The parable of Chino Enoc, the paramilitary and youtuber who defended Daniel Ortega and was exiled by the dictator

Among the 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners who arrived in exile in the United States on Thursday are various characters very different in the group. One of them is Roberto Larios MelendezSandinista activist, journalist and lawyer, who since 2010 has worked as spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Justice and he emerged as a staunch defender of the regime, until his disgrace last May when he was imprisoned with the same opponents he castigated.

Another, and most famous, is Marlon Saenz Cruz, aka “The Chinese Enoch”, He is a well-known character in Nicaragua. ex-guerrilla. historical sandinista. Attorney. Retirement. Youtuber. Paramilitary. Political prisoner. In April 2022, he admitted in a newspaper interview The press that he was one of thousands of men who armed Daniel Ortega’s regime to dismantle fire the barricades erected during citizen demonstrations demanding the resignation of the dictator in 2018.

On May 18 last year, El Chino Enoc was sent to a disciplinary cell in the so-called prison The Chipote, as well as some 40 opposition leaders and regime critics whom he also persecuted years ago as enemies. His disgrace was determined by the strong criticism he made against Rosario Murillowhile defending Daniel Ortega.

This character was accused and convicted for “illegal transportation of narcotics, psychotropics and other controlled substances; unlawful carrying or possession of fire arms o Ammunition and the manufacture, trafficking, possession and use of restricted weaponssubstance or explosive devices”.

“Now yes, after being arrested, I think yes it is (a dictatorship)“El Chino Enoc told the newspaper. The pressafter arriving at Westin Hotel, Virginia when asked if he considered Daniel Ortega’s regime a dictatorship.

Roberto Larios has avoided making statements to journalists who approach him.

The arrest of alias El Chino Enoc took place on the morning of May 18or 2022, after months of siege and a month of police siege of his home. “It keeps me at home in jail,” he complained through his daily videos posted on social media.

A few days earlier, on April 7 of that year, he had revealed what he considered a plan to assassinate him. “It’s urgent, it’s urgent. My life is in danger! They have just given signs that the threats they have made for a long time against my physical integrity are not lies. They have just given the signal that this is not wrong that they intend to attempt my life”, he denounced.

According to Sáenz, a man visited him at his home in the northern town of Condega, to come up with a plan to overthrow Daniel Ortega. Was a traphe said, and as he investigated his intelligence sources, the man was a hitman with a mission to assassinate him, His name is Roberto Calderón, he is a Honduran national, nicknamed “El Chote”, has ties to organized crime and acts as a police intelligence officer in Nicaragua and Honduras.

He blamed the plan for the murder Rosario Murillo, wife of Daniel Ortega and second in the hierarchy of the Nicaraguan dictatorship. “Supposedly they’re going to kill me because I reported the man and they’re going to say he went to Honduras. But I assure you that if that happens, the story of Rosario (Murillo) has reached that point, because they will realize that it is murderousIf that happens, Rosario is a murderer. And a few police chiefs. If that happens, the police will be involved by Rosario,” Sáenz charged.

Chinese Enoch, declares himself an admirer of Che Guevara and Daniel Ortega. He began to fall out of favor when his criticisms were aimed at Rosario Murillo, whom he accuses of leading Ortega and demoralize to the ruling party sandinista front to which he belongs

He also accuses Murillo of excluding the old Sandinista guard, to strengthen his personal power project with young and manageable people he calls “the chayotal”, in allusion to the hypocoristic “Chayo” with which Rosario is called in Nicaragua. “Rosario weeds out those of us who can actually take on the gringos. For me, he has personal aspirations. That’s all,” he said in the interview he did with him. The press.

Marlon Gerardo Cruz Sáenz, 63, is a character rooted in the 70s. Antes de su detención, vestía generally una boina a lo Che Guevara, algunas veces portaba militar uniform, llevaba siempre una pañoleta rojinegra, como la bandera sandinista, en el cuello y se le llama todavía por el alias que usó en el clandestinaje hace más de 40 years.

