23 de julio 2024
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A contingent of police officers captured veteran Sandinista, Jorge “El Cuervo (The Raven)” Guerrero, on Tuesday, July 16. He had been one of the members of Daniel Ortega's inner circle for more than four decades, two sources linked to the Sandinista Front party confirmed to CONFIDENCIAL.
Guerrero, 81 years old, was arrested to be investigated for the commission of unauthorized acts of corruption, as well as “land seizures and criminal acts”, which he carried out leading a group of about ten people who have also been arrested.
However, the sources revealed that due to the deterioration of Guerrero's health condition, the police transferred him to a hospital, which they did not identify, where he is in police custody.
Who is “El Cuervo” Guerrero?
Jorge “El Cuervo” Guerrero belongs to Daniel Ortega's loyal inner circle since they shared a cell with other prisoners of the Sandinista Front for five years under the Somoza dictatorship. Guerrero was released from prison in 1972, while Ortega was freed, along with 11 other prisoners, on December 27, 1974, by the guerrilla commando Juan José Quezada in the assault on the house of Chema Castillo.
The group of released prisoners became an “iron circle” around Daniel Ortega, including the deceased Carlos Guadamuz and Jacinto Suárez; also, Manuel Alí Rivas Vallecillo and Lenin Cerna, among others.
“They harassed us, they sanctioned us, they took away our food, they tormented us, but we never gave up,” Rivas Vallecillo recalled in an interview with pro-government media in 2019.
Years later, in the early morning of October 13, 1977, Jorge Guerrero, also known as “Emiliano”, participated in an operation that was preparing to attack the headquarters of the Somocista National Guard in Ocotal, in which the official propaganda points out Daniel Ortega as the leader, in his first and only combat action in the insurrection.
After the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, “El Cuervo” was an officer of the General Directorate of State Security (DGSE) of the now-resuscitated Ministry of the Interior (MINT).
He was also head of Ortega's personal security during the 1980s and accompanied him on all his national tours.
Subsequently, he was part of the National Police, where he became Deputy Director General. He retired from that institution as Deputy Commander.
Imprisoned in Connection with Drug Trafficking
In the 1990s Guerrero participated in several political campaigns for the Sandinista Front alongside Daniel Ortega, and also in illicit activities that landed him in jail.
On July 30, 1995, Guerrero traveled to Ometepe using a false identity with a person who was later recognized as Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, one of the Cali cartel's leading brothers who took on Pablo Escobar's cartel.
The drug trafficker was in Nicaragua and was taken out of the country to Colombia aboard a hijacked La Costeña plane, the Nicaraguan police reported at the time.
The body of the pilot of the aircraft, Andres Avelino Narvaez, was found shot in Zipaquira, Colombia on August 2 of that year. But another pilot of the plane, retired military officer Roberto Salvador Mayorga Martínez, was key when he testified to Colombian authorities that one of the hijackers was Rodríguez Orejuela.
Mayorga Martinez identified “El Cuervo” and Colombian Marcos Antonio Rodriguez, who lived in Nicaragua and was registered as Guatemalan, as the intellectual authors of the kidnapping. Rodriguez had been a member of the Colombian guerrilla group M-19, with which the FSLN had collaborated in the 1980s.
Narco-trafficking! headlined the media at the time, in an obscure case that remained in the shadows, but revealed the link between the FSLN, headed by Daniel Ortega's political protégé Guerrero, and the Cali cartel.
According to a publication in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo in October 1995, Guerrero was arrested in September of that year. “But a judge set him free because he considered that there was no credible evidence in the case of the hijacking of the small plane, as the authorities reported on that occasion.”
Decorated by the Police
In 2007, “El Cuervo” was a pre-candidate for mayor of Managua together with the then deputy Agustín Jarquín Anaya. Although he was not elected, at that time, he confirmed to La Prensa that he maintained excellent relations with the FSLN's Secretary of Organization, Lenín Cerna, of whom he said he was a personal friend.
In September 2019, “El Cuervo” received from the chief of the National Police, first commissioner Francisco Diaz, the medal for the 40th anniversary of that institution awarded to former police commanders.
“It is an exciting feeling, because it is a recognition of so many long years of struggle to always have a nation of people whose security, peace and life are guaranteed,” Guerrero declared.
Jorge Guerrero after being decorated at a National Police ceremony. Photo: Taken from the National Police
The Battle of San Fabián
Due to his close ties with Daniel Ortega, Guerrero was considered one of the “historical” members of the Sandinista Front, although his participation in the insurrectional process was limited to his fleeting participation in the northern front in October 1977.
The guerrilla column also composed of Germán Pomares, Víctor Tirado, Joaquín Cuadra, Dora María Téllez, among others, came down from Honduras and placed a checkpoint in front of the San Fabián hacienda, where they prepared an ambush against the Somoza National Guard.
“This San Fabián hacienda is historic, because this is where one of the battles took place, where for the first time the National Guard was defeated and the people's fear of fighting the National Guard was dispelled,” Guerrero said in an interview in 2015.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) called what happened that day the “Gesta de San Fabián.” On October 14, when the guerrilla column was retreating, Guerrero was captured by the National Guard.
“We got to at an area with some pine forests and a trail. We rested, but stayed in formation. I don't know what happened, maybe el Cuervo (Jorge Guerrero), looking for a more comfortable spot, separated from the formation. Around 4:00 in the morning, when the order to continue was given, the person behind him didn’t see him and kept going. El Cuervo got left behind. That's when the Guardia captured him. Lucky for him, they let him live,” recounted Juan Ramón Ramos, known as Indio Emilio, in an interview with Magazine.
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
