The government has not released any information to families of those recently picked up. This article focuses on those responsible for the repression.
The intellectual authors of the massacre of Abril
By Divergentes
The repression of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo was planned. Their actions of violence were not simple isolated deeds which got out of control. The reports from national and international human rights organizations – especially the report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts – pointed out that behind the murders, clean-up operations, jailings and all the state repression, were a series of public officials who carried out “in organized fashion and in different moments and places” the most sinister orders of the Sandinista repression.
They are the other intellectual authors of the massacre of April. They are police chiefs, ministers, directors of institutions, soldiers and people of confidence of the Ortega-Murillo regime, whose responsibility is clearly established, but who continue under the shadows because up to now all the reflectors have aimed at the head of the dictatorial couple who centralize the orders.
“They are operators and are less publicly visible because of that centralization of the decisions that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo make. They are people who no one sees. And if you cannot clearly see anyone, it is pretty difficult for you to hold them responsible. But the fact that people are not pointing them out, does not mean that they do not have responsibilities, maybe they have more responsibilities,” stated Elvira Cuadra, a security expert.
At the top of the line of repression is Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua. He is the supreme head of the Army and the Police of Nicaragua. In 2018 he ordered the deputies of the National Assembly to approve a reform of Social Security that led to citizen protests. Even though days after he revoked the proposed bill, he did not avoid the rebellion of April in the streets, enraged by the devastating order of “we are going with everything” which unleashed brutal and unprecedented state violence against citizens.
Ortega is the principal person responsible for the behavior of the Police, not just because the Law says so, but because he has not done anything to stop the police attacks on the protestors. In contrast, according to human rights organizations, he has encouraged the persecution of the other branches of the State, like the Supreme Court. In Nicaragua not a leaf moves without Ortega agreeing to it. He makes a duo with his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, who also has a direct chain of command, who is described as more “visceral” by her detractors.
Murillo is the Vice President of Nicaragua. She is the person who directs power of the operational aspects of the most important institutions of the government, like Police, municipal governments, Ministry of Health, National Assembly and especially party structures like the Sandinista Youth. She is responsible for the communications of the regime and keeps an iron grip on party policies. To have such control the presidential couple demolished the national institutional structure, a systematic work carried out since they returned to power in 2006.
In April 2018 Murillo ordered the political secretaries of the public institutions to take emblematic points of Managua to take over spaces that protestors had taken to protest over the social security reforms. After the “we are going with everything…we are not going to let them steal the revolution from us,” appeared the first deaths of April.
In order to identify the intellectual authors, DIVERGENTES spoke with security experts, analyzed national and international human rights reports, and gathered information from published reports of independent communications media, to put together the organizational chart of who ordered and executed the April massacre.
#1 Fidel Moreno:
He is the general secretary of the municipality of Managua. Person of trust of Daniel Ortega, and above all of Rosario Murillo. He was responsible for transmitting the order of “we are going with everything” from Rosario Murillo to the political operators of the Sandinista Party in the Japanese Park in April 2018.
He directed the acts of violence committed by the Sandinista Youth and governmental armed groups who were implicated in several human rights abuses related to the protests against the government.
Morena has been personally implicated in attacks against demonstrators since 2013. He has been accused of taking large sums of money from municipal projects of Managua, as well as using municipal funds to pay for activities of the Sandinista Front.
#2 Francisco Díaz:
He is the chief of the National Police, also an in-law of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. He was responsible for directing the police repression against demonstrators of the civic rebellion, as well as the extrajudicial executions reported by human rights organizations. Días justified the repression perpetrated against Nicaraguan demonstrators and stated to a Norwegian media that officers of the institution operated jointly with voluntary police. “They were duly legalized. They participated as our legal norms allow, not as the Nicaraguan right said. They were our police, professionals,” he justified.
Adolfo Joel Marenco Corea:
Assistant Director of the National Police, chief of Police Investigation and Political Intelligence in the institution under question. Person of trust of Rosario Murillo and Néstor Moncada Lau, who is the principal advisor of the regime and whose operation he carries out under a low profile. He has access to all the information of public institutions. During the political crisis he did intelligence on the leaders who emerged in the demonstrations and protests. His men worked on infiltrating agents of their trust and subordination, and all that information was key to carrying out the clean-up operations of the barricades in July 2018.
