The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, embraces the former Argentine guerrilla Mario Firmenich, during an official act in Managua.Daniel Ortega Press
Former guerrilla Mario Firmenich, former leader of the Peronist Montoneros guerrilla movement, has settled in Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua.
According to a journalistic investigation published this Tuesday by
Connectas
and
Nicaragua Investiga
, Firmenich, 74, lives in a luxurious gated community in the city of Managua and, at least until September of last year, received a salary from the Nicaraguan regime as a presidential adviser.
The revelation has inflamed the controversy over the Ortega regime's handling of its Foreign Agents Law, which it has used since 2020 to persecute, imprison and send hundreds of opponents into exile.
While the Nicaraguan government hardens the blockades on the activity of dissident voices and exiles hundreds of political prisoners, stripping them of their nationality, it also welcomes foreigners sympathetic to the regime.
According to the investigation, which has had access to documents leaked by the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute, Firmenich has been working as Daniel Ortega's "Planning Advisor" since at least 2020, with a salary of almost $45,000 a year and without it being clear that has the necessary documents to hold public office.
Mario Firmenich was the leader of the Peronist guerrilla that confronted the military that had kept Juan Domingo Perón outlawed since 1955.
His organization Montoneros de él was a nucleus of the left that rose up in arms to unleash chaos and encourage the return of the former president, exiled until 1973, when he returned to the country from Spain.
His first action, led by Firmenich, was the kidnapping and assassination in 1970 of the first Argentine military dictator, Pedro Aramburu, who had led the coup against Perón.
After the death of the leader, in 1974, Montoneros confronted his widow and political heir, Isabel Martínez, with weapons, and went into hiding.
After the 1976 military coup, Firmenich lived in exile in Italy, Mexico and Cuba, hosted by Fidel Castro.
He returned to Argentina in 1984, when the democratic government of Raúl Alfonsín requested his extradition from Brazil.
Firmenich spent six years in prison until 1990, when he was pardoned by President Carlos Menem along with the military leaders convicted in 1985 in the famous Trial of the juntas.
His last known address was in Tarragona, Spain, where he was a professor of Economics at the Rovira i Virgili University.
On the left, ex-guerrilla Mario Fimenich, after being pardoned in 1990. Don Rypka (AP)
His relationship with Daniel Ortega began in the late 1970s: several of the former Montoneros members scattered throughout Latin America traveled to Nicaragua to support the final offensive of the Sandinista National Liberation Front against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.
Firmenich returned to Nicaragua almost 40 years later.
The investigation reveals official media releases in which he is shown traveling the country as an adviser to the presidency, and recalls that he was one of the 232 observers authorized by Ortega during his victory in the 2021 elections, which he won with 75% of the vote. the votes and the repudiation of the international community that branded them a farce.
His latest public appearance confirms that Firmenich has settled comfortably in Nicaragua: on October 21, he was one of the guests on the inaugural catwalk of a fashion and design event directed by the daughter of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Firmenich, according to the
Connectas
investigation, sat in the front row with another guest of honor of the Ortega-Murillo regime: Salvador Sánchez Cerén, president of El Salvador between 2014 and 2019, accused of corruption and a fugitive from justice in his country.
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