This interview is very significant as Rafael Solís was very close to Ortega and Murillo, was a magistrate the Supreme Court and played an important role at different key moments in Ortega´s path to becoming a dictator. He resigned and left the country over the violence unleashed by the regime against the civilian population. Recently his 93 year old mother’s house and hotel were confiscated by the regime.
Rafael Solís: “Inevitably it is going to require an armed struggle”
In La Prensa, June 2, 2024
This interview was done before the mother and son of the former judicial magistrate were besieged by the Police. Solís assumes his responsibility for the construction of the dictatorship and believes that to remove Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo from power “is going to require an armed struggle.”
When Rafael Solís accepted doing this interview in the middle of the week, he said that he would do it because the regime of Daniel Ortega no longer had anything more to take away from him after several of his properties were confiscated by the dictatorship. Nevertheless, after offering statements to other communications media, the Police besieged the home of his mother and son, as he himself confirmed to La Prensa.
Rafael Solís assumed his post as a magistrate in the Supreme Court in 1999, and at that time said that he came to defend the interests of the Sandinista Front. He was a negotiator of the Pact, advised Daniel Ortega in his defense over the case of the sexual abuse of Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, and was the artifice of the ruling that allowed the unconstitutional reelection of the dictator in 2011.
After 19 years in the judicial branch, Rafael Solís Cerda surprised everyone with his resignation through a letter dated January 2019 where he pointed out that his old friend, Daniel Ortega, had installed a dictatorship and a “State of terror.”
In this interview with DOMINGO he assumes his responsibility for the regime which exists today in the country. The same regime which stripped him of his nationality and confiscated his properties and those of his family.
He remains exiled at 70 years of age, and his stooped gait reveals the three surgeries he has had since 2018 for hernias in his spinal column. There is no sign of the paunch that he had at one time when he was a magistrate. Since he arrived in Costa Rica in 2019, he has lost more than 80 pounds. He is afraid of dying, he confesses, but not necessarily a natural death, but from an attack which they could carry out against him.
In this long interview, Solís talks about the closeness he had with Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. He also talks to us about the wedding of the dictatorial couple, about the reasons to negotiate the Pact, in addition to the case of Zoilamérica about which he says, “there are a series of circumstances which could be incriminatory” for Ortega.
He brags about knowing Ortega and Murillo well, and that is why he states that they will not leave power unless it is through the use of arms. “They are going to die with their boots on,” he insists.
“Rosario at this point has as much or more power than the president,” he believes and according to his analysis, is winning the game on Daniel Ortega and the Army is beginning to be subordinated to her.
How are you doing now with more than five years in exile?
It is five and a half. I came here in January 2019 and now have made my life in Costa Rica in some form. I had a lot of family here. Brothers, sisters, relatives and they have received me with a lot of love.
How are you supporting yourself?
I have been working on legal matters, more than anything advising. I have not been able to exercise the profession because of my age. When I arrived I was 66 years old. I have served as a bridge between the different opposition groups that exist here. I have not joined any party, but I have had a good relationship with most of them, on friendly terms and seeing how things are going in Nicaragua.
How is the figure of Rafael Solís seen among dissidents? Not so long ago you were part of the regime.
I have been able to forge friendships with Sandinistas and some who were not Sandinistas. Liberals, Conservatives, Social Christians, even the business sector. At least we have been able to sit down to talk. In time a more concrete, stronger unity will have to be sought, maybe with the other group which is in the United States. That group which Dennis Martinez presides is large. There are always extreme people who shoot hard at us and at one another. At me, for having been a Sandinista, at others for having been Somocistas. These are issues of immaturity which should not be happening. We need to be all moving forward toward a common front, or in two large blocks which would be able to project that we are close to achieving unity, and what many of us believe should be the way of overthrowing the dictatorship, which is not the way of dialogue or negotiation.
If it is not negotiation, how should it be?
That surgical operation that Humberto talked about, sincerely I do not see it. It is not going to happen in a Democratic government, and with the Republicans you would have to wait to see whether [it might happen] in 2025, but I do not believe that they are going to get involved in that. Nor is it an option that I like because we need to solve the problems of us Nicaraguans, even though we might be able to receive support from other countries, but it is not that we are going to give the work and the task of Nicaraguans to the United States. I am not in favor of intervention, and I believe that, since the civil wars of the XIX century, the intervention of William Walker and the marines, it has not been the best for the country. Another thing is that they help us Nicaraguans throw them out.
