So went the training of thousands of “voluntary police” with which Ortega seeks to impose terror
In La Prensa, Feb 13, 2025
Reports and denouncements about the obligation of public workers to participate in military training began at the end of 2021.
The more than 26,000 “voluntary police” who have been sworn in throughout the country were prepared for at least three years in “training circuits”, where they were given military training, according to the testimony of people who deserted. The first recruitments were aimed at public workers, who were also required to register their sons over 18 years of age.
La Prensa confirmed this information with people who asked their identity not to be revealed, some of them outside the country after going into exile out of the fear that these trainings were a type of “secret obligatory military service.”
At the end of 2021 began the reports and denouncements about the enlistment of public workers from all ministries and state institutions, teachers in public schools, employees of the 153 Sandinista municipal governments of the country and the regional councils. Over time members of the Citizen Power Councils (CPC) and the Sandinista Youth (JS) were added.
Mayors, political secretaries, directors of institutions and other leaders of the Sandinista Front of National Liberation (FSLN), the governing party which the dictator Daniel Ortega leads, also participated. Likewise, the sons of the recruits had to participate in the training. One source stated that the son of Carlos Fonseca Terán, Carlos Manuel Fonseca López, 39 years old, also participated in these trainings.
Carlos Fonseca Terán is the son of the founder of the FSLN Carlos Fonseca Amador, who died in combat in 1976.
Currently Fonseca Terán is found separated from the circle of power of the dictator and it is known that since July 2024 is under house arrest for participating in a Whatsapp group where the situation of the country was addressed in a critical way. Within this context it became known that his son Fonseca López was fired from the Agency for the Promotion of Investments (PRONICARAGUA) where he had worked for at least 8 years.
Doctors did not participate
Doctors were the only ones who avoided participating under the argument that they have knowledge of survival, first aid and rescue techniques in emergency situations.
But for the rest of State workers, participating in the trainings was a tacit obligation, because a list was passed around for them to sign and to note down their adult sons. At that time cases became known of State workers who hid their sons, which resulted in a scolding from the organizers. Some also denied having older sons or lied about where they were.
Members of the JS and other youth recruited were told that their participation was voluntary, which made several desert without knowing the political consequences against them.
Training sites
The trainings were held on weekends in open spaces, close to the participants of each municipality or region. Some of these places were identified as property of the Army, where soldiers hold trainings with the terrain prepared with obstacles and difficulties to reinforce physical abilities.
In northern provinces they were taken to mountainous zones. One of the sources identified that they were in the Macuelizo mountain in Nueva Segovia, on the farm of a man named Castellano.
In Managua it was a camp in Villa El Carmen and in San Francisco Libre.
Some reported that they were taken to these places in military trucks, which do not have windows. One of the sources commented that they were able to know where they had been taken because they observed some details of the road through a hole for the rope which holds the canvas covering the back part of the truck, where all the recruits were placed.
“They got us off the truck with our eyes blindfolded, they made us walk more or less a kilometer, all of us hanging onto a rope, until we got to the place,” told a source.
The participants were prohibited from taking cell phones, they were only allowed to take a backpack with a change of clothes for the second day. At the entrance the backpacks and any other bag was thoroughly searched to ensure that no one had taken call phones or any recording apparatus.
Trainers
Some sources reported that the trainers were men dressed in civilian clothing, using generally a t-shirt and olive-green pants or jeans, generally with military style black boots, which made them think that many of them were military or police, but they did not identify themselves as such.
Others stated that they were trained by clearly identified police, but not police from their area.
The first day they offered a political talk on the defense of sovereignty, and they insisted to them that everyone had to be prepared from an invasion on the part of the United States.
They were also given physical training which not everyone endured. Even though they had them do warm up exercises and walks, later they had to do exhaustive physical work which the more adult men and women and overweight people were not able to endure, among them, jumping over obstacles, rope climbing, lifting heavy things, crawling through mud, running….
“They cussed at us, insulted the fat people who were left behind and even wanted to beat them,” said one of the sources.
There were women who fainted, people with hypertension problems who had a crisis, people left with headaches.
This situation made the coordinators recognize that not everyone could do these trainings, so there were female workers, the older ones, who only attended one or two weekends. The younger and apparently healthier ones were forced to complete the course.
Due to this the older people began to attend just once, while the youth were subjected to entire weeks of training.
On February 2024 the death was reported of the teacher Yamileth Bermúdez, 36 years of age, an adult education technician in Tola, a municipality of the province of Rivas. Extra officially it was made known that she died during these intense military exercises, even though the exact reason never came out. Her family believed that she had been at a work seminar. The cadaver of Bermúdez was delivered to her family by the political secretary of the province, Alejandro Vado and the Sandinista deputy for Rivas, Rodolfo Miguel Carballo López.
All types of weapons
They taught them how to dismantle and assemble AK rifles and Makarov pistols. They also gave them hand to hand training with knives or sharp weapons.
During 2022, 2023 and 2024 there were reports of these trainings throughout the country, according to an organization which did follow up on these events, but preferred to remain anonymous for the safety of their sources.
Those responsible for monitoring these recruitments estimate that the “courses” lasted at least three years, but not everyone was able to complete the trainings. It was also estimated that more than 200,000 people were trained throughout the country in that period.