The secret captures and abductions in 2018 and 2019 were carried out by personnel of the specialty of intelligence that Marenco directs. The tasks of his subordinates were “planting drugs or weapons” on people who they wanted to capture, according to testimony from political prisoners.
Ramón Avellán:
General Assistant Director of the National Police. He was one of the most important operators of the regime during the April 2018 protests. He applied repressive measures against the population, carried out arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions, and disappearances of demonstrators. Avellán led in the field “Operation Clean-up” to dismantle the barricades built by the demonstrators in Masaya and Monimbó. He was responsible for the Police offers and paramilitary.
Jaime Vanegas:
He is the Inspector General of the National Police. During 2018 and 2019 he was responsible for the legal area of the Police. His role was offering the official communications media the “arguments” that the Police needed to prohibit marches and to capture demonstrators who were opposed to the Government.
Justo Pastor Urbina:
General Commissioner responsible for the Special Operations Division of the Police who played a central role in the repression throughout the country. He was the one who gave the order to the anti-riot police to intensify police brutality in 2018. Apart from shooting military rifles, the anti-riot police acted in a coordinated fashion with the paramilitary groups. These special forces coordinated by Pastor Urbina entered the city of Masaya with assault rifles.
Luis Alberto Pérez Olivas:
Chief of the Office of Judicial Support (DAJ) of the Police and responsible for “El Chipote”, a prison known for abusive practices where serious abuses against human rights were recorded according to Human Rights organizations., The demonstrators who were detained in this jail have denounced torture, rape, electrocution, being cut with barbed wire, strangulations and beatings with metal pipes.
He was responsible for presenting the demonstrators who the Police arrested and who were charged with terrorism for conspiring against the Ortega regime. During his press conferences he has listed the evidence and explained to official media the crimes that supposedly the opponents have committed. Currently he is responsible for hunting down opponents and presidential candidates.
Juan Valle Valle
He is the Chief of the Department of Surveillance and Patrols of the Police. He is responsible for systematically restricting freedom of movement and expression of Nicaraguan residents of Managua.
Fidel Domínguez
Provincial Chief of Police of León. He directed several attacks against citizens and journalists. According to national and international human rights reports, (CENIDH and IACHR), Domínguez was also involved in the torture and beatings of the former opposition deputy, José Pallais, and three members of the Alonso family, known opponents of the Ortega regime in that city.
#3 Néstor Moncada Lau
He is the national security advisor for Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. He is an experienced former official of State Security of the Ministry of the Interior, with strong ties of loyalty to the presidential couple. Moncada made payments to counteract the demonstrators in the name of the presidential couple. Through his different intelligence functions, he worked to bribe and blackmail people to get their support or prevent their opposition to the regime.
#4 Orlando Castillo
He was the Director of the Nicaraguan Institute for Telecommunications and Mail, (TELCOR), and died in 2019 of COVID-19. According to the Department of the Treasury, the Institution was used by Castillo to silence independent communications media during the rebellion of April, He censored the channel 100% Noticias and forced Channel 12 to take off the air the programs Esta Semana and Esta Noche, directed by the journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro.
#5 Gustavo Porras
He is the president of the National Assembly. From the legislature he promoted significant actions or policies that undermined democratic processes or institutions in Nicaragua. Porras is one of the highest-ranking political operators of president Ortega and exercises significant control over the Nicaraguan Institute for Social Security (INSS) and the Ministry of Health (MINSA), with the approval of Murillo. He was seen in April 2018 along with Roberto López in Estelí coordinating military troops.
#6 Sonia Castro
Advisor on health issues for the ruling couple. She was the Minister of Health during 2018. She gave the order to not provide medical attention to the victims of the repression that worsened the wounds and even caused the death of several demonstrators. Staff of MINSA, directed by Castro, had the order to denounce demonstrators admitted in the hospitals so the paramilitaries could take them away. This gave rise to forced disappearances. Castro threatened health workers, firing hundreds of medical staff who treated demonstrators.
