally from Matagalpa, had US nationality and was 57 years old at the time of his assassination. He was captured by the Ortega Police in his city of origin, in October 2018.
After participating in the protests that began in April of that year, the dictatorship accused him of aggravated robbery, obstruction of public services, and arson. Crimes fabricated by the regime’s Prosecutor to criminalize the protesters who demanded the end of the Ortega dictatorship.
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Until today, the death of the prisoner of conscience remains unpunished. Never have the prison authorities, much less the Daniel Ortega regime, carried out an investigation to clarify the murder. The director of the Jorge Navarro (La Modelo) prison, at the time of the murder of Montes, according to references from some political prisoners, was the warden Venancio Alanís, who, far from being investigated, was rather promoted to sub-prefect by the dictator Ortega.
«My dad did not fight for power, fame or money, he was looking for a fair and democratic government. My father was a Christian man. He spoke of God, that is why I ask that we remain united with faith, “said the daughter of Montes when her father turned two years after being assassinated.
On the fourth anniversary of the murder of Montes, defense organizations and opposition leaders have remembered him, demanding justice for him and for all the victims of the Ortega-Murillo family, accused of committing crimes against humanity. In the prisons of the Ortega dictatorship, two political prisoners have died, in addition to Montes, who was murdered, the retired general and opposition leader, Hugo Torres Jimenes, who lost his life due to lack of timely medical attention.
