Since June 11, when he was rushed to a hospital due to a relapse of his heart problems, which he has been suffering from for years, nothing has been known about Humberto Ortega Saavedra (HOS) and, according to reports in the media, the dictatorial family has not agreed to expel him from Nicaragua.
HOS, the younger brother of dictator Daniel Ortega, put himself in the crosshairs of his brother and sister-in-law, Rosario Murillo, and became a target for repression when he issued an opinion stating that, after the death of his brother Daniel, the Sandinista party would be headless and that the regime imposed by Ortega and Murillo would be coming to an end.
After describing the government of his brother and sister-in-law as “authoritarian, dictatorial, verticalist and personalist,” the retired Army general said that there is no successor capable of assuming control of the government and the party after the death of the red-and-black leader, and therefore, the Army would have to temporarily take control of the State and call for elections.
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This opinion would suggest, first of all, a military rebellion to displace those who intend to take over the government after the death of the dictator Ortega, which would imply a second aspect: the non-recognition of Murillo and his children, who would have to be abruptly removed by the military in order to take control.
These implicit suggestions by HOS in his interview, conducted by journalist Fabian Medina for the media Infobae, enraged the vice-dictator Murillo and her husband. They ordered a police cordon and search of the house of the former member of the national leadership of the FSLN, and seized all his devices and means of communication that would allow him to be in contact with the outside world. In other words, they applied a “total police siege” to him.
They then invented a military celebration, “the start of the final offensive”, in order to appear in public before dozens of Army and Police officers and thus give a demonstration of total subordination of the armed forces and thereby try to distort the suggestions made by the founding chief of the military forces.
At that event, as a way of exposing the power they have over the military, Daniel Ortega accused his brother and founder of the Nicaraguan Army of being a “traitor” and said that he had sold out to the gringos.
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Three weeks later, on the night of June 11, according to sources familiar with the case, HOS was rushed to the military hospital under tight security measures due to a worsening of his heart condition.
Since then, the regime has not given any information on the legal conditions or the state of health of the former soldier. Some versions released by journalists with access to government officials, such as Emiliano Chamorro, have suggested that the dictatorial couple cannot agree on whether or not to expel HOS from the country.
According to the exiled journalist, Murillo is of the idea of removing him from the country as has been done with other opponents and religious figures, but the dictator Ortega is said to be opposed, and not precisely out of brotherly affection but out of fear that the retired General, in revenge, might decide to say sensitive things that he knows about Ortega and Murillo.