You are talking about the fact that the option for throwing Ortega out would be to take up arms then?
Inevitably it is going to require the armed struggle. A civil and peaceful fall of the regime, for me, Rafael Solís, who knows them well, I do not see under any circumstance. They are not going to give up power electorally, nor by international pressure. By peaceful means, if the people take to the streets without resources, there will be more deaths, much more terror.
Can Nicaragua take another war?
Nor am I saying that it is going to be a big war. There is no need to return to the times of the long guerilla wars that lasted several years, but yes, there is a need for people in the streets with a minimal amount of support, even military, weapons, munitions and economic resources, so that the young people who are there, as well as the older people here who should in time return to Nicaragua and participate there with them, we might have the possibility of forming a front which could be able to weaken the Army and the Police and make them think about the possibilities of division, or getting to situations in which the control of the municipality is able to be taken over and then with that you establish a beachhead and you can ask for international support.
In Nicaragua there has not been a civic fall [of a government] other than the one of 1990. From there all the rest, from William Walker, since my great grandfather who was Manuel Antonio de la Cerda, all have been the product of violence, which is something that we Nicaraguans carry in us. It is important to be creating the conditions and be moving in that direction, otherwise we are going to have a dictatorship here for some time, and we will die here in exile.
Precisely for that reason, don´t you think instead that this is the time to not repeat history and do things peacefully?
Once we do it, yes. Then you must abolish the Army and abolish reelection.
Are you willing to take up arms to fight Ortega?
Of course.
Even at your age and with your illnesses?
Even at my age and I say it without bragging. Of course, there would have to be the conditions for that to happen. If it requires my presence, I will go and enter clandestinely. If I took that risk being clandestine for 11 months at the age of 21, now that I am 70 and on my way out, well, let happen what will happen. We have to set the example. It has to be a combination between young people and older people. Regardless of the fact that youth might have more strength, more force, but there are many of us of the historic leaders of the Front who can still do something. At a certain moment there is going to have to be this type of violence because those two, and even she alone, are not going to even think about leaving power. You have to throw them out like all dictatorial governments have been thrown out in Nicaragua.
Rafael Solís deserted from the regime of Daniel Ortega and went into exile a little more than five years ago.
Do you believe that Rosario Murillo will be his successor?
I have no doubt. If Daniel dies before 2026, Rosario will finish his period and will remain until 2031, and then they will go with Laureano [their son] until 2036. I am sure of this.
Will the Army be subordinate to Rosario Murillo?
She is in that process. When I came here the Judicial Branch and the Army were left in the hands of the commandante (Daniel Ortega). The legislative branch Rosario already ran with Gustavo Porras, a hundred percent of the electoral branch, a hundred percent of the Police were with her. Political secretaries, everyone, and every one of the municipal governments. Autonomous entities, the Sandinista Youth, the Party. Daniel had still been running the judicial branch and had a relationship with me, but at this point for me, the judicial branch now Rosario is running. The Army gives me the impression that it is a process in which she has been advancing, but with the intelligence of Rosario, and that fact that she knows that a Sandinism without Daniel Ortega can happen, and without his support, Rosario has to be seeking the consolidation of the Army around herself.
There is a weeding out of personnel happening in the Supreme Court, why do you think this is happening?
This started around the excessive jealousy of Rosario Murillo with the president of the Court [Alba Luz Ramos] who always has been closer to Daniel Ortega and a little more independent of Rosario. Perhaps there was something there that they were able to find out about conversations or comments of Alba Luz and they decided to completely remove, not just her, but all those who worked with her. There were more than 900 people fired in the Court and some of them without receiving their severance pay.
How true is it that Alba Luz Ramos on more than one occasion submitted her resignation to Daniel Ortega?
It is true. His decision was that she should wait and he did not accept it.
Why did Alba Luz Ramos want to resign?
Because she had a very limited presidency [of the Supreme Court]. Her counterpart in political matters was Marvin (Aguilar) and the relationship between them was very bad, in contrast to my relationship when I was the political secretary, we got along very well because we were at the same level. They were always blocking her on many decisions and also because of the years they were there. They were 35 years in the judicial branch. Maybe the oldest woman magistrate in Latin America. Not for substantive reasons, like she had become anti-Sandinista, I do not see Alba Luz in that plan.
