A few weeks ago, when an international group of experts met with exiled Nicaraguan activists to analyze the continued deterioration of religious freedom in Nicaragua, they attempted to trace the origins of the Ortega-Murillo regime’s aggression against the Catholic Church, which has recently extended to evangelical churches as well.
“Descending into totalitarianism,” “they see it as a political actor,” “they want to dismantle it and replace it with a pro regime church,” and “they fear its power to mobilize” were some of the proposals discussed during the forum, organized by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
But none of the participants even touched upon a theory that has been persistently circulated for years on social media and in the streets of every town in Nicaragua: “La Chamuca is a witch.”
Nicaraguans call Rosario Murillo, the wife of Daniel Ortega and now the woman pulling the strings of the country from the vice presidency, “Chamuca.” The nickname was coined in 2006 by LA PRENSA cartoonist Manuel Guillén when he launched a political satire television show. Back then, it was still possible to criticize and satirize the Ortegas within Nicaragua.
The 1990 Witch Congress
The label of “witch” is not without reason. It was Murillo herself who, during the final stretch of the 1990 electoral campaign, announced the call for the first “Latin American Congress of Witchcraft, Parapsychology, and Folk Medicine” in Managua.
The scandal generated by the announcement was seized upon by Violeta Chamorro’s campaign to portray Ortega and Murillo as being distant from God and close to the devil. Ortega’s aides attempted to distance their candidate from the event, but it proved impossible.
Ortega ended up defending the witches’ congress.
“In the end, if a man has faith, if he is truly in communication with God, he has no reason to fear witches,” Ortega said at the time, according to reports in U.S. media in February 1990. “To fear them is to accept that they are more powerful than God.”
The congress was set to proceed, but an “inconvenience” arose that derailed the plans: Ortega lost the election.
Since then, fueled by her ruthless behavior, aggressive language, and eccentric appearance—combined with the symbolism in her icons—many have speculated whether Murillo is involved in witchcraft and Satanism.
Murillo’s connections to the esoteric date back to her childhood in the 1950s. It was at her father’s house, the cotton producer and cattle rancher Teódulo Murillo Molina, where Rosario began to engage with esotericism.
Her mother, Zoilamérica Zambrana Sandino, taught her to contact spirits using the Ouija board. This was revealed by the Colombian magazine Semana in 2021, citing journalist Anuar Hassan, who was married to Murillo in the early 1970´s. Hassan has said that it was Murillo’s mother who gave her a Spanish deck of cards and taught her to “read the cards.”
During the first Sandinista dictatorship, Murillo kept a low profile, focusing on cultural matters. Her role was far from the government spokesperson position she assumed in 2007, whose influence has grown to the point where Ortega himself recognizes her as “co-president.” She has been determined to stamp her mark on Ortega’s new dictatorship.
The Trees of Life and the “energy” of the pentagram in the Plaza
For some, the evidence against Murillo is sufficient to label her as satanic, citing her esoteric beliefs and symbols as proof.
One of these icons are the so-called “Trees of Life,” which the public has nicknamed “Chayopalos” or “Arbolatas.” These illuminated metal structures were placed on various avenues in Managua starting in 2013.
They were immediately identified as the “work of La Chamuca.” Some priests and committed Catholics pointed out that the leaves of the trees repeated the number 666, which is considered the sign of the devil.
“These are a visible part of her power (Rosario Murillo’s). In fact, during the protests against the Ortega-Murillo regime in 2018, a number of these metal structures were toppled as a symbol of breaking away from the regime,” said semiotician and expert in verbal and non-verbal communication Marlon Segura in a recent interview with Magazine. This year, Murillo ordered the reinstatement of the toppled trees and several additional ones. To date, 66 structures have been erected again.
For her second inauguration as vice president alongside her husband in January 2022, Murillo ordered a large pentagram to be drawn on the floor of the Plaza de la Revolución. However, from the platform where they were situated, the figure appeared inverted, as it is used by satanists. Murillo claimed to have felt a “mysterious energy” during the ceremony, where she said that deceased individuals were present.
“Yesterday, when we were in the plaza, we felt that energy, that mysterious, prodigious, miraculous energy, which we know fills our Nicaragua,” Murillo said the day after the event. “There was the immense spirit of the Nicaraguan soul, of the Nicaraguan people; everyone was there, all those who are on another plane of existence and have left their testimony and their legacy of commitment.”
From Witch to Witch
A Costa Rican witch known as Morgana told Magazine that there is no consensus among witches in the region about whether Murillo is truly a witch. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t perform rituals or practice witchcraft,” Morgana said.
Morgana does believe that Murillo is a witch. “And a very powerful one. It’s no coincidence that she has reached where she is,” she remarked.
The eccentric clothing is intended to project the image of a spiritual guide, full of wisdom and possessing maternal qualities. According to Morgana, Murillo wears long dresses and skirts because they have an “energetic significance.”