#7 Oscar Mojica Obregón
He is a retired Major General of the Army and minister of Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI). On national television, Mojica promoted the strategy of exile, jail, or death from the regime of Ortega to silence the opposition, a policy that left more than 325 people dead, thousands of people wounded and dozens of thousands of people jailed, in exile or internally displaced. In addition, Mojica administers an important part of the official and personal finances of President Ortega and Vice President Murillo, including investments in coffee fields and hotel establishments.
#8 Roberto López
Director of the Nicaraguan Institute for Social Security (INSS). According to the US State Department, he has been responsible for transactions that involve deceitful or corrupt practices in the name of the Government of Nicaragua, like the inappropriate appropriation of public assets or the expropriation of private assets for personal benefit or political purposes, corruption related to government contracts or bribes. He was seen in April 2018 alongside Gustavo Porras in Estelí coordinating military soldiers.
#9 Julio César Avilés
Commander in Chief of the Army of Nicaragua. The Treasury Department has pointed him out for being politically aligned with President Ortega. Avilés refused to order the dismantling of the paramilitary forces during and after the political uprisings that started on April 18, 2018. The soldiers commanded by Avilés provided arms to the paramilitaries and carried out acts of violence against the Nicaraguan people, according to the United States and human rights organizations.
#10 Iván Acosta
Minister of the Treasury and Public Credit. He was the person who organized the important financial support for the Ortega regime. Acosta personally threatened the banks to not participate in a strike organized by the opposition leaders in March 2019, whose objective was to promote the liberation of political prisoners.
#11 Wálmaro Gutiérrez Mercado
He is a deputy of the National Assembly and president of the Production, Economy and Budget Commission. He publicly supported the controversial Foreign Agents Law, which specifies that people and entities in Nicaragua who receive foreign funds should register and present detailed monthly reports to the Ministry of the Interior. This law, which includes fines and other legal sanctions for lack of compliance, probably will be invoked to attack key people or organizations which the government considers to be a threat. The law also affects those who implement humanitarian and democratic programs in the country.
#12 Ana Julia Guido
She is the Attorney General of the Republic. She helped form a group of prosecutors who worked with the National Police to fabricate cases against political prisoners. In addition, Guido created a specialized unit that has dedicated itself in the last two years to presenting accusations against peaceful demonstrators. The judicial system was zealous in opening judicial processes against 802 political prisoners, mostly accused of “terrorism”. Of the 802 people processed, 354 were found guilty. While 448 had legal cases opened that did not conclude in sentences. In Nicaragua there were at least 341 deaths between April 19, 2018 and July 2019. Most of the deaths were recorded in the context of the social protests of 2018 due to state violence. And investigative processes were only opened to do justice for 22 people. All Sandinista supporters. Currently the regime has more than 120 political prisoners.
#13 Rafael Solís
He was a magistrate of the Supreme Court. He resigned from his post in 2019. He confessed in 2021 that he saw legal cases of demonstrators who were accused of crimes that they had not committed. He explained that Ortega and Murillo asked him to look at the cases specifically to find them guilty. “I told them that I was going to call the judge on the phone and call them to my office,” he stated. Solís resigned his post in the Judicial Branch and went into exile in Costa Rica since then.
#14 Paul Oquist Kelley
He died in 2021. He was the secretary of the Presidency. He played a central role in the cover-up and justification of the crimes and human rights violations of the regime in large international forums.
#15 Milton Ruiz
He is the national coordinator of the Sandinista Youth. He was responsible for organizing and calling on the National Youth Council in May 28, 2018 to take to the streets on May 30th. His order was to activate the mobs to accompany an official march and counteract the “mother of all marches”, which the mothers of the first victims of the dictatorship had organized on Mother´s Day.
#16 Provincial Political Secretaries
They were called on by the party leadership to transfer orders to the Sandinista supporters grouped together in the Citizen Power Councils (CPC), Sandinista Leadership Councils (CLS), shock troops and paramilitary groups.