• Nicaragua Daniel Ortega attacks several female opposition leaders

  • Nicaragua Sandinismo disqualifies Cristiana Chamorro, the main opposition candidate

"I risked my life to get Ortega out of jail, but that's how life turns:

those who once embraced principles today have betrayed them."

Daniel Ortega has decided to erase part of the history of Sandinismo, the one starring two of its heroic guerrillas,

Dora María Téllez,

the famous Commander Dos, and retired General

Hugo Torres,

whose words before being arrested on Sunday open this chronicle.

The ruling party today qualifies both of them as

traitors to the homeland,

despite the fact that Torres led two of the main feats in the fight against the dictator Somoza: the assault on the National Palace of Nicaragua in 1978 and the operation that in 1974 meant the freedom of his own Daniel Ortega, who would since become the strong man of the Sandinista revolution.

It mattered little to the special forces in their violent and abusive deployments this Sunday that

both Torres and Téllez are symbols of the fight for freedom

after the taking of the National Palace of Nicaragua.

On that day, the key to the Sandinista victory of the following year, they took the Somoza parliamentarians hostage to free 60 political prisoners, among whom was Tomás Borge.

They called it "Operation Chanchera" and the chronicle of what happened was carried out by Nobel Prize winner

Gabriel García Márquez,

who described it as "masterful nonsense": 25 brave guerrillas against 3,000 men distributed among Parliament, ministries and various organizations.

Torres was commander one and Téllez, number two.

The triumvirate was closed by

Eden Pastora,

Commander Zero.

The explosive operation ended with

the liberation of 60 political prisoners

and the triumphant path of the guerrillas on their way to the airport to flee Nicaragua.

The hostage deputy surprised by the popular euphoria, García Márquez recounted what Hugo Torres' response was: "You see, this is the only thing that cannot be bought with money."

Four years earlier, the former brigadier general commanded the operation that stormed the house of the Somoza minister

José María Castillo.

Such a daring action achieved the freedom of Ortega, that he went to fight from Costa Rica, while Torres remained in Managua, in hiding.

Such deeds went into the background this Sunday, as if the new Sandinismo had erased its own history with a single stroke and in the service of Daniel Ortega,

the 21st century version of the Somozas,

the family that terrorized Nicaragua for decades.

In this case, with a woman as vice president and nine children working for the cause at the head of the media, millionaire businesses and state companies.

In conversation with EL MUNDO in the days prior to his arrest,

Hugo Torres sensed what was to come:

"Nicaragua is experiencing a repressive police state, a de facto siege, there is no security here for anyone. How can we think of an electoral campaign if You cannot do marches or organizational activities

. It is enough to go out with a national flag to the street for a patrol to take him prisoner minutes later.

The state of terror we are experiencing is the state that Ortega wants to prevail. "

The increase in repression is the product, according to the general's diagnosis, of the weakness caused by the

loss of popular support,

"because its very base has been reduced and that is why it uses the police and paramilitary forces for repression, in addition to the complicity of the Army. Despite this despotic regime, the resistance is alive. Ortega has not been able to bend that firm will to get out of this dictatorial regime of him and his wife Rosario Murillo, who is as terrible as he is. "

Dora María Tellez, in a file image.HECTOR RETAMALAFP

The presidential couple has led the weekend's hunt and capture operation against the former Sandinista Renewal Movement (MRS), founded by writer

Sergio Ramírez

and today converted into the Renewal Democratic Union (Unamos). In addition to Torres and Téllez,

Ana Margarita Vijil and Suyén Barahona,

who have chaired the MRS, were also captured.

The list of detainees is made up of four of the candidates and more than a dozen leaders or collaborators of the candidate Cristiana Chamorro, who remains kidnapped in her own home. The other jailed applicants are former US ambassador

Arturo Cruz,

activist

Félix Maradiaga

and businessman

Juan Sebastián Chamorro,

nephew of former president

Violeta Barrios.

The importance of the detainees is the best thermometer to measure

how far the presidential couple is willing to go.

The OAS Permanent Council will meet urgently this Tuesday to discuss the crisis in Nicaragua, which has aroused the rejection of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and various countries in the region, except the revolutionary allies.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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