By IWU-FI
14 February 2022. Outrageous. Repulsive. No words can hold all the hatred for the criminal liability of the infamous dictator Daniel Ortega for the death of Hugo Torres, former commander of the 1979 revolution.
The Sandinista hero died on 12 February, aged 73, after over two months in which the dictatorship kept hidden his physical whereabouts and health condition. Hugo Torres whereabouts in El Chipote prison had been unknown since mid-December.
They had detained Torres since June 2021, along with hundreds of political prisoners who claimed to be opponents of the Daniel Ortega-Rosa Murillo dictatorship. He was seriously ill.
In Nicaragua, Hugo Torres was one hero of the popular revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza on 19 July 1979. They imprisoned him falsely accusing him of being “a traitor to the country” for his political opposition to the Ortega regime.
In 1974, Hugo Torres risked his life commanding an operation to free a group of political prisoners of the Somoza dictatorship, among them Daniel Ortega. During the revolution, we knew him as “commander one”. He also took part in the famous seizure of the National Palace in 1978, together with Eden Pastora (“commander zero”) and Dora Tellez.
In the 1980s, he was decorated and appointed brigadier general in the Nicaraguan Army, from which he retired in 1998. After leaving the FSLN, he was vice-president of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) and was currently vice-president of the Renewing Democratic Union (UNAMOS), a political organisation containing several former Sandinista leaders and other social opposition forces.
We hold the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship responsible for the death of former Sandinista comandante Hugo Torres. This new crime cannot go unpunished. The entire world must repudiate what has happened and demand justice and freedom for all political prisoners in Nicaragua.
Political prisoners and various human rights, feminist and leftist organisations have been denouncing the systematic confinement in isolation and medical neglect for long periods, which makes up torture. This is how Hugo Torres was led to his death.
Under the same accusation as Hugo Torres, “traitor to the country” and “sedition”, Dora Tellez, another former commander of the revolution, has just been sentenced to 15 years in prison, and the young fighter Yader Parajon, among others, to 10 years. Under the same conditions, they will try Victor Hugo Tinoco, also a former commander of the revolution, among others.
From the IWU-FI, we demand the immediate release of all those imprisoned for political reasons. Opposing the violation of democratic freedoms by the bourgeois dictatorship of Ortega and Murillo is not a crime, it is the duty of all Nicaraguan working people. We call on all the left, socialist, democratic militancy of Latin America and the world to reject the judicial farces in front of the embassies and consulates of the Ortega dictatorship. Let us demand the breaking of diplomatic relations with the dictatorship and let us organise international solidarity with the exploited people of Nicaragua.
Freedom now for Dora Maria Tellez, Victor Hugo Tinoco, Ana Margarita Vijil, Yader Parajon, Lester Aleman, Muhamar Vado and all those imprisoned and tortured for dissenting from the dictatorship!