Did you use to communicate with her after you left the Court?
Directly no, indirectly yes. Alba Luz never expressed anything bad about me and the truth is that neither she nor I participated in the operations which happened in 2018. Rather, we kept the judicial branch out of the paramilitary and Police operations. We wanted the judicial branch to have a different profile, regardless of the fact that some members of the judicial branch might have participated on their own personally.
But from the judicial branch a ton of people were indicted and processed who only went out to protest.
Yes. They were in the courts, at the first level, but neither Alba Luz nor I made statements about that, but yes there were some trials which were beginning around July and August of 2018, but there was no persecution from us in the judicial branch, rather it was coming from the Attorney General and the Police. And it is true, the judicial branch at that time was pretty subordinate to the Executive, the president and the vice president since before 2018.
Regarding reelection, how much responsibility do you assume in the construction of the dictatorship which exists today in Nicaragua?
I assume responsibility for the reelection for the period from 2012 to 2017. It was a ruling that declared inapplicable the article of the Constitution which prohibited reelection. I assume the historic responsibility.
How was that ruling hatched? It was known that it was a secret meeting without the liberal magistrates.
The fact is that there were two rulings. The one from the Constitutional Chamber first, and then from the full Court. In both rulings there were liberals who collaborated. Since there already was the pact of Arnoldo Alemán with Daniel, and that pact allowed Arnoldo to get out of jail, there were liberals in the Chamber as well as in the Court who signed it, there were others who did not. Dr. Cuarezma left. He did not sign it. There was another one who did not want to sign it. That was in the full Court, but in the Constitutional Chamber there we did have the possibility of get the ruling out by the majority. There was Dr. Rosales who presided it, Dr. Juárez, Dr. Pérez and there were the liberals Manuel Martínez and Carlos Aguerri who issued a separate opinion.
The ruling was specific that it was for the presidential reelection of the following period. When the Frente won the elections (of 2011), the Frente had more deputies in the National Assembly and there what they did was eliminate the article of the Constitution which prohibited reelection. The idea which Daniel sold us was that it was only one reelection.
Ortega told you that it was going to be for just one period?
For one period.
He deceived you?
I feel deceived. There was not a discussion around indefinite reelection. The reelection was for one period.
From what you say, reelection was a product of the Pact.
There was a high percentage, I do not want to say that it was 100%, but there was a high percentage.
You were an adviser to Ortega during the conversations around the Pact. Do you assume some responsibility also for that?
During the conversations there was a group of advisers to Ortega. We were some 10 or 15 who believed that the pact with Alemán had to be done. I was not active. I was not a deputy nor a magistrate. I was a lawyer who had retired, and they ordered me called in.
But in 1996 you were an alternate candidate to the Central American Parliament for the MRS. How did you appear back in the Sandinista Front with Ortega?
Exactly. I was not in the Sandinista Front nor in the different currents, but I had my legal firm. I agreed with being an alternate deputy and I kept exercising my profession (lawyer) and also a little fishing, because I also got involved in that, but always with good relations with the FSLN. So much so that they called me in time to be part of the group of advisers who worked on the constitutional reform around the Pact. When the Pact was signed and they decided to divide the branches of the State half and half. So yes, Daniel called me and he asked me if I have interest in being a magistrate. I was one of the magistrates who rose to the Supreme Court after the Pact became constitutional.
Why did you believe that it was important to sign the Pact?
It is not that I am justifying it, because there are things that one sees in one context and now I say, perhaps it would have been more healthy not to have political participation, but I believed that it was necessary for the economic situation and in some form, for the path which the government of Alemán was taking, I thought it was necessary that Sandinism would come back in power.
When you assumed your position as magistrate, you said that you were going to the Court to defend the interests of the Sandinista Front.
In some form I said that in public when I got to the Supreme Court and maintained that, but with everything implied by the indefinite reelection and the four periods which Ortega has had, I have and had my discrepancies and I maintain them. It seems to me that that was not the agreement nor the decision which had been made, and much less the power that Rosario Murillo was going to have, which no one saw coming.
How did you meet Daniel?