He joined the Sandinista guerrilla when he was 16, in 1976 and in the eighties, he served the revolution in state security, the spy organ and political control of the regime, led with an iron fist by Sandinista commanders Lenin Cerna and Tomás Borge.

After the Sandinista Front lost power in 1990, like many of his comrades in arms, he studied law and became a lawyer. afflicted by diseaseslived with his family in Condega, a small town 180 kilometers north of Managua.

But Chino Enoc became popular not for his adventures as a guerrilla or for his performance in state security, but for his rudimentary knowledge. videos which he broadcast almost daily in a nasal voice through social networks. Sáenz’s videos were harshly critical of the leadership of the Sandinista regime and party, especially Rosario Murillo’s performance. He was the only critical voice within the Sandinista Front, a party in which it is taboo to criticize the leaders.

“Don’t be confused, I am not an adversaryI am a Sandinista,” he said.

Marlos Saénz belongs to the Old Sandinista Guard, which is officially called “historical sandinistas”. “Historical Sandinism is called all those Sandinistas who come from the guerrilla against Somoza or who participated in the war of the 80s, both in the army and in the Ministry of the Interior, also in the political structures and state or government, many of them with military or honorary degrees. The majority have been on Daniel Ortega’s side,” he explained to GlobeLiveMedia retired Nicaraguan Army Major Roberto Samcam.

East old guard he was relegated by Rosario Murillo after Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007. However, when the 2018 protests overwhelmed the response capacity of the police and Sandinista shock groups, Ortega called on those ex-guerrillasmany of whom are elderly, but with military experience, to inflate the paramilitary army who, with the weapons of war and the support of the police, carried out the so-called “cleansing operation” to dismantle the barricades which had almost paralyzed the country.

“We don’t let ourselves be used. We were aware. We have spent nearly three months telling you, Commander, place the order with us and we descachimbamos (disturbed). We asked them ourselves, they didn’t use us,” El Chino Enoc confessed in an interview with La Prensa newspaper.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), 355 people were killed during these days of protest and repression, mostly during the execution of Cleaning operation.

“Not all of them carried weapons,” Sáenz explained. “And those who did not all carry weapons of war. a famous photo, The one where I got a gun, that’s a shotgun 16. Most people carried shotguns. There were 40% of young people with the old. There were cripples, paunches, couldn’t even run, the only thing with experience.

The old Sandinista guard began to be relegated again last year. A memo signed on March 28, 2022 by Leopoldo Rivas Alfaro, National Coordinator of Attention to “Historical Sandinism”, orders the “deactivation” structures of the old guard.

“He historical sandinism claimed the place they had in the 1980s: place of leadership, positions in government, command, management of resources, but Rosario did not consider them, because she had in her plans the creation of a juvenile phalanx that he could control it perfectly where there were no old people,” says retired Roberto Samcam.

El Chino Enoc reacted unhappy with the memorandum and ignored the order. “Even Daniel Ortega cannot deactivate historical Sandinism,” he said.

Thus he was besieged, chase as the same opponents whom, ironically, he persecuted, and held. At the moment, he shares a hotel with the Nicaraguan opponents in exile, frequented by the one who called until recently “American Imperialism”.

“UNITED STATES He intensified his activity against us, because all this responds to an American plan,” he said in an interview with La Prensa shortly before his arrest. “Who is the enemy? The same empire. Apart from the military, what did they do to us in the 80s? Economic embargo, economic sanctions, economic isolation. Isn’t that the same thing you’re doing now? They have cut off the commercial relations of such and such companies, of such and such, of officials. they make you whole economic boycottisolation, it’s the same thing they did to us”.

When the journalists they ask him if it is not a contradiction that he has decided to take a plane towards the country which previously considered his enemyhe answers: “I always make a distinction, one thing is the country and another is the government. I am now in the United States”.

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