“She almost certainly has an amulet among all those things she wears because that amulet is her main connector to power,” she explained.
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”
Many priests, at least privately, do not doubt that Murillo practices witchcraft. A priest who was forced into exile and spoke with LA PRENSA on the condition of strict anonymity said, “That woman is a witch.”
“The Bible says, ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,’” he asserted when LA PRENSA asked why he believed so. “And that woman spits poison every day,” he said.
From Monday to Friday, Murillo delivers a monologue on official media. Since April 2018, it is rare for a day to pass without her dedicating almost half of her time to insulting and attacking the current target, often Catholic priests, with harsh rhetoric.
Moreover, harsh words have turned into cruel actions against Catholic priests. To date, 150 clergy members, including three bishops, have been expelled from Nicaragua through various means, with several dozen having moved from the regime’s dungeons to exile.
Another priest, one of the few exorcists in Nicaragua and now in exile, says that Murillo demonstrated her total separation from the Catholic Church by ordering in the city of Granada that her Councils of Citizen Power organize and promote free esotericism courses for the public.
“The fact that esotericism is promoted and consultations with individuals involved in Santería are held is a sign of a division in thought because, when one is a true Catholic, it is understood that the first commandment of God’s Law forbids any form of satanic worship,” said the exorcist.
“She can talk about God, but when I bring in shamans and Santeros from Cuba and make people around me practice voodoo, then I have to say that she is a person with mental and moral dichotomy,” he added. “Because, indeed, she talks about God, Jesus Christ, and the Church, but in terms that are not Catholic and do not align with Catholic mentality and expression… you cannot mix esotericism with Catholicism.”
For his part, Mexican priest Héctor Ramírez, director of Mater Fatima in Costa Rica, described Murillo in October 2021 as “a witch in every sense.”
“The second most important witch in the world is here in America. Do you know where?” the priest asked his congregation. “She is Ortega’s wife.” He did not clarify who the most important witch, above Murillo, might be.
Convenient Beliefs: A “Hotchpotch”
A person who was close to the Ortega-Murillo couple in the 1980s but has since distanced themselves from them says they have never seen anything satanic in Murillo’s beliefs. They described these beliefs as a “hotchpotch” of esotericism mixed with elements of Christianity.
“I don’t know if the term ‘witchcraft’ is accurate, because I think ‘esotericism’ defines it better,” they explained. “It’s esotericism combined with a type of religious spirituality, but tailor-made. What does ‘tailor-made’ mean? What suits her.”
A tour of El Carmen confirms the obsession with esotericism
A very rare opportunity to see Murillo’s beliefs up close occurred in November 2006 when journalist Arturo McFields was invited by her to the Christmas celebration at her residence in El Carmen.
During the tour of her house, Murillo showed the journalist an image of Buddha, as well as esoteric images that, according to her own explanation, represent movement in life. There were candles everywhere and plates with small amounts of salt.
Regarding the image of Buddha, Murillo explained that “it is the symbol of union with the universe through detachment, through letting go.”
Murillo’s Strange Concept of Detachment
“I admire Buddhism greatly because it advocates detachment, letting go, not clinging to anything, because one is not eternal; one is movement. Life is that—life is movement, and one must flow with that movement and be detached, knowing that one day you are here and the next day you are dead. But the only thing that matters is that your spirit endures,” she stated.
Murillo preaches detachment in the video. However, for 17 years, she and her family have clung to power; in 2018, her government claimed the lives of more than 350 people, many of them young students, in an effort to maintain the power they had accumulated. “Go all out” was the order given to the regime’s paramilitaries in July of that year before they began the massacre. A fixation on power built on blood and death.
Among the saturated decoration in Ortega and Murillo’s home, a large number of angels are visible. Murillo refers to them as “beings of light.” Images of angels are common among practitioners of the so-called “New Age,” a belief system that combines esoteric elements with elements from various religions.
And the Salt?
“Salt on Christmas Day attracts negative things because salt is the sea, it is infinity, it is vastness,” Murillo explains in the video. “So it helps to attract negative energies and prevent negativity in the environment, promoting harmony.”
Murillo was also a follower of Sai Baba, an Indian guru who was adored as a god by millions of followers. However, Sai Baba was accused of sexually abusing children.
In an interview with the news portal Infobae, writer Gioconda Belli stated that Murillo aims to eliminate the Catholic Church in Nicaragua to establish a new religion of which she would be the “priestess.”
“I predicted long ago that Murillo sought to become the priestess of a church invented by herself. She proclaims the end of those who stand between her and the God she has created for herself and invokes to endorse her ruthless actions. Her God does not exist,” Belli wrote on her X platform account.
Now, as Murillo continues her relentless and destructive attacks on the Catholic Church, what Nicaraguans have been whispering on the streets and behind anonymous profiles on social media could very well be true.