Statement of captured rebel Tomás
Martínez, courier for Ortéz
Once again we hear a Sandinista
voice filtered through his interrogators.
Here captured rebel suspect Tomás
Martínez,
who claimed to be a courier for General Miguel
Angel Ortéz,
offered his captors some conflicting
information: that Ortéz
was in Chipote with 50 men, and in Mosonte (50
miles west of Chipote) with 20 men. He
claimed ignorance about many things, including
how much ammunition they had. This was
clearly a forced interrogation of a rebel very
reluctant to share anything that might put his
comrades in harm's way.
The "Achuapa contact" referred to here
was the single deadliest episode for the Marines
in Nicaragua: on December 31, 1930, more
than 100 rebels under Ortéz
ambushed a detail of 10 Marines sent out of
Ocotal to repair a telegraph line. Only
two survived. One can well imagine that
after this slaughter of their comrades, the
Marines were in no mood for pussyfooting around
with captured rebels. (Detail of
photograph of Sandinistas in the mountains,
n.d., from the collection of Walter C. Sandino)
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