War around Daniel Ortega: the Sandinista old guard faces the mighty Rosario Murillo

“It's urgent, it's urgent. My life is in danger!” The one who alerts about his life through a video spread on social networks on the eve of Easter is a 62-year-old man, with a red-black scarf around his neck that identifies him as “Sandinista. “They have just given signs that the threats they have been making to my physical integrity for a long time are not lies. They have just given a sign that it is not false that they intend to attempt on my life,” he denounced.

Marlon Sáenz, known by the alias “Chino Enoch”, is a former guerrilla who during the years of the Sandinista revolution served in State Security and who in 2018 was called by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to join a paramilitary army aimed at suppressing the people who were part of it with firearms of one of Nicaragua's most famous citizen rebellions. The result of that repression was at least 330 people killed, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Saenz's fear is not against opponents who wanted revenge but against the very regime he served. “If they kill me, it comes from our government,” he warns from the video and points to one person behind the plan to assassinate him: Rosario Murillo.

The denunciation of the former guerrilla, a declared admirer of Daniel Ortega, is part of the confrontation between the old Sandinista guard, the so-called “historical Sandinistas”, against Rosario Murillo, whom they blame for many of the regime's mistakes.

“Historic Sandinismo is called all those Sandinistas who came from the guerrillas against Somoza or who were in the 1980s war, both in the Army and in the Ministry of the Interior, also in the political structures and the state or government, many of them with military or honorary degrees. Most have been by Daniel Ortega's side,” explains the retired Nicaraguan Army major, Roberto Samcam.

“Obviously there is a crisis between historical Sandinismo and Rosario Murillo,” adds Samcam. “All of them see the Rosary as the obstacle to arise again and grab perks, benefits. This all comes down to pesos and cents. Here there is no problem of ideology, nor political, what there is here is a problem of money. The crisis is against Rosario Murillo, not against Daniel Ortega. They are totally subordinate to Daniel Ortega and would re-organize and kill if Daniel gives the order.”

The history of “historical Sandinismo” is one of comings and goings. After Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007, Rosario Murilo designed a plan to exclude the old Sandinista guard from political and government management in a party that has used to measure the importance of its members by participating in the country's wars. “All of them have more history than the Rosary (Murillo), they all emphasized that they were in the guerrilla columns and that the Rosary is also a character who did not win anyone's friendship,” says Samcam.

“Historic Sandinismo claimed the place they had in the 80s: a place of leadership, positions in government, command, management of resources, but Rosario did not contemplate them, because she had in her plans the creation of a juvenile phalanx that could control her perfectly where there were no old people,” she says.

Just look at the photographs and videos of the great regime celebrations to notice the absence of the old guard and the presence of young people perfectly aligned, uniformed, applauding, chanting slogans or singing according to the celebration script. These young people, from Sandinista Youth, universities, colleges and state institutions, were also members of the shock groups aimed at attacking opposition demonstrations. However, this structure was overtaken in 2018 by massive protests calling for Daniel Ortega's departure from power.

“Historic Sandinistas are displaced, except for those who were integrated into the shock forces,” Samcam explains. “When the April stalls are struck, they have to resort to them again; Rosario departs and Daniel Ortega gives the order directly to Eden Pastora, who is the one who organizes the structure of the paramilitary forces. They resort to the old guard, and organize the paramilitary force because it was the only way to remove the barricades (barricades) without entering the Army.”

Marlon Sáenz, Chino Enoch, acknowledged in an interview with the newspaper La Prensa his “conscious” participation in the paramilitary forces accused of murdering hundreds of young people who had set up barricades on streets and roads. “We don't let ourselves be used. We were aware. We spent almost three months telling you, Commander, give us the order and we break them down (we break them up). We asked them ourselves, they did not use us,” he said and assured that there were no more deaths because “there was even orientation to shoot upwards. If they had been operated militarily, truly, the massacina would have been greater, more than a thousand dead.”

The paramilitary army created after April is calculated by Chino Enoch at about 20 thousand people, of whom about three thousand could be “historic”. The latter are generally over 60 years of age. “Most people were carrying shotguns. There were 40% of young people along with the old ones. There were cripples, panzones, who couldn't even run, the only thing with experience,” explains Chino Enoch in the aforementioned interview.

The second wind that the “historic Sandinistas” took hinders Murillo's plans to control the ruling Sandinista party even after Daniel Ortega, and a memorandum signed on March 28 by Leopoldo Rivas Alfaro, national coordinator for attention to “historical Sandinismo”, was recently leaked, which ordered the “deactivation” of the structures of the old guard.

Rivas Alfaro's memorandum highlighted the struggle between the old guard and Rosario Murillo. Chino Enoch, a well-known Sandinista youtuber publicly called for Murillo's resignation, other structures denounced the impediments to leaving the country and, on Saturday, April 2, Sandinista militant Sandinista Sandinista Sandinista Sandínez denounced that police prevented the holding of a meeting of “historic Sandinistas” at her home in Managua.

“The letter signed by Leopoldo Rivas shows that there is a hierarchy,” says security expert Elvira Cuadra, who confirms a paramilitary structure as defined by theory. “Paramilitaries are defined by the characteristics of the group, the type of actions they carry out, the type of resources they have at their disposal, that they do have a structure, or as they say in military terms, a chain of command, and one of the most important factors is whether it is promoted or has some kind of link with the government.”

Cuadra, while recognizing that there are “possibilities of a crisis” between the regime and this paramilitary structure, attributes the recent conflicts to “an enlargement” that Rosario Murillo is carrying out over the control of the government and party apparatus. “There is a new reconfiguration of these groups, they are being cleansed, especially of dissatisfied people, people who are very loyal to icons, to the revolution and who are not so loyal to Rosario Murillo, and they are staying with the most loyal, especially young people.”

For Samcam, the faithful of the balance in any crisis is represented by the Army that until now has remained loyal to Daniel Ortega. “If the Army leans to one side, it's going to tip the scales,” he says. “We should see what will happen once Daniel (Ortega) dies, if people are going to accept the Rosary (Murillo). She will be able to stay as long as she has control of the State, the resources, the budget. That is what rules, and as long as it has a strong structure it will be preserved, but that is still long”.

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