Here (in Costa Rica). I went to pick him up at the airport in 1977. He was in the north where there had been some small combat in San Fabián and Daniel came from Tegucigalpa to San José. Humberto (Ortega) was in San José studying at FLACSO and asked me to go to pick him up. He said to me, “Ask for Enrique.” That was his pseudonym, but once I saw him in Immigration, I knew that he was Daniel Ortega. We went to Humberto´s house and there the friendship began. With Rosario it also was pretty good, even with her character.
You were the sponsor for their wedding, but was that wedding real?
That wedding was real, but it was on paper, without registering or anything, and without Gaspar (García Laviana, priest and Sandinista guerrilla) having faculties, because Gaspar was not a priest incorporated in the Diocese of San José. He did it as a Spanish priest. They called me to be present and there was also one [witness] named Benavides who later died and Jacobo Marcos Frech who died some years ago.
What was that wedding like?
It was small. It was in their house. It was simple. There were few people. The truth is that it was in the style of those two. I think that there was a belief in God, because nor can I say that they have been atheists, but there was a belief and they called Fr. Gaspar to officiate. He said some words and then “I declare you husband and wife.” It was not done from a formal point of view. They would have had to have called a Costa Rican priest, nevertheless, they gave it the character of a wedding and they were already living as a couple.
What was the renovation of their vows like in 2006?
The only one living of the three witnesses was myself. The others had already died, and the second wedding was the one which Cardinal Obando officiated, it was a renovation of vows because they gave the first wedding a religious character. It was also small in the chapel of the UNICA and right there they did the civil ceremony with Dr. Estrada (Hernán Estada, former attorney general). Daniel and Rosario had asked me to do it, but as a magistrate I could not.
What was your relationship with them like in the 1980s?
I served as ambassador in Washington, then in the political leadership of the Army. I was in the Council of State representing the Army, and then I was in the National Assembly. Rosario in those years was more dedicated to cultural issues. The relationship of friendship continued.
With the electoral defeat you disconnected from the party, how did that leave your relationship with them?
Sincerely I never got to fighting with them. I always had a good relationship and the way they treated me was good. I cannot deny that. I know them well.
You were part of the defense team of Ortega for the Zoilamérica case. How did that happen?
I did not participate much. They went for the figure of the statute of limitations had passed, and the ruling that Judge Juan Méndez made was on that. The heart of the matter was not decided. I have seen Zoilamérica two or three times, and I told her it was a way to not rule on the heart of the matter in what was going to be a high-profile trial. It was declared to be proscribed and they closed it although there was evidence and her statements had weight, even though by the nature of the facts they are not situations which happen in front of witnesses. If they had made a different decision, maybe it would have been the end of Daniel Ortega. Or if Rosario would have supported her daughter.
If there would have been a trial, do you believe that Daniel Ortega could have been found guilty?
Those are questions difficult to respond to. Obviously as Zoilamérica has told me, there was violence and she was a minor, and there was a series of circumstances which could be incriminatory for him to end up with a conviction against him. Only if the entire process would have happened could one be able to say whether he was guilty or not.
What do you believe is going to be the end of Ortega and Murillo?
Here there are people who believe that in the end if that eventuality happens, an uprising of people in the streets, and if they get arms, that Daniel and Rosario are going to take a plane and leave. Those people are mistaken. Daniel Ortega and Rosario are going to die with their boots on. They are not going to be like Tacho [Somoza] who left for the United States. I see them there in El Carmen with all their people fighting.
Are you afraid for your life?
Of course. I had quit giving statements for three years for all my family which is there. Besides my mom who does not want to leave and her passport was left in the house which they took away from her. I do not believe that at the age of 93 they would do the barbarity of taking her to jail. That does not mean that they are not considering mounting military operations against some people. There are rumors that in some cases they have done it, like with that young man Joao Maldonado [shot two different occasions on the streets in Costa Rica]. It could be that after this interview they might think, “that SOB has to be killed because he is calling people to arms.”
They have people here. What would it cost one of them to stand in front of you and fire six shots off? But so far the most there have been are phone calls. That you are a traitor and things like that. The terms they use is that and more against those of us who come from Sandinism, but for me those who betrayed the revolution were they. The project was for a democratic revolution, not a revolution which culminated in a dynastic succession of a family nature.
