He had formed, with his brother Daniel Ortega, for more than ten years, a powerful duo at the head of Nicaragua. But it was while he was serving four months of house arrest that former General Humberto Ortega died on Monday, September 30 in Managua, at the age of 77, from cardiac arrest.
The day before, the management of the military hospital where he had been hospitalized since June 11 had published a press release reporting a “Sudden deterioration of his condition with cardiogenic shock”. “We remember the strategic contribution of General Ortega as a Sandinista activist since his adolescence, his bravery during military actions (…), his writings, platforms, insurrectional and historical theories»the government said in a statement.
However, the text did not mention that Humberto Ortega had been under house arrest since May 19, after an interview he had given to digital media. Infobae. He then criticized the “dictatorship” created by his brother and had guaranteed that he had no successor, not even within his own family. Statements that provoked the anger of Vice President Rosario Murillo, wife of Daniel Ortega, who relies on her son, Laureano, to ensure the continuity of the regime after the death of her husband.
Military training in Cuba
The response was not long in coming. Humberto Ortega’s house was surrounded, his employees arrested, and his computer and phone confiscated. Suffering from serious coronary problems, he was not immediately hospitalized, despite the requests of his loved ones. Only three weeks later, after suffering a heart attack, he was transferred to the military hospital. A few days before, his brother had called him “traitor”.
Humberto Ortega was born on January 10, 1947 in Juigalpa, into a leftist family opposed to the dictatorship of the Somoza family (1936-1979). With his brothers Daniel and Camilo – who died in 1978 during a confrontation with the army – he began to act very early in the Nicaraguan Patriotic Youth, later the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
In 1967 he was taken prisoner for the first time after an attempted attack on the convoy of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Quickly released, he went underground and left to receive military training in Cuba. But in 1969, in Costa Rica, he was seriously injured while trying to free the guerrilla Carlos Fonseca. He loses mobility in his hands and is imprisoned again.
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