Humberto Ortega, younger brother of Nicaragua’s communist dictator Daniel Ortega, died on Monday, four months after his brother placed him under house arrest and accused him of “treason” for questioning the regime’s continuity.
The younger Ortega sibling denounced being a political prisoner of his brother’s regime in an audio recording posthumously released hours after his death by the local newspaper Confidencial.
According to a statement from the Nicaraguan military, Humberto Ortega suffered respiratory arrest in the early midnight hours of Monday at the Alejandro Dávila Bolaños Military Hospital in the capital city of Managua.
The younger Ortega sibling had not been publicly seen or heard from since he was placed under house arrest in May. Following months of rumors, the hospital confirmed on Sunday that Ortega had been hospitalized in the facility since June 11.
Humberto Ortega, 77 at the time of his death, was a retired general who participated in the Sandinista revolution alongside his brother and played an instrumental role in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), helping his brother’s dictatorial rule during the 1980s by serving as his defense minister, army chief, and strategist.
The younger Ortega began taking a critical stance of his brother in April 2018 amidst the wave of anti-communist protests against Daniel Ortega that called for an end to his regime’s decades-long rule over Nicaragua. Ortega responded to the protests with a brutal persecution campaign that left over 300 people dead.
The strained relationship between both Ortega siblings further deteriorated in the following years and reached a crucial point in May after Humberto Ortega gave an interview to the Argentine outlet Infobae where he questioned the continuity of the Nicaraguan communist regime without the leadership of his brother Daniel, who is presently 78 years old.
Humberto Ortega asserted that, in a hypothetical scenario in which Daniel Ortega is suddenly absent, there would be an “impossibility” for the ruling Sandinistas to consolidate power again.
The younger Ortega expressed his doubts to Infobae that Daniel Ortega’s wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, or son Laureano Ortega Murillo, would be capable of succeeding the communist dictator upon his death.
“Without Daniel, there is no one because, all in all, Daniel is the only leader, historically, who still retains the credits of that struggle,” Humberto Ortega told Infobae at the time. “Without Daniel, I see it very difficult for two or three to get together, much less one in particular, and more difficult in the family.”
“With the absence of Daniel, it would be very fragile to sustain everything that, until now, he has managed to sustain with great effort and with enormous complexities,” he continued. “Not only internally but also with the allied forces of the left and the governments of the region. The only one they know is Daniel.”
Daniel Ortega responded to his brother’s interview by placing him under house arrest and having the Nicaraguan police seize his phone, computer, and other communication devices. Days later, Daniel Ortega publicly accused his brother of being a “traitor” without directly mentioning him and claimed “he had given his soul to the devil.”
Hours after his death, The Nicaraguan newspaper Confidencial revealed on Tuesday that it had safekept an audio recording of a phone call with Humberto Ortega held on June 9, three weeks after his house arrest. Confidencial stated that the younger Ortega used a cellphone he kept secretly hidden in his house to talk to the newspaper.
In the recording, Confidencial explained, Humberto Ortega declared himself a political prisoner of his brother’s regime. The newspaper further explained that the phone recording was kept according to his wishes, stressing that, “to protect the security of his communications, he [Humberto Ortega] requested the publication of a report on his state of isolation, the worsening of his health, and his demand for freedom, attributing it to ‘sources close to his family.’”
“I am retired Army General Humberto Ortega Saavedra. Today, Sunday [June 9, 2024] I completed three weeks of being a political prisoner under house arrest regime,” Humberto Ortega says at the start of the recording.
Humberto Ortega explained through the recording that his liberties and that of his partner Angélica Chavarría had been suspended. According to Ortega, Chavarría has accompanied him since 1969, when he suffered a wound in his right arm during an operation to free Sandinista commander Carlos Fonseca from a Costa Rican prison.
Confidencial stated that Chavarría’s whereabouts presently remain unknown. The newspaper asserted that she is now under a conduction of “forced disappearance.”
Humberto Ortega stated in the June call with Confidencial that Nicaraguan police had sealed off his home “with weapons of war” and that the head of his personal protection unit, Colonel Johnson Laínez, was reported missing alongside his wife.
“I am blocked from visits, including from my close relatives. I am totally isolated, without telephone, computer, radio or television. This [telephone] I am using is hidden for emergencies,” Ortega said.
“I am prevented from receiving medical treatment at the Vivian Pellas private hospital. My health condition is very precarious – and, a few hours ago, more, because of lesions that have sprouted and threaten my legs, infection that could spread to my heart. All the stress that my unjust imprisonment multiplies, could produce a fatal outcome at any moment,” he continued.
The younger Ortega said that Daniel Ortega’s government had “in its hands the immediate solution for the unconditional freedom of my person,” and claimed that his liberation would help in the “rapid improvement” of Nicaragua’s situation.
The Ortega regime released a statement on Monday announcing Humbnerto Ortega’s death and recognizing his “strategic contribution” to the Sandinista regime.
“In announcing his death, we remember General Ortega’s strategic contribution as a Sandinista militant since his adolescence, his bravery in revolutionary military actions such as the rescue of Commander Carlos Fonseca Amador in Costa Rica, where he was shot and lost physical mobility in the upper part of his body,” the statement read